Doug Rausch
05-31-2004, 05:00 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr16.jpg" /> <br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Utility<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <a href="http://www.bvrp.com/ENG/">BVRP</a><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <a href="http://www.handango.com/brainstore/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=116413">Handango</a> (affiliate link)<br /><b>Price:</b> $19.90 USD<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> Pocket PC 2002/2003, .5MB free space - internal or on card; PC:Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, 3MB of disk space<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Easy theme rotation;<br /><li>Simple creation of new themes;<br /><li>Synchronizes with desktop theme library;<br /><li>Supports animated themes;<br /><li>Lots of free animated and static themes included.<b>Cons:</b><li>Synchronization doesn't always connect;<br /><li>Animations are offset on screen;<br /><li>Scroll bars don't behave naturally.<b>Summary:</b><br />Pocket Theme Manager 2.0 provides a robust set of tools for not only rotating your themes at a set interval but also creating new themes, modifying existing themes, and synchronizing your Pocket PC themes with a larger desktop PC theme library. I noted a few problems with installation and use, but I didn't find myself wanting for too many additional features - it packs a lot of capability.<br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Two for the Price of One</b></span><br />Pocket Theme Manager consists of two applications (one on your desktop system, the other on your Pocket PC) and a Today screen plug-in. The install for the Pocket PC was larger than I expected (1.5MB) but once I looked closer and realized it includes 20 themes which use almost a MB of that space so you can delete or move the themes you don’t want to use, it made sense. The Pocket PC application itself can be run from a memory card and the themes can reside in a folder in your Pocket PC’s internal memory or on a memory card.<br /><br />In general the install of the system was easy. One nice feature is that if you don't have Flash player loaded to display your animated themes it will do that for you. Unfortunately, the one problem I did have detracted from the otherwise well thought-out install. During the install process I was asked to "please insert disk 1 that contains the file layout.bin." Hmmm, that's interesting as I downloaded the whole install package. I tried again and got the same result. I rebooted both my PC and Pocket PC...install...same result. The company's Web site had no mention of the problem and an inquiry to tech support took a whole week to get a response. In the end I received all the files I needed for the install and never looked back. Rough start for me, your mileage may vary.<br /><br /><span><b>Start on Your Desk</b></span><br />The desktop software itself has two main functions, theme editing and theme synchronization.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr10.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 1: Desktop Theme Editor.</i><br /><br />The left pane lists all the themes you have loaded into Theme Manager and a preview of the selected theme is shown in the left pane. Existing themes can be imported for modifications and completed themes can be exported to be copied to your Pocket PC later. You can also use the Install on Pocket PC button to immediately save it to your themes folder on your Pocket PC and make it your active theme at the same time. <br /><br />The themes editor gives you control over all the components of the theme. As you modify components using the drop down list, your changes are reflected in the preview pane. If you decide that rather than modifying an existing theme you want to create a new theme, selecting the new button between the two panes will bring up a blank theme and allow you to use the same drop down to release your creative flair. Overall very simple and the entire process from importing to modifying to installing is very quick.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr9.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 2: Modifying theme components.</i><br /><br />A drop down menu lists all the components which can be modified on new and existing themes. The tools offered are fairly complete as can be seen with the image editor in Figure 3. You are not only able to load the image you wish to use but do some basic manipulations.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr11.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 3: Image editor.</i><br /> <br />Changing the color of theme components is easy as well. Simply select the item you wish to change and select your new color. Again, as shown in Figure 5 the color picker is fairly robust.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr12.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 4: Changing the separator color.</i> <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr13.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 5: Color picker.</i> <br /><br />An interesting feature of the desktop portion of the software is that it can be configured to automatically look for updates to itself. This can also be configured for manual use.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr14.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 6: Setup options.</i> <br /><br /><span><b>So Now That I Have 2GB of Themes, What do I do?</b></span><br />The second role of Pocket Theme Manager on your desktop system is to allow you to synchronize the theme library on your desktop with the themes on your Pocket PC. The synchronization screen shown in Figure 7 allows you to copy themes back and forth between your desktop and your Pocket PC as well as set the active theme on your docked Pocket PC. <br /><br />One peculiarity I noted with the synchronization was that the program didn't recognize my Pocket PC when it was docked when I started the synchronization process. I first had to switch to the synchronization screen, be prompted to dock my device and them move on. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr15.jpg" /> <br /><i>Figure 7: Theme synchronization.</i> <br /> <PAGEBREAK> <br /><span><b>OK, the Themes Are on my Pocket PC, Now What?</b></span><br />Two components of Pocket Theme Manager reside on your Pocket PC, a today screen plug-in and the switching application. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr1.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 8: Today screen plug-in.</i> <br /><br />The first of these, the Today screen plug-in, is only required if you want to view animated themes. If you're more of a static person you don't need to activate it.<br /><br />The plug-in options are pretty straightforward, you specify where the animated themes are located and how much space should they take up on the screen. I typically had the best luck sticking with the default values. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr2.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 9: Today screen plug-in options.</i> <br /><br />One problem that I did note with the animated themes was that they all seemed to be offset to the left about the width of a scroll bar - as if they were shifted to make room for a non-existent scroll bar. In fact if the scroll bar was present they shifted left that much farther.<br /> <PAGEBREAK> <br /><span><b>So How do I Change my Theme?</b></span><br />Figure 10 shows you the main screen of what I call the theme picker, because basically that is what it does. It presents you with a file manager type display to navigate to where your themes are and displays those available either in a list view or as various sizes of thumbnails as shown in Figure 11. Unfortunately the thumbnails only show the word "animation" for animated themes rather than show you the animation. The desktop portion of the program does allow you to preview the animations.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr3.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 10: Theme Manager on the Pocket PC.</i> <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr4.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 11: Theme Manager display options.</i> <br /><br />Once you navigate to the folder you where your themes are you can either tell the program to load a specific theme or to cycle through all the themes in that folder automatically as shown in Figure 12. The conditions under which the theme changes are set through the dialog shown in Figure 13.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr5.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 12: Activating themes.</i> <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr6.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 13: Activation options.</i> <br /><br />I did like the fact that with this program I was able to keep several themes in multiple folders across memory cards. The down side is that you must either load a single theme or cycle through all the themes in a single folder. Your selection can't span multiple folders and you can't skip certain themes in a folder. Some sort of check box for each theme to display it or not would have been nice.<br /><br />One additional fix needed with the theme picker is that the scroll bar does not scroll if you hold on the up/down arrow, you have to repeatedly tap the arrow to scroll. I tend to like the hold and scroll.<br /> <PAGEBREAK> <br /><span><b>The End Result</b></span><br />Figures 14 and 15 show you two of the themes included with the package. Figure 14 is a static theme and 15 is animated (notice the shift to the left). There is a pretty good selection of themes to widen your collection. Although not enough to make you buy the product in and of themselves it's a nice bonus.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr7.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 14: Static theme.</i> <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/rausch-may04-thememgr8.gif" /> <br /><i>Figure 15: Animated theme.</i> <br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />A few problems here and there but in general Pocket Theme Manager does what it sets out to do, and does it well. Creating and modifying themes is a breeze and the automatic theme changes work out well. If you use a lot of themes or like to develop your own I would recommend this program.