Egress 2.01 Released

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=93539&productType=2' target='_blank'>http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/...9&productType=2</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Egress is a application which can display your favorite RSS feeds directly on your Pocket PC."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050105-Egressv2.gif" /><br /><br />Egress has undergone a few updates over the past couple of days. It now stands at Version 2.01, and you will find a few noticeable enhancements over Version 1.x - new channel wizards, support for webpage caching, Podcasting support, configurable item sorting and configurable item retention. <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=93539&productType=2">Handango</a> is selling Egress 2.01 for $12. A trial version is also available. [Affiliate]

[KTamas]

I prefer PocketRSS. It's cheaper and better IMO.

[garishkernels]

I prefer PocketRSS. It's cheaper and better IMO.
I was wondering what you prefer about PocketRSS. Is there some feature/ability that you feed Egress is lacking? Thanks.

-Karl

[Ripper014]

I have been looking at both today... and though I have not gone through it completely... here is what I can offer.

First... price... I believe that PocketRSS is only $5.00 less than half of Egress...

In general I like the layout of Egress... but I would perfer to get the extended information when possible. Egress does not seem to offer that. VGA support is another item that is missing.

PocketRSS also seems to offer a few more options... but the interface is not as easy to navigate...

garishkernels... maybe you should download PocketRSS and see for yourself... I am sure you are a better judge of your softwares weaknesses than us...

[humayunl]

One of the ~MAJOR~ features of PocketRSS (apart from the super good price) is its ability to integrate with Pocket Breeze.

You can display news on the today screen as a separate item or you can have it inside pocket breeze as a tab and dispay them at will. This saves valuable space on the screen.

[garishkernels]

I have been looking at both today... and though I have not gone through it completely... here is what I can offer.

First... price... I believe that PocketRSS is only $5.00 less than half of Egress...

In general I like the layout of Egress... but I would perfer to get the extended information when possible. Egress does not seem to offer that. VGA support is another item that is missing.

PocketRSS also seems to offer a few more options... but the interface is not as easy to navigate...

garishkernels... maybe you should download PocketRSS and see for yourself... I am sure you are a better judge of your softwares weaknesses than us...
I too, in general, prefer the layout of Egress. Hardly surprizing since I designed the app for myself and spend alot of time trying to get the layout "right". Egress is designed to optimize the space available for viewing the news items and keep the "flow" centered around the items themselves. You'll notice that there is no difference between the window that displays the headers and the window that displays the content, Egress merely expands the active item. Further, there is no window that displays the feeds as this is accomplished by the dropdown menu. I find it preferable to stay within one "window" and provide the ability to shift the displayed item within that window rather than require the traversal from one window or mode to another. Both NewsBreak and PocketRSS take the window to window approach.

As for the specific points you mentioned: Yes, Egress does not specifically support VGA resolution. You can use a VGA PocketPC and your fonts should be smoother but you don't get higher resolution icons. In the near future you will, I just haven't finished fine-tuning the icons.

In Egress you can download what PocketRSS calls "extended information" and with more options as well. Egress calls this web content and each channel has the option to download web content and to specify the number of links deep to cache. PocketRSS only downloads the html page specified in the RSS feed. Egress downloads the html page specified as well as all content referenced in the page (images, css, etc) and will do the same for the number of links deep as requested. When a item's web content has been cached, the item's icon will have an overlay of a curling green arrow to indicate that the content has been cached. The user may then bring up PocketIE to display the full content rather than just the partial content.

PocketBreeze integration doesn't exist at this time... but nobody, until now, has requested it. I can't find any posted information on how to integrate with PocketBreeze so I'll contact SBSH as soon as I am able and see if I can work it out.

And price, I agree that if you find the interface acceptable (and 2.0 is a big improvement in this area), that PocketRSS is an excellent value. I priced Egress where I considered it the be an excellent value as well. I believe this to be the case, but perhaps others don't.

And lastly, I don't agree that I would be a better judge of Egress's weaknesses. Egress does exactly what I want it to do since I wrote it for myself. Different people have different expectations and thus I request feedback from anyone since this feedback will allow me to expand Egress's abilities to meet more people's expectations.

Thanks.

-Karl

[ctmagnus]

Is there an upgrade price for Egress 1.x owners?

[garishkernels]

Is there an upgrade price for Egress 1.x owners?
No upgrade cost. I don't charge for upgrades.

[Ce]

VGA support is another item that is missing.


I don't agree with that. I think, after trying both, Egress is much easier to read on a VGA PDA than PocketRSS. The author of PocketRSS has stated he is working on a better readable font on VGA machines because the current font (in the detailed text) is very blurry. Looking at Egress is seems it allmost fully supports VGA.

Carel

[benlong]

I just spent the last two days trying to get used to PocketRSS but failed, I've just installed Egress for comparison and it is far better.

The things i didn't like with PocketRSS,
- having to double click on items to read (who likes to double click on a PDA screen?)
- the today screen plugin looks completely out of place compared with other things, a good plugin should blend in
- the font is completely unreadable for long periods of time on a VGA screen
- navigation is awkward, if you don't want to double click you have to keep pressing those tool bar icons which by the way looks completely out of place
- PocketRSS seems to have the GUI characteristics of early Lotus applications for Windows, completely different icon styles than other applications and a desire to rewrite the GUI.

Egress on the other had is superb, its a small package to install, a fantastic today plugin which blends in perfectly with its surroundings. It has icons that match the rest of the PocketPC GUI and is perfetly readable on a VGA screen. Even the default green background when reading items that was a concern of mine on screenshots looks good in real life.

The only thing that Egress is missing is the ability to copy URLS of feeds from the clipboard in to the add URL field.

By all means compare the two, but if you want to save some time start with Egress and I doubt you'll move on.

[ctmagnus]

I actually use and enjoy both.

The one issue I have with Egress 2.0.2 is that with longer items, the bottom few lines occassionaly get cut off.

[garishkernels]

I actually use and enjoy both.

The one issue I have with Egress 2.0.2 is that with longer items, the bottom few lines occassionaly get cut off.

I've just noticed it. I expect to have it fixed in the next version.
-Karl

[Phillip Dyson]

I currently use Egress. I tried the latest PocketRSS and completely agree with some of the other comments. There is too much to try to get used to.

I have also tried to use the caching and it was pretty good. However, I have found that its hard to turn it off. Sometime the settings dont stick.

Also, I would like to know what is an enclosure is and what it means to cache it.

Garish, it might be useful to put your website in the about screen. Then you could put an explanation of the features on your website.

[zilla31]

egress is my top choice RSS reader (esp the new version) and displays great on my x50v. only thing i'd love to have changed is the icons on the today screen display are fuzzy and not VGA friendly. otherwise it's perfect in VGA!