Spb Diary 1.6 Released

[Darius Wey]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/diary/?en' target='_blank'>http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/diary/?en</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Spb Diary is a feature-rich Today plug-in for your Calendar, Tasks, Contacts and Notes. This software is a powerful replacement for the standard Today plug-ins for appointments and tasks known to have poor functionality. When using Spb Diary the most of actions related to appointments, tasks, contacts and notes can be performed even without leaving the Today screen at all."</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050927-SpbDiary.gif" /><br /><br />It's been five months since the initial release and Spb Diary has grown into a feature-rich product. The new version includes Windows Mobile 5.0 support, storage card and built-in storage support, new import/export settings, a significant speed boost for the Contacts portion of the program, improved D-pad navigation, multiple category icon support, and much more. Existing users of Spb Diary 1.x can update to the new version for free.<br /><br />If you've yet to try it out, a free trial version can be downloaded from <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=163904&productType=2">Handango</a> or the <a href="http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/diary/?en">Spb Diary webpage</a>. The full version is available for $14.95. [Affiliate]

[hamishmacdonald]

Geez Louise, look at that screen! Kinda defeats the "at a glance" purpose of the Today screen, doesn't it? That just makes my eyes bleed, having to bounce around fifty different places to take it all in. And I don't want to have to do anything (i.e. select a tab) to see my information.

This is all I need:
http://tasksplus.szm.com/

Well, I also use Calendar+ and ScaryBear Software's QuickQuotes.

To each his or her own.

[dave]

i installed the trial of v1.5 and loved it except for one thing... if you have tasks that have multiple categories, they would only show up in Diary under one of the categories. i emailed support to see when/if this would be fixed and never got a response.

i checked the release history on the spb site and didn't see this mentioned. does anyone know if this has been fixed? i don't know that i'm going to have time to try myself for a couple of days.

[BukTop]

i emailed support to see when/if this would be fixed and never got a response.

I have asked our support team and they said me they could not find such unanswered question. Could you please send me the ticket id by email and I will check how could it happen? (email: buktop at softspb dot com).

Victor Bargachev
Spb Software House

[stevelam]

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20050927-SpbDiary.gif


Arghhhhhhh clutter :bad-words: :soapbox: :frusty: how do get anything done like that. It must be horrible, and the load time!!! Just my opinion.

[Jason Lee]

i installed the trial of v1.5 and loved it except for one thing... if you have tasks that have multiple categories, they would only show up in Diary under one of the categories. i emailed support to see when/if this would be fixed and never got a response.

i checked the release history on the spb site and didn't see this mentioned. does anyone know if this has been fixed? i don't know that i'm going to have time to try myself for a couple of days.

Version 1.6 (September 26, 2005):

* Windows Mobile 5 support added
* Installation to storage card is possible now
* Import/Export settings implemented
* Contact list loading is speeded up significantly
* Hardware keys handling for 2002 and 2003 devices reimplemented
* Portuguese localization added
--> * Several category icons per item can be shown now
* Changing of time zone is handled
* The bug regarding creating contacts with empty name fixed
* Other minor bugs fixed

This is what i want. Now items with more than one catagory show all the catagory icons. :)
I don't want stuff to show up in more than one place at the same time.
I have one contact under personal and business. On the contact tab sorted by catagory he only shows up once under business but he has the icons for business and personal. :D Perfect! This was one of the biggest thing missing from this app.

[Jason Lee]

Arghhhhhhh clutter :bad-words: :soapbox: :frusty: how do get anything done like that. It must be horrible, and the load time!!! Just my opinion.

You can customize it. :) it doesn't have to be clutter.

http://batcaveweb.com/images/plaindiary.jpg

nice and clean

Edit: oops forgot to turn off that black dotted line at the top. You can get rid of that too. :)

[hamishmacdonald]

But your eye still has to go Left>Right, Down, Left>Right to take in what you're seeing. Extraneous (unaligned) lines and bars still make it tough to read -- to me. Of course you'll have your own preferences. And some people, judging from the screen grabs I've seen, just love to stuff their Today screen with every bit of information from everywhere on the device.

My two gods on the topic of user-design are Steve Krug (Don't Make Me Think) and Robin Williams (not *that* one, the female author of The Non-Designer's Design Book). They both talk a lot about these principles, of how much work your eye has to do, and how many decisions you have to make about what you're seeing. In short: fewer is better.

[KTamas]

But your eye still has to go Left>Right, Down, Left>Right to take in what you're seeing. Extraneous (unaligned) lines and bars still make it tough to read -- to me. Of course you'll have your own preferences. And some people, judging from the screen grabs I've seen, just love to stuff their Today screen with every bit of information from everywhere on the device.

My two gods on the topic of user-design are Steve Krug (Don't Make Me Think) and Robin Williams (not *that* one, the female author of The Non-Designer's Design Book). They both talk a lot about these principles, of how much work your eye has to do, and how many decisions you have to make about what you're seeing. In short: fewer is better.
You might want to give a try to PocketBreeze (http://www.sbsh.net/products/pocketbreeze/). It can be configured for a very simple look.

[pbg]

i emailed support to see when/if this would be fixed and never got a response.

I have asked our support team and they said me they could not find such unanswered question. Could you please send me the ticket id by email and I will check how could it happen? (email: buktop at softspb dot com).

Victor Bargachev
Spb Software House

Excuse me for asking, but if he didn't get a response, how would he have a ticket id? :?

[Phillip Dyson]

I think there my be something wrong with the support system. I remember making a problem report back when Plus 3.0 came out and ever got a response either.

[Jason Lee]

But your eye still has to go Left>Right, Down, Left>Right to take in what you're seeing. Extraneous (unaligned) lines and bars still make it tough to read -- to me. Of course you'll have your own preferences. And some people, judging from the screen grabs I've seen, just love to stuff their Today screen with every bit of information from everywhere on the device.

My two gods on the topic of user-design are Steve Krug (Don't Make Me Think) and Robin Williams (not *that* one, the female author of The Non-Designer's Design Book). They both talk a lot about these principles, of how much work your eye has to do, and how many decisions you have to make about what you're seeing. In short: fewer is better.
You might want to give a try to PocketBreeze (http://www.sbsh.net/products/pocketbreeze/). It can be configured for a very simple look.

Yeah PB can be made to look even cleaner.

http://batcaveweb.com/images/ppcscreen.png

But neither app may be for him. He doesn't appear to want or need to interact with his data from the today page, just see it.
That's what PB used to be good at but evolved into a total PIM replacement on your today page. :)

[redhatnick]

It looks like another solid release from SPB, I'm nearly sold on it (a total SPB-driven today screen) but I still keep comming back to PocketBreeze. If I had to describe the two, I'd say that Diary delivers functionality, while PocketBreeze delivers efficency in a PIM. While I go could on and on, I say functionality because displaying notes and espically Contacts is availalble 'out-of-the-box' in Diary vs. contacts being 'sold seperatly' as a plugin for PocketBreeze. And I give efficency to PB because its delivers a highly customized today experience in any way you see fit, and also magically allows any one plugin of your choice to fit in it's built-in tabs. How efficent and neat is that?

But diary is a show stopper -- for me. No matter what you do, it still "wastes" a bit of space on the left where the icons would be if you had Diary as a standalone today item. Every time I look at my today screen, everything is having to use up two lines, when it could have easily used one, effectively making my today screen look busier than it truly is.

[juni]

Still missing one thing: it can't be skinned. ;)

[dave]

i emailed support to see when/if this would be fixed and never got a response.

I have asked our support team and they said me they could not find such unanswered question. Could you please send me the ticket id by email and I will check how could it happen? (email: buktop at softspb dot com).

Victor Bargachev
Spb Software House

i just forwarded the autoreply that i got on August 10th. it has the ticket number in it. let me know if it doesn't make it your way.

i installed the trial of v1.5...

Version 1.6 (September 26, 2005):

* Windows Mobile 5 support added
* Installation to storage card is possible now
* Import/Export settings implemented
* Contact list loading is speeded up significantly
* Hardware keys handling for 2002 and 2003 devices reimplemented
* Portuguese localization added
--> * Several category icons per item can be shown now
* Changing of time zone is handled
* The bug regarding creating contacts with empty name fixed
* Other minor bugs fixed

This is what i want. Now items with more than one catagory show all the catagory icons. :)
I don't want stuff to show up in more than one place at the same time.
I have one contact under personal and business. On the contact tab sorted by catagory he only shows up once under business but he has the icons for business and personal. :D Perfect! This was one of the biggest thing missing from this app.

i'm glad you have what you want, but i don't see what it has to do with what i am asking about. i also hope that you always look in the right category (i.e. the one that Diary files it under) for whatever item you are looking for (if the feature that i am inquiring about is not in the code). with contacts, it may not be that big a deal, but with the way i organize my tasks, it is a whole different ball game. some of my tasks have 4 or more categories.

in my very simple mind, categories should be like labels in gmail. i should be able to assign multiple categories to an item, and then be able to find it by drilling down into any one of said categories. i shouldn't have to sort through all my categories to find which one it got filed in; i would probably be better off not using categories at all if i were going to have to do that every time. fortunately PI handles it, but it would be really cool to do it from Diary. it would also be worth more than $15 to me. and, before someone else points it out, i know that pocketbreeze can do it. pocketbreeze is a very fine product; it's just not for me.

so..... am i to infer that tasks that have multiple categories are still only going to show up under one category in Diary?

[Jason Lee]

so..... am i to infer that tasks that have multiple categories are still only going to show up under one category in Diary?

http://batcaveweb.com/images/task1.jpg

The first task is set as business and personal. All tasks are set to show.

http://batcaveweb.com/images/task2.jpg

Same tasks set to only show business tasks.

This is what is does. I don't think it's what you want.

[dave]

Jason - thanks for taking the time to post those screen shots. that definitely clears it up.

[Jason Lee]

Jason - thanks for taking the time to post those screen shots. that definitely clears it up.

No problem. :mrgreen:

I just thought that you may be able to get something closer to what you want by playing with the custom filters. I have one setup to show me everything but business appointments. There are endless ways to setup filters.

What i think you want is that in my first screen shot you would want to see Bob's task diaplayed twice? Once under business and once under personal? I think that's what i'm getting. ;)
If that is the case even custom filters will not help you there. PI is definetly the way to go.

[dave]

What i think you want is that in my first screen shot you would want to see Bob's task diaplayed twice? Once under business and once under personal?

You are exactly right..... though it's not so much that I want to see it multiple times. i generally keep my categories collapsed. so... when i go to expand whatever category i am focused on at the time, i need to see all tasks associated with the category, rather than expanding them all to find the task that i am looking for.

-edited to fix quote.

[ctmagnus]

http://batcaveweb.com/images/task2.jpg

Ooh, pretty! What Today theme/WisBar Advance theme (or whatever you use) is that?

[Jason Lee]

You are exactly right..... though it's not so much that I want to see it multiple times. i generally keep my categories collapsed. so... when i go to expand whatever category i am focused on at the time, i need to see all tasks associated with the category, rather than expanding them all to find the task that i am looking for.


Yeah, I acomplish the same thing by changing the filter. If i only want to see business tasks i change the filter to business. I can then group the tasks however i need to, by due date, completed, catagory (see screen shot 2), importance... But no matter how i group them i am only seeing tasks that have business as one of thier catagories. If i wanted to i can actually setup a filter that will show me tasks that ONLY have business as the catagory. For example, it would not show me a task that was business and personal.
The filtering is very powerful in diary. Within seconds i can comletely change how my data is displayed and never have to leave the today page or open a setting pannel.

I would give it another try if you really would like to access your task from the today page. Try playing around with the filters or even setting up some custome ones. I have my calendar setup where in a few taps i can see every holiday, birthday, and anniv. for the next 31 days. :)

Man, i sound like i'm trying to sell you the program. LOL Sorry, i just find it very helpful in my everyday life and i like to share my pocket pc joy. (much to many people's annoyance) ;)

[Jason Lee]

Ooh, pretty! What Today theme/WisBar Advance theme (or whatever you use) is that?

I have pocket plus installed. But this is not an extened theme or anything. It is one that was "leaked" many months ago that is supposed to be the default WM5.0 theme. I just liked the colors. :)

The line across the top is just the default taskbar battery meter in pocket plus. The battery and memory meters on the today page are just the default from pocket plus 3.0 but i "tweaked" them to make the font biger/readable. :)

Today theme (http://batcaveweb.com/stuff/windowsmobile5.zip)

Plus icons (http://batcaveweb.com/stuff/mynewplusicons.zip)

Just drop the plus icons into \program files\pocketplus\default if you have it installed. You will probably need to change themes.. or reboot. or disable and reinable the today plugin.

[ctmagnus]

The line across the top is just the default taskbar battery meter in pocket plus. The battery and memory meters on the today page are just the default from pocket plus 3.0 but i "tweaked" them to make the font biger/readable. :)

8) I assumed you were using a taskbar tweaker due to the date and time in the titlebar. But now I remember there's a hack to enable that in the the registry.

[Jason Lee]

8) I assumed you were using a taskbar tweaker due to the date and time in the titlebar. But now I remember there's a hack to enable that in the the registry.

oh yeah, that. hehe so used to it being there i forgot to mention that. :D

HKLM\software\microsoft\shell
create a new Dword called TBOpt and give it a dec value of 3 then reboot. :)

[Darius Wey]

A heads-up that v1.6.1 has just been released. It contains a lot of bug fixes, so if you were one of the odd few who were running into problems with v1.6, then you might want to give this new release a go.

The history can be found here. (http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/diary/history.html?en)

[Jason Lee]

wow scrolling is lots faster. Nice! :)

[ctmagnus]

:clap: That tasks sorting bug in calendar view was certainly annoying.

[ctmagnus]

Whoops!

When I enter options in the new version, I get a Try/Buy window. If I tap on Try, it kicks me into the normal options dialog, where it says that my version is registered.

[Jason Lee]

Whoops!

When I enter options in the new version, I get a Try/Buy window. If I tap on Try, it kicks me into the normal options dialog, where it says that my version is registered.

weird. mine's ok.

[ctmagnus]

I just redownloaded the file and reinstalled, and I'm still getting the same error. So I submitted a ticket to Spb.

[Jason Lee]

I just redownloaded the file and reinstalled, and I'm still getting the same error. So I submitted a ticket to Spb.

are you installing from the cab or using the exe? i did it with the exe from my desktop.

[ctmagnus]

I did the same.

[ctmagnus]

I moved hsui.dll from \Windows to \iPaq File Store and no problems. I didn't even need to soft-reset after. If I copy it back I get the registration dialog again in options.

[Jason Lee]

strange

[ctmagnus]

That's what support told me to do.

"If it's stupid but it works, then it isn't stupid."

[Jason Lee]

lol! i guess so. :D

have you tried completely uninstalling and reinstalling? are you entering the reg code during the install from the desktop or after on the pocket pc? maybe uninstall and look to see if all the regestry entries are gone?

hehe oh well. if it works... ;)

[ctmagnus]

It works now, so I'm not going to fiddle with it anymore :mrgreen:

I used the desktop installer and entered the registration code on the desktop, so it would be registered in the cab file. But deleting that one file fixed everything. The strange thing is that I found a registry key this morning that was created during the install of v1.6. I forget the location but the key name was Handster and I assume Handster and hsui.dll are somehow related.

Do you have anything referencing Handster in your registry?

[Jason Lee]

yes, i have the key HKLM/software/handster but it is empty. i don't remember ever seeing that before. so it must be somewhat new as i dig through the registry on a regular basis.

i searched my whole device, i don't have a hsui.dll anywhere. :(

[ctmagnus]

I just deleted mine. I don't know if that was safe to do but deleting their dll fixed my problem, so imo deleting their reg key can't be all that bad to do either.

Hmm... http://www.handster.com... Maybe that wasn't such a smart thing to do after all... I'm sure it'll come back with an install of a future version of one of their products.

And my hsui.dll was right in \Windows. Nice and easy to find. ;)

[Jason Lee]

ooh, i went to that site while i was in Boston with only my ppc and wanted to get the new diary. what ever i downloaded didn't work though.
it bothers me to know that i was supposed to be getting diary but they tried to install something. i don't like things like that. i call em spyware. i will not be going to that sight again.