I ditched most of my Today plugins and man oh MAN I am FREE!!!

[i_spock]

It had been about 6 months since my last hard reset. Predictably, my X50v had been showing the telltale signs of needing a reload- sluggish performance, very slow activesyncs, etc.

"What a great time to do a ROM upgrade" I thought! After all, I was running A03 and A05 is out now. So I make a full backup and re-download all my purchased apps from Handango and PocketGear. Then I run the ROM update utility, first backing up A03 and then installing A05.

After a few hiccups with the ROM upgrade (my Dell desktop at work kept spontaneously rebooting when the upgrade progress bar was at about 50%, a heart-sinking experience at first) I establish a new partnership, do an activesync ("Wow this is so much FASTER now!"), and reload my applications, installing everything to built-in storage.

I had had a really nice today screen setup that served me well and that had been running great: Weatherpanel, pocketbreeze, and pocketplus. I had been using the Odessey client for wifi but decided to forego that to save the memory hit this time around.

Almost right away I had problems. White screen of deaths (screens of death?) . After a soft reset WiFi wouldn't find my WAP, and the radio didn't respond to my pressing the side button or manually turning the radio off/on in settings. It just stayed on or off until I soft reset again. Many times, when I either turned off the X50v or it auto-shutoff while connected to my AP, the device would start doing this when I turned it back on again and I could not get it to respond without a soft-reset. Soft-resets took for-EV-er. And I was doing a lot of them.

I tried disabling WeatherPanel, thinking that maybe it's agressiveness in trying to grab weather updates as soon as the device was turned on may have been causing the wifi issues. I think to a certain extent that may have been true. The device was still really slow booting after a soft reset though, so I tried disabling pocketbreeze.

WOW was that last soft-reset QUICK! I couldn't be stopped now. I was hungry for even more speed. I disabled the pocketplus plugin and then enabled the built-in calendar, task, and messaging today screen selections. Soft reset. BOOM! My device was available to me in mere seconds (or that's what it felt like, at least). Turn the device off. Turn it back on. BOOM! There was my device, waiting for me to do something. I'm really on to something here!

Missing my today screen launcher, I go to re-download my copies of handy launcher, switcher, and menu, but then I remember I have Resco installed. I enable the today screen plugin which I had never really used, add a few shortcuts to my most-used apps, switch it to compact mode- niiiiiiice. No wifi issues. No white screen of death so far (it hasn't been very long tho). Soft resets and plain old power-off and power-ons are super-quick. I can see as much info about my upcoming appointments and tasks as I need to see on my today screen. I'm not constantly fretting about what groups my icons are in in and so forth. I am FREE!

I realize that I don't need to have every app I have installed be able to be launched from the today screen. I don't have to have up-to-the-minute weather information available at any time. I don't need 4 ways of telling how much battery or memory is available. I want my device to turn ON when I whip it out at work and want to quickly jot down something in phatpad. By greatly simplifying my today screen I have freed myself from all the constant tweaking I'd find my self doing, greatly improved the speed at which I can use my device, and just plain quit worrying about this stuff so much.

I am FREE! :clap:

[whydidnt]

Interesting post. I've been avoiding today screen plugins for a while now myself. The breaking point was my GPS program locking up, or taking 5+ minutes to reroute on the iPaq 4700 while Pocket Breeze was running. I disabled the plugin and, bam!! it just started working like it should. I had often suspected plugins, from PocketPlus to BatteryPack were the cause of many slow downs, and I haven't looked back since. I use Magic button for managing tasks and a battery meter now.

I know there are a lot of users who wouldn't live without the plugins though, and the upcoming Treo 700w makes extensive use of them. It will be intesting to see if they're able to overcome some of these performance hits.

[pocketpcadmirer]

To author,

yes you are right..today plug-ins do eat up lots of processor power as-well-as memory..though pocket plus has updated their code for today plug-in,but the system still hits a performance hit(in bad manner).

But on the other hand it enables us to lauch apps in a snap, so the advantages surpass the disadvantages.

But that doesnt mean that you should have plethora of plug-ins on today screen. Just put a one or at max,2..dont go beyond that. If you dont need to know the weather and you are able to 'judge' the weather outside, then, perhaps, I dont think there is any need to install or have the plug-in residing in memory.

Hope I have stated my point

Sunny :D

[Menneisyys]

Yup, some of the Today plug-ins you used are really memory-hog.

I, however, wouldn't reefrain from using any kind of Today plug-in. For example, the simplest metering/launcher applications are pretty good, both CPU-, memory- and stability-wise.

You may want to check out my Today launcher/meter roundup at http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=366634 (alternatives linked from http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&title=how_do_i_put_shortcuts_to_my_favourite_a&more=1 ) for exact memory/CPU usage/"does it work while Today screen is inactive" benchmark results.

[alese]

Could not agree more.
On my two devices I have combined total of 3 third party today plug-ins and both machines run fine.

Although I suspect that my rather old version of Pocket Zen Phone is causing some problems...

[dma1965]

I was having major issues with Pocket Breeze just slowing my devices to a crawl , so I got rid of it and now use Spb Diary, which is far less resource hungry. I agree with the theory that plugins slow the device down. Still, Pocket Plus, with its one-handed navigation on the today screen is awesome.

[yildi]

Yes, I aggree; like in everything, there is no free luch here either: if you need more gadgets on the Today screen, that will generally cost you performance and stability...At least, this was my experience in the PPC world. My 4700 has become much much more stableafter I have stopped using iLauncher. Don't misunderstand me, I love this soft (in my humble opinion it is the most flexible Today launcher) but it was causing some serious speed issues on my HX4700. Now that I have replaced it with another type of menu based launcher (SKMEnu from SKsoft), my soft boot time has been considerably reduced and I get soft reset much more rarely. If you have more than three plugins, you should try to live without one of them at least; you will probably make significant marginal gains in termsof stability and performance.... But I know that it is very geeky to be able to tell the next day's weather from your PDA :wink:

Best regards

[Phillip Dyson]

I know its true. And I know that its one of the reasons why I got so frustrated with my Eten m500 (that and the fact that I missed the 4" screen of my Toshiba).

I run:
Wisbar Advanced2
SPB Pocket Plus 3
PocketBreeze
ContactBreeze
WeatherPanel (inside pocketbreeze- dynamic init)
PhatNotes today plugin (inside pocketbreeze- dynamic)
Calligrapher 8

My Eten just couldn't take it. Especially when I added PhoneAlarm

I just found that that these are the one that I can't live without. 8O

I finally broke down and stopped Calligrapher from starting at Startup because it was always wrestling with my bluetooth.

Sure I would have performance and stability, but what about convenience.
{sigh}. There's really no perfect solution.

[pocketpcadmirer]

Hi sojourner !! yes u r right. Same is the case with my O2 mini..i'm just too scared whether this small thing can take the same load as my faithful ipaq 2215..it would be 'overkill' for mini to handle desired functions with phone functions.

<off-topic>Also, when battery goes down with phone edition, u loose ur PDA too</off-topic>

Sunny

[DarkHelmet]

I am not trying to be provocative here; but unless I have lost my mind, many of the folks talking about white screens, frequent hard resets, soft resets, bricking or other some such annoyances are folks who have been peeps who have tried upgrading from WM2003SE to WM5.

What i_spock has done is what any number of WM2003SE users, at this point in time, have already learned. I am not trivializing it at all, re-ROMming and reloading takes time, effort, and knowledge. Sharing his insight is laudable as well.

But... what I really want to know is - When I upgraded to WM5 twice on my Dell Axim x50v, during the first excursion, the battery would die in less than 24 hours and needed many soft resets. During the second excursion, after I wised up about Today plug-ins, installing only the spb Pocket Plus and Diary plugi-ins, the unit HARD RESET spontaneously one morning - rumor has it that the problem is related to ActiveSync registry settings and notifications scheduling. Oh, and don't get me started about ActiveSync and Zone Alarm Pro dysfunctions. This WM5 Upgrade is nothing short of a debacle.

In conclusion, thanks i_spock for your efforts. I would be highly appreciative of anyone who can help me through getting my WM5 Axim x50v to operate reliably - anyone?

[Jason Dunn]

I run with exactly zero today screen plugins active. Part of this is because I'm switching devices every few months, and it's just not worth the hassle to install a whack of software, but I also want my device to be as fast as possible and try to avoid third party software that hooks in too deeply into the OS. It's a bit sad though that we have to do this - hopefully device performance will continue to improve and we'll have more "headroom" to install fun stuff. ;-)

[pocketpcadmirer]

I run with exactly zero today screen plugins active. Part of this is because I'm switching devices every few months, and it's just not worth the hassle to install a whack of software, but I also want my device to be as fast as possible and try to avoid third party software that hooks in too deeply into the OS. It's a bit sad though that we have to do this - hopefully device performance will continue to improve and we'll have more "headroom" to install fun stuff. ;-)

Hey pocket plus is one of the software that "deeply hooks" :devilboy: into the OS. So should I conjure that you dont use it ?!

Sunny

[Jason Dunn]

Hey pocket plus is one of the software that "deeply hooks" :devilboy: into the OS. So should I conjure that you dont use it ?!

That's correct. At the moment on my Jasjar I only have FlexWallet 2006 installed. I run real lean. ;-)

[Paragon]

Bingo!

For the past few weeks I have been using cLaunch on my today screen and nothing else. Not even an app closer. Before I was having to reset quite often. Now I I only seem to do it when the thought pops into my head that I can't remember the last time I did one, so maybe I should clean out the cobwebs. ;)

With just a simple launcher on the today screen anything can be a single tap away.

Dave

[juni]

Why not uninstall all extra programs? It would be very fast... ;)

I want my device to look cool, be able to see what weather to expect, see my appointments at a glance, read headlines quickly. :)

[Hugh Nano]

I would be highly appreciative of anyone who can help me through getting my WM5 Axim x50v to operate reliably - anyone?

Easy. Downgrade to 2003SE! I did!

I have to agree, the Today screen plug-in scene is a real fiasco. I was a regular user of Pocket Plus, but have not installed it for some time - most of my "white screen of death" problems seem to be related to having that one active. Instead, I've discovered Magic Button (http://www.ehewlett.net/2005/02/pocket-pc-mini-review-check-out-magic.htm), TotalCommander (http://www.ghisler.com/pocketpc.htm) (for zip files and better file managment), and a number of other free, lightweight programs that don't crash my Pocket PC. Pocket Breeze I've kept, but that's about it now - and even Pocket Breeze I don't run with any of the add-ons.

Pocket Plus' multiple browser function has been the hardest to live without - ftxPBrowser (http://park15.wakwak.com/~ftx/ftxp3e/) is the closest I've been able to come, and it works reasonably well with the VGA hack enabled, but I miss the simplicity of Pocket Plus' tap-and-hold to open in a new PIE window feature.

>sigh< One wishes that Microsoft would maybe give up a little innovation and focus on building a fault-tolerant Pocket PC OS that actually works with third-party apps installed!

[shindullin]

I uninstalled my demo of battery pack on my x51v and am happy with the situation. At first I thought that I would be nervous about not knowing how much life my battery had instantly but it's actually made me relax more. With persistant memory I shouldn't be stressed about the battery running out anyway. The only issue is that I might run out of battery some time out of the office and that's not really something battery pack can address anyway. That can only be addressed when I get another battery.

[Phillip Dyson]

I want my device to look cool, be able to see what weather to expect, see my appointments at a glance, read headlines quickly. :)

I agree. Truthfully, if I could get ContactBreeze outside of PB, the I might be able to forgo(sp?) PB.

But no Wisbar? No Calligrapher? No One-Handed launcher?
Wow!

I could just get a Palm.:devilboy: j/k 8O

[jgrnt1]

I have an iPAQ 4700 configured just the way I want it. I find the Today plug-ins I use to be essential. I use PocketBreeze because I do not want to have to hunt for my calendar and tasks. I color code my personal and business appointments. I use a different color for the two evening meetings a month my wife attends, so I know not to schedule something of my own. I use WeatherPanel because I travel a lot by car and having the weather for the cities I will visiting at my fingertips is very handy. I still use PHM's TrayLaunch as my launcher program. It gives me a row of icons, out of the way in the bottom bar, without all the overhead and fluff of a program like iLauncher. I also use Wisbar Advance2. I could get by with Magic Button, but as Juni said, I want everything to look good, too.

Last week, our division VP gave all the Regional Directors Axim X51v's and asked me to show them how to use them. I had them install Magic Button -- it looks like WM5 still needs some help shutting down programs so things don't slow to a crawl. I did not install any other plug-ins, though I gave them all disks with trial versions of several. The raw Today Screen was horrible. I had forgotten how bad it was -- not being able to view and check off my tasks without opening a program, the plain, blocky bars at the top and bottom -- yuck! I'll take a slight speed hit to have a nice looking and IMHO much more functional Today Screen.

I have no stability issues, even though I have installed everything, including my plug-ins (except for TrayLaunch), into File Storage. With 26 programs installed, I still have almost 42MB of free RAM.

Sorry, Juni, but I'm not currently using one of yours. However, I'm thinking about going back to SWDeluxe.

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/1905/Today%20Screen%2012-13-05.png

[SteveHoward999]

I've been trying to pinpoint a terrible slow-down when I switch my device on ... just uninstalled SPBWeather and everything is rosey!

I doubt I can live without Wisebar Advanced, but I am sure I can live without SPBWeather.


No more Today plugins for me unless I check out their RAM and processor hit first!

[KTamas]

Well...I just can't live without PocketBreeze. I don't think i have CB installed right now (or maybe yes...dunno...). I'm also using Wisbar Advance2 with Wisbar Advance Desktop, and inside there is PocketBreeze and PocketWeather...and my device works very well, right now under WM5.

[alex_kac]

Consider this a selfish plug, but here it goes since this is a topic dear to me.

I am not fond of Today plugins at all. At most a launcher and that's about it. WINCE/PocketPC/Windows Mobile is an awesome OS for third party apps. Installing third party apps on it will NOT slow down the device - as long as they are not always running.

The problem with Today plugins is that #1 they are ALWAYS running. #2 users have expected so much of them that to get around the limitations Microsoft designed for them, they have to do things that use up tons of memory and or CPU. #3 because they are loaded into system memory and run as part of a system process they need to be that much more perfect than normal apps, but they rarely are.

In my beta group we used to have a huge number of users who used SPB Diary, Pocket Breeze, PIToday or whatnot. Complaints always were how they slowed things down, used up too much memory, or caused random issues. In ALL cases once those users learned to just run Pocket Informant (which btw Jason does NOT put its tendrils into the OS beyond changing default launch registry settings so) with a Custom View to match a Today screen, all of those users told me they saw increased productivity and far easier usage. Isn't that the point of the Pocket PC in the first place?

And now with Rev 4 of PI where they can assign Custom Views to hard keys you can just wake up your PPC and bring up the Today/Tasks in one nice swoop.

I know how much people love their Today plugins and all the glitz and glamour of how they look, but if you're tired of the slowness and memory use, try using an app like Pocket Informant directly. You'll find its faster, more productive, and gives you FAR less issues on your Pocket PC. This goes for other software too like finance, wallet, and so on. Pocket Informant even without one thing being customized is from the start easier to use and more usable than Pocket Outlook.

[KTamas]

Could not agree more.
On my two devices I have combined total of 3 third party today plug-ins and both machines run fine.

Although I suspect that my rather old version of Pocket Zen Phone is causing some problems...
I keep trying and getting away from PZP again and again :( Slow loading, and some other minor, but annoying issues... it is still a great app and I keep on trying it time by time...

[KTamas]

Also, I'm kinda giving up on one of my favorite apps, Wisbar Advance2...I've just tried Magic Button 2.0, and sure, my system isn't as fancy as it used to be (although WM5 looks good)...but it's a lot faster.

[ctitanic]

I have to add to all that have been said that Today Screen Add-ins are currently the enemy number one of Windows Mobile 5.

They are the cause of the battery draining issue, the screen of death and Power button no responding. Currently I'm using SPB Pocket Plus but only the launcher that does not suck to many resources. To close applications I use Magic Button that is less heavy and more comfortable than the one integrated with SPB Pocket Plus. I tested the resco launcher but the battery meter integrated on it caused me some issues.

[Paragon]

I I'm using SPB Pocket Plus but only the launcher that does not suck to many resources.

Hey ctitanic, give claunch a try. It is a great little launcher, and is very small. It seems a shame to load an app the size of Pocket Plus only to use the launcher.

http://pachome1.pacific.net.sg/~welic/claunch.html

[rmasinag]

I really agree with the startup thing. I really like the convenience of pocketbreeze but it slows my IPAQ 2210 at a crawl when I go to today screen. I need alot of apps installed so I can only allocate about 7 megs for program memory

[Gerard]

... I need alot of apps installed so I can only allocate about 7 megs for program memory

7.... MB.... of.... RAM.... !!!??? AAAAAAAAAAAACKKKK!!!!! That's terrifying! How on earth can the device even be usable with so little available memory?

My Dell X5/WM2003, running with 45MB+ free RAM and usually with the slider set for 30MB+ Program Memory was still at times a slug. When a persistent memory leak (Pocket IE/MultiIE perhaps) forced that below about 20MB things got hairy, so I eventually began cutting out Today plugins. Dashboard went first, if with reluctance (having used it since first release in 2000), and that helped... but not nearly enough. Lockups were still too common, so I took out WeatherPanel, CityTime Today, and a couple of minor plugins as well. Eventually settled on a really minimal cLaunch and that was okay.

I persisted using GigaBar on that device, and now having handed it off to my little brother (he's 35 and a movie director, but hey, they're always little, right?) this past weekend it's still running GigaBar. WM is unusable, in my opinion, without a proper taskbar overlay which does a gazillion things. Anyway, the Dell does just fine these days stripped down like that. Hardly ever locks up.

Unfortunately GigaBar registration is no longer available - seems Gene Knight vanished from the face of the earth, not responding to emails and his website gone. I miss GigaBar dearly. The thing launched and closed just about everything for me for 5 years, through 9 PPCs. A bit of research turned up Wisbar Advance 2 as the most viable alternative. Bought a copy on Saturday, and it's reasonably useful. A lot unstable at times, loading with no program names/icons in the cascading menus about every 5th soft reset... and sometimes switching to landscape mode weirdly (especially how it sometimes truncates nPOPw, most times not), and needing the menu really stripped down to operate at all quickly (no My Documents or Favorites, unless I want to wait 30 seconds after tapping for a menu to appear). But I like it well enough. Certainly no GigaBar, not by a country mile in terms of vastness of functionality, but it has charms. Not a lot of a system speed hit, I think, though it does seem to delay soft resets substantially.

I tried cLaunch on this new Toshiba e800/WM2003SE, but it was just too slow on this thing. My Today theme is pure black, with WisBar skinning things system-wide (buttons in almost all programs appear just like Wisbar's theme, top and bottom bars skinned). Not a thing running on Today. I miss all the toys, wished Dashboard could have made a re-appearance, but will have to live like this it seems. I just can't afford the time to keep soft resetting in the middle of document editing and such nonsense.

[alex_kac]

Gerard - try Magic Button as a Gigabar replacement.

[Gerard]

Thank you for the suggestion. I had not looked at Magic Button as a possibility, as the name seemed to indicate rather simple functionality. Now that you've pointed to it I had a look, and:


For those who do not want too fancy or too complicated Task Manager, this is for you.

As you see, from the author's own download site, my intuition was correct. If I wanted something so minimal in my top bar I'd be more likely to use MyTools, another great freeware, but one which offers more than three times as much functionality as Magic Button with a similarly small memory footprint and very, very little screen area used.

However I demand a lot more from that top bar, have for years. GigaBar showed me back in the fall of 2000 that dozens of functions could be assigned to just a few icons in that little top area, and that further it could offer a real 'close' function, display ALL currently running program icons for task switching or tap&hold closing, along with a host of drop-down menus being available for even more custom options. For 5 years I had used GigaBar to launch a minimum of 20 applications with gestural taps along with all the standard text editing commands also being simple tap-gestures on icons. Since the later versions of GigaBar (v1.89 and on, to 1.91b) there was also the linked installation of GigaPad, easily the best Notepad available for the platform. Customisable toolbar icons (up to ten functions, from about 30 altogether in the menus), capable of opening many file types beyond merely TXT (also INI, URL, HTML, and several others), GigaPad was my most frequently used editor.

But alas, GigaBar's later versions had to be registered to work, through register.gigabar.com, and that site has not been available for months. The day it returns, if ever, I'll happily ditch Wisbar Advance 2 and get a proper full-function taskbar running on this Toshiba. I wish Gene had sold licenses, with permanent unlock codes tied to username, instead of this awkward (and now impossible) freeware-with-registration-code nonsense. He meant to do so, talked about it during various beta runs, but I guess life (at least I hope he's alive still) got in the way and it never panned out. So disappointing, just as it seems to me such a sad thing that so few people actually understood the vastness that was GigaBar. All this talk about merely launching apps from the Today screen - why should one have to go there, when everything, I mean EVERY APPLICATION and EVERY SETTINGS APPLET, plus a screen-off tool, plus a bunch of other stuff, could be available globally, always, only vanishing when in a game which needed full screen. Nothing else came close. Wisbar, like I said, will have to do.... though its mere 20 or so functions available with 6 icons (by actual count I find 17 in total, so 20 is generous) is rather a weak substitute. And for so few functions (maximum 2 per icon, in addition to an icon's displayed information about up to one thing) it adds a disturbing level of system speed hit. GigaBar never did that to me on any device.

[alex_kac]

I too used Gigabar and knew Gene. I loved it. It is too bad its no longer a product. You are right that Magic Button is very simple.

BTW - iTask which was part of the iPaq tools was the new "GigaBar". I hated iTask.

[i_spock]

I know how much people love their Today plugins and all the glitz and glamour of how they look, but if you're tired of the slowness and memory use, try using an app like Pocket Informant directly.

Exactly what I've done! Since my device turns on so much faster now, I can just press the calendar button and I'm looking at my PIM data almost immediately. I'm finding that the newfound speed has greatly increased the usefulness of my PDA- I don't hesitate to whip out my pda anytime I need to consult my calendar or take a quick note. I was much more hesitant to do that before because I knew I'd have to wait for my device to turn on, then it might lock up, etc.

Wow, xmas came early for me this year! My post made the front page and was commented on by some of the most noted people in the PPC world. I am truly humbled :werenotworthy:

[Gerard]

iTask was/is the simpler program included in ROM in the iPAQ devices, 3800 and later. GigaTask came closer to matching GigaBar's capabilities, though without the advantages of always-present usability in the top bar. I did some beta testing with GigaTask too, and also with Gene's rather interesting 'MOE' (Macros and Objects Everywhere), but neither found general acceptance. Ahead of his time, that's my take on his work for PPC.

[juni]

When it comes to speed and memory issues and also trying to retain some "coolness" I find that (and believe me, I have to install a lot of plugins for skinning purposes) WeatherPanel or PocketWeather (sadly the author of WeatherPanel has gone missing), PocketBreeze and iLauncher does the trick. Pocket Plus does use a lot of resources and seems to slow down the device a bit. But on the other hand, Pocket Plus has a lot of extra features iLauncher doesn't.

WisbarAdvance2 is a must just for enhanced coolness, but it does take a lot of memory.

[ctmagnus]

I always have Pocket Plus on my Today screen. Depending on how busy I am over a given period, I may also have either PocketBreeze or Calendar, Tasks, and Inbox. I find it almost rewarding to have fewer issues to deal with, simply because I get the speed boost awarded by using the ROM plugins.

[haesslich]

I've been keeping my needs simple - I don't like going bare-bones, but I do have HandyLauncher, PocketBreeze, PocketWeather in a tab, and Wisbar Advance 2 all launching at start, and it loads prety smoothly, with PocketBreeze being the slowest one of the bunch. :D I do agree with keeping the startup clutter to a minimum, which is why I've taken off Wisbar Advance Desktop (I keep it installed, but off the autoload), and most of my other Today plugins are also missing; most of them aren't needed, and what I do need quickly can be put onto HandyLauncher.

[menssana]

I know this is a bit trollish, but... wel duuuh :roll: I've tried quite a few today plugins and found that basically nothing is useful enough to warrant the unreliability that their presence creates.

The thing that I find worse is usability aspect of the "cram everything (even stuff you don't need) plugins". The default today screen is good: it presents you with a need to know now & next, anything else is a click away.

I don't use any today plugins. My h4150 has Magic button and GSBatmonp. My device is pretty reliable - I only need to reboot when windows media player gets confused.

[Phillip Dyson]

I just removed PocketPlus from my Today and there is definitely a noticable difference on my Toshiba.

May I'll try with PocketPlus and without PocketBreeze and see if I get as big a gain. Given that I have PI, perhaps I could live without PB easier than PocketPlus.

We'll see.

I think theres a revolution going on. Perhaps plugin developers will gain more incentive to make their applications less memory efficient. If thats possible.

For the record, all of the plugins that I currently use are quality applications.

[buzzard]

Just for clarificaton...is the only issue with these various today screen applications the fact that they slow down the recovery from a soft reset or do they also slow down internet surfing or other applicatons as well ?

[KTamas]

I just removed PocketPlus from my Today and there is definitely a noticable difference on my Toshiba.

May I'll try with PocketPlus and without PocketBreeze and see if I get as big a gain. Given that I have PI, perhaps I could live without PB easier than PocketPlus.

We'll see.

I think theres a revolution going on. Perhaps plugin developers will gain more incentive to make their applications less memory efficient. If thats possible.

For the record, all of the plugins that I currently use are quality applications.
I'm using PocketBreeze, PocketWeather and iLauncher right now on my today screen and my device is not slowed down at all, of course soft reset takes more time. However, I've seen here and there ppl saying "PocketPlus slowed down my device", especially with V3, and i'm not using it since a while, cause itself was slow as well. (this was also a reply to Buzzard's post)

[whydidnt]

Just for clarificaton...is the only issue with these various today screen applications the fact that they slow down the recovery from a soft reset or do they also slow down internet surfing or other applicatons as well ?

I find they slow down other applications as well. I believe these are "hooked" into the operating system, and as such take CPU cycles away from other programs. I'm not a programmer, so could be wrong on that, but I have noticed a significant improvement in response time of applications when the plugins are disabled.

[KTamas]

Just for clarificaton...is the only issue with these various today screen applications the fact that they slow down the recovery from a soft reset or do they also slow down internet surfing or other applicatons as well ?

I find they slow down other applications as well. I believe these are "hooked" into the operating system, and as such take CPU cycles away from other programs. I'm not a programmer, so could be wrong on that, but I have noticed a significant improvement in response time of applications when the plugins are disabled.
In my theory, there are some today screen plugins that *can* slow down your device. A few examples:
- Stuff with constantly changing data (e.g. PocketRSS in "rotate" mode)
- Animated stuff (e.g. various flash-based today stuff, WeatherPanel animated icons...)
- Meter stuff (e.g. PocketPlus meters -- but i guess it only slows down turning on the device, cause it has to re-read battery, storage etc. data)
Again, this is just my *theory*. I, in fact, gave up on meters (except the battery one in Magic Button; it works well), cause it slowed down my device for serveral seconds after turning on. Stuff that is "static", such as PocketBreeze should not slow down your device, cause it does, umm, nothing when you are not using it. Someone who is more in PPC programming, correct me please :)

[jgrnt1]

I have no stability issues with Wisbar Advance 2, PocketBreeze, WeatherPanel and TrayLaunch running. I have my iPAQ 4700 set to do a backup each night, after which it does a soft reset. This is often the only soft reset each day. I don't think I have ever had to do a soft reset because of my plugins, other than if I have a notification active during the nightly soft reset. If this occurs, WA2 will sometimes fail to load completely. If I have to do a soft reset during the day, it always seems to be caused by another program. Mobipocket is my biggest current offender. I don't baby my system either. In my car, I am often running iGuidance with a Bluetooth GPS unit while playing mp3's streamed from an Asus wireless hard drive via WiFi. With both going, I can still open Pocket Informant and check appointments or tasks.

Maybe I'm just lucky, or it could be that I'm not running WM5. I've been cursing HP for not having an upgrade available yet, but it looks like a lot of people who have done upgrades are having problems, as are some people with fresh WM5 machines.

[juni]

I don't think most plugins take any processing power when you are inside a program and not looking at the today screen. The only exception I ever encountered was Journal Bar.

[Phillip Dyson]

I've been running with PocketPlus and WA2 and performance is much better.
This could be a trend.

[i_spock]

After reading some of the comments I thought I should clarify that I'm using WM2003SE with ROM A05. After the update to A05, I'd pick up my PDA and often it'd be whitescreened. I keep my X50v on my nightstand connected to AC (I've awoken to find a dead battery far too many times to not do this) and that's when I'd find it in this state. I also thought this was just a WM5 phenomenon.

Also, based on some of the comments in this thread, I installed Magic Button. I love it compared to switcherbar! Too early to tell if there's any noticable performance impact from it tho.

Incidentally, in case it's helpful to anyone else, I came up with a good way for me to replace the functionality of weatherpanel since I've stopped using it. I just bookmarked http://www.accuweather.com/pda/pda_5dy.asp?thisZip=myzipcode in PIE and check it once in a while. I suppose one could make it a mobile favorite and sync it to your device for reference when you're not online, haven't tried that yet.

You know, all of this has made me wonder weather the people that run really fancy today screens are the same type of people who are PC modders. I never really saw the fun in that so maybe it makes sense that I'm finding the Zen of PPC so freeing. :wink: And I agree with the posts that said that this was really a "duh" thing, and that was kinda my point- I just wanted to say "Hey, did you ever think of dumping all that stuff and seeing how you like it". I was so caught up in the constant tweaking, and based on the popularity of plugins nowadays, I think a lot of us are.

[JonMisurda]

A today screen plugin is a dynamic link library (dll) that is loaded by the today screen. The dll has code in it that responds to various messages that Windows sends to it, and it should handle them appropriately. For instance, every 2 minutes, Windows sends a message to each today screen plugin asking it if it needs to be changed. This is where things like the height of the plugin might be changed.

Some today screen plugins might not like to be updated only every 2 minutes, so they may override that mechanism and ask the OS to notify them every x milliseconds. Hopefully no today screen plugins do this, because it would certainly be overkill for most things beyound say, processor speed detection.

Ideally, a today screen plugin should compute whatever it needs to display when it recieves the message every two minutes, and then whenever it needs redrawn, the code to draw it should be as fast as possible. I know that this code should not be run if the today screen isn't visible, however I'm not sure about the query that arrives every two minutes. That may still happen as long as the plugin is active.

It can be very difficult to write and debug today screen plugins because of the way they tie into the OS. Plus what works on one version of an OS might not work on a previous version. This happened to me with my Google search today plugin. It worked on WM5, but hung devices on reboot on WM2003, requiring a hard reset :oops:

Jon

[pocketpcadmirer]

I currently have pocket breeze,"messaging","pocket plus today launcher" on my today-screen and yes my mini does sometimes feel sluggish(even though I have 24 mb ram free)

Too bad..

Sunny

[silverpilot03]

Pardon me if this is off topic I have a Toshiba e740/PocketPC 2002 with SpB Pocket Plus 3.0, SpB Pocket Diary, and MagicButton installed in the Today screen. NO significant slow down noted with wifi surfing, soft reset, launching applicatons, back-up etc.

[pocketpcadmirer]

Well...I just can't live without PocketBreeze. I don't think i have CB installed right now (or maybe yes...dunno...). I'm also using Wisbar Advance2 with Wisbar Advance Desktop, and inside there is PocketBreeze and PocketWeather...and my device works very well, right now under WM5.

I too cant live without pocket breeze. Though I have uninstalled wisbar.. I now love the default view of today screen :D

Sunny

[pocketpcadmirer]

I I'm using SPB Pocket Plus but only the launcher that does not suck to many resources.

Hey ctitanic, give claunch a try. It is a great little launcher, and is very small. It seems a shame to load an app the size of Pocket Plus only to use the launcher.l

Fully agree. I've found many floks here who are just using pocket plus just to have that memory hogging today plug-in. I instead recommend resco today plug-in.

Sunny

[ctmagnus]

fwiw, I have now ditched everything except Pocket Plus. I went for a week or so without PocketBreeze/ContactBreeze on the Today screen and survived, so I now see it as non-essential to my daily Pocket PC usage. Of course, with my Pocket PC habits, I may reinstall it (or Spb Diary, for that matter) at any time.

[Phillip Dyson]

I actually just went a few weeks with only PocketPlus and the built in messaging plugin.

I've now reactivated PocketBreeze. The ability to see my tasks and calendar at a glance was sorely missed.

I don't have Calligrapher starting at reset now. And I don't keep bluetooth on all the time.

[pocketpcadmirer]

I actually just went a few weeks with only PocketPlus and the built in messaging plugin.
I've now reactivated PocketBreeze. The ability to see my tasks and calendar at a glance was sorely missed.

Yes thats the beauty of pocket breeze. As u can see I'm a great supporter of pocket breeze app

Sunny :)

[littld]

I have managed to remove most of the junk, especially Pocket Plus.

It really is like having a new machine. Everything is faster and better. It starts up quicker, faster to use from turning on and I never seem to get those wierd problems that needed a reset.

I am now down to cLaunch, which is great, MagicButton, a gs battery meter which I like a lot and I am thinking about puttin MultiIE back on.

I guess only problem now is I have licensed software I am not using.

[pocketpcadmirer]

I have managed to remove most of the junk, especially Pocket Plus.

You got that right..pocket plus has really some great enhancements but it really makes the system slow when you have lots of stuff of installed in it

Sunny

[Janak Parekh]

I guess only problem now is I have licensed software I am not using.
Welcome to the club. ;) The consolation you can provide yourself is that you probably own lots of computer software that you no longer use. (As a simple example, anyone own a copy of Windows 3.1?) Similarly, there's software you'll outgrow on your Pocket PCs. Don't think too much about it -- you're not required to install everything. In fact, I've become more minimalist over the years as I value speed and core functionality more.

--janak

[ctmagnus]

In fact, I've become more minimalist over the years as I value speed and core functionality more.

My problem is defining core functionality. ;)

I could use the device out of the box, but it's so much more useful with a file explorer, a registry editor, a pdf viewer, a date calculator...

[Janak Parekh]

I could use the device out of the box, but it's so much more useful with a file explorer, a registry editor, a pdf viewer, a date calculator...
All of what you've listed are generally standalone apps that don't run at all times, and generally don't impact performance. I myself installed Resco, and consider a third-party explorer a core requirement for me, but don't run it in the background all the time. ;) By no means does "core", from my perspective, only mean built-in.

--janak

[ctmagnus]

By no means does "core", from my perspective, only mean built-in.

I know what you mean. I just checked the Remove Programs applet and I had 34 applications listed, after vigorous trimming last week. I figure I could maybe get rid of seven of those; the other 27 I need to function. I also have a few on my storage card - so I have probably 29 core apps, with a few "nice to have arounds".