Spb Diary 1.7.5 Released: Vertical Tabs in Pocket Plus

[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><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/wey-20060203-SpbDiary17.gif" /><br /><br />Ever since Spb Software House introduced Spb Diary and Spb Pocket Plus integration, users have been crying for vertical tab support. The new release, v1.7.5, now includes that and it works brilliantly. In addition, there is improved horizontal tab support, enhanced integration with Pocket Informant, improved message handling, tweaked auto-height behaviour, and other minor bug fixes. It's a free update for all existing registered users of Spb Diary. If you've yet to try it, you can download a free 15-day trial version, and/or purchase the full version for $14.95 from our <a href="http://www.handango.com/ampp/store/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&productId=163904&productType=2">affiliate software store</a>.

[Edgar_]

I went to upgrade from 1.7.2 and it looks like their download link isnt updated yet with 1.7.5

Both the install and the "About" report 1.7.2 not 1.7.5

I sent an Email to their support team and Nicholas - but being its the middle of the night in Russia I'm thinking they are out of the office until tonight.

So verify your install is the latest rev after you load it.

-Edgar_

[Jon Westfall]

I downloaded the CAB this morning and it was 1.7.5, works like a dream, so if the desktop installer isn't updated, try the CAB file.

Jon.

[applejosh]

Yeah, when I downloaded the exe this afternoon, it was still at 1.7.2. (And I know it wasn't a cache issue because I hadn't downloaded it on that computer before.) The cab file was correct, though.

[Edgar_]

Excellent - thanks Jon.

OK, the horizontal is nice but here's what I wanted.

When I select the diary tab I still want to see icons on the screen if I want them.

Am I missing something? I like the idea of selecting another tab and diary clearing the screen of all my appts (right now I have Diary at 150 minimum and Pocketplus above it - two rows of small icons)

Then I've created tabs of multiple addtnl icons broken up by "Main" (Most used), "Connections" (Net settings, NetFront, IE, VXIp , etc), "Sys" (settings basically), "Programs- icon only" All the programs I use, SPBWeather, and games

in a perfect world I would merge "Main &amp; Diary Calendar" basically icons over calendar.

It doesnt look like I can do this, yet

-Edgar_

And where the heck is Time for Pocket Plus?! it can't be that much to make it pocketplus aware can it?

[Darius Wey]

in a perfect world I would merge "Main &amp; Diary Calendar" basically icons over calendar.

It doesnt look like I can do this, yet

Nope, that's an absent feature, but I can definitely suggest it to the developers on your behalf. I can imagine, though, that it'd take many more hours of coding (some restructuring of how Diary operates within Pocket Plus).

And where the heck is Time for Pocket Plus?! it can't be that much to make it pocketplus aware can it?

The next release of Spb Time is Pocket Plus-aware.

[Edgar_]

Thanks Darius

I'm messing with it now and 1.7.5 does a better job of auto sizing now with the icons included. The icons, however, appear at the bottom and I'm used to them at the top, can making it selective for above or below the calendar be that much rewriting?

Yea, Victor told me about the new Time version in January. I'm just impatient. :twisted:

As a whole, SPB and WebIS are tops in my book. They are very responsive to not only quickly stabilizing but enhancing the products, based on customer feedback.

Where I used to like Omega One they never seem to fix their bugs or actually enhance their products - I'm no longer much of a Agenda Plus fan for the same reason.

Look how much SPB has enhanced their products in just the last 4 mos - and Alex over at WebIS as well. Solid QA and testing as well.

The only NEW product I'd love to see SPB come out with is a stock monitor tab and perhaps an atom/rss feed tab. Something like the Journal Bar stock and JB news features. Those were nice, but buggy and memory hogs/leaks. Never could get the weather on my PPC to update correctly under JB.

The stock monitor would just be a simple current value for selectable stocks. Or even just a red down, or green up icon with the value below - click and it provides an SPB Weather style feed about the stock. Short distinct nothing fancy - hi/lo, current, volume a small chart if doable.

Anyways, I'm going to work with Diary/PocketPlus for a bit and see if I can tweak it and live with those icons at the bottom. Oh the stress! How will I ever be able to live with this? :)

-Edgar_

[Darius Wey]

The stock monitor would just be a simple current value for selectable stocks. Or even just a red down, or green up icon with the value below - click and it provides an SPB Weather style feed about the stock. Short distinct nothing fancy - hi/lo, current, volume a small chart if doable.

Sounds like a nice feature to include in Spb Finance, which itself can be integrated into Spb Pocket Plus (and Spb Diary). :)

[Edgar_]

Well sure, but I don't need all the hallabaloo included in finance.

Besides SPB could make more if it was a $9 separate program :)

-Edgar

[ctmagnus]

Hmmph... I just rebuilt my device four days ago, redownloading and installing everything from scratch, and there have been three new releases of the software I use in that time. I predict that there will be new versions of Pocket Plus, MySportTraining, and FlexWallet in the next seven days. ;)

[BukTop]

I went to upgrade from 1.7.2 and it looks like their download link isnt updated yet with 1.7.5
Hello, Edgar! The english desktop installer was not updated indeed. Now the problem is fixed! :)

[BukTop]

in a perfect world I would merge "Main &amp; Diary Calendar" basically icons over calendar.
Edgar, currently the only possibility is to have icons below plug-in (Spb Diary in this case). I think the feature will be considered for implementation in one the upcoming Spb Pocket Plus versions :D

As for stock monitor, we have been asked for it many times, so I think it can be also implemented in one of our products soon :)

[phreaker18]

i was just wondering whether the new version allows u to put custom tabs like pocket breeze does??

[Darius Wey]

i was just wondering whether the new version allows u to put custom tabs like pocket breeze does??

No, not in this version.

[phreaker18]

well then i think ill stick to Pocket Breeze till Spb Diary comes out with that feature.... i think its really useful...

[Edgar_]

Phreaker

Could you clarify? I don't know Breeze but I use Diary and Pocket Plus extensively.

PocketPlus allows you to create a tab for whatever you want, fully customized with size or icon and anything, I mean anything, for content.

Diary allows you to have tabs, by itself, for Messaging, notes, calendar, task and contacts. Within each of those tabs you can have any number of views, groupings, categories, status, colors, filters etc.

When tied into Pocketplus you can customize even further with applications, etc embedded into it.

So, no it doesn't have the ability by itself to add a custom tab, pocketplus does that. With the exceptions of custom tabs it has all the breeze functions, including tight integration with Agenda or PI (albeit I feel a better integration with PI) But Diary has functions that Breeze doesn't and when extended with Pocketplus is even stronger. Pocket Plus adds many exceptional functions, one being Safe Mode - much like XP's safe mode it starts your device with a bare bones startup - allowing you to strip out offending software, drivers or files. Others being Extended themes across your device not just the today screen, PIE extensions, and more.

When tied to SPB Weather you add weather icons into each day of the calender - with SPB Financial you can link transactions or financial to-do's into the screen.

So, much like the Agenda Fusion / Pocket Informant battle - these two are also each others main competition and each have their own merits. It comes down to what you, the user, requires. I just feel when you take the SPB products across the board you are getting a very well integrated system of software, backed by a very forward and innovative team that is very responsive to what the user wants and has very high QA standards. SPB really stands out with their quality overall. Quick patches, frequent updates (with enhancements not just patches) and good support (Nicholas [nicholas] and Victor[buktop] are members here and frequently jump in and offer help - as seen above in this thread).

I woukld urge you to load it up and take it for a spin. Worse case scenario is you unload and go back to breeze - while you're at it try out PocketPlus as well.

-Edgar

My two cents, do I get change back?
I don't work for SPB, I'm just a passionate backer.

[Edgar_]

in a perfect world I would merge "Main &amp; Diary Calendar" basically icons over calendar.
Edgar, currently the only possibility is to have icons below plug-in (Spb Diary in this case). I think the feature will be considered for implementation in one the upcoming Spb Pocket Plus versions :D

As for stock monitor, we have been asked for it many times, so I think it can be also implemented in one of our products soon :)

WOOHOO!

Thanks Victor.

-Edgar

[phreaker18]

Thanks Edgar....

Well i have Spb Diary as a customized tab on pocket Breeze coz of the contacts tab...

then i have phatpad... pocket player...

the reason i have Diary is coz i didnt like Pocket Contacts... and i have Pocket Plus too... so i exactly know what u mean... but thanx for making the effort to tell me to try out Spb Diary.....

cheers

[BukTop]

i was just wondering whether the new version allows u to put custom tabs like pocket breeze does??
For me it is more natural to include this feature into Spb Pocket Plus, not into Spb Diary. In any case, I can say that it will be implemented soon along with other cool and innovate features :D

[phreaker18]

Well ill wait till then i guess......

thank u Victor

[Edgar_]

Phreaker

If you have pocketplus and Diary you have everything you were asking for. Its stronger than breeze when you have both of those tied together and has the custom tab capability and all.
And by the way, Pocket Plus and Diary have shown to take minimal processing power and memory - so no slowdown or degradation

[phreaker18]

i completely agree with u Edgar.... i think ill uninstall Pocket Breeze :lol:

[Edgar_]

Nice sig reference to Descartes - see - you thought and you are! :)

You'll like the SPB products.

[phreaker18]

i already like spb.....

thanks dude

[doughboy]

Victor:

Do you have any plans to implement horizontal tabs for Calendar, Messaging, etc. within Diary? It would really be an option to better utilize screen space. I am waiting on this feature and intend to switch from Dashboard upon its implementation.

Thanks for all the great products.

[BukTop]

Do you have any plans to implement horizontal tabs for Calendar, Messaging, etc. within Diary?
This feature was requested but only a couple of times. In any case we do have it in our features request list. So, this feature will be implemented, but only after those features that were requested much more frequently 8)

Doughboy, it would be nice if you email me and describe in more details how do you see this feature :) It is also interesting to hear why you need this mode and why vertical (default) tabs are not suitable for you. My email address is buktop at softspb dot com.

[StarTide]

Cool another update, I really use the heck out of this application. I'm hoping one of the future releases adds some new view styles to the calendar tab:

I'd like to have a one line display with appointment bold, but not the time,
10:00 Meeting


Startide

[AlexA]

Hi, I am giving Pocket Plus/Diary a try and had some suggestions/questions.

I find that I just need a single row of shorcut icons that I keep at the bottom of the screen. I like to leave the rest of the screen to SPB Diary and the top of the screen to the SPB Plus ('Main' &amp; 'System') &amp; Diary tabs. Unfortunately, to do this behaviour I must duplicate the shortcut icons on all Diary tabs. Let's call this behaviour 'A'.

Before I discovered Diary tabs could be made horizontal like Pocket Plus, I had Pocket Plus horizontal tabs with 'Main', 'System' &amp; 'Diary', and then there were the vertical tabs for Calendar/Notes/etc. I had my strip of shorcuts at the bottom and these were available from any Diary tab. Let's call this behaviour 'B'.

The problem with this method, is if I'm in my 'Main' tab (to load another program that doesn't fit into my strip, for example) to get back to the necessary tab in Diary could take 2 taps depending on which one I'm after.

So, what I'd like is the ability to have the horizontal tabs but for them to be treated like the vertical tabs. An easy-ish way to do this would be to have a single horizontal tab that is split into however many Diary options you are using, but is considered one horizontal tab by Pocket Plus.

Another suggestion is for an option to place different Today items on only particular tabs. I think this would be really useful.

Anyhow, even without any of this, the SPB software looks to be really good, and not at all 'flaky' like some other Pocket PC software.

Thanks,

Alex

[Jason Lee]

I've actually started using PHM Tray Launch for my shortcuts. It allows you to put your shortcuts down in the system tray of the today page. So I don't have any program shortcuts in plus. I have a tab with the meters I want to see, one for diary(running as one tab with it's tabs down the side. this is much faster for me as I don't touch my screen. fewer key taps this way), weather, finance, and backup.
My shortcuts are down in the tray and never change. :) I could put them back into pluss I supose. I don't mind going back to my main(meters) tab to run them though. I do like not having plus displayed all the time though. it makes it faster to rotate the screen when I exit the camera app. :)
I'm sure i'll get bored with my layout soon and change it again soon anyway. lol

[AlexA]

Hey Jason, I might give Tray Launch a try, sounds like a good way of doing it.

Cheers,

Alex

[Jason Lee]

If you don't want to install the entire PHM power toys, which includes tray lauch, you can go over to XDA developers and download just the tray launch exe. That is what i did.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=42913&amp;postdays=0&amp;postorder=asc&amp;start=0

:)