Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Spb Software House Mobile Shell
Posted by Judie Lipsett Hughes in "SOFTWARE" @ 11:45 AM
The Launcher
On my Treo, pressing the button with a Windows icon - the left soft button - will usually launch the Start menu. But Mobile Shell hijacks that option, and instead takes you to a very easy to use graphical launcher. The first view includes Spb's dynamic icons which will either "glow" or change to reflect when the D-pad selection is hovering over them.
Figure 7: The Spb launcher, with various options.
Figure 8: Notice how the Organizer is opened in this view.
Since I just hovered over the Organizer, it makes sense to go ahead, click, and open it. Inside are the various personal information management choices.
Figure 9: PIM options in the Organizer.
Clicking Contacts reveals an alphabetical list of companies and individuals. I was disappointed at first because the usual Pocket PC quick-scroll option which displays a large capital letter reflecting the current position while scrolling through the Contacts list was not displaying.
Figure 10: The default Contacts view.
A moment later, all was forgiven when I realized that the name selection was completely intuitive, and all I had to do to find a contact was enter the first couple letters of their name or the first few numbers in their phone number. Clicking a contact with the D-pad's center select button will bring up the WM5 contact card, which allows you to choose which number to dial.
Figure 11: Entering the first few letters of a name pulls up all possible options.