v2.0.032 BETA

[Chris Scott [SnoopSoft]]

Hi Everyone,

SnoopSoft Dashboard v2.0.032 is now available on the Order Lookup page. I made a large amount of changes to the way Dashboard uses memory in this version and I'm sure there will be something odd that made it through - so be sure to let me know if you find something. :)

Here are the major points on this one (not much as I spent a lot of time combing through the memory usage and trying to reduce it wherever possible):

* Fixed the Skin Files errors - i.e. Some skins appear in the list, no skins appear in the list, the device soft-resets when loading the skins list.

* Removed the red dots that appeared when tapping and holding outside the main view area of Dashboard.

* Fixed the Enhanced Mail Module crashes when displaying messages from an Internet POP3 provider.

Thanks for all the great bug reports! I think it's getting much closer to a final release. I almost have a new Trial version ready too and if anyone is interested in trying that out I can post it to the Order Lookup page when its ready. I can't see anyone really wanting to do this though unless they like testing things.

[posprg]

Chris,

Sorry to report that the soft-reset on skin selection is still an issue. I had hard reset my 3955 w/ WM2003 before installing the new beta from today. I had initally noticed that there was a problem with using today themes (the backgroung was just white) then changing themes later I got the re-set.

I am willing to test new releases.


Rick

[Gerard]

Just in case this interests you Chris, the text above the download links still reads as follows (as of 7:05pm PST, on Tuesday):

Dashboard Public Beta v2.0.031 Beta

When I use the View Link Address function in MultiIE I see that these are in fact version 2.0.032, but the title says otherwise which almost made me close the page and come back later, rather than downloading as I'm doing now.

[Chris Scott [SnoopSoft]]

Thanks Rick,

I see this also on skins that have Today Theme's... I think it's a side-effect of some of the changes I was making and not related to the earlier soft-resets when loading the skins (i.e. at least they all appear in the list now).

I'm looking into that to see what's causing it.

[DMitchell]

I checked the Order Look Up page and 2.0.031 was the only Beta listed. Is this an update issue or have you pulled 2.0.032?

[Chris Scott [SnoopSoft]]

Hi Gerard,

Yes, that interests me a great deal - I was so busy making sure the links worked I forgot to look at the text. :)

[Gerard]

I've no way to tell if this is mere coincedence, but an odd thing happened to GigaBar (version 1.91 of June 27, 2003) on the second soft reset after doing an overwrite install with this Dashboard beta. The skin disappeared. Three icons of my usual 5 were there, but the clock and close icons were missing. Another soft reset; same deal. I soft reset 4 more times, and still the top bar was white, with only three GigaBar icons near the right side.

So I did a tap&hold on where the clock should be, and GigaBar dropped down a menu as it should. I browsed from there to Schemes, tapped my usual one, and it reloaded instantly. There has been no problem since.

I mention this as a skin is involved, and your recent beta had skin problems. Though GigaBar is not Wisbar, and so perhaps it shouldn't interact, I did have the 'Allow Dashboard to alter taskbar apps' checked... So perhaps relevant, though I can't say for sure.

Other than this, I've seen nothing odd yet in this version. Skins for Dashboard are all behaving as they should, all available from their location in the SnoopSoft\Dashboard\Skins folder and subfolders.

[hjh]

Hi Chris -

I did email you last week, but understand you're a busy chap! Although the Order Lookup does appear to recognise my email address, I don't know what my original order number was (it was a very long time ago!) and I've tried the only two possibilities for place registered, neither of which is recognised.

Could you help me with this, please??

many thanks
Helen

[Don't Panic!]

I changed my User Defined Skins folder to CF Card and now I can use the skins and the .dsh file associated with them when using Today themes. Thanks Chris!

Don't Panic!
Bobby

[posprg]

Chris,
After some more testing I can consistantly re-produce the re-sets when adding any new today plugin. Once the plugin is installed and I go to options to select it, wham reset..

Rick

[Gerard]

Sometimes when I tap the 'minimise' icon in PocketMon (Pocket Backup Pro component on the Today screen) the skin disappears. This aspect of PocketMon has seemed buggy for a long while, so it's not likely your problem, but this version of Dashboard which has had this vanishing skin problem when that icon gets tapped once or twice. Tapping the area where I remember the Dashboard Options icon should be allows re-selection of the skin and then it gets restored.

[Jester]

I've found the new 2.0.03x betas far to slow to use on my 2210. Takes 10 seconds plus to switch to an adjacent day in Agenda view, 15 seconds to a different day using the date picker. The previous versions (1.51 overlayed with PPC2002) were no whizz kid, but this is just way too long.

Also, could there be a quick find facility in the Contacts plug in, much like the one in the built in app, where entering one or two letters instantly filters the list down to entries containing that string?

Whilst the new versions look very pretty, they're no good to me if I can't look up a date or a phone number in a flash.

As I was suprised no one else had mentioned it so far, I took the drastic step of hard resetting the machine and installing Dashboard on it's own on the virgin machine. Got exactly the same results, so I can't see it being anything peculiar to my device.

Although I have 2000+ appointements, 500+ contacts and 500+ tasks the main Calendar, PI, AF and tAgenda cope with this perfectly well and don't seem to struggle like the new Dashboard.

[Chris Scott [SnoopSoft]]

Thanks for the feedback - I will have to look into the Agenda module for you. I just did a straight port from the old version to 2003 and didn't look at modifying it.

You have the ability to look up a contact. Tap and hold on the tab bar across the top and select Search... from the popup menu.

[Gerard]

In my PPC 2002 iPAQ 3835, the Agenda page displays in about one and a half seconds. Contacts shows in less than two seconds. Search takes only three seconds at the most, as it automatically filters down to smaller lists with each letter written into the search window. Filtering by First Name, Last Name, and Company all work very quickly.

So I'm guessing this is strictly a PPC 2003 problem, or even more specifically a 2215 problem you are having with slowness.

[Jester]

Thanks for the responses. I've done a bit more testing. I realised the number of appointments was pretty high, and sure enough there were tons of duplicates in there. Got rid of them and now down to 1300 appointments. Good news is, Dashboard is now quicker, which shows part of the problem is down to the number of records.
Timings are now:-
7 seconds to show apointments from cold,
3 seconds to move to next/previous day,
3-5 seconds to move to date from date picker,
7-8 seconds to move to date over two weeks away in date picker,
7-8 seconds to move to next/previous day from that date.
3 seconds to move back to Today.
It seems that the extended delay only occurs when picking dates over a 2 weeks so away, and then only to future dates. Could this be down to the way records are cached?

Mind you, even the 3 - 7 second delay per page is way too long when flicking though looking for a meeting space - such that my "paper" colleagues are there way before me.

Thanks for the tips on the contact search. I'm glad to say the filtering is instantaneous on the 2215 once you get to the search page, which is impressive. It's a shame it takes so long to get there though (see new thread...)

[Chris Scott [SnoopSoft]]

Hi,

2.0.033 should be out soon to address some of the issues that people are seeing in 2.0.032.

Just wanted to let you all know and to get the 2.0.031 thread off the top :)

[posprg]

Thanks for the update..


Rick