Teksoft, developer of the excellent BlueMusic application (see for example this article & the links), has just come out with a brand new suite, Smart Bar, of system management applications. I decided to give it a try as it’s a pretty capable suite of utilities with some really excellent modules.



They even promise an application capable of recording both (!) parties in a phone conversation (so far, this has been impossible with all Pocket PC Phone Edition devices of both HTC and ASUSTeK (Fujitsu-Siemens T8x0)); I think it’ll work by directly “tapping into” the Bluetooth unit as can be seen for example in here.

Availability, price

The suite is available here. To review the (pretty good and recommended) manual, visit this link. There is a(n unfortunately, pretty restricted) trial version too.

The “price” of the suite is 200 credits; that is, between 20 and 25 euros (depending on the amount of money you transfer to your online credit account). The registration is a one-device only (that is, CPU ID- and not PPC owner name-based); licenses can be transferred to other devices in case of a device change (for example, when the previous one bites the dust and gets exchanged).

Install

Use smartbar_setup.exe for pre-WM5 and the CAB files for WM5; see install.en.txt for the latter case.

Compatibility

It’s stated to be compatible with strictly QVGA devices with at least the WM2003 operating system. (I’ve also tested it on Pocket PC 2002; it indeed doesn’t work.)

You can, of course, try to install it on VGA devices, but I don’t think you should give it a go. I’ve tested it on three different VGA devices (Dell Axim x51v A12, WM5 iPAQ hx4700 2.01, WM2003SE Pocket Loox 720). On the hx4700, the PowerPlugin Today screen plug-in was absolutely useless; on the two other devices, it was shown, but not anything else. On the Dell Axim x51v, I’ve received frequent gwes.exe crashes after a reboot, because of which I had to entirely disable PowerPlugin.

Of the PowerPlugin, few features were accessible on these VGA devices; in the following chart, I’ve summarized all this (note that it also contains HTC Wizard-related info):



Note that, as far as the Wizard is concerned, I’ve listed two ROM’s: the O2 2.21.4.1 WWE (3/9/0) ROM and the “cooked”, widely known AKU3.2 one by KTamas / bepe. This means there are differences between different ROM versions / builds – all icons may work with your particular ROM version. The developer has promised they would test the suite with other ROM versions.


As can clearly be seen, the majority of the features PowerPlugin has can’t be used - not even on the QVGA HTC Wizard (with some ROM versions).

One of the central features of the application, Smartbar, wasn’t accessible either on any of my VGA devices. Self-standing apps like the screen capture, the network troubleshooter and the task manager applications, however, did work on VGA devices.

Also, it’s very important that you BACKUP (see the Backup Bible if you’re unsure) your device before installing the application. My absolutely clean, freshly hard reset WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210, after the install, couldn’t boot in at all and I ended up having to hard reset the PDA (I’ve tested this two times). I haven’t tried to boot into Safe Mode (read this roundup & tutorial if interested in Safe Mode on the Pocket PC); it may have helped .

Today plug-in (PowerPlugin)

It’s a simple plug-in with shortcuts to en/disable wireless units, suspend the device, show whether it's connected to the Net (IMHO, this is pretty useless on a WM2003+ device - after all, the Connectivity icon is always visible on the taskbar) and a backlight slider. It doesn’t contain for example battery or memory meters, unlike most other Today launchers (please see this iLauncher review and the links to earlier reviews to find out what a decent Today launcher should offer.)

Unfortunately, the majority of the functionality it’s supposed to offer didn’t work on my test devices. For example, as far as en/disabling wireless functionality is concerned, it was only on the x51v that it was able to both en- and disable Wi-Fi; on the Wizard, it was only able to enable it and on the PL720, wasn’t able to do anything. As far as Bluetooth is concerned, it didn’t work on any of my test devices in any direction. The backlight slider only worked on the PL720. (See the chart at the top, in the Compatibility section for more info.) The only exception is the HTC Wizard with the O2 ROM, where everything worked. (Again, more information on the compliance with other HTC Wizard ROM versions will be published / announced later.)


Also note that, while it has, in addition to the backlight slider, a backlight icon. It, now, doesn’t do anything. Hope the Teksoft folks wire it to the backlight / brightness applet of the device as is the case with all the other, similar Today plug-ins.

Task manager

This is one of the best features of the suite.



Pretty cool. Better than the built-in task manager: it lists the memory used, whether it’s a windowed app/process and if yes, is it visible; the title and the window class name. However, it doesn’t display other advanced & useful stuff like CPU usage and has no “Stop all processes”. Also, it’s not possible to “hide” system processes either – that is, for a newbie, this task manager can prove pretty dangerous.

Ultra Keyboard

This is probably the most unique feature of this suite: it allows for controlling some functionality using the keyboard. The most important of this is text insert macroing capabilities, which has always been missing from Pocket PC’s (except for some, not very capable Software Input Panels (SIP's) like Resco Keyboard Pro and Biomobility’s CopyText Pro; also see this thread for more info if interested).

When you use text insert macroing and assign a macro to, say, the series of characters “bye”, Smart Bar will constantly monitor the keys you press on the built-in (or external) keyboard of your PDA and when it sees the keys b, y and e pressed in order, it’ll delete back the three characters and insert the replacement text.



It's really cool but, unfortunately, only works with built-in keyboards or external ones (like those of desktop-based PDA controllers; see this roundup for more information on them.) Even in this case it can prove useful - most built-in thumb boards are pretty awkward to enter text on them.

You can initiate the following functionality from the keyboard: Replace with phrase; Execute a file; Turn device off; Reset device; Call number and Screen Capture. Note that if your keyboard has a different layout than your current ROM language, the default layout will be used. For example, if you have a German MDA Vario (= HTC Wizard) with English ROM but use the keyboard in German mode so that you find all keys at once, you will need to enter ‘bze’ instead of ‘bye’ for the ‘bye’ script to be executed. Also, note that not even in this case will everything execute – that is, try not to use anything that have relocated letters.

In my tests, all these functions worked OK.

Smartbar

This is a shortcut bar at the bottom of the Today screen for accessing active apps (closing / activating them) and activating other built-in apps (and the Desktop mode) of the Smart Bar suite. Unfortunately, task control-wise, it is probably the worst module in the entire suite; hope this will be greatly enhanced in subsequent releases.

Compared to (better) task managers like iLauncher, Magic Button or Spb Pocket Plus, its disadvantages are as follows:

1. It can only be accessed on the Today screen, not on the taskbar (and / or the Close / Minimize icon itself)
2. It supports no mass operations like “close all but this one”, “close all”, unlike with Magic Button or the built-in iTask of Compaq / HP iPAQ’s
3. It doesn’t override the Minimize / Close (x) icon

Hope these disadvantages will be soon be fixed and the task management functionalities of the application greatly enhanced.

Note that while it doesn’t have explicit scrolling icons / menus (unlike Magic Button as can be seen in here but NOT iLauncher 3, which is suffering from the complete lack of scrollbars as can be seen in this and this screenshots), you can scroll the active task icon list if there are more than five (Portrait) / seven (Landscape) of them.

I’ve also tested the CPU usage of smart.exe to see whether it causes any CPU load, particularly with more than a handful programs active. (For example, Magic Button causes a constant CPU usage of about 1-3% all the time.) The results are acceptable and not much worse than those of Magic Button:



Desktop



Yes, a WisBar Advance Desktop (WAD) clone! It’s in no way so advanced as WAD; still, if you like these kinds of applications, you may find the one in Smart Bar suitable.

Screen capture

Smart bar also contains built-in screen capturing capabilities. Please see the Screen Capture Bible for more information; in the following pros/cons list, I build on the information and explanations of that guide.



Compared to other screen capturer applications,

Pros

1. Uses a 3-second delay by default; that is, it can be used to make menu screenshots (without using the periodic screenshot capabilities)
2. Able to capture images periodically (albeit with some limitations, particularly when it comes to the frequency of taking shots). Note that it’s the “Stop interval” drop-down list that lets you fine-tune the interval it’ll take screenshots (between 10 seconds and 10 minutes as can be seen here and here)
3. If you use it on a device with a built-in thumb/keyboard and you enable screen capturing through Ultra Keyboard, you will be able to capture almost any game screen any time (!) by just entering the Ultra Keyboard shortcut (“CAP” by default). In this respect, the suite is unbeatable and unrivalled.
4. Periodic screenshot capturing is fast and, therefore, gaming-friendly (unlike, say, BeniSoft ScreenShotCE)
5. Both BMP and JPG output; the latter with settable quality
6. Can save files to anywhere, not just the main storage
7. Can capture images, in addition to the original (100%) size, at double and triple (200% / 300%) size – very useful on QVGA devices to avoid further enlargement and unique among all the screen capturer applications
8. Landscape & VGA compliant even in SE VGA mode

Cons

1. Multishot (periodic) capabilities are a bit limited – you can’t instruct the app to make shots less frequently than every two second
2. While the screenshot utility is a self-standing app, it cannot be invoked from a custom-written nScriptm script to fine-tune periodic screenshot making parameters
3. (Trial version useless: it inserts a message in the captured images)

All in all, the screenshot capabilities of the app are excellent, especially when you take the price of the suite into account and the only problem with this module are the too frequent screenshots in auto mode. Also, as has already been pointed out, the ability to make hardware keyboard-based screenshots of games is unbeatable and unique.

Network Tools

The suite also contains a simple (it’s in no way as advanced as, say, vxUtil) network troubleshooting utility, Network Tools.



It’s able to ping and traceroute to find out possible networking problems. It also uses DNS lookups; that is, if you for example enter www.yahoo.com, the contents of the input field will revert to 209.73.186.238 (or something very similar, with a different ending), showing the IP address of the given computer (it doesn’t do the reverse).

It also exports the traceroute results to a file. (Note that I didn’t have a “real” wireless connection during the tests and the utility had problems accessing the net via USB (in both WM5 AKU2+ networking modes); I could only access the desktop computer my PDA was hooked up to; this is why there is only one entry in the tracelog.)

It’s pretty cool to have if you don’t happen to have Windows Mobile Network Analyzer PowerToy or vxUtil around.

Verdict

This app is certainly promising. Hope subsequent builds / versions will fix the issues / implement the missing functionality (most importantly, overridden Close / Minimize button) I’ve elaborated on. Then, I’ll recommend it heartily, without conditions. Now, in the present state, I do recommend it too – but conditionally.

First, the bad. It does have compatibility issues. If it does work on your PDA model, it won’t likely to support all the features of the Today plug-in (PowerPlugin) and has no for example storage meters. Also, the task management functionalities / program shutdown capabilities of Smartbar are certainly inferior to most similar apps like iLauncher, Magic Button or Spb Pocket Plus. I find this the biggest stumbling block of the application.

Second, the good. It’s, as an all-in-one application, is really good. That is, if you don’t want to struggle with installing many applications (say, WAD + Magic Button + some advanced (!) screenshot app + vxUtil) to achieve the same (or even better! See for example the screenshot utility) functionality (without keyboard macros, of course), give it a go. Also, if you need keyboard macroing (again, it won’t work with on-screen keyboards, only hardware ones!), this is the application to go.

The same stands for taking screenshots: this application clearly excels in this area (except for the too frequent screenshot taking in repetitive mode – hope the developer fixes this too), particularly when it comes to making screenshots of anything (most importantly, games) that inhibits hardware button access and, therefore, renders hotkey-based screen grabbing impossible. Then, Ultra Keyboard’s excellent keyboard-based shortcuts will prove highly useful.

All in all, if you still don’t have any application to implement the above-listed functionalities or, for example, losing the excellent task management functionalities of other task managers isn’t a problem, definitely give it a go. Remember, however, that

1. do NOT get it if you are a VGA user; wait for the soon-to-be-released VGA-specific / compliant version
2. do backup your device before installing or, at least, make sure you have an active Safe Mode application

Excellent review....as always.



For this reason alone I will NOT buy this application. I simply refuse to continually jump through hoops to use an application I have paid for. This idea of get a new free licence every time you get a new device seems benign enough on paper, but in reality it ALWAYS seems to be a hassle getting this done.

I tried the trial version of this. I had a terrible time downloading it and installing it. first, to download the trial I could seem to do it unless I created an account. It took several hours for the confirmation email to come through. Then it took me about a dozen tries before it would actually download. Then it took me three tries to get it to install on my device. I don't know if it is a limitation of the trial, but I could not access any options to setup the application to give it a fair trial.....It now resides in my recycle bin.

Their scheme of first buying credits which you then apply to your purchase is just another unnecessary hoops to jump thruough.

Good luck with the application Teksoft. It seems like a cool idea, but it's just too painful to get to.

Dave

Same here. Agile Messenger has the same system and I'm having so much trouble transferring licenses each time I buy a new device (which I do quite often).

I too change devices way too often to have to go through all this. Teksoft would be well advised to change their strategies in several areas on this one. This is a tough market to penetrate and the barriers mentioned by Dave will kill them in this segment.

I'm sure the response to our concern would be that it isn't a big problem to send off an email when you get a new device....if it were only that easy.

Plus, imagine if we all had to go through our complete software library each time we bought a new device, creating an email chain for each one! I have dozens, of applications. It would take me weeks to even come close to accomplishing this goal.

Ouch, Dave! We feel your pain

Thanks; I forward these remarks to them. Hope they reconsider their approach.

Hello All,

I'm new to this forum, but I have only good impressions for the serious topics that I saw here.

Thanks to Menneisyys for his review, actually that was exactly what I was long looking for, real feedback from the experienced user's point of view. The reason is that for a developer having to work with lots and lots of problems with his own code or project (not to mention Hardware limitations or missing functionality with the regular API, you might want to see http://www.teksoftco.com/articles/a...peakerphone.htm ), sometimes has some side-effects on the final shape of the application (you want to make it un-crackable ok that's fine, but ups the users might complain about the unique id, and so on).

He indeed forwarded your suggestions to Teksoft, and I'll (me as a developer there ) be happy to drop a few lines to "interact" with your feedback.

First I need to say that I read all the comments very carefully. It seems like the biggest issue is with the Registry System. A previous project of us was using the same system and yes, it happened for some users to need to change their devices. It was as simple as writting a mail to our Support, and they received the new licence. But I agree, that this might be a real pain to do when several applications on one's device require this.

So I believe we will try to re-direct the sistem's functionality to the Owner Information as a criteria of getting a kind of unique ID for each licence/device. I say "re-"direct, because the truth is there was a time when we were using the Owner Information in the way you guys suggested. And we had to find a better approach, as changing a few Bytes in our .exe code was enough to get rid of the trial version protection (remember Caller2Picture anyone? )

I'm sure that you all know that usually for software working in the Trial Mode, there are tons of Serials, Cracks, or KeyGens. There is a chance that you don;t know what this means from the developer's point of view .

This being said, we will try to follow Menneisyys suggestions in a close release, also Dave, aadadams and sabesh thanks for your suggestions, we now understand that the unique id in the way we've implemented might cause trouble so we will avoid that too (the owner information seems the best choice atm)

So thanks again for your feedback,

Radu Motisan
www.teksoftco.com

Cool.....thanks for taking the time to consider our suggestions.

I'm curious, have you had any other problems with downloading and installing like I mentioned, or was my experience and anomaly?

Dave

Hi Dave,
please help us in tracking the problems you have had.
I would need you to make two tests if you have time.
First open www.teksoftco.com and tap on the Smartbar image at the top. Scroll the page down and click on the "download as zip file" link.
Second (of course if you have some spare time) create an user account on the website and from the "client area" select the software from the combobox and press download or from the "products" section select "smartbar" and click on the "download as zip file" link.

Related to the installation problems you have had please share the test device and the RUU version if possible. We have had the tests done on the following devices (all of them Pocket PC phone edition):
HTC BlueAngel, HTC Alpine, HTC Wizard/Apache, HTC Prophet (only with carriers released RUUs - no in house-cooked RUU yet tested).

Waiting for your feedback ,
and apologiazing for any inconvenience created,
Raul Tinca

I use a HTC Hermes/TyTN, and I am wondering if there are any reported issues with it. I have found that moving from the Wizard to the Hermes was not a smooth transition for most of my software.

Or anyone that has tried this software on a TyTN can respond.

We expect the software to work on the Tytn, as it was already tested on an o2 similar unit (trion) buy one of the customers. You could also give it a go and let us know (your RUU version also ) how it performs at your end. The modules should work with no problems. The today plugin (power plugin) might not work properly but i doubt it (as the hardware is similar to the wizards') and i assume the RUU is a carrier customised one.

Waiting for your feedback and thanks in advance,

Raul Tinca

My TyTN is running the original aside from a radio upgrade, but all my details are listed here:
Operator HTC
Language English
CID QTEK_001
ROM 1.18.255.3 7/22/06
ExtRom 1.18.255.106
Radio 1.20.31.10
Protocol 32.34.7010.01H
OS Build 14955.2.3.0
Boot Loader 1.04

Is the trial version software feature limited? If so, I will wait for a more adventurous person to try it out. I am currently running with a very limited set of apps that have operated quite nicely together and I have not had to soft reset in several days. Before that I was soft reseting the device two to three times a day to wake from stand by due to other today plug-ins. Right now I am in a function over form mode. So, for me only the very reliable for the next week or so.

Thanks guys for all your feedbacks. We've found them very usefull and also made some improvments.

From the many new features we can mention some of them:

VGA Screen Support
Close Button
Control pannel applets support in the Smartbar Desktop
Advanced keyboard macroing
Task manager with CPU / Memory indicators
Process speed/priority controller
Command line support for the Screen Capture
Skin Support
http://www.teksoftco.com/index.php?section=smartbar
Lots of features, a lot to discover. Registered users of the first Smartbar version get the upgrade free.
More in the product description or at detailed info:
http://www.teksoftco.com/index.php?...artbar&tab=info

A new website has been built to improve the user experience. For this, the user registration present in the previous version of the website is removed, so that anyone is welcomed to benefit of the full content regardless of if he is logged in or not.
The new layout is simple and easy to use. Products are now 16 days trial versions and owner name based registration has been implemented. We conclude giving an open invitation to discover our new site. Everyone is more then welcomed to express his/her opinions related to this website upgrade on our Forum