I bought my first electronic organiser back in 1986 - a Psion Organiser II (Model CM) - and have had some form of electronic organiser (or PDA) ever since. I’m one of those people who could religiously write all my tasks and appointments in my paper diary... and then forget to look at the thing, for days, sometimes for weeks! So, for me, a PDA is primarily a glorified diary and to-do list but one with a far better concept of time than I have and which can remind me audibly. As a result I tend to think of my Xda as a PDA which just happens to be fitted with a phone, I still use and need it mainly to keep me up to date on my appointments and tasks schedules. I have to admit that I really am a pathetic sight when my PDA fails or can’t be found and I scurry round trying to work out what the hell I was supposed to be doing!

For me, the Today screen is one of the most important aspects of the device, indeed its very focal point. As anyone who’s seen the screen shots of my device will know, I like to cram as much information and functionality on to the Today screen as I can, particularly relating to what I am supposed to be doing on any given day. Over the last couple of years I’ve tried a number of Today plug-ins to display my tasks and appointments information - I’ve intended to do a comparative review for quite some time but just not found the time or opportunity.

I’ve never liked the in-built Calendar, Tasks and other MS Today plug-ins - like Pocket Outlook I think they really are quite pathetic. Initially I used tAgenda for displaying my appointments and tasks but found it had performance issues once a decent number of items were entered. After that and until recently I was pretty happy with the PIToday plug-in but, as the solo developer seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, there is no support for the product and so, looking for another alternative, I came to look at the popular PocketBreeze from SBSH.

When installed, PocketBreeze appears as a strip of buttons or toolbar across the today screen with a details area, or tab, below. The first button on the left is tab (view) specific, providing Grouping and Sorting or Searching facilities specific to each tab (see later). The next button is a Category Filter which allows the user to select one or more categories and limiting the display to only show items which contain the selected categories. The next button is for the Settings and displays the settings screen and finally comes the individual Tab buttons, a horizontally scrolling set of buttons, one per tab - Calendar, Tasks, Contacts (if ContactBreeze installed), Notes, Special Events, Mail and Custom (third party). A scroll bar is displayed to the right (or left if desired) when necessary. The button toolbar may be hidden or shown via the action button in the middle of the nav-pad, the up and down controls scroll the display vertically and the left and right controls can switch between the various tabs.

Calendar

The Calendar view (or tab) is, in my opinion, the most powerful and most useful of all the tabs. The tab enables the management of a user’s appointments and, optionally, tasks directly from the Today screen.

Between 1 and 30 days may be shown (empty days are optional), with appointments displayed in one of twelve different formats. The various layouts define what is and isn’t shown, such as end time, location, icons and so on. An extremely wide variety of customisations may be applied to the text of the appointments, including colour, font and size. These can be specifically controlled via the plug-in settings or they can be “inherited” from category or status settings of whatever PIM software is installed on the device.

Individual days may be displayed or hidden dependent on if they have any entries, day titles may also be customised and expand/collapse buttons can be used to hide or show individual days. Coloured status bars can be displayed next to each appointment to indicate the type of entry - busy, tentative, out of office or free - and clashing entries may be indicated either with these or on a mini timeline visible on each day title.

In addition to the appointments it is also possible to display tasks on the calendar tab (see below).

Using Tap and Hold on a day’s header displays the following popup menu:

• Create Appointment - opens the new appointment screen from the default PIM on the device.
• Appt. from template - displays a list of any defined appointments templates, selecting one creates a new appointment and applies the selected template.
• Create Task - opens the new task screen from the default PIM on the device.
• Task from template - displays a list of any defined task templates, selecting one creates a new task and applies the selected template.
• Collapse All/Expand All - collapses or expands all days displayed.
• Open Calendar - opens the default PIM on the calendar screen.
• Open Tasks - opens the default PIM on the tasks screen.
• Calendar... - displays a single month calendar from where a new date may be chosen to navigate to and load the screen for.

Tapping on the day’s header timeline (if enabled) causes a full width timeline dialog to be displayed. Dragging across the timeline selects a time range and a tap and hold on the selection displays a one item popup menu:

• Create Appointment - opens the new appointment screen from the default PIM on the device, with the date and time range filled in”.

Tap and Holding at the extreme right of the day header to display following popup menu:

• Settings - displays the settings dialog for configuring Pocket and ContactBreeze
• Minimise/Maximise - reduces the size of the plug-in to a minimum or restores it to it normal size
• Expand All - as above
• Collapse All - as above
• About - displays the PocketBreeze credits and version information

The behaviour of tapping, double tapping or tap and hold on an appointment is partially user configurable, either selecting the appointment, opening it to view, opening it in edit mode or displaying the following popup menu:

• Open Appointment - opens the appointment for viewing using the default PIM screen
• Delete Appointment - deletes the appointment
• Beam Appointment... - opens the beaming screen for sending the appointment via infrared or Bluetooth
• Reschedule... - displays the one month calendar dialog, selecting a date moves the appointment to that date
• Create Copy... - displays the one month calendar dialog, selecting a date creates on identical copy of the appointment on that date
• Modify - displays a sub-menu:
• Reminder... - displays a small dialog which permits the reminder time to be set, cancelled or adjusted
• Status - displays a sub menu showing the current status (Free, Busy, etc.) and allows it to be changed
• Private - sets or clears the private flag
• Complete - marks the appointment complete (PI only)
• Open Calendar - as above
• Open Tasks - as above
• Options... - opens the Settings screen, slightly confusing since it is called Settings in other menus (see above)

As indicated, tasks may also be displayed on the calendar tab. Again it is possible to apply a wide variety of formatting options to control how and where tasks appear, relative to the appointments. The layout, positioning, sorting and formatting of these is defined for both the calendar and tasks tabs. The common popup menu for tasks is detailed below in the tasks section.

The flexibility of the various display options is what makes the Calendar tab so powerful, enabling each user to tailor the display just the right amount of information in just the right way to maximise its value for their purpose.

Tasks

This tab specifically permits the management of a user’s tasks on the Today screen.

When the toolbar is displayed, the first button displays a menu which controls how the Tasks screen is to be displayed. Tasks are grouped in collapsible sets, with an expand/collapse button to the left of the first task in each group. The grouping and sorting menu is as follows:

• No grouping - tasks are simply listed in sort order
• Category - tasks are grouped by category (so may appear multiple times)
• Importance - grouped by high, normal on low priority
• ABC/123 Priority - grouped by the ABC/123 priority supported by Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion
• Completion - grouped as complete or incomplete
• Progress - grouped by due date relative to current date, e.g. Overdue, Next 7 days, Next 30 days, Undated
• Sensitivity - grouped as private or not private
• 1st Sort - applies the main sort order:
• Due Date
• Start Date
• Importance
• Completion
• Subject
• ABC/123 - Additional priorities supported by the third party PIMs
• Direction - Ascending/Descending
• 2nd Sort - as above for second level sort
• 3rd Sort - as above

As mentioned above, many task specific display options are common to both the Tasks tab and the tasks displayed on the Appointments tab.

The popup menu for Tasks is a task specific variation of the Appointments popup menu:

• Open Task - opens the task for viewing using the default PIM screen
• Delete Task - deletes the task
• Beam Task... - opens the beaming screen for sending the task via infrared or Bluetooth
• Reschedule... - displays the one month calendar dialog, selecting a date changes the due date of the task to that date
• Create Copy... - displays the one month calendar dialog, selecting a date creates on identical copy of the task with the due date set to that date
• Modify - displays a sub-menu:
• Date & Reminder... - displays a small dialog which permits the start date, due date and reminder time to be set, cancelled or adjusted
• Priority - displays and sets the priority to High, Normal or Low
• Private - sets or clears the private flag
• Open Calendar - as above
• Open Tasks - as above
• Options... - opens the Settings screen

The Tasks tab provides a very flexible and effective way of viewing and managing tasks with the additional benefits of not having to launch a separate application.

Notes

The Notes tab is used to view and manage Notes and Audio Notes (.wav audio) files.

As with the other tabs the first button of the toolbar controls the display details and displays the following menu:

• No Grouping - notes are simply listed according to the sort order.
• Folder - notes are shown in collapsible groups according to the folders they are stored in. I don’t like the fact, however, that notes in the “My Documents” folder are shown as “No Folder”, I think this has the potential to confuse some users.
• Progress - not really “by progress” so much as by date, since there is no concept of progress for a note. Notes are collected into date based groups such as Today, Yesterday Past 7 days, Past 30 days, Older, which are all based on the edit date of the Note.
• Type - groups the notes according to Notes and Alarm Notes.
• Sort - displays the following sort sub-menu and sorts the data according to selection:
• Title
• Modification Date
• Note Size
• Display - this sub-menu controls what is or is not displayed:
• Modification Date
• Note Size
• Audio Notes - shows or hides the Audio Notes

The popup menu displayed for notes themselves is quite limited in comparison to the other tabs, understandable since Notes have quite limited functionality:

• Open - opens the note for edit using the default PIM
• Duplicate - creates a copy of the selected note in the same location, prefixing it with “Copy of”
• Move/Rename... - displays a dialog which permits the note to be easily renamed and/or moved
• Delete - deletes the selected note
• Convert to Template - creates a template copy of the note for reuse later
• Send via E-Mail... - this presumably adds the note to a new e-mail. Unfortunately on my device it simply creates a completely empty e-mail but I suspect this is probably my device at fault
• Open Notes... - opens the Notes screen of the default PIM
• Options... - opens the Settings screen

The popup menu for the group headers is as follows:

• Create New Note - creates a new blank note
• New From Template - displays a sub-menu listing all the Notes templates, selecting one creates a new note containing the data from the template
• Expand/Collapse - as above
• Expand All/Collapse All - as above
• Open Notes - opens the Notes screen of the default PIM

If you are major user of notes and/or the in-built recorder then this tab will probably be of considerable value to you. It is a shame that it does not integrate directly with PhatWare’s PhatNotes, but perhaps this is an enhancement for the future; fortunately PhatWare have provided a Today plug-in which can be used in Custom tabs (see below) for the time being.

Mail

The Mail tab provides a simple today based interface to the Pocket PC messaging system. The tab displays one collapsible group per messaging account e.g. SMS, MMS, ActiveSync and one per ISP account set up on the device. The groups appear to represent the InBox of each account only, with other folders not available for display.

When expanded, a summary version of each mail item is displayed with an icon indicating the read status, the subject, sender, received date and the item size.

The popup menu for each group is quite small:

• Create E-mail - opens a new e-mail item in the selected group (account)
• Expand/Collapse - as above
• Expand All/Collapse All - as above
• Open InBox - opens the default e-mail application

The popup menu for the individual e-mail items provides limited functionality as follows:

• Preview Mail - displays a small window showing the mail item details and contacts
• Delete Mail - deletes the mail item after getting confirmation from the user

I dislike this option because it deviates from the default behaviour of the mail application which moves deleted items to the deleted items folder. I would prefer the delete function to at least have an option to replicate the deleted items behaviour

• Open InBox - as above
• Mark as Read/Unread - toggles the read indicator for the selected item
• Generate Task - displays the following sub-menu:
• Follow Up
• Reply

Both options create a task with subject and sender information as the text

• Options... - as above

Once again we have a tab which provides a quick access mechanism to a fundamental type of information on the Pocket PC. I do feel that it is a little lacking in functionality in comparison to the other tabs and I do dislike the delete mechanism but nonetheless this is a useful and beneficial tool.

Special Events

The Special Events tab provides a special case of the appointments tab. The settings enable anniversaries and birthdays to be automatically loaded for a given period of time and displayed with a countdown (“In nnn days:”) for each entry. In addition, filters can be set by category which enable other appointments to be added to the tab.

The popup menu for birthday and anniversary entries is contact based:

• Open Contact - as above
• Delete Contact - as above
• Beam Contact... - as above
• Open Calendar - as above
• Opens Tasks - as above
• Open Contacts - as above
• Options... - as above

The popup menu for appointment entries is as follows:

• Open Appointment- as above
• Delete Appointment- as above
• Beam Appointment... - as above
• Open Calendar - as above
• Opens Tasks - as above
• Modify - as above except for an additional option “Activate” which doesn’t seem to do anything on my device.
• Options... - as above

The Special Events tab is a very useful extension to the normal Calendar tab, allowing the user to create a special filtered version of appointments without the clutter of all the other information getting is the way.

Additional Tabs PocketBreeze is most effective when it is given the majority of the Today screen. So, what if you have some Today plug-ins which also occupy a large amount of screen space which you don’t want to give up to PocketBreeze? Fortunately SBSH have thought of that too. The latest version of PocketBreeze permits an effectively unlimited number of third party plug-ins to be added, unfortunately only one per tab but very useful nonetheless. This means that it is possible to give the maximum space over to PocketBreeze while having your other favourite plug-ins just a button press or screen tap away - a pretty good compromise I feel. It would be nice if more than one plug-in could be displayed on a tab but perhaps that may be an enhancement for the future.

Contacts

Note: Only available if the ContactBreeze add-in is installed.

This tab enables a user to search, view and manage their contacts from the Today screen of their device.

The initial view for contacts has the toolbar (if visible) across the top, the contacts, grouped by category and displayed in two columns (name and phone number) and an abc | def | ghi ... type search bar across the bottom. The toolbar has two buttons to the left of the filter button, the first enables/displays Full Mode, which I shall discuss later, and the second controls how the tab displays and groups the contacts and how the letter tabs function and it displays the following menu:

• Sequential search - this is similar in function to some telephone’s predictive text. Tapping the jkl tab matches to any j, k or l in a contact name, filtering out all non-matching records. Tapping the abc tab next will match the text letter to a, b or c and so on, so jkl abc abc would match to jack and slack and laboratory amongst others. This is very powerful and effective search method and reduces searching to perhaps three or four taps. It is unaffected by how the contacts are sorted as it matches to any part of the displayed name.
• Initial search - this is a far simpler search method where tapping each letter tab first matches the first letter of the tab to the start of the name, then the second letter and finally the third, before cycling back to the first. Tapping the def tab would therefore first display all the d’s, then the e’s, then the f’s and back to the d’s. This is obviously a quick but less effective method for searching since scrolling is potentially necessary and the exact form of the displayed name can have a major impact on search accuracy.
• Sort by Name - names are not grouped and are sorted alphabetically according the the display format.
• Sort by Company - names are grouped by company name and displayed in collapsible groups, one per company. This is effective only if the majority of contacts have company names, otherwise contacts are grouped together in the No Company group.
• Sort by Category - this option displays one group per category, so contacts may appear a number of times depending on how many categories each uses. Each category appears (in alphabetical order) as a collapsible section, this can be very useful if you use categories a lot.
• Show Recent - I presume this would show recently used contacts but I have yet to see any entries appear in it.

Once the desired contact has been displayed, the nav-pad may be used to perform additional functions such as dialing phone numbers.

Full Mode will appeal particularly to the T9 supporters amongst us but is of value to all users. When the Contacts tab is displayed with Full Mode enabled, the upper two thirds of the Today screen is taken over, including any third party products, for the display of the contacts list and the lower portion is used to display a 3×3 phone pad-like key pad showing all the letters of the alphabet is sets of three or four, plus a delete key. The functionality is just the same as the sequential search above, but the large buttons make the operation mode easier with one hand. Once the desired contact is visible the nav-pad may be used to perform dialling and other operations as with the sequential search above.

The popup menu for contacts is quite extensive. Note that some of these options are dependent on other third party applications(*):

• Open Contact - opens the contact for viewing using the default PIM screen
• Edit Contact - opens the contact for editing using the default PIM screen
• Delete Contact - deletes the selected contact
• Open Contacts... - opens the contacts screen of the default PIM
• Options... - opens the Settings screen
• File As - opens a sub-menu with a number of possible File As formats to set for this contact
• Dial Contact - displays a sub-menu of the various phone numbers for the contact and permits one to be selected for dialling
• Beam Contact... - opens the device’s Beam screen for sending the contact via Bluetooth or Infrared
• Add to CallerFirewall (*)
• Assign Photo (*)
• Photo View (*)
• Photo Contacts (*)
• Send Text Message
• Send via Bluetooth
• Save to SIM
• SIM Manager
• Call with Skype (*)
• O2 Dial Wizard (*)

The Contacts tab is excellent, providing a very powerful mechanism to quickly search for and locate contacts, with the additional benefits of being able to maintain them also.

Conclusion

PocketBreeze is an excellent addition to the Pocket PC, more than adequately filling the gaping hole left in the Today screen by Microsoft’s own pathetic PIM plug-ins, and Contact Breeze makes it even better. The flexibility of the interface and level of customisation available to the user, coupled with a very active support forum, mean that most users should be able to tailor these products to suit almost any need. Furthermore, both plug-ins have been engineered to a very high standard - I had not one issue with them in the entire time I was testing them and found them both to be extremely easy and intuitive to use.

I have already mentioned a couple of areas where I think some minor improvements could be made (mail delete, multiple plug-ins per Additional Tab), the only other ones I can think of would be:

• Automatic sizing of PocketBreeze - it is currently necessary to manually define (in pixels) now tall it is to be in both screen orientations
• Automatic switching filter switching based on work hours - a feature I miss from PIToday, it would switch my today screen between my Home and Work filters according to the day and time defined for my working hours in P.I.

I should point out, however, that PocketBreeze cannot make up for all the deficiencies of the in-built PIM on its own, it is after all primarily a Today plug-in. I do know of some users who use it as an alternative to the in-built PIM but I believe it is still necessary to complement it with either Pocket Informant on Agenda Fusion, since it is the default PIM which provides the edit screens that Pocket Breeze uses. I guess that if you don’t mind scrolling some very long screens, all with a drop-down list fetish, it won’t bother you but I for one think the in-built PIM edit screens are dreadful and a third party PIM is essential. Nonetheless, SBSH have gone a long way to improving the useability of the PocketPC with these plug-ins.

Note: This is all based on the WM2003 versions of the software. Dan was in the process of evaluating it on WM5 when his Atom croaked, I'll append his comments, etc. once it comes back from the repair shop and he can complete them.