SBSH Papyrus 2.0 Pre-Release Beta

SBSH Papyrus 2.0 Pre-Release Beta

Introduction

Calendar & Task management applications have grown into another niche area within the Windows Mobile market, extending the functionality & power of the device way beyond the abilities of the standard built-in calendar & task offerings.

SBSH are bringing a reworked version of their PIM replacement offering for the Windows Mobile Standard (Smartphone) platform to the fore. Can Papyrus 2.0 compete with the likes of Pocket Informant & Agenda fusion! Read on to find out!

Supplier SBSH Product SBSH Papyrus 2.0 Cost $24.95 (12 day full-feature trial available) $7.95 for registered users (following upgrade rules at SBSH) Supported OS Windows Mobile 5 Standard (smartphone) or later Supplier Web Site SBSH.net Product Web Site SBSH (tba)

4WinMobile would like to thank Avishay Naamat & SBSH for the opportunity to participate in the Papyrus 2.0 beta programme and review their latest smartphone offering. It should be noted that the review is based on a Pre-Release beta where there may be diferences and improvements to the fully released product.

Feature Highlights

Define unlimited 'MyText' fields for appointments & Tasks

Three level sort functionality

Easy contact information insert

Month at-a-glance view with quick list for current day

Completely customisable inteface

This version of Papyrus is a second version of the WM Standard product offering, which means that it will not run on Windows Mobile Professional touch-screen devices. I must admit to not having used Papyrus prior to the invite to join what was the beta programme for version 2. So, from my perspective, Papyrus 2 is a new application as I have no original frame of reference to which to relate it!


Installation

Installation of Papyrus is a snap & pretty much standard Windows Mobile fare, although the finished product my be packaged slightly differently from the Pre-release Beta's I have been using over the last few weeks. I chose to use the Papyrus installer. I simply double-clicked on the installer application and sat back while it did all the work. There are no issues here, simple & straight-forward, just how it should be done!

Views

Let's jump right in and start at the core functionality of the application. Papyrus delivers a complete set of customised views, allowing you to visualise your PIM data the way you want or maybe aligned to the way you work...

Daily View The daily view displays your agenda items in a chronological order, showing not only the subject but also the location and appointment time-slot details. Along the top left edge of the view you can see a small calendar icon with a number next to it. This signifies the number of appointments that have been created, the next icon is the task icon, which displays the number of tasks assigned for a particular day. Further to the right there is a day timeline bar, this provides a graphical representation of the appointment slots across the day.

Next we move on to the List View The list view displays your appointments in a single line stream. Only the subject line is displayed, prefixed by the start time of the appointment. Multi-day appointments show a start time of M.D - quite logical really, even I knew what it meant without having to look it up! Within the List view we get a clearer look at the icons. The Man & Woman icon signifies an appointment with attendees, the notepaper and drawing pin indicate there is a text entry, the rotating green arrows show you that the appointment is recurring and last but not least, the bell icon. Once again, I didn't need to read up on what that one was for as, of course it's the reminder icon. Once again in this view, we see the timeline & calendar icons within the individual day title bar.

Weekly View This view gives you an at-a-glance look at your agenda for the complete week, just as the name suggests. The current day is highlighted by what is known as a pop-out view in the configuration, drawing your eye to it at a glance. A lot of information is displayed: the start time, subject line and icons all appear, although with the limited screen real estate on a smartphone, only 4 agenda items are actually displayed in each weekday pane. To get at the rest of the info for the particular day in question, simply click on the DPAD action button. Within the weekly view navigating between days is achieved by using the left & right directonal controls on the DPAD, whilst cycling back and forth through the weeks is achieved by using the up & down directional control. The weekly view is definitely the most crowded data-wise, but it still definitely has its place in that it is extremely useful for a quick overview.

Monthly View More interested in a month at a glance? Well, Papyrus provides this for you as well. Selecting the Monthly View displays the days of the current month on the left, with the current day exploded out in the pop-out view. To the right of the screen is a concise list of the currently highlighted day's appointments. As per previous views, navigation is via the DPAD, utilising all 4 directions. Using the DPAD action key to click onto a highlighted day will take you into the daily view for that day. A nice touch in this view is that the day of the week is shown across the top, with the week number within the year prefixing each line. Once again, very useful for a quick overview glance at your PIM data.

Task View Last but not least, we arrive at the Task View. As the name suggests, this view allows you to see your tasks in all their glory. This view is highly customisable, giving you complete flexibility on how to display your tasks. The sort menu option offers a 1st, 2nd & third level sort ability and, as you can see from the screenshot my preferred option is to sort on category. This suits me as I always file my tasks into different categories and rarely ever use a dated task at all. The view option allows you to select which tasks to view based on status, with an impressive list of status types to choose from. For me, it's always active tasks. In my opinion, there's not much mileage in displaying the completed ones!!

PIM Data Management

This section takes a look at how Papyrus can be used to manage PIM data on the device itself, a pretty essential requirement for the ardent road-warrior.

Creating a new appointment Creating an appointment from within Papyrus is a simple affair. Simply select the menu soft-key and take the 'New Appt' option. The menu is available from the majority of views, apart from Tasks & Search. Once selected, the new appointment input screen is displayed in a rather nice animation that sweeps across the screen from left to right. All the usual elements are there: subject, location, start & end time, regular/all day event, reminder, normal/private, status, recurring, categories, attendees and notes. This gives you complete control over creating your appointment. A nice touch is that, as you move through each element, its title is displayed in the device title bar, which is a great help if like me, you are easily distracted and forget what you are doing. You have the option of either typing the start & end dates in manually as you create the appointment or, as I prefer, click on the DPAD action button and up pops a date selector menu showing the current month. This makes choosing the date a cinch! The same facility is available for the start & end times. Clicking the DPAD action button pops up a time selector screen, allowing you to navigate through to the required hours and minutes. Navigating the dates & times in this manner is a key requirement for one-handed operation and Papyrus handles it admirably.

Creating a new task Once you've created a new appointment in Papyrus, you are already home & dry. Creating a new task is a very similar process. Simply select New Task from the menu after which you are presented with the task entry screen, which in all honesty is pretty much similar to the new appointment entry screen, albeit with fewer elements. Creating a task gives access to the same features found when creating an appointment. You can input start & end dates maually, or click through to use the date & time selectors. As with tasks in Outlook, you can set a priority which can then be used in setting up your views. The configurable elements are Subject, Start & End date, Reminder, Occurence, Priority, Category & Notes. Cetegory is of key importance to me here, as it is the category field that I use to sort my tasks into a usable list.

Text Entry A common facility across both appointment & task entry is the Extended Text Entry function. On selecting the notes/text field when entering or editing, you are presented with the Extended Text Entry Menu, which offers three options to choose from. Insert MyText Field allows you to quickly select from pre-defined text elements. Papyrus comes with a few handy defaults pre-loaded, or you can choose to setup your own text templates from the menu. Insert Contact does exactly what it says on the tin and allows you to select and insert contact details, a very handy function that I have found myself using frequently. Full Screen Editor, needs no explanation really. As it says, this takes you to a full input screen where you can enter text directly.

Goto Date Another very useful function is the Go to Date option that can be found within the menu on all appointment views. Selecting Goto from the menu presents you with a nice graphical selection screen with a number of options to choose from. Most are self-explanatory: selecting Prior Month transports you to the current day in the previous month, Today moves you to the current point in time, Following month jumps you to the current day a month in the future, Prior year & Following year work along the same lines and move you to the current day 1 year in either direction. Taking the Select Date option presents you with the ability to key in your own required date or, if you prefer, click on the DPAD action button and the magical date select swooshes in from the right hand side allowing you to make a point & shoot selection.

Configuration

Papyrus is a highly configurable application. SBSH have striven to give you complete control over the application setup, allowing you to customise it to suit you.

General Settings The general settings tab gives you control over the generic features of the application that apply across the board. Here you can set options such as the first day of the week, the default reminder setting that you wish to use when creating appointments and tasks, and the default duration for appointments. An interesting option introduced in Papyrus is called Human Time. This option allows you to define the end of the day to be past 24:00. This would be extremely useful if maybe you work shifts, where a night shift crosses more than one day. Utilising this funtion would then allow appointments to be shown accordingly within that period.

Daily View Settings Next we foray into the view settings. First up is the Daily View and here Papyrus gives you control over how the information is presented on your device screen; you can customise a multitude of settings to match your requirements. Setting a smaller text size will mean that you can see more appointment information within the daily view. For me, I set it to the smallest as I like to see as much information as possible. Other settings allow you to control features like the Pop Out Effect which highlights the currently selected by making it stand out from the crowd. Would you like to see passed appointments struck out, or would you prefer them to be hidden? Both options are possible. Maybe your thing is to see as much appointment information as possible on one screen? Then simply enable single line mode, which will display only the subject lines rather than a preview of the appointment itself.

List View Settings The majority of settings are common across all of the views, so moving forward I will just highlight the differences/additions within each view. The List View Settings screen has an extra configuration element in that you can set the view to display empty days within the appointment list. I have this set on so that I can see where I have a clear day (doesn't usually happen mind!!) free of appointments.

Weekly View Settings Within the Weekly View settings you can control whether the view starts on the current day or at the beginning of week using the start day defined in the general settings. You can also select a vertical layout, which swaps the orientation of the navigation within the view, rather than the defualt of using the left/right action of the DPAD to move through the days and the up/down action to cycle through the weeks. Setting this option reverses that to use the up/down action to move through the days with the left/right action to cycle through the weeks. I found this setting to be far more intuitive for me in my use of the program.

Monthly View Settings The Monthly View is slightly different from the other view settings in that it doesn't give you control of the text size, which is probably a good thing! You can toggle the quick view list that sits to the right of the screen on & off, include timelines, category icons or both in the monthly view - although I hadn't set up any category icons to test this in my use of the application. You can enable scrolling by weeks, hide empty timelines and include or exclude week numbers as well as set which day in the month to start the view from. Once again you are given an incredible amount of control over the application display.

Tasks View Settings The tasks view settings pane offers many of the configurable elements that we have seen in previous views, such as the ability to set the text size and the date format. Apart from that the only other configurable item is the preview pane, which you can toggle on and off accordingly. Selecting the preview pane option will split the task view screen in two, displaying more information about the currently selected task in the lower half of the window. It isn't an option I use, as I prefer to see more of my task list on the screen in the task view.

Calendar Tasks Settings The Calendar Tasks settings pane allows you to control whether your task list is integrated into the calendar views. The first option is a simple toggle to turn the functionality on & off. Should you choose to use this function, you can then push on and customise the tasks view. You can choose to include or exclude undated, overdue, active or completed tasks as well as customing three levels of sort to match you requirements. Last but not least, you can choose to have Papyrus ask for confirmation on completing tasks from the calendarised views, essential in my opinion if, like me, you sometimes click on the wrong items!!

Color Settings Papyrus also gives you more control over the visual impact of the application by allowing you to modify the colour attributes of the elements within each individual view. So, if you are into customisation, you won't be left wanting here. Use of colour can make elements of your PIM data stand out, allowing you to focus on the information you need at a glance, essential in today's busy world.

Licensing

When registering an application from SBSH you are granted with a per user licence. This means the same application can be installed on several devices as long as all devices are used by the same user. Additionally, when replacing your device with a new model, you can carry your registration from your older device without having to register your applications once again.

This has to be one of the best licensing models I've seen in a long time. SBSH grant you total flexibility here, and if you are a serial PDA owner like myself, then this does offer exceptional value for money!

Pro's


Highly Customisable Views
Excellent Monthly view allowing a one glance overview
Small application footprint at 1.73Mb
Predefined Text Insert


Con's


Cannot select Meeting Attendees from Corporate directory


Conclusion

After using Papyrus for a couple of weeks now, I must say that I am impressed. In my opinion Papyrus 2.0 feels like a much lighter weight application when compared to the well known PIM replacement that is Pocket Informant. Papyrus just deals with Appointments & Tasks and I have found that this focus suits me in the way I use my device.

The graphical presentation is excellent. I like the animation as the selected views swoosh from right to left across the screen. This is very in keeping with today's slick user interfaces. However, if this isn't your thing, you are provided with the ability to turn the feature off.

SBSH have worked hard to make Papyrus incredibly configurable, allowing the user to customise almost every aspect of the application's operation to suit their taste and that should definitely be commended.

Do I have a wish list item that I would like to see SBSH take up? In fact I do! I'd love to see a version of Papyrus for the Windows Mobile Professional Platform!!!

In my use of the pre-release beta, I didn't come across any issues or bugs that halted my use or affected my data, but all along the way during the beta programme SBSH have been hard at work behind the scenes adding improvements as they move towards a formal release date. Speaking of release dates, whilst not confirmed by SBSH at the present moment in time, Papyrus 2.0 is definitely on its way!!