Teksoft Smartbar

Teksoft Smartbar Application Review


Teksoft have released the latest version of their Smartbar application. Smartbar is not a Today plugin; the developer describes it as a “low level application”. It is an integrated suite of tools and utilities that promises to offer everything that is needed to make your device even smarter.


The market for system utilities is still one of the largest for PPC users. So what can Smartbar offer that the others can’t? Read on to find out.

Thanks to Raul Tinca of Teksoft for providing a review copy.

Supplier: Teksoft
Product: Smartbar Application
Cost: €25.00
(€20.00 till Feb 07)
Supplier Web Site:
www.teksoftco.com

Installing
Teksoft Smartbar has both a CAB installer for direct use on your Pocket PC and an EXE installer to use via Active Sync. I used the CAB file which installed with no problems. The CAB install was also tested on WM2003SE where it functioned properly.
However, originally installing via ActiveSync encountered problems with the software not reaching the device. After contacting the developer and receiving another copy of the EXE file the problem was still not resolved.
Unfortunately Smartbar is an all or nothing package; either install all the components or none of them. Selective installation would be useful.
Smartbar is currently only available in English.

Trial before purchase
Teksoft offer a fantastic 16 day try-before-you-buy trial.
The trial is not feature limited, but a fully working version for you to test all the functionality to make up your own mind before purchase.
There is also a nag screen that appears, when selecting any of the utilities for the first time, advising you of the remaining days left in the trial.

Registration
Registration is a very simple process. From Start> Programs, the user is able to select an application to register Smartbar. This is a rather novel way of registering the software, however a “register” button on the nag screen would have been useful too.

Initial Observations/Performance
It must be noted that after installation the device behaves in a "sluggish" manner. The only way I can describe this is the device response time is reduced, as if many applications are open on the device. This was experienced both on the WM5 (VGA) test device and a PocketPC 2003 device.
This was a big disadvantage of having the application installed. Delay times for running apps such as Media Player reached extremes such as 8 second delays.

Uninstall
After uninstalling the device had to be soft reset and all the program shortcuts were left behind.

System Tray
The System Tray is similar to a desktop PC taskbar. The date and time are displayed in a nice format with a useful colour coded battery indicator underneath.



Three buttons allow access to all the utilities of Smartbar:

• The first icon (see first image) accesses the menu of functions which will be discussed later in this review. It would be nice if shortcuts could be placed on the bar when the first icon has been pressed.



• The second icon (see second image - the cog) toggles the taskbar. This is a useful feature to see what tasks are running on the device. A lot of the icons are the default application icon because apps like SimPolicy do not have an icon.



By tapping and holding on the icons, you can get access to a menu with the full name for the running task. As shown in the third image, a sub-menu including its filename, the ability to kill the task, open the task and even start a new task is displayed. I found this a very useful feature to see what apps are running on my device.



• The third icon (see bottom image) displays the “desktop” – see below.



A nice feature of the System Tray is that it can be moved to any of the 4 edges of the screen for a truly customised feel. The system tray is scrollable.









At the Today Screen
As Smartbar is not a today plugin it co-exists perfectly with the standard Today plugins. By default, after installing the application, the standard date and time plugin is removed since these are displayed in the Smartbar System Tray.
Smartbar also co-exists properly with 3rd-party plugins (such as SPB Pocket Plus, as pictured).

The OK button is replaced with a familiar icon from the desktop PC, and the System Tray utility is visible.

Theme
After installation, the default theme of a charcoal grey startbar and green background is installed.

Screenshots from the developer show this as a full screen wallpaper, which it is in QVGA. However on my VGA device the wallpaper is not full screen. I was able to force the wallpaper to full screen only by changing themes to my default and then returning back. When switching themes back, the top and bottom bar colours were not changed back to Smartbar colours, but retained the colours from the previous theme.

Desktop
This was the most exciting feature when I first saw Smartbar. With one button press on the System Tray I was presented with a PC-style FULL SCREEN desktop! Backgrounds are included, however you can customise the background to another picture of your own if you so wish.
With the desktop, you are able to add your own favourite applications, arrange them anywhere on the screen with a snap to grid option. What pleased me most was the ability to add control panel options to the desktop, such as power, WiFi and backlight control panel settings – if it’s in the control panel you can add it!
Sadly, if the icon is not suitable for the desktop a default icon is used (lightbulb). This is reported as common on VGA devices. It would be useful if the icons could be customised by the user.
The auto-arrange assumes a single text line so icons overlap. This can be overcome by moving the icons or editing the text.



Close Button
The close button replaces the default “OK” button in the top right hand corner. At first this doesn’t appear to be anything new. Many developers have replaced the “close” button with a fully functional close, rather than minimise.
However the close button is fully customisable. I can choose close or minimise as well as using it as a task switcher and starting new tasks.

Ultra Keyboard
In my eyes this is an amazing utility. The Ultra Keyboard utility is unique to Smartbar. With the ability to create your own macros from typing it allows you to also increase your typing speed. The best way to describe this is like the “auto-complete” feature of MS Word on the desktop PC. I especially enjoyed the call number macro. I was able, from the Today screen, to telephone home just by typing CALL on the keypad! This gives you the ability to replace short words with full text, rotate the screen, perform a soft reset and even run applications just by a few keypad presses!

An excellent feature for speeding up regular tasks like entering web addresses, common phrases in text messages or simple screen capture from any application. However, this feature only works with the hardware keyboard! Very disappointing for those with touchscreen-only devices.

The triggers work anywhere – from the today screen, in another app like Word or when composing a text message. The trigger text must be chosen carefully to ensure it isn’t likely to be accidentally invoked!

Screen Capture
All screenshots in this review were captured using the inbuilt screen capture utility. The image opposite is as captured, the others have been rescaled to fit here. All screen sizes and resolutions are supported, including QVGA and VGA. You can select the destination folder, image quality, multishot mode (with frames per second easily adjusted) with the ability to save as BMP or JPG. JPG images can also be compressed, to save valuable space.
An excellent feature here is the zoom ability. Up to 200% for VGA snapshots!
A feature I didn’t fully test is the ability to run the screen capture from the command line. With a simple set of parameters, you can execute the screen capture utility. I was happy that a simple interface was provided for ease.
The capture delay is set at 10 seconds and is not configurable.

Task Manager
Task Manager is a useful component to the suite. With the ability to view all running apps (including hidden system level tasks) it is easy to close tasks as well as start new ones. A nice feature is the ability to export the task list as a *.CSV file (useful for technical support queries). It is also possible to “hide” and “show” tasks so that they don’t appear in the system tray if it becomes too cluttered. This is useful to get rid of apps that have the default icon.
The list displays the process name, whether it has a window or not, the title and class name as well as the amount of heap memory being used and the CPU load.
An unusual feature is the Process Priority settings. There is the added function of being able to change process priority to alter the CPU power for a given task. The documentation provided with Smartbar advises that there is safe protection for not so experienced users, however for the purpose of this review I ventured on! The example that I attempted was listening to an MP3 with WMP. I altered the advanced settings for Media Player to “slower” and the music was no longer played! Reducing priority for Internet Explorer stopped Word from loading.
I am sure that this part of Smartbar will appeal to those looking for customisable CPU power distribution when performing heavy multi-tasking but it must be used with considerable caution.

Task Manager in Smartbar is a very comprehensive application for task and process management. For example, it advised me “SimPolicy” was running (which even SPB PocketPlus didn’t advise me of!).



Network Tools
Included with Smartbar are two simple network tools – ping and trace.

Ping displays the result of success or failure with the timed response in seconds.

Trace-route nicely produces a report in Word (which opens after trace is completed).

Skins
Smartbar comes with the default green skin installed. However there is currently one additional free skin available.

Help
Smartbar has an online help file at the developers site. The same file is also installed with the application and is viewable in the browser. The help file is a well-presented document, however it is more of an overview of the application rather than a how to guide.

Support
There is an active forum on the developer’s website. As well as supporting the current features and dealing with customer queries the developer is responsive to feature requests.

Compatibility
Teksoft Smartbar is compatible with WM2003 and WM5. There are installers for VGA and QVGA but not for square screen devices. For this review it has been tested on Windows Mobile 5, in both landscape and portrait modes. It is also available for Pocket PC 2003 with separate installation files, which had only very limited testing.

Summary
Pros
6 utilities in one!
PC style desktop
Easy installation – rather than installing 6 separate apps
Comprehensive task manager with exportable task list
Guide included
Flexible keyboard macros
Exports trace route reports to Word
16 day free trial available
Choice of skins
Forum support available online from developer


Cons
Device feels very sluggish after install
No custom install (to remove elements not required)
Keyboard macros only work with hardware keypad
Help documentation is more of an overview than a manual
Skins not displayed correctly (on VGA)
Screen capture delay not configurable
Uninstall leaves icons behind



Conclusion

4WinMobile Rating : 65%

Teksoft Smartbar would be ideal for a user who wants a little bit of everything with simple installation. Yes, applications can be sourced to perform most of the functionality that this offers, but for someone new to the Pocket PC or just wanting one “must have” utility app, on a budget, then this appears to be it. However, I must recommend a thorough trial to see if you can live with the sluggishness. For those users who want something slick and are willing to spend the time installing and configuring separate pieces of software, I feel that Smartbar is not going to be satisfactory. With a free unlimited trial available for 16 days and a special offer price of €20.00 until February 2007, Smartbar is definitely worth a look for those wanting an integrated utility suite.