Scrolling appointment plug in

[Guest mzh-arizona]

Howdy, Mr. Sullivan.

I just purchased the plug-in from Handango and I wanted to say thanks, I've been looking for a plugin to replace the MS one for some time.

I wondered if you were taking feature requests.. I was hoping it might be possible to add a label variable which would allow me to show the bell icon if the appointment has a reminder.

I realize there is probably a limited audience for this request as most appointments probably have alarms, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks for the great plugin.

Ron.

[Guest Weaweil]

Hi sullivanpt,

First off, great app. I purchased it today (v1.9) from Handigo and I love the concept. The problem I have is the Memory Leak. In you know bugs file you mention that there is a slow memory leak "2MB per 24 hour" however I unfortunately am going from about 8.05MB to >1MB in about 20 minutes, thus causing the phone to need to be restarted. (SMT5600)

I suppose it could be the number of entries in my calendar, I literally have thousands of items in my calendar for the entire year and hundreds of re-occuring appointments. (I live by my outlook calendar for work)

Unfortunatly at this time I have to remove your app until hopefully the next version. With the app removed, Smartmonitor reports the memory of the phone stable and not dropping.

-Weaweil

Edited January 3, 2005 by Weaweil

[Guest sullivanpt]

mzh-arizona, yes icons are possible. i added it to the desireable feature list. thanks for the idea.

weaweil, i'm very sorry about the memory leak. This one has been getting the better of me for months now. You are the first to report that the problem gets worse with more appointments; this is useful information. How many appointments do you normally have per day?

Thank for all the great feedback, keep it coming!

Patrick

[Guest arman68]

Great plugin. I think your shareware/freeware model could be improved though to gain more exposure. At the moment the freeware version is good to show the capabilities of the plugin, but that's all.

IMHO it would be much better if the freeware version did not have any watermark, but instead had restrictions like limited features and nag screen. Eg: no automatic scrolling, instead only manual scrolling, plus nag screen before going to the calendar app, and maybe non removable short message in the plugin text when the phone is started. That way your plugin could be included in homescreen designs which are distributed on this site or others; as it is now, nobody would distribute a homescreen which includes a plugin which you HAVE to buy to make it usable. Take a look at Oxios: their homescreen plugin is very usable, and has been included in lots of http://www.modaco.com/viewforum.php?f=43>homescreens, thus getting them some valuable exposure.

[Guest rpitera]

Super plugin Patrick, I just purchased after demoing and reading through all the tips here. I'm still tweaking it a bit, but it definitely fills the bill. Thanks to the other folks here for all the good advice in formatting.

I hope to show you what I ended up with once I am finished.

BTW, the price was a big determiner for going ahead and registering it!

[Guest sullivanpt]

weaweil, I had another test idea regarding the memory leak and your situation. If you have time to try it, could you turn off recurring appointments in the plug in and see if it helps your phone last longer than 20 minutes between reboots? Thanks in advance. The minimal XML to do this is

<plugin clsid="{1BC4FD2C-5B25-4f34-A4A8-58915667BF3D}" show-recurring="false">

</plugin>

arman68, I'm not married to the watermark -- I was trying to get a model that met everyone's needs but still encouraged people to throw a little donation my direction. I'd be happy to put together a different feature limited freeware version that uses the same class ID if you wanted to use it for the purposes of designing your own home screens.

rpitera, It's the encouraging feedback like yours that pleases me most. O:) I can't wait to see your design!

[Guest Weaweil]

weaweil, I had another test idea regarding the memory leak and your situation.  If you have time to try it, could you turn off recurring appointments in the plug in and see if it helps your phone last longer than 20 minutes between reboots?  Thanks in advance.  The minimal XML to do this is

Sure thing Sullivanpt. I will give this a try tomorrow. Do you want me to use the 1.9 that I downloaded from Handago?

[Guest Weaweil]

Early results are promising with the above change. After 30 min memory is holding at 36% and not dropping. I will update later in the day with more information.

[Guest sullivanpt]

Thank you Weaweil. The include recurrences API has been a source of immeasurable grief for me. I'm actually glad to hear your problem might be related. Maybe all the problems will go away at once with the right magic fix. I intend to spend one of my (very expensive) MS support incidents on that API this quarter. Keep your fingers crossed!

O:)

[Guest rpitera]

Well I think I'm finally getting a handle on this XML, but I am having one problem.

I use Power Calendar as my calendaring app and if I put this in the XML as the launch variable, it launches Power Calendar fine, but it doesn't go to the event that I scroll to, e.g. I have an appointment tomorrow 1/6/2004. If I scroll to it (or any other appointment) when I launch it Power Calendar launches with today's date.

Is this a feature that hasn't been implemented yet or am I doing something wrong?

BTW, I have 20 or so recurring appointments and have not had any of the memory or battery problems mentioned. I'm using FW 1.30 if that's of any help...

Edited January 5, 2005 by rpitera

[Guest rpitera]

Oh here's the screen I'm working on now; also have a matching LCD and Missed Calls screen for it. If it ever gets done, I'll be glad to make it available. Assuming anyone wants it ....

Uses RJShortcut, SmartMonitor and Ruttensoft Designer Plugs and of course the Appointment Scroller.

Edited January 5, 2005 by rpitera

[Guest sullivanpt]

That's a beautiful background image. can't wait to see the final product! I also see your taking Japanese I :) which is quite ambitious! My New Year's resolution for 2005 is to learn conversational Latin American Spanish.

it doesn't go to the event that I scroll to, e.g. I have an appointment tomorrow 1/6/2004. 

No, that's not supported, and I'm not aware of an API in any calendar application that would let the plug in do that. If you know of one please send me the information and I'll be happy to add it to the to do list!

[Guest rpitera]

Thanks for the positive feedback; I'm still working on it, but it's got most of what I want, especially with the addition of your plug.

Good luck on Latin American Spanish, I think learning another language is a great resolution (apparently, since I'm doing the same thing)! I hope I'm not too old to learn at 43 though; I took Spanish when I was a kid, and I remember so little of it. But every attempt to learn Japanese on my own has been frustrating so I broke down and am going to the Community College on Saturdays.... Japanese I then one Saturday off and Japanese II until late May. I better be able to at least order sushi and flirt with the waitress. :)

Regarding the calendar (non)issue - according to the user guide, Power Calendar doesn't in fact support this. However they are working on a new release which will include a http://www.modaco.com/viewforum.php?f=43>home screen PLUG-IN.....hmmmmmmm

How much you wanna bet it scrolls????

Anyway, at that point it should be available via the API. I'll keep you updated.

Thanks for all your help, and for taking the time to write something so useful and then charge such a reasonable price for it. You rock.

[Guest nick123]

Hi, Sullivanpt!

I tried your scrolling appointments plug-in - it's really great because it allows me to see upcoming appointments as well as giving me the flexibility to go to Papyrus rather than the awful MS calendar program -well done.

But honestly I find the scrolling function awkward and too difficult to set the right timings - I'm not sure if the scrolling concept is the best way to find quickly a future appointment....you have to wait too long for it to come round. Is it possible to have a version that doesn't scroll at all? - one that stays at the nearest upcoming future appointment, and where you can simply use the joystick to jump to further appointments in the future? This would be the most practical for me.

Thanks,

Nick

[Guest rpitera]

Hi, Sullivanpt!

I tried your scrolling appointments plug-in - it's really great because it allows me to see upcoming appointments as well as giving me the flexibility to go to Papyrus rather than the awful MS calendar program -well done.

But honestly I find the scrolling function awkward and too difficult to set the right timings - I'm not sure if the scrolling concept is the best way to find quickly a future appointment....you have to wait too long for it to come round. Is it possible to have a version that doesn't scroll at all? - one that stays at the nearest upcoming future appointment, and where you can simply use the joystick to jump to further appointments in the future? This would be the most practical for me.

Thanks,

Nick

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Have you tried setting the scrolling parameters to "0"?

[Guest nick123]

Yes, I've tried both scroll speed and timer at 0, it still scrolls, albeit very slowly.

Anyone know how to stop it completely? I've tried removing the whole "scrolling-speed" & "scrolling-timer" phrases, but that just makes it scroll fast.

The other thing is that, if you have an appointment that lasts over several days, you have to click for each day in order to move forward - is there any way of jigging it so that a block entry like this is regarded as just one appointment?

Nick

[Guest sullivanpt]

Yes, I've tried both scroll speed and timer at 0, it still scrolls, albeit very slowly.

Anyone know how to stop it completely? I've tried removing the whole "scrolling-speed" & "scrolling-timer" phrases, but that just makes it scroll fast.

As designed, you should be able to set the "scroll-speed" attribute to 0 to disable automatic scrolling (setting "scroll-timer" to zero or removing the scrolling paramters has the effect of using the default values, which isn't what you want). The following snippet illustrates. I don't actually use this no scroll mode myself :D but I'm told it works. Let me know if you find otherwise.

<plugin clsid="{1BC4FD2C-5B25-4f34-A4A8-58915667BF3D}" scroll-speed="0"  launch="papyrus.lnk" >

</plugin>

The other thing is that, if you have an appointment that lasts over several days, you have to click for each day in order to move forward - is there any way of jigging it so that a block entry like this is regarded as just one appointment?

Nick

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You've found a bug. :oops: I will fix it.

Thanks for all the support!

Patrick

[Guest nick123]

Thanks, Patrick, your suggested code works just great...... it snaps back to the current day when you're through scrolling about and it stays there.

Is there a way of making it snap back not to the current day but to the next forthcoming event? This would be really great because sometimes I have no appointments at all, and a screen telling me "no upcoming appointments" isn't that useful.

If this is possible, plus a fix for the several-day events, then I'll definitely buy it to get rid of those nasty pink stripes!

Nick

PS minor point (won't stop me buying it), but can the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc) be added to the top date line somehow?

[Guest sullivanpt]

Is there a way of making it snap back not to the current day but to the next forthcoming event? This would be really great because sometimes I have no appointments at all, and a screen telling me "no upcoming appointments" isn't that useful.

Add show-noevent="false" as in the following code snippet. (This is another feature I don't use, but I'm told works :D Let me know if it doesn't).

<plugin clsid="{1BC4FD2C-5B25-4f34-A4A8-58915667BF3D}" scroll-speed="0" show-noevent="false" launch="papyrus.lnk" >

</plugin>

PS minor point (won't stop me buying it), but can the day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc) be added to the top date line somehow?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is a popular request! Yes, I've added it to my to do list.

Thanks again for the valuable feedback,

Patrick

[Guest nick123]

Thanks - just tried the 'no-event = false' additon, but it ignores all-day events and goes to the next timed appointment. Is there a way of it settling on the nearest event be it either all day or timed, please?

It's good that there's support for the showing the weekday - I hope you can find a way to do it (obviously for events over several days, the day of the week isn't needed, and anyway I don't think there will be enough space).

Nick

[Guest rpitera]

BTW, I have 20 or so recurring appointments and have not had any of the memory or battery problems mentioned.  I'm using FW 1.30 if that's of any help...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Patrick-

Looks like I may have spoke too soon; after leaving on battery since 9:30 EST, around 5:00PM EST I noticed my time was off by about an hour. By 6:00, the time on the EXT LCD and the one displayed on the HomeScreen were BOTH off, and by VASTLY different amounts.

Wondering what was going on, I looked at the SmartMonitor RAM guage and found it pinned at 5-7%. Battery pwer, btw was UNaffected. A quick reset cleared everything up, but I knew I should tell you about it - better to have a consistent bug then a spotty one, eh? :roll:

Edited January 9, 2005 by rpitera

[Guest sullivanpt]

nick123, no, at present it won't stop at all day events as the next upcoming. I can add option to do this easily if you want that.

rpitera, thanks for keeping me up to date. Is there any chance yesterdays RAM problem was related to something other than the scroller? What is the longest you've run between low RAM conditions with the scroller plug in on your screen and recurring appts. disabled?

Thanks for all the feedback. You're really keeping me busy! :D

[Guest mzh-arizona]

Howdy.

I noticed something odd in the display today.

I have set my plugin as you specify above to automatically return ("snapback") to the next appointment after I manually scroll.

When I first unlock my phone (keylock) the plugin displays the next allday appointment for a half second then goes to the next scheduled appointment. The all day appointment occurs before the next scheduled appointment.

Occasionally it repeats this cycle, showing the allday appointment then the next scheduled appointment. I don't know if this is a product of the homescreen refreshing or something else.

As I mentioned above, I am using the snapback feature. I was wondering if in the the next upgrade you could program a way we could set the length of the delay to our preferences.

Also, when it does snap back it acts as I mentioned above: showing the next allday appointment, then cycling to the next scheduled appointment. I don't know if this is a product of the homescreen refreshing or something else.

Thanks.

Ron.

Edited January 10, 2005 by mzh-arizona

[Guest mzh-arizona]

..oops, forgot to mention something.

I actually prefer that the plugin skips the allday appointments - most of my allday appointments are either holiday or birthday reminders.

Thanks, again.

Ron.

[Guest nick123]

nick123, no, at present it won't stop at all day events as the next upcoming.  I can add option to do this easily if you want that.

rpitera, thanks for keeping me up to date.  Is there any chance yesterdays RAM problem was related to something other than the scroller?  What is the longest you've run between low RAM conditions with the scroller plug in on your screen and recurring appts. disabled?

Thanks for all the feedback.  You're really keeping me busy! :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, please - I would very much like it to stop at all-day events: perhaps I'm being an "awkward customer", but what I would really like is for it to stop at the first event, whether it be a timed one or all-day. The way Microsoft have set up the Calendar generally, in Outlook on a PC and in PocketPC/Smartphone, is quite odd, I think - what's the big deal between all-day entries and ones with times beside them? - I can't understand why they are treated like two competely separate beasts.

Nick