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Figure 1 - Initial Screen |
Figure 2 - Main Controls |
Listmaker
Version 1.6
Checklist program for the Pocket PC devices
ScaryBear Software
www.scarybearsoftware.com
Introduction
If you need checklists to help remember what to pack on a business trip or what to buy at the grocery store, then Listmaker is the application for you! With Listmaker you can easily create multiple lists and sort them manually, alphabetically, or by their checked off status. You can also specify certain items in the list to be invisible when they are not needed for a particular list display. Listmaker was designed to use a "virtual display" so scrolling through very long lists can be quick!
Installation
To install Listmaker, run the listmaker_install.exe file found in the Listmaker.zip file (that you downloaded from the online vendor or the ScaryBear Software web site) on your Desktop PC. This will install Listmaker on your Pocket PC and add a few entries to your Registry file.
Upgrading
If you are upgrading from version 1.2 or older, please note that the list encryption feature has been removed from version 1.3. Too many users were having problems with this feature, so we replaced it with a basic password system. Your listed items are no longer encrypted, however, they won't be displayed on the screen unless you enter the correct password. If you currently have encrypted lists in your ListMaker database, you will need to unencrypt these lists before upgrading to ListMaker version 1.3. Otherwise, you won't be able to view these lists unencrypted.
Usage
Using Listmaker is very easy and intuitive. When you first start up Listmaker, you'll see a blank list as shown in Figure 1. The functionality of the control buttons in the main menu bar is labeled in Figure 2.
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Figure 1 - Initial Screen |
Figure 2 - Main Controls |
The two main menu selections are shown in Figures 3 and 4.
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Figure 3 - File menu selections |
Figure 4 - Options menu selections |
To start, you need to create a new list by tapping on the "New List" icon in the menubar or selecting "New List..." from the "File" menu item. Doing so will cause a popup dialogbox to appear asking for the new list name (Figure 5). After typing in a list name and tapping the OK button, a new list will be created and ready for you to start adding entries.
Figure 5 - Creating a New List
There are two ways of adding items to a new list: (1) Manually enter each item, (2) Import a list of items from a text file. To manually enter item, you can either tap on the "New Entry" icon in the menubar or select "New Entry" from the "File" menu item. Doing so will cause a small editbox to appear in the main window for you to fill in with your entry label (Figure 6). Tapping the return button will complete the entry being added to the list database.
Figure 6 - Manually Entering an Entry
To import a list of entries from a standard text file, you can select "Import List..." from the File menu which will display a dialogbox from which you can select a text file containing a list of entries as illustrated in Figure 7. Figure 8 shows the imported entries in Listmaker.
Figure 7 - Text file for importing into a list |
Figure 8 - Imported entries |
Once you've created entries in a list, you can easily make changes to a specific entry by using your stylus to tap-n-hold on an item on the list, and a popup menu will appear (as shown in Figure 9).
Figure 9 - Popup Menu
You can move entries around in a list by using the stylus to tap-n-drag on an entry in the list moving it to a new position. Figure 10 shows the blue insert line you would see when moving a entry by the dragging method. Note, the dragging option will only work when there is no sorting option active (to be discussed later).
Figure 10 - Moving a entry by dragging method
You can also select a preferred sort for the entries displayed from the "Options" menu. Selecting "Alphabetic Sort" will cause the items in the list to be displayed alphabetically (Figure 11). Selecting "Checked Sort" will sort the entries such that the check entries are move to the bottom of the list (Figure 12). When either the alphabetic or checked sorting is active, you cannot perform a dragging operation on a entry or select the "Insert" item in the popup menu.
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Figure 11 - Alphabetical Sorting |
Figure 12 - Checked Sorting |
In some cases, you may want to make certain items in your list temporarily invisible. To do so, you can select "Visible" from the popup menu for a selected item which will change it's visibility. To identify which items you have make invisible, you can select "Options->Color Items->Visible" from the main menu ( Figure 13) which will color the invisible entries in the list (Figure 14). Now if you select "Options->Visible Only" from the main menu (Figure 4) you will see only the "visible" entries in the display (Figure 15).
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Figure 13 - Coloring Invisible Entries |
Figure 14 - Invisible Entries Colored |
Figure 15 - Only Visible Entries Displayed |
You can also have the checked entries colored in the display by selecting "Options->Visible->Checked", which would produce a display as shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16 - Colored checked entries
Listmaker has an option to protect the contents of your lists with a password. For example, if you have a list of passwords as shown in Figure 17, you can select "Options->Set Password" from the main menu which will bring up the password dialogbox (Figure 18). After entering a single word password, the list entries will be replaced with the string "PASSWORD PROTECTED" (Figure 19).
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Figure 17 - List to Encrypt |
Figure 18 - Entering Password |
Figure 19 - Encrypted Entries |
If you want to change the password of a list, select "Options->Set Password" again and you'll see the dialog as shown in Figure 19b.
Figure 19b - Changing a Password
Please note, that your list information is not encrypted in the ListMaker database file. Instead, it will only be displayed if the correct password is entered.
Selecting the "Options->Settings" menu item will bring up Listmaker's settings panel (Figure 20). Here you can specify the background color of a list, main text color, highlight text color, and visiblity text color. Tapping on any of the color buttons will bring up a color picker as displayed in Figure 21. Note, that background and text color is unique for each list database you create. By default, Listmaker will use the last defined set of colors for newly created lists.
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Figure 20 - Settings Panel |
Figure 21 - Color Picker Tool |
In the Settings panel you can also specify if you want a copy of your Listmaker database to be saved in the /My Documents folder which would be backed up to your Desktop PC during ActiveSyncing. The "ClearType Support" option allows you to use ClearType to display more readable text on the screen. The text will be smoother, with no jagged edges. This option will work for most of the newer Pocket PC devices, but not all of them. The Casio E-200, for example, will display the text very clearly with the ClearType Support option turned on, however, the Toshiba E-310 will not (it's due to the screen device drivers).
The last icon on the main menu bar is for changing the font size for the displayed list. By default, the font is set to the system font size (Figure 22). Tapping once on the Font icon will increase the text size by 2 points (Figure 23), and another tap on the Font icon will increase the text size further by 2 points (Figure 24).
Figure 22 - Default small text size |
Figure 23 - Medium text size |
Figure 24 - Large text size |
To rename an existing list, you select "File->Rename List" (Figure 3) which will bring up a popup dialogbox for you to enter a new list name. Deleting the currently displayed list is accomplished by selecting "File->Delete List". And finally, you can export a list into a simple text file format by selecting "File->Export" from the main menu bar.
Listmaker has an additional feature of allowing the user to scroll through the list and check items by using the hardware rocker switch and action button. This features is handy if you need to mark some items in your list and you don't want to remove and use the stylus. To use this feature, you first click the action hardware button on your Pocket PC device to highlight the first entry in the list. Next, you use the rocker switch to scroll down the list to highlight the desired item. Clicking the action button again will check or uncheck the hightlighted item.
Recovering backup database in the event of a device hard-reset
If you have the "Backup database to \My Documents folder" checked in the Settings panel (Figure 20), then a copy of the ListMaker database (listmaker.vol) will be placed in the "\My Documents" folder on your Pocket PC device, which should be synced to your Desktop PC system's AutoSync folder. In the event of your Pocket PC device crashing or you having to do a hard-reset (which will erase all programs and data from your device), you'll need to reload the ListMaker software on your Pocket PC device. If you want to recover the data stored in the backup copy of your ListMaker database file, you should do the following:
Establish a connection between your Pocket PC device and your Desktop PC system, and do a file sync. Make sure you have "Files" checked in the ActiveSync options panel.
Install ListMaker onto your device.
Run ListMaker on your
device. The program should see that you don't have an existing database file
on your device, and should then check your "\My documents" folder
for a copy of the database file. If it finds it, the program will show the
following message box (Figure 25) asking if you want to recover from the
backup copy. Selecting "Yes" will recover your data ListMaker data in the backup database file.
Figure 25
Recovering data from backup database file
Trial Version
The trial version is limited to 3 lists, with 5 items each. To purchase the full version, please visit www.scarybearsoftware.com.
