[General Topics] Menneisyys:
I’ve long been wanting to review Scott Seligman’s Launcher, which has always been one of the better and, what is more, free (!) Today launchers.

Availability, compatibility

(Current, tested version: 1.40)

It’s available here (direct download link here) and is compatible with all WM2003+ operating systems (it’s NOT compatible with PPC2k / 2k2 - tested this on my Compaq iPAQ 3660.)

I’ve tested it on most (HTC Wizard (WM5; KTamas/bepe AKU3.2 RC1 ROM version), Dell Axim x51v (WM5; A12), HP iPAQ hx4700 (WM5; 2.01), HP iPAQ 2210 (WM2003; 1.10) and Pocket Loox 720) of my WM2003+ devices (along with memory / CPU usage meters) and had no problems on any of them.

Usage

Install it. After the first run (enable it in Settings / Personal / Today / Items), the \Launcher directory on your PDA will be populated with all the links in your Start Menu. You can, then, freely edit these and delete the ones you don't need.

Memory and CPU usage

Additional CPU usage is only measurable when there are a lot of links. On WM5 devices, shell32.exe consumes between 3 and 6 % on my three WM5 devices when the plug-in displayed (that is, when the Today screen is active) between 10 and 30 icons (the fewer icons, the lower CPU usage). On WM2003(SE) device, the CPU impact was far lower - almost impossible to measure.

The memory usage depends on the number of the displayed icons (because of the in-RAM icon cache). Upon just enabling the plug-in, the RAM usage only increases by about 60 kbytes; when you have, say, 25 icons, the additional memory usage will be about 300 kbytes (including the size of the app itself). This is a very good result, compared to the much larger memory usage of the alternate Today launchers.

When the Today screen is not active…

The CPU usage goes away but the memory isn’t freed up. The former is great news, the latter isn’t very (but at least it guarantees Today reloads very fast if you switch it back, thanks for the icon cache).

Native VGA compliance

Unfortunately, in native VGA, the icons become small as can also be seen in here. In this respect, Spb Pocket Plus and iLauncher are both better (but not Resco Explorer's Today launcher.)

Compared to the alternates...

As opposed to cLaunch, the other, well-known free Today launcher, it doesn’t have any kind of GUI or link editor. However, it’s very easy to edit links in the above-explained way. It doesn’t have categories (tabs) either (not that it’d really annoy me: on the contrary, I almost never use tabs. This, of course, only applies to me – some other users may prefer tabs.) It isn't able to display titles (labels) for icons either.

It, however, is fully VGA compliant, as can also be seen in the example screenshots (both the SE (standard) and the native VGA. This means it won’t mess up the Today wallpaper, unlike cLaunch.

The icons are navigable with the cursor pad on all WM2003SE+ devices - this is also very good news.

Verdict

Go get it, particularly if you still don’t have any Today launcher. After all, it’s free and has much better (much lower) memory usage than some of the alternates (for example, Spb Pocket Plus). With other free tools like the very good Magic Button, PIEPlus 2.11 (review here) and Spb Pocket Plus’ Safe Mode module only (nothing else! I tend to disable all its modules in its entirety because of the considerable memory usage and the, compared to PIEPlus 2.11 / MultiIE 4.0, really poor PIE / IEM plug-in), you can achieve the same as with Spb Pocket Plus – at a MUCH lower memory usage.

Other links

Today launcher/meter plug-ins - the complete roundup (alternates: MobilitySite, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox, Brighthand). This is a bit old (I've published it a year ago), but is still worth checking out.

What to come?

A decent comparison of iLauncher 3 and Spb Pocket Plus 3.1. Hope I'll be able to publish it soon.