[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Compared to (better) task managers like iLauncher, Magic Button or Spb Pocket Plus, its disadvantages are as follows:

It can only be accessed on the Today screen, not on the taskbar (and / or the Close / Minimize icon itself)

It supports no mass operations like “close all but this one”, “close all”, unlike with Magic Button or the built-in iTask of Compaq / HP iPAQ’s

It doesn’t override the Minimize / Close (x) icon

Hope these disadvantages will be soon be fixed and the task management functionalities of the application greatly enhanced.

Note that while it doesn’t have explicit scrolling icons / menus (unlike Magic Button as can be seen in here but NOT iLauncher 3, which is suffering from the complete lack of scrollbars as can be seen in this and this screenshots), you can scroll the active task icon list if there are more than five (Portrait) / seven (Landscape) of them.

I’ve also tested the CPU usage of smart.exe to see whether it causes any CPU load, particularly with more than a handful programs active. (For example, Magic Button causes a constant CPU usage of about 1-3% all the time.) The results are acceptable and not much worse than those of Magic Button:

Desktop

Yes, a WisBar Advance Desktop (WAD) clone! It’s in no way so advanced as WAD; still, if you like these kinds of applications, you may find the one in Smart Bar suitable.

Screen capture

Smart bar also contains built-in screen capturing capabilities. Please see the Screen Capture Bible for more information; in the following pros/cons list, I build on the information and explanations of that guide.

Compared to other screen capturer applications,

Pros

Uses a 3-second delay by default; that is, it can be used to make menu screenshots (without using the periodic screenshot capabilities)

Able to capture images periodically (albeit with some limitations, particularly when it comes to the frequency of taking shots). Note that it’s the “Stop interval” drop-down list that lets you fine-tune the interval it’ll take screenshots (between 10 seconds and 10 minutes as can be seen here and here)

If you use it on a device with a built-in thumb/keyboard and you enable screen capturing through Ultra Keyboard, you will be able to capture almost any game screen any time (!) by just entering the Ultra Keyboard shortcut (“CAP” by default). In this respect, the suite is unbeatable and unrivalled.

Periodic screenshot capturing is fast and, therefore, gaming-friendly (unlike, say, BeniSoft ScreenShotCE)

Both BMP and JPG output; the latter with settable quality

Can save files to anywhere, not just the main storage

Can capture images, in addition to the original (100%) size, at double and triple (200% / 300%) size – very useful on QVGA devices to avoid further enlargement and unique among all the screen capturer applications

Landscape & VGA compliant even in SE VGA mode

Cons

Multishot (periodic) capabilities are a bit limited – you can’t instruct the app to make shots less frequently than every two second

While the screenshot utility is a self-standing app, it cannot be invoked from a custom-written nScriptm script to fine-tune periodic screenshot making parameters

(Trial version useless: it inserts a message in the captured images)

All in all, the screenshot capabilities of the app are excellent, especially when you take the price of the suite into account and the only problem with this module are the too frequent screenshots in auto mode. Also, as has already been pointed out, the ability to make hardware keyboard-based screenshots of games is unbeatable and unique.

Network Tools

The suite also contains a simple (it’s in no way as advanced as, say, vxUtil) network troubleshooting utility, Network Tools.

It’s able to ping and traceroute to find out possible networking problems. It also uses DNS lookups; that is, if you for example enter www.yahoo.com, the contents of the input field will revert to 209.73.186.238 (or something very similar, with a different ending), showing the IP address of the given computer (it doesn’t do the reverse).

It also exports the traceroute results to a file. (Note that I didn’t have a “real” wireless connection during the tests and the utility had problems accessing the net via USB (in both WM5 AKU2+ networking modes); I could only access the desktop computer my PDA was hooked up to; this is why there is only one entry in the tracelog.)

It’s pretty cool to have if you don’t happen to have Windows Mobile Network Analyzer PowerToy or vxUtil around.

Verdict

This app is certainly promising. Hope subsequent builds / versions will fix the issues / implement the missing functionality (most importantly, overridden Close / Minimize button) I’ve elaborated on. Then, I’ll recommend it heartily, without conditions. Now, in the present state, I do recommend it too – but conditionally.

First, the bad. It does have compatibility issues. If it does work on your PDA model, it won’t likely to support all the features of the Today plug-in (PowerPlugin) and has no for example storage meters. Also, the task management functionalities / program shutdown capabilities of Smartbar are certainly inferior to most similar apps like iLauncher, Magic Button or Spb Pocket Plus. I find this the biggest stumbling block of the application.

Second, the good. It’s, as an all-in-one application, is really good. That is, if you don’t want to struggle with installing many applications (say, WAD + Magic Button + some advanced (!) screenshot app + vxUtil) to achieve the same (or even better! See for example the screenshot utility) functionality (without keyboard macros, of course), give it a go. Also, if you need keyboard macroing (again, it won’t work with on-screen keyboards, only hardware ones!), this is the application to go.

The same stands for taking screenshots: this application clearly excels in this area (except for the too frequent screenshot taking in repetitive mode – hope the developer fixes this too), particularly when it comes to making screenshots of anything (most importantly, games) that inhibits hardware button access and, therefore, renders hotkey-based screen grabbing impossible. Then, Ultra Keyboard’s excellent keyboard-based shortcuts will prove highly useful.

All in all, if you still don’t have any application to implement the above-listed functionalities or, for example, losing the excellent task management functionalities of other task managers isn’t a problem, definitely give it a go. Remember, however, that

do NOT get it if you are a VGA user; wait for the soon-to-be-released VGA-specific / compliant version

do backup your device before installing or, at least, make sure you have an active Safe Mode application