MegaLauncher 4.2 is out

[Jooley]

This one allows icons assigned to categories, and has some bug fixes.

Check it out at megasoft2000 or PalmGear

 

[Isa43J]

Anyone have any news or experiences concerning the stability of ML4.2 (or anything else to say about it)?

[exiii]

It's a LOT faster than Launcher X in deleting and refreshing.

[exiii]

They must have updated the file right after I downloaded it last night. I installed 4.1.

Jooley: Do you mean that you can put icons on the tabs? Can you have icons only?

ML now seems to give me a little more latitude in displaying my tabs(categories) the way I like them. The bottom buttons are still about twice the size that I prefer, but it's something I can live with.

LX blows! And everything else is slow! I'm switching.

[sebring]

In my opinion, this is pretty much a HO-HUM upgrade for ML.

[squeff]

(Sebring) I agree. It's rather "ho-hum." The ability to add icons to tabs is cute, but it doesn't work as well as zLauncher. You cannot remove the text from the tab, as far as I can tell. I tried leaving the tab name blank, but it wouldn't let me.

I find it amusing that Megasoft always lists "and other enhancements" (or some such non-descriptive text) for each release of many of their products. I read this as "fixed some bugs" although they won't tell you what ones they fixed.

[andrewcoffin]

So far, ML 4.2 is very stable on my T615--I haven't had any issues.

The tab icons are nice, I think--the MegaSoft provided icons look very sharp, and you can display the tabs without text: just put a "space" in where the text should be...

[mikeyg54]

I've found, by accident, that you can have just the icon appear for each category if you select 8 categories under the "Use tabs categories view" under the "Preferences" section of "Options".

[mikeyg54]

World time whoas..... I've selected both New York and either London or GMT and have a time difference of NY = 4:29pm, London or GMT = 11:29am same day, 3/13/03. Anyone else experiencing this anomoly? Thanks.

[exiii]

May be "ho-hum", but it's not as slow as my trial of ZLauncher or even LauncherX. It works.

Anytime I changed tabs in ZLauncher I had to wait for the screen to refresh. I suppose this would be unnoticable on a 200Mhz, but I'm using a lowly T615.

And with LauncherX, every time I deleted something, I'd wait thirty seconds for my Clie to become usable again. With ML, the wait is probably a second.

And the tab icons are actually more than cute. One of the main reasons I chose LauncherX before was because it had an icon option. The icons allow you to imply a long word with a tiny symbol. With LIII, I was using international symbols to do this. I thought I was going to have to do that again. Icons allow you to show several more tabs than you would spelling everything out.

[Jooley]

Originally posted by exiii
They must have updated the file right after I downloaded it last night. I installed 4.1.

Jooley: Do you mean that you can put icons on the tabs? Can you have icons only?

ML now seems to give me a little more latitude in displaying my tabs(categories) the way I like them. The bottom buttons are still about twice the size that I prefer, but it's something I can live with.

LX blows! And everything else is slow! I'm switching.

You can have icons only on the tabs - rather than enter a title for the category, just enter a space, select your icon, tap OK.

I've used ML for a couple of years, have also registered YiShow and LauncherX.  I've tried ZLauncher, but it seems to be slower on my NX60 than ML.  I'm sticking with this and hoping the developers come out with a wider selection of category icons.

 

 

[Unregistered]

Has anyone else noticed that even in 8-bit color mode, ML 4x is much slower to initially load that ML 3x?

On my NR70V, from the time I click the "home" icon until ML3 is fully loaded is about 3 seconds (one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two,...).

If I select ML4, it takes a full 6 seconds until the launcher is ready to go.

I really like some of the new features in ML4, but for me the launcher needs to be fast to load, and ML4 seems just too slow in this regard.

Am I the only one w/ this problem?

Giles

[Utes Rule]

but what does it really matter how long it takes to "initially load" the software? How often do you do that? I have only had to do that once since I installed 4.x on my handheld, because it is my default launcher. Do you switch back and forth constantly between the built in launcher and ML? I don't understand this complaint against ML.

Hmmmmm

[Isa43J]

Originally posted by Unregistered
Has anyone else noticed that even in 8-bit color mode, ML 4x is much slower to initially load that ML 3x?

On my NR70V, from the time I click the "home" icon until ML3 is fully loaded is about 3 seconds (one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two,...).

If I select ML4, it takes a full 6 seconds until the launcher is ready to go.

I really like some of the new features in ML4, but for me the launcher needs to be fast to load, and ML4 seems just too slow in this regard.

Am I the only one w/ this problem?

Giles

I have noticed that ML4 is much slower if you choose a background picture.  I am using a T615 and when I got rid of the bg picture, it went much faster!  I prefer to not have a picture anyway, since it makes the overall view a bit "busy," IMHO.  Hope this helps.

[DanT]

The more I read about ML4 functionality, the less I'll part away with ML3, speed and footprint wise. ML3 w/ default skin only takes up 383K in my N760C. The ML3 default skin is really not bad. I can see the benefit of ML4 with 200 MHz devices, but not with 33 MHz ones like mine. This reminds me of FCPU 2.8 vs 3.0. The 3.0 skin and UI look nice, but its footprint is almost 4x of 2.8.

[Unregistered]

I'm not talking about the initial installation "lag" when ML4 builds the cache. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

On my NR70V, ML4 it takes ~6 seconds every time I enter the launcher before the program appears and the icons are displayed. Once it's running, changing tabs is immediate.

ML3 loads in half the time.

In both cases I am in 8-bit mode with no background. It's acted the same way ever since the initial ML4 beta.

Giles

[mikeyg54]

Is anyone having problems with ML4.2's World Time applet? I cannot get the guest clock to reflect the correct time when choosing New York for the home time and London or GMT for the guest time.:confused:

[andrewcoffin]

There's definately something strange going on with the way ML4 is set up on your machine.

I have a T615 (with a slower processor than yours), and ML4.2 only takes 3-4 seconds to load in 16-bit mode, and is slightly faster in 8-bit mode. I don't use a background image either...

[exiii]

Originally posted by andrewcoffin
There's definately something strange going on with the way ML4 is set up on your machine.

I have a T615 (with a slower processor than yours), and ML4.2 only takes 3-4 seconds to load in 16-bit mode, and is slightly faster in 8-bit mode. I don't use a background image either...

True dat.

[TheSpies]

as i post this Megasoft2000 support is reading this thread----so cough it up! when is the archive feature coming back??

[AnthonyM]

There is a confirmed problem with the clock in 4.2 that did not exist in 4.1. I set my home time zone too Los Angeles and the settings for my home time zone are correct (both date and time). I can then choose any city for my guest time zone and the date will be 1/26/03. Thats a neat trick considering it is 03/12/03 in Los Angeles.

- Anthony

[mikeyg54]

Thanks AnthonyM. I thought it was a problem that was specific to my configuration. I agree that it was not a problem in 4.1.

[DanT]

Well, I just wait for the bug-fixed ML4.x then. The 3.2.2 is definitely worth keeping for me with low free RAM space. I can live with the default skin. That means the launcher only takes up 383K RAM space. Are there another nice launcher out there with <400K footprint?

[sebring]

DanT, If you use PiDirect or MSMount, you can put Megalauncher skins on MS and readily change them. ML is a little slow about reading the skins during the selection process, but there isn't a noticable performance hit after the skin is selected.

[DanT]

Cool! Thanks for the tip, Sebring. It works, but how do I fix the system crash during HotSync with PiDirect enabled? The PiDirectII v.2.2 (PD2) that I use is already set to disable during HotSync in the Menu, Preferences, Options screen, but the OS seems to not recognize this setting.

To make the HotSync go w/o crashing the system I have to disable PD2, which bring the ML skin to the default skin, then enable it again after HotSync. In the past I just use PD2 for running StreetFinder maps. So it's always disabled and only enabled whenever I want to view the maps.

[sebring]

With MSMount, I have it set to disable during hotsync, but after the hotsync, MSMount re-enables and reads the card before ML launches, so the selected skin remains intact. The only time I defaulted to the default skin was when I launched ML with MSMount disabled. Seems like I tried it with PiDirect a while back and it worked the same.

[MadBob]

Apart from an initial play and 'ooh doesn't that look good' I have binned all the Launchers I tried,

Launcher Plus being the only one that didn't lock up or cash,

but I got rid not because of instability but because of a total lack of understanding why anyone wants to fill their (very limited) RAM with a GUI? so I went back to the old 'lets have it looking how it was written' look and now I have more speed and RAM to use,

which means I can put actual useful software on there and not just an idiot amuser :) (that term isn't an insult its what anything that doesn't need to be there for function is called) for example the bar showing how long an installation will take as it copies files (and is inevitably wrong) :)

all right I grant that it is a fine line between one persons necessary function and anothers bare minimum, but without the GUI all the soft (and lets face it thats what the PDA is for not the GUI) is still graphically and functionally the same,

not dis'ing here just curious?

[andrewcoffin]

I agree to some extent--a lot of the appeal of launchers is just that they look "pretty." This is why I avoided them for a while, not wanting to wasted space...

However, there are a few key functions that I find very useful aids to productivity, and that are not available in the built-in launcher:

- tabbed category buttons (with icons as a visual ID)--this is much quicker and easier to use than the standard drop down list in my opinion

- the ability to place apps on the memory card in categories--if you have a lot of applications on a memory stick, this is imperative

- quick access to regularly used tools, like deleting, simple file management, and palm preferences

The rest, although fun to play around with and pleasing to the eye, is just window dressing...

[rcornia]

You can blank out the text by entering a space in the text field for the name. I got rid of my tab names - now icons only. Getting closer to the perfect launcher.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by squeff
[B](Sebring) I agree. It's rather "ho-hum." The ability to add icons to tabs is cute, but it doesn't work as well as zLauncher. You cannot remove the text from the tab, as far as I can tell. I tried leaving the tab name blank, but it wouldn't let me.

[mikeyg54]

I repeat from my previous post..... You can have just the icon appear for each category if you select 8 categories under the "Use tabs categories view" under the "Preferences" section of "Options".

:o