Database Info

New, 2.6 version of Pocket Internet Explorer plug-in Webby Released!

It was some months ago that the previous, 2.5 version of the Pocket Internet Explorer plug-in (enhancer) Webby was released. Now, the new, 2.6 version has just been released.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
I really recommend the above-linked article to see what the advantages and the disadvantages of the previous version were. Here, I “only” elaborate on the new features and whether the problems or, at least, missing functionality I’ve emphasized in the previous version(s) have been fixed / implemented.
Webby is available here. It requires CF2 to run (make sure you download and install SP1, NOT the old, original version), which also means it’s “only” compatible with WM2003+ devices (bad news for pre-WM2003 (PPC2k, PPC2k2) users).
It has two versions: a free, severely “dumbed-down” (two tabs at most, two buttons definable – hardly any good, particularly when compared to the generous 2-4-week fully functioning trials of all comparable products, except for the slightly less dumbed-down NetFront) and a full (Pro) version. The latter costs $20, which is, in my opinion, quite much compared to the price (and capabilities / speed / compatibility) of Opera Mobile, NetFront or PIEPlus, the best, highly recommended alternatives (not to mention the free Mozilla / Firefox port Minimo, which gets better and better all the time and, now, is a pretty decent alternative at least on WM5 devices), particularly taking into account that the new add-on extension mechanism (still) doesn’t work in Webby.
Pros; new functionality
Add-in modules
Probably they are the most important features of the new version. These (are supposed to) implement additional functionalities like the URL builder known from MultiIE / PIEPlus.
Their list can be found here. Note that you should only visit this page from either Opera or Mozilla / Firefox on your desktop computer; for IE, it only returns the first part of the page.
Installing them is (that is, is supposed to be) pretty easy: just go to the above-linked plug-in homepage from inside Webby (you can use the “Get More Extensions” link in the Extensions tab in Options) and click the extension you’d like to download and install. It’ll ask you whether it’s allowed to install it; after the install, you’ll need to restart the browser.
The problem with these extensions is that they (still?) don’t exist on the homepage of the developer. Webby states them to have been installed but, in reality, nothing is downloaded (you can also check this in the \Program Files\Webby\extensions\ directory in the file system of your Pocket PC if interested). To make sure I'm not missing something, here’s a HTTP-level communication trace (two pairs of requests from Webby / PIE and two 404 Not found answers (that is, there indeed isn't anything in there; not even the linked extensions remote folder!) from the server): 1 2 3 4.
That is, you will want to wait until this problem is fixed, which I’ll surely report of. In the meantime, don’t even try to download extensions - it's just a waste of time because nothing will be downloaded.
Button support
The second most important new feature (which I probably missed the most from earlier versions) is the hardware button support.
As can be seen in this and this screenshots, the most important functionality (Back/ Forward; Previous/Next tab, Close everything but the current one / the current only; Full Screen toggle) is accessible.
It only allows for configuring six buttons on all PPC models (with wildly varying number of buttons). It seems all Pocket PC developers should read all my articles as I’ve elaborated on how all the available hardware buttons can be (very easily!) read out of the Registry more than one year ago ( Where does the PPC Registry store button mapping info - a tutorial (alternatives: PPC Magazine, BrightHand; make sure you also follow the link to More Programmers'/Hackers' Stuff, along with some cool Pocket Loox 7xx Hold Button Tips: More on Pocket PC Hardware Buttons for more info.)
Unfortunately, there is no way of for example using the tap-and-hold buttons of the WM5-upgraded hx4700 or the Pocket Loox 720. It’s not possible to define additional functionality for WM5 softkeys, unlike in PIEPlus 2.0+ and MultiIE 4.0+ either. However, it’s possible to enable WM5 softkeys for menus as can be seen in here: 1 2. This is certainly good news.
Also, it should be noted that the free version only supports two button redefinitions.
Cons
View: One Column mode still not supported
One of my biggest grieves with the past versions was the native support for the One Column mode of the underlying PIE. Unfortunately, this hasn’t changed.
This means if you must work on the full (unstripped) version of a page and, therefore, can’t use any Web compression / content stripper / online cruncher service like Skweezer, MobileLeap, Google Mobile or WebWarper (the four services Webby 2.6 supports out of box), you may end up having to switch to the normal view mode, which will result in a need for horizontal scrolling on a LOT of pages. This is a VERY bad bug in Webby!
Lack of context menus
Unfortunately, there are still no image / link / page context menus as can be seen for example here (which shows clicking an image link will bring up the traditional PIE context menu and nothing else).
This means you need to access all advanced functionalities like link target saving from the main menus. It’s only saving images (in WM5 IEM’s; it’s not available in pre-WM5 PIE’s) that is accessible via the context menu – as with IEM. Please also consult the Download Bible for more info on all these questions.
Verdict
The plug-in architecture is indeed promising. Too bad it doesn’t work yet. Hope it’s only a temporary problem, which will be fixed really soon. When it’s fixed, I’ll return to testing and let you know about how these plug-ins fare agains the competition (for example, the Address Bar plug-in against PIEPlus / MultiIE's comparable capabilities).
Plug-in problem aside, I still don’t really recommend this title over the latest version of stand-alone browsers like Minimo, Opera Mobile or, to a lesser extent, NetFront or Thunderhawk.
The same stands for PIEPlus, which I consider currently by far the best PIE plug-in. The latter is just far more capable (just compare their capabilities one by one!) and faster (don’t be mislead by the seemingly small download times: Webby uses the compression / content stripping service Skweezer by default; this is why it seems to be faster than any else PIE plug-in by default) than Webby.
Recommended links
The Web Browsers category in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog

REVIEW: Excellent Windows Mobile download tool HandyGet released!

In my well-known article The definitive guide to downloading files, images and saving Web pages with Pocket PC-based Web Browsers (from now on: Download Bible), I’ve already elaborated on WinMobile Download Accelerator (WMDA), the, up to now, only reliable multithreaded downloader tool for the Windows Mobile platform, along with all the (non- multithreaded) tools and Web browsers.
Now, a brand new, excellent download utility, HandyGet has been released. I’ve, certainly, given it a test ride at once to see whether it’s any good.
(Please PLEASE read the Download Bible before going on because, in order to be as terse and up-to-the-point as possible, I won’t elaborate in here in which cases self-standing download tools can be useful, how they can speed up the transfer and what their problems can be. That is, if you don’t know the tests / terminology I’ve introduced in the Download Bible, you won’t likely understand this article.)
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Availability
It’ll become available here (it’s not there yet – the program is so new). The 30-day unrestricted trial, however, is already available here. As the main Handango page is still not accessible (and there are no other sources of the program), I don’t know about the price.
Usage
By default, it doesn’t monitor Internet Explorer downloads; this must be explicitly enabled (General / IE Monitor).
After this, it’ll intercept download requests and display the download config screen as can be seen in here (the bottom of the dialog is here) and will start downloading at once.
It, unlike WMDA, also has a log dialog, which shows the HTTP request / response headers sent (screenshot 1 (showing the request) 2 and 3 (with the response)).
It, as with WMDA, is able to resume downloads and remember the download list through restarts.
Speed tests
As can clearly be seen, HandyGet excels at both the “slow-source” and the “fast-source” downloads (compare these figures to the ones in the WDMA section of the Download Bible!). The former are downloaded even faster than with WMDA and the latter only exhibit little speed hit (which is diametrically opposed to the WMDA case.)
text/plain files
(Please see section 3.1. „Content-Type"-related problems (AKA "When I click a CAB link, it's not downloaded but shown!") in the original Download Bible for more generic, not HandyGet-related information on this question!)
Of course, as the built-in Internet Explorer tries to render files like these, the execution isn’t passed to HandyGet when downloading text/plain files. In these cases, of course, you can just enter / paste the URL of the resource you’d like to save to HandyGet. An example of this can be seen here, where I’ve entered the text/plain http://www.octopus-studio.com/ETDict.mdx URL directly into the program.
Note that as with both the other download managers, it automatically copies the URL from the clipboard to the URL field. That is, if you have a link copy-capable, say, PIE plug-in, you can easily download the file even if it’s a text/plain file or you don’t allow for IEM integration.
Summary
Compared to WMDA…
Pros
Doesn’t use the main storage at all when downloading to cards; it seems to use an in-memory buffer (it doesn’t use any kind of temporary directory when downloading – only uses about 200 kbyte dynamic RAM for some buffering)
Much less speed hit than with WMDA with fast sources – there is no need to disable it at all if you download from fast sources
I haven’t encountered problems like WMDA’s “a 0 byte is added to the file” when downloaded
Allows for simultaneous downloads (this must, however, be explicitly enabled; then, you can download up to four files at the same time. Other download tasks as can also be seen in here will be paused until one of the current download is finished. It should also be pointed out that, with slow sources (see the WDMA section in the Download Bible for examples!), if you plan to download more than one file, you should enable multiple downloads – individual downloads won’t be slowed down because of this. Kudos to the developer!
Cons
Doesn’t make it possible to supply the referrer. This will cause problems with sites like Caiman (please see section 3.3. (Referrers passed to download? The Caiman problem) for more info in the Download Bible)
Verdict
Give it a try – it’s certainly better than WinMobile Download Accelerator in most respects (except for the Referer support)!
Recommended links
The Web Browsers category in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Expert Blogs.

The Guide to Playing Magnetic Scrolls games on Windows Mobile

Many older computer users know what adventure games the excellent folks Magnetic Scrolls have produced some really good adventure games. (See THIS (if the link doesn’t work, THIS) for more info). If you want to play these really excellent games on your Windows Mobile (WM for short) device, I have some very good news for you: yes, they’re all playable – and not only under CPU-hungry and not-the-best-suited-for-the-Windows-Mobile-UI emulators, but also real interpreters.
You may have already heard of “Magnetic”, THE Magnetic Scrolls games interpreter. It, fortunately, also has a Windows Mobile port.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(another VGA shot; a QVGA one)
There are three main revisions of Magnetic: 1, 2 and 2.2. Of course, the higher, the better (see the three charts comparing them HERE for more info on the version differences if interested). For WM, fortunately, a port of the latest, 2.2 version is available; as with the desktop Windows. Note that there is another version called for WindowsCE-based Handheld Pro and 2000 devices: chiark’s MagnetiCE; you will NOT want to use it on your WM device because it uses H/PC menus even under Windows Mobile.
Installing the interpreter
Download it from here (linked from this IF-Archive page) (alternative, direct download here). Unzip MagneticWinCE.exe and transfer it anywhere on your handheld.
Note that the interpreter is only compatible with WM2003SE and newer operating systems. It doesn't seem to run under WM2003 (tested on my iPAQ 2210), let alone PPC2k2. I had no problems running it on my (several) WM2003SE+ devices; worked flawlessly even under WM6. It makes use of built-in keyboards and landscape modes without problems. It also supports command history (up/down cursor keys), which is very useful particularly if you want to, say, repeat “wait” many times.
Getting and installing the games
Fortunately, all compatible games are available online and you don’t need to do any conversion. Go HERE and go to the bottom, to the bottom-most Game Files chart. Download the “Story files” of all the games you’d like to enjoy. Unzip it to anywhere on your storage card. Make sure you only put it in a direct descendant (subdirectory) of the root of the card and not the second, third etc. one; this, unfortunately, also applies to the \My Documents directory on your card) or in the main storage, under a directory in \My Documents.
If you don't like this restriction because of the standard file selection dialog, you can fix the problem by getting Mad Programmer’s File Dialog Changer , the current WM5/WM6-compliant version of which is 1.66. Get it HERE. You'll also need GSGetfile.
I’ve often elaborated on the installation / usage of this really useful utility (see for example THIS). Just a quick recap (with WM6 screenshots): after transferring ARM\filedlgchg.cpl from filedlgchg.zip and ARMRel\gsgetfile.dll from gsgetfile-i.zip to \Windows on your mobile device, go to the new Settings / System / File Dialog Changer applet and just check in “Exchange Standard File Dialog”. This will make it possible to peek in anywhere in the file system as can be seen in here.
In addition to the (text-only) story, you may also want to download the image repository (see the “Graphics file” column for all the games you’d like to run). Title graphics and title music files are also downloadable (if present); you will need to separately watch / listen to them from a multimedia player and an image viewer. Hint files, on the other hand, are also handled by the interpreter engine; therefore, you will want to download them too if you do need hints.
Then, just start MagneticWinCE.exe, select File / Open and select the game to play.
The menu of the interpreter is pretty straightforward; in addition to the standard Open / Exit functionality, in Edit / Verb, you can select five predefined verbs to speed up input words. In Display, you can set the size of the images displayed (and whether they’re displayed at all).
The Palm OS Kronos emulator
If you have a Palm OS device, you may have heard of Kronos, an emulator for Magnetic Scrolls, Infocom-style ZMachine, and Scott Adams style adventure games. It’s very advanced: as opposed to the original Windows (and Windows Mobile) version, it supports automaps and popwords.
Unfortunately, it (as of the latest, 1.4.7 version) crashes the current version (1.0.025) of StyleTap, the Palm OS emulator for WM, in the 66% screen mode and, as can be seen in here, in 100% mode, on VGA devices, it uses a low-resolution display. However, if you can live with this (because don’t want to enjoy the images), running Kronos under StyleTap may be a good alternative.
Note that as far as QVGA (low-resolution) Windows Mobile devices are concerned, images are almost invisible on them; example screenshots here and here. However, if you don’t need images at all or can play in 66% mode on QVGA devices, the images are, then, correctly displayed (1 2).
Note that Kronos offers autoload/save features. This is missing from the WM version. The latter, however, supports saving and loading the game state (via the save/load commands) any time.

Web browsing news: new version of Opera Mobile and NetFront out with major upgrades

Anyone having read my well-known Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible know NetFront and Opera Mobile are leading Web browsers on Windows Mobile. Betas / Technical Previews of forthcoming versions (3.4 for NetFront and 8.65 for Opera Mobile) have been constantly released; the last ones, of both browsers, recently. In this article, I elaborate on these brand new versions.
NetFront 3.4 Technical Previews 007
NetFront, while not really having gained new features (except for support for Flash), has been enhanced: now, the current, free (!) Technical Preview isn’t less usable than the commercial version (except for some, for most of the users, not THAT important, really advanced plug-ins like the Java Virtual Machine). This means you can have a fully-fledged Web browser without having to shell out any money – as is exactly the case with the new Opera Mobile, to be discussed below – till 08/31/2007 (it only expires then).
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Getting and installing
Download the CAB file HERE (the main TP page is HERE).
Pros
No longer requires a lengthy initial setup (involving even a soft reset) phase at the first start or when you switch to proportional fonts
You’re no longer restricted to 10 bookmarks (favorites) in the TP version
It no longer restricts the number of the tabs to be opened to two either
The TP version too supports Flash as can be seen in for example HERE (showing Bomberman). It’s even capable of playing YouTube videos as can be seen in HERE. Unfortunately, its YouTube playback is WAY slower (that is, pretty useless) than that of Opera Mobile or, for that matter, the latest TCPMP Flash plug-in (of which I’ll soon publish an article), therefore, should be avoided. If you DO want to enable it, go to Menu / Tools / Browser Settings / External Tools / Plug-in and enable the given checkbox as can be seen in HERE.
Cons
Unfortunately, when you open a link in a new tab, the current settings (for example, rendering / one-column / image display mode) aren’t inherited, as opposed to ALL the other (decent) multitab-enabled browsers on both the desktop Windows and Windows Mobile. Sure, you can quickly apply pre-defined profiles at Menu / View Profile, but it’ll take a LOT of time to re-render the pages. Inheriting view settings would have been the best way to go.
The 5-tab restriction is still here (you can’t open more than five tabs at a time)
The Flash plug-in is as bad (CPU usage-wise) as was in version 3.3 (you will want to keep it deactivated in order to avoid your handheld to really slow down)
No MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard)-compliance: while the CAB installer can be installed on a WM5+ Smartphone, the main GUI isn’t displayed when you start the browser. (tested on the HTC Vox/s710 in both orientations)
Not compliant with WM operating systems prior to WM5
You must still manually switch to proportional fonts in Menu / Tools / Browser Settings / General / Font / Use proportional font (don’t forget to do this!)
Opera Mobile 8.65 beta 2
In my opinion, the best Windows Mobile Web browser, particularly on the Smartphone, is Opera Mobile. The new beta has recently been released and is available HERE for free (!), unrestricted (!) download. The major update is it no longer having driver memory problems (see my previous reviews of these problems) and is, therefore, a must install. To my knowledge, there aren’t other new features.
The trial expires on 10/01/2007 – that is, you can surf the Net for free until then. I, however, recommend going and buying a license – Opera certainly deserves the support, not only because Opera Mobile, but also their top-notch desktop Opera browser and Opera Mini.
The Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) version of Opera Mobile is a REAL must – way better than anything else. I’ll publish a big upgrade of the Windows Mobile Web Browser Bible, concerning Web browsing on the Smartphone, in the near future.

in netfront i can't find any progressbar or similar indicator for the current status of a loading page. is there something like that or doesn't netfront provide this feature?
edit: i will try netfront for some days. compared to opera mobile 8.65beta it seems that netfront offers an more acceptable browsing experience without changing a page's layout to one column on my qvga device(page overview and virtual canvas).
but opera mobile's one column view looks better than netfront's.

New wmDA version out – now, with built-in full YouTube Flash download capabilities

New wmDA version out – now, with built-in full YouTube Flash download capabilities
I’ve frequently posted reviews (last one HERE; if it doesn’t work, try THIS instead) of the ever-evolving of WinMobile Download Accelerator (wmDA) by Adisasta, an application greatly helping in downloading files off the Web.
The latest, just-released version (2.5) of wmDA supports the direct download of YouTube Flash files. (Flash means you’ll only have access to H.263 videos at the resolution 320*240. This also means if you mean higher-quality and/or resolution H.264 videos, you’ll need to use the built-in YouTube access support of CorePlayer, the, currently, only Windows Mobile application to offer direct YouTube H.264 support. Please consult my Multiplatform YouTube bible for more info on all this – and on all the alternative solutions.)
The application is available HERE; the trial version is pretty much usable.
Note: Unlike some other titles (e.g., FlashVideoBundle; see the Multiplatform YouTube bible for more info) it doesn’t integrate into IEM. This means if you liked the easiness of watching / downloading video files of FlashVideoBundle, you may not find wmDA as excellent as the earlier application (and it’s not free either). Nevertheless, if you don’t want to download dozens or hundreds of video files every hour (but only some a week), the (semi-)manual way of address copying won’t cause you much overhead.
That is, you must manually copy the URL of a video to the clipboard and, after switching to wmDA, start downloading.
Using it from Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM)
In Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM), which doesn’t support direct link copying, you can do by going to the Web page of the given video, selecting all in the address bar by, for example, double clicking it, copying it to the clipboard, manually switching to wmDA selecting New and clicking OK. Note that you won’t need to manually paste the URL to anywhere: the contents of the clipboard will automatically be copied to the “URL” field.
If you have any of the current, highly recommended and WM5+ compliant IEM plug-ins (PIEPlus 2.0+, MultiIE 4+ or Spb Pocket Plus 3+), which all offer a way to copy the address of a link, you don’t even need to click the given Web page (and waiting until you can have access to the updated address bar) – just tap-and-hold the link and select the dedicated link context menu item to do the copying. In the following subsections, I explain this all with examples of all the three major IEM plug-ins:
PIEPlus 2+ (see review HERE):
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
(see Copy Address)
Spb Pocket Plus 4+ (see review HERE):
(look for “Copy Shortcut”; a 3.x screenshot is HERE, showing it also supported link copying)
MultiIE 4+ (review HERE):
(Link Tools / Copy Link Address)
Using it other Web browsers
Of course, you can copy page addresses from not only IEM: this works from all Web browsers that do support any kind of URL copying. Practically, you can do this in all of the current browsers, even in Java-based ones as, except for the vastly outdated TAO, all of the JVM’s support copying from the address input field (which also contains the current address). For example,
- in Opera Mobile, select “Copy link address” from the link context menu (available starting with 8.65)
- in NetFront, select “Copy Shortcut” from the context menu:
Note that the official wmDA YouTube video (I’ve also made it accessible on the YouTube itself; should you want to avoid watching WMV videos) shows how this all is done using Opera Mobile 9.5+. Again, it’s pretty similar to how you can copy links from other Web browsers.
Verdict
If you plan to go with a semi-manual way and/or you already have a wmDA license, using wmDA to download YouTube flash files is highly recommended.

UPDATE (some minutes later): Copying the address of the current Web page from inside Opera Mini:
1.) Navigate to the YouTube page (make sure you do this on the non-mobile view) and either press #1 (if your phone has a hardware dialpad) or go to Menu (left softkey) / Enter Address.
2.) If you haven’t disabled the new auto-completion address input field (the Auto-complete address input checkbox in Settings), press Down and go to Insert symbol… by pressing Up; and select it; you’ll be taken to the address input field of your Java environment. (You’re taken straight here if you disable the new, Opera Mini-specific address input field.)
3.) select Menu (right softkey) / Current Address
4.) As you can see, the address of the current page is displayed. Just copy it: highlight it entirely (under Jbed, to do this, click Shift, Ctrl and, finally, the left arrow on the on-screen keyboard) and press Ctrl-C on the virtual keyboard.
5.) Now, switch to wmDA and start downloading.