Database Info

ROUNDUP: PPC dictionaries - WordNet-based ones

Please note that this roundup contains a LOT of tips and tricks never published elsewhere. That is, if you already own a WordNet-based application and don't want to switch, you still want to read the roundup because you may learn a LOT of new tricks and tips (for example, using some of the features present in your application, updating it etc.)
WordNet is a well-known (please do read this Wiki entry to see what WordNet is all about and how it compares to other dictionary databases if you don’t know what it’s about) project is getting better and better and, now, in 2006, really high-quality, useful and pleasing dictionaries can be constructed based on it.
For example, while the MobileTechReview Palm OS dictionary roundup, in 2003, still found the value of WordNet-based dictionaries questionable, times have indeed changed. Now, WordNet-based dictionaries can be very useful, particularly when you compare the wealth of information stored in them to, say, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary of English (the dictionary most alternate Pocket PC dictionaries are based on). The latter, now, is clearly worse than the WordNet database - not only because of the links between the words, but also because of the vast differences in the vocabulary size and the size of the description of each word.
Also, WordNet is far better than most other, publicly available, free word dictionaries. For example, one of the often-used databases, OPTED, is a public domain version of Webster's 1913 Unabridged English dictionary. That is, about 100 years old – this, unfortunately, also means it’s pretty outdated. Wiktionary isn’t the best either (yet?). Its main strength lies (as opposed to WordNet) in not English-language explanations of English words and expressions, but in multilingual links and translations. That is, it’s of little use for someone that only needs English explanations.
Note that it’s up to you whether you find WordNet useful and better than, say, the excellent American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language (which also has a Pocket PC version). Most people do, but there may be exceptions. If you don’t, don’t read this roundup further but wait for the next parts – in here, I will only review Pocket PC dictionaries solely based on WordNet and will only review dictionaries based on other databases in further parts of the series. This article is only the first in a series of a roundup of all (notable) Pocket PC dictionaries (including both English and bilingual ones). (Actually, I’ve already written most of the other roundups too but wanted to separate strictly WordNet-based dictionaries into a separate article to keep the complexity and the “information overloading factor” down.)
On the Pocket PC, there are ten notable WordNet implementations (or front-ends – again, they all use the same database and, therefore, there are only differences only in the user interface, its capabilities and additional features). In this roundup, I review and compare them all.
Please note that it’s in the comparison chart that most of the (comparative) feature information and screenshots (there are some 200 of them!) can be found. In the following list of the reviewed applications, I’ll be pretty terse. Check out the comparison cart (and the explanation for it) for really extended information.
UPDATE (08/29/2006): Part II of this series can be found here.
The official desktop Windows WordNet client
Anyone who used the official, free desktop Windows WordNet client knows how bad it is. It lacks even the most basic wildcard searching capabilities (it only supports substring searches) and doesn’t even provide links with related words. Are the Pocket PC, WordNet-based implementations any better, you may (rightfully) ask.
Fortunately, even the worst Pocket PC implementation is much better in almost every respect (links, advanced searching capabilities).
Incidentally, there is also a Web interface to the WordNet database, assuming you just want to run some Web-based lookups.
(Some additional screenshots of the desktop client using the definition of “charm”: Definition of word "charm" in the Windows (official) client; Related nouns; Related verbs; Noun hypernyms. It’s worth comparing these screenshots to those I’ve provided with every Pocket PC-based WordNet front-end to see how those applications render the same information.)
AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7
I had high expectations before starting to use this client. The developer is well-known for some of their quality (“UltraLingua”) databases also used by, for example, Paragon in one of their German dictionaries also available on the Pocket PC.
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Unfortunately, this title was really disappointing. It not only lacks advanced functionalities, but also completely gets rid of even the basic inter-word connections (except for synonyms). In this respect, it’s clearly worse than anything else on the market. It’s a very bad buy for the price, I would say. Certainly not recommended.
A quick note on installation: if you download the CAB file (instead of the desktop-based installer EXE), you’ll also need to separately download the RoadLingua viewer available here.
WordBook 3.6 b50612 by TranCreative
As opposed to the AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet, this application turned out to be one of the best WordNet front-ends. It has really powerful add-on capabilities, which really make using the WordNet database fun. It’s, in my opinion, only Lexisgoo that is better, feature-wise.
Note that the same developer has been developing Magic Button, probably the best, highly recommended, free (!!!!) task manager for the Pocket PC.
MDict 2.1.3 by Octopus Studio
This free, not well-known but really worthy dictionary is pretty good, as long as you don’t need to look up the additional WordNet relationships (that is, there are no hyponyms / hypernyms / antonyms), wildcard searching, studying support, pronunciation or non-open-class words (the latter two can be found in alternate, free dictionary databases, easily desployable and usable under MDict). It supports additional databases (not as well as SlovoEd), of which there are quite a few (all public domain-based: OPTED, Moby Thesaurus etc.) The multiple database support, albeit not as sophisticated as that of SlovoEd, is a definite plus with the application. In addition, it’s the only application to have a desktop-based dictionary converter/creator tool, “Mdx file builder”, if you want to create your own dictionaries.
It has pretty good (similar to Lexisgoo and WordBook), text selection & icon-based word lookup capabilities usable in other applications. They are much better than those of most other applications.
Note that if you have more than one dictionary database files and want to avoid adding them one-by-one in Library / Open Library, you can just add them with Library / Add All Library File to List.
I really recommend this title because of the availability of multiple dictionary databases (which you can create yourself too), the speed and the easiness of word lookup from other applications. All this if you don’t need the additional relationship information stored in the WordNet database or wildcard lookup, that is.
Compared to the other free title, WordNetCE, this title certainly excels at speed, the size of the database and multiple database support. It, however, doesn’t have any kind of wildcard search capabilities (one of the main strengths of WordNetCE) and doesn’t display the WordNet relationship (which is a real letdown). If you don’t need these, however, go for it – you won’t regret your choice.
Lexisgoo English Dictionary by PPCLink
This dictionary, feature-wise, is clearly the best WordNet front-end. It’s a real pleasure to use.
Note that the other, just (in July) released dictionaries of PPCLink include the Concise Oxford Duden German Dictionary and the Concise Oxford Spanish Dictionary, which will be reviewed in a later part of this series.
PocketGenius 3.0 by Maction Technologies, Inc.
This (unfortunately, except for some capabilities like full in-text searching, pretty mediocre) dictionary engine has a LOT of additional, mostly Chinese- (and, to a lesser degree, Japanese-) centric dictionary databases available here (Chinese!) (Babelfish "translation" here).
Of them, some English-English dictionaries (including a WordNet 1.x-based, and, therefore, really outdated compared to WordNet 2.0, which all the other tested apps / databases are based on) can be found in the Dictionaries section. Note that, in order to make downloading English dictionaries easier (Babelfished pages don’t offer downloading capabilities), you will want to go to the original page and look for dictionaries that have the
icon next to them. As far as downloading the WordNet dictionary is concerned, go here and click the
icon.
As has already been pointed out, the dictionary engine is pretty mediocre and only recommended for Chinese (Japanese) speakers. English-only folks or people looking for English to/from other non-oriental language dictionaries should look elsewhere – there are much cheaper and better alternates. The (very few) English dictionaries that can be useful for non-Chinese speakers are pretty outdated (particularly the WordNet-based one).
Note that it’s because of the uselessly old WordNet version that I’ve disqualified this product in the Verdict (while, of course, I’ve included all the necessary information in the comparison chart.)
TomeRaider3 3.2.00
TomeRaider (please read this review of the latest version; in there, I’ve thoroughly compared it to other dictionaries in general) is a pretty good, albeit, in some respects, incapable and buggy book reader engine.
Unfortunately, its WordNet database is one of the databases that lack extended relationship information. Because of this (and a lot of other reasons, which the advantages – for example, the full in-text searching capabilities – of the engine can’t really outweigh), I don’t really recommend this engine either for strictly WordNet-based work (note that this has nothing to do with Wikipedia reading; for that, it’s TomeRaider3 that I recommend the most).
SlovoEd 2005 by Paragon
Along with the Merriam-Webster Collegiate talking dictionary with extended thesaurus (which is, as you may have guessed, based on the Merriam-Webster Collegiate database), Paragon, well-known for their language extenders and dictionaries, also offers a WordNet-based dictionary. The former costs $49.95 with the 10 000-word speech module, the latter $29.95. By leaving out the speech module you can save $10. (Note that the speech-less WordNet dictionary is promised to contain the 14 665-entry Acronym dictionary by Hein van Steenis (which can also be purchased separately for $5.95). I, however, couldn’t find this module in the trial version (the lack of it may be an oversight on the part of Paragon).)
Advantages of the SlovoEd engine
SlovoEd’s main strength lies in the engine’s ability to use several dictionaries at the same time – in a much more sophisticated way than, say, BEIK's BDicty (another engine that supports several databases used by the same engine). Under the same engine (that is, a single executable file), you can have any number of databases. This approach is vastly superior to that of, say, LingvoSoft. The latter uses separate executables for all the different databases. This not only takes up more storage (the executable .EXE file, as the different database instances don’t share them, needs to be had multiple times in the storage) and adds a lot of icons (if you install a handful of dictionaries on your PDA), but also makes it impossible to implement any kind of interaction between these dictionary databases.
In handling several databases at once is the definite, unmatched advantage of the SlovoEd engine no other database engine provides. If you install more than one database of the same language (pair), you will have access to all the information in them at the same time, unlike with any other applications with more than one databases.
For example, sticking with English, you can deploy (if you are ready to pay for them both) both the WordNet and the Merriam-Webster database on your PDA (along with other languages, if you like). Then, the Dictionary Direction menu in the main menu will be something similar to this. Here, English - English (3/3) means, after clicking the Details button (or if you just go to if English is active) that there are two official dictionaries and your user dictionary. You can freely (de)activate any of them and/or move up/down the priority list (if you prefer one of them to be presented results from first) in this dialog.
Real-world examples showing the strength of this all
First, the number of searchable items is increased if you activate more than one dictionary. For example, the Webster dictionary contains these words starting with ‘slow’, while the WordNet dictionary these (second page). As can be seen, there are a lot of words in both dictionaries that aren’t present in the other: for example, slowcoach, slower, slowest in WordNet and slow-footed in Webster. If you don’t activate both dictionaries at the same time, you won’t be able to search for the words not accessible in the currently active one. However, if you do activate both of them (as is the default if you install them both), all words from both dictionary databases will be visible and searchable as can be seen in here. Yes, slow-footed (only contained by Webster) and slower/est (only contained by WordNet) are all here.
Upon a search for a word that is present in both dictionary databases, you can easily switch between the results contained by both of them – separately. You only need to use the
and
icons to switch between them like in here and here (where the results for ‘slow’ is shown for both dictionaries). (Note that the icons will be grayed out when not accessible.) This is much easier than with other dictionaries – even with ones that support using more than one database in the same executable. For example, check out the BDicty section on how complicated it is in there to get the descriptions out of more than one database at a time.
As you’ll see in later parts, scrutinizing multilingual dictionaries, this will be a definite advantage with other languages too. For example, German, Russian and some other languages have more than one SlovoEd-compliant database. You can maximize your effectiveness by accessing them all at the same time. (An example of German: words around ‘abberufen’. With the two dictionaries (UltraLingua and Arsenal) available, the full list is like this; with Arsenal only this and with UltraLingua this. As can clearly be seen, access to multiple databases at the same time is a definite advantage.
Also, it’s the only engine that allows for adding individual, searchable records (not to be mistaken for simple notes). User-added records are treated and displayed the same way as “official” ones – that is, you can even search for them.
Finally, another real strength of the application is the (English-only) sound engine, which isn’t a synthesized one but contains human speech. This also means excellent quality and no pronunciation problems (unlike with all synthesized speech). It isn’t particularly cheap and “only’ contains 5/10/20 000 words (depending on the version you purchase) but is much-much better than any synthesizer-based engine.
… and the cons…
Unfortunately, the SlovoEd engine also has some drawbacks compared to Lexisgoo and WordBook, the two best WordNet-only dictionary apps. For example, it contains no pronunciation information (in the WordNet database; the Webster database does have it but it must be purchased separately and uses non-IPA pronunciation notation), it contains no non-open-class words, no anagrams, no user notes, its study support is much weaker than that of Lexisgoo / WordBook (and doesn’t support the real VGA mode, not even in the latest version, unlike all the other WordNet apps.)
Version differences
The WordNet version comes with release 5 of SlovoEd 2005. Much as I haven’t spotted any differences between it and the latest, release 9 of SlovoEd 2005, you may still want to upgrade it to the latest version. Note that, under operating systems prior to WM5, you will get the “not a valid Windows CE setup file” message upon trying to install the CAB file. In this cases, you can just extract the 0SlovoEd.001 file from the CAB file, rename it to SlovoEd.exe and just overwrite the old version on your Pocket PC with it (it’s in \Program Files\SlovoEd by default; you can safely relocate it to anywhere else, as has also been pointed out in the comparison chart).
Unlike with, say, BDicty, the new engine can’t be downloaded from the developer’s site. You can either get it directly from my database back-end or by downloading for example the .exe]English-Estonian, English-Hungarian or English-Russian talking Gold (this contains “MultiLex” engine, which is exactly the same as SlovoEd 2005, except for being 2 hours newer and having some different bytes in the EXE file) dictionaries, starting them but canceling the installation right before the programs are installed on your PDA and getting the CAB file from c:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync\SlovoEd\ SlovoEdPPC.ARM.CAB - or, by just installing the engine itself and nothing else: just untick the non-engine checkboxes in the desktop installer as can be seen for example in here.
Again, as has been pointed out, I couldn’t find any differences between version 5 and 9. However, you may run into significantly older engines, for example if you install other languages. For example, in some German dictionaries directly linked from Handango, I’ve found the 3.5-year-old version 3.0.1 engine, which is really-really outdated and should be avoided. In these cases, you will really want to update. (Paragon’s not updating the engine in their products is a bit problematic!)
Verdict
If you plan to purchase both the Merriam-Webster and the WordNet database OR you want an excellent (non-synthesized) speech engine, you will want to check out the SlovoEd version first. Access to several databases at the same time, the killer feature, is really worth the higher price (and the lack of goodies like anagram support).
If you, on the other hand, only plan to utilize the WordNet database and don’t care about the speech, you may want to give a try to “real” WordNet-only dictionary applications first (Lexisgoo or WordBook). Their additional features (anagrams, pronunciation info etc.) may appeal to you better.
Lextionary 2.4 by Revolutionary Software Front
I had very high expectations of this application – after all, it has been developed by the author of PalmGB, a WinCE / Pocket PC port of Marat Fayzullin's well-known Virtual GameBoy emulator, which, back in the WinCE times, was the best Nintendo GameBoy (Color) emulator.
Unfortunately, after thoroughly testing and comparing it to the alternatives, I was pretty dissatisfied with Lextionary. It’s clearly less powerful (and less colorful – this is what one notices at once) than most of the other alternatives.
Note that the same developer has also been developing Lexipedia, a Wikipedia port currently with 550,000 articles and reflecting the August 2005 state of the Wikipedia database. Also, they have a Pocket PC port of the Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. I’ll compare both of them to the alternates in my forthcoming lexicon / database roundup.
BDicty English Pro (part of English Heritage Bundle for Pocket PC) by BEIKS
Unfortunately, BDicty too eliminates almost all the additional relation information present in the underlying database. This means there are absolutely no relations between words. The engine itself isn’t pretty sophisticated either. There are no additional goodies like study support, wildcard search, anagram support or favorites.
The only real nicety I could find was the easy switching to the other, installed dictionaries. For example, if you purchase the English Heritage Bundle (right now, the only way to acquire the WordNet-based English Dictionary Pro), you not only get the WordNet-based English Pro dictionary, but also the English Gold dictionary and a thesaurus.
Note that, as with Paragon’s excellent dictionaries, the executable (the 3.5+ years old version 5.0) bundled with the dictionaries is a bit outdated (for example, it has messed-up icons on VGA devices). You may want to manually update it to version 5.5 if you don’t need the features no longer working in the latter version. (See below.) The new, 5.5 version can be downloaded from HERE (direct link of the CAB file here) and freely installed on top of an already-installed 5.0 version.
However much the BDicty engine (as opposed to Paragon’s SlovoEd 2005, which is the best in this respect (too)) can’t display the words available in all the installed dictionaries at once in the word list (this means you will need to switch between all your dictionaries if looking for a word not contained in one of them, but is listed in another), when you switch between the installed dictionaries, the current word (if it exists in the newly-activated dictionary) will still be highlighted. This is a nice feature of the engine (and pretty similar to the even better approach of SlovoEd 2005.)
An example of this is as follows. The WordNet-based English Pro displays the definition of ‘charm’ this way. If you switch to the English Gold dictionary, it will already have the input field filled in; then, you’ll only need to quickly switch to something else (for exaple, “goodly”) and, then, back in order for the definition to be seen.
The same is the case with switching to the Thesaurus: the word will be filled in. A quick down/up and the definition will be seen. Again, it’s still a far cry away from Paragon’s approach but is still better what the other, multiple dictionary-capable engines do (or better, don't do).
Note that this feature, for some reason, is missing from the newer, 5.5 engine, while still present in 5.0. Also, in 5.0, Edit/Paste (even with Ctl-V) to the definition search input field works, in 5.5, no longer does. The same stands for quick word highlight: in 5.0, you can quickly highlight a word by double-clicking it (and an entire paragraph by triple-clicking); in 5.5, this is no longer the case. This must be a bug in version 5.5.
All in all, the BDicty engine isn’t really the best when compared to almost all the other reviewed engines. However, taking into account that you can get three dictionaries for $24, you may want to consider getting it.
(Note that, as there are several other (for example, bilingual) dictionaries for BDicty, I’ll also elaborate on it in later parts of this review series and compare to the bilingual alternates.)
WordNetCE 2.7 by Troy Simpson
It’s pretty similar to the desktop version (and makes use of its (uncompressed) database). However, fortunately, it has some additional searching goodies (for example Widcard/regex and Anagram/Scrabble search).
Note that it requires the Compact Framework 1 SP3 (which also means it’s also PPC2k/PPC2k2 compatible). SP3 is also available, as individual CAB files, here.
For a free program, WordNetCE is pretty OK (my personal favorite is, however, as far as free WordNet implementations are concerned, MDict - please see the section on it for more info and a comparison to WordNetCE ). It, feature- and speed-wise, is not comparable to the best commercial solutions (most importantly WordBook and Lexisgoo), though.
Comparison chart
Due to the space constraints, I had to put it in my Web server back-end as a stand-alone, full-sized HTML table. It’s available here. Don’t forget to click it – AGAIN, it’s there that you will find most of the comparative information and screenshots!
Comparison chart explanation and comments
Trial restrictions?: in general, all the trial versions are pretty usable except for Lextionary, which is almost useless in trial mode (it does random lookups) and BDicty, which only lets for browsing words starting with A and B.
Requirements: none of the dictionaries have any special requirement except for the Compact Framework (CF) 1-based, free WordNetCE. It’s very important that you install Service Pack 3 (SP3) if you have an older, WM2003 or WM2003SE device shipped with an earlier Compact Framework version. The SP3 CAB files are available for download here (for PPC2k MIPS, PPC2k2 ARM and WM2003+ ARM.)
Memory?: how much storage they consume and whether they can be entirely installed onto storage cards. Note that apps with resident modules (for example, Lexisgoo, which has a module started from \Windows\Startup – that is, right at booting) will need to store some dozens of kilobytes in the main storage (RAM with op. systems prior to WM5).
Compatibility group: in here, I’ve tested the compatibility with VGA devices in both standard (SE) and native VGA mode. I also tested landscape compliance. I’ve conducted tests on three different Pocket PC’s: a WM2003SE Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720, a WM5 QVGA HTC Wizard and a WM5 VGA Dell Axim x51v with ROM version A12. As can be seen, only SlovoEd is close to useless in native VGA mode and two (lower-end) applications need to be forced to VGA in SE VGA.
WordNet feature support group: in this group, I elaborate on whether all the inter-word relationships are implemented and available in the specific WordNet implementation.
All relations displayed?: a generic catch-up test – a summary of the next two rows.
Synonyms / antonyms (latter tested with “good”): does the given app support synonyms and antonyms. All of them do, except for AbsoluteWord WordNet, MDict and BDicty, which painfully lack antonyms.
Wider (hypernyms) / narrower (hyponym) definition links? : The WordNet database is excellent in that it also has hypernym and hyponym relationships. In here, I’ve elaborated on the particular clients’ supporting this. As can clearly be seen, it’s again only AbsoluteWord WordNet , MDict and BDicty that don’t support them at all.
Example of Charm: example screenshots of the applications showing the definition of the word ‘charm’ so that you can see how the (same) information is presented by the individual front-ends.
Additional features group: here, I’ve collected additional features that really can enhance the usability of a given WordNet front-end.
Easy to further search in the answer text?: many times, you’ll want to make further searches for words in the descriptions. If you “only” want to search links (all WordNet clients support this, as opposed to the desktop Windows client, which has no links), it’s a no-brainer. Things, however, get complicated if you want to search for words not linked. Then, you’ll need an app that provides the easiest possible way for this. Some applications (here, WordNetCE and SlovoEd) let the user just (with SlovoEd, double-) click a word and, then, run a search on that (this is the easiest way but, in cases, may be problematic, for example, if you want to search for a two-word expression or you want to copy something to the clipboard for future use). Some applications (WordBook, Lexisgoo) display a context menu after you make any selection with the, among other things, lookup option. BDicty requires the user to highlight the text to be looked up (this works with a double-tap in the 5.0 engine version) and, then, a separate icon clicked. Finally, Lextionary , MDict and AbsoluteWord WordNet require the user to select, copy the given word(s) to the clipboard and paste it back to the input field – the most tiresome approach.
Lookup history?: more advanced applications store the history of past lookups, preferably persistently, over restarts too. In here, I've elaborated on the persistence and the "can the list be accessed freely, or only in a serial manner" issues.
Favorites?: WordBook and Lexisgoo also offer favorites (links that you would like to keep in one place). Of the two, Lexisgoo has a really nice, structured (just like the folders in any (decent) Web browser’s favorites system) and time-constrained (“I only need the favorites I’ve added today”) way of storing favorites. WordBook’s approach isn’t this sophisticated, but at least it still exists, unlike with all the other dictionary front-ends.
User notes?: making additional notes for records has always been in high demand among dictionary (or, for that matter, e-book reader) users. Unfortunately, only Lexisgoo and BDicty make this possible (with textual notes only – that is, no freehand drawings are possible, unlike with, say, Microsoft Reader). Of the two, Lexisgoo ’s approach is far better because it even keeps a central list of all the added user notes.
Speech synthesis?: SlovoEd has a separately purchasable and installable, high-quality speech pack.
In addition to this, two of the applications (WordBook and Lexisgoo) use the FLITE engine (a free speech synthesis engine by Carnegie Mellon Univ.), making it possible to read both the active word (expression) or any kind of text (with Lexisgoo, even from other applications, if you use “Read” in Lexisee).
Note that this is a synthesis engine. That is, while it’s still much better than a lot of other speech synthesis engine (including the English support in the speech engine of the LingvoSoft dictionaries – more on them later, in the next installments of this series), it’s in no way as good as native speakers’ spoken English (the way for example Paragon offers real speech on the Pocket PC). For example, while it’s able to (correctly) pronounce ‘adobe’ (unlike, say, the LingvoSoft engine), it’ll find for example ‘these’ difficult to pronounce.
Also, as it’s an external library called from the dictionary front-ends, once started, you won’t be able to stop it. This is particularly painful if you, for example, start one than more instance of Flite, reading a looooong text, by double-tapping the speaker icon. Then, two Flite instances will be started. You will only be able to help this by explicitly killing WordBook / Lexisgoo from a task manager. Keep this in mind when you use it.
English grammar tutorial built-in? : Lexisgoo has an excellent grammar summary in its help section. It’s much better than most in-app grammar summaries I’ve seen on the Pocket PC (make sure you check out the provided screenshots to see how cool it is!). As WordNet doesn't even contain a list of irregular verbs, I've also scrutinized whether the given front-end lists them (for example SlovoEd does).
User-added, searchable, new database records as in, say, SlovoEd 2005?: unfortunately, none of the dictionaries (except for, naturally, SlovoEd) allow for adding additional records.
Dynamic scrolling with, preferably, hiding all the entries that are surely not looked for?: it’s preferable to have a dictionary application that, when you enter a new word to look for, dynamically scrolls the available word list to the position of the word. This makes it very easy to see what other words there are starting with the same, already-entered character sequence and, in cases, makes input much faster.
It’s only WordNetCE and Lextionary that don’t support any kind of dynamic scrolling. WordBook, SlovoEd, MDict, BDicty and Lexisgoo do, but they simply scroll down/up the wordlist and don’t restrict the displayed words in any way. It’s only AbsoluteWord WordNet that doesn’t display words that start with different letters than those already entered. This, however, isn’t a showstopper, as far as SlovoEd, MDict, WordBook and Lexisgoo are concerned.
Multiple dictionary database support group: in here, I’ve compared and elaborated on the unique feature of some of the dictionaries (for example, SlovoEd, MDict and BDicty). Please read the mini-reviews of all these three applications for more information on what the four tests mean in this group.
Search group: in here, I’ve elaborated on what kind of searching capabilities the reviewed applications have. It’s (also) in this respect that a dictionary application can be really different from the rest of the WordNet front-ends because this, as with the rest of the user interface, is completely independent on the underlying WordNet database. With, for example, support for regular expression-based search, puzzle-solving capabilities or anagrams, a front-end can really excel and can add a lot of additional functionality.
If you have ever used the desktop Windows client, you know it is pretty bad in this respect – it doesn’t even let for wildcard searches, let alone other, even more sophisticated searching types. In this respect, all the tested applications are considerably better (as was also the case with linking words in the descriptions.)
Best match search support? (Wildcard searches (AKA puzzle helpers)?): Does the application make it possible to do wildcard searches? One of the most important usability areas of this is puzzle solving (see the provided screenshots for some examples!)
Phonetic searches?: while some of the applications also have phonetic search (“it sounds like”) capabilities, I’ve found them pretty useless, compared to the other ‘closest-match’ search capabilities.
Approximate match? Type (intelligent typo-checker / first match)?: in here, I’ve examined how “intelligently” the reviewed apps try to find the best matches for a given word. To do this, I’ve run searches for two deliberately misspelled words (aproved (approved) and propably (probably)) to see whether the applications do any kind of intelligent ‘closest-hit’ searches.
Interestingly, in this question, WordNetCE proved to be the best (and by far the slowest). Lextionary proved to be the second (and very fast). It was orders of magnitude faster than WordNetCE and also listed the well-spelled word in the first position. Unfortunately, the other dictionaries have proved to be far worse in this respect. That is, in this respect Lextionary is the best application (taking the time needed also into account).
Anagrams; tested with ‘listen’: WordNetCE, WordBook and Lexisgoo have anagram capabilities. This add a great deal of fun factor to these three applications – this feature can be used for delighting time-killing. Unfortunately, the other two applications don’t have anything like this.
Full text search (all occurrences of a given word)?: only one of the tested applications, AbsoluteWord WordNet, is able to run (very slow) full text searches in the entire database.
Communication with outside world group: is it easy to highlight a word in another application and look up its meaning in the tested dictionaries? In here, I’ve also elaborated on the copy (from the definition) / paste (to the ‘search this word’ text input field) capabilities.
Icon and/or other means (for example, monitoring the clipboard)? If not, other means of quick, preferably Clipboard-based quick paste upon activation?: Does the given dictionary have an icon you can just tap when you’ve selected (and, possibly, copied to the clipboard) some text? If it does, does it need to user to place the given text to the clipboard (as is the case with AbsoluteWord WordNet and BDicty), or, is just highlighting (selecting) sufficient (as is the case with the, in this respect three best applications, WordBook , MDict and Lexisgoo?) If it doesn’t have an icon (as is the case with WordNetCE and Lextionary - and SlovoEd, but the latter supports auto-invocation when something is double-copied to the clipboard), does it at least support quick, preferably hardware button-based invocation and auto-paste-to-the-input-field capabilities?
Copy/paste: Pasting into the input field?: interestingly, the otherwise best Lexisgoo is the only application that doesn’t support any kind of pasting to there (and BDicty if you use the 5.5 engine, as opposed to 5.0). You will not really feel the lack of it, though: Lexisgoo has other means of searching for text inside the definitions it displays (and its word lookup capabilities from other applications are also excellent).
Copy definition (or parts of it) to clipboard?: all the applications support this operation. That is, you will be able to export them to, say, a mail message if you need it.
Study support group: everything related to studying with the Pocket PC – another usability area the Pocket PC can excel at with, say, randomly generated word lists for each day.
Study?: Here, I’ve elaborated on the means the tested applications have for making self-study easier. As can clearly be seen, the two best applications (Lexisgoo and WordBook) both have excellent study support capabilities, Lexisgoo being the better.
Explicit random word display?: Some applications (also) offer the ability to display a random word (upon request). This can also help people that need a word to study. Nevertheless, it’s much inferior to the great study list configuration capabilities (with the separate dictionary text files of different language exam level) of WordBook and Lexisgoo, let alone the Today plug-in of the latter.
Not in the WordNet DB group: everything belongs here that, originally, isn’t contained by the WordNet database but is still very important in everyday life. Currently, there are three main areas of this kind of information: pronunciation, syllabification information and non-open-class words.
English pronunciation displayed?: all dictionaries except for BDicty, SlovoEd, the free MDict and WordNetCE contain add-on pronunciation information.
There are vast differences in the phonetic alphabet used. Some titles (WordBook, Lexisgoo) strictly use the International Phonetic Alphabet for English, which is the standard for teaching English in all countries where English is taught as a foreign language (this is what ALL dictionaries should do). AbsoluteWord WordNet uses something very similar, but not exactly the same. Finally, Lextionary, unfortunately, uses a completely different phonetic alphabet, which will be a pain to read for anyone that is used to the standard IPA alphabet.
Note that not all words have added pronunciation. For example, the “problematic” ‘adobe’ or ‘vehicle’ have but the more standard ‘adobo’ doesn’t. The same stands for words that also have a pair with given pronunciation; for example, the ‘adolesce’ and ‘adolescent’ pair. With them, you’ll need to look up the longer word so that you get the pronunciation of the shorter one. All the dictionaries seem to share the same words with pronunciation (the developers may have used the same add-on word list to import them) – that is, there are no dictionaries with more frequent pronunciation information.
Syllabification?: WordNet, unfortunately, doesn’t contain syllabification information either (which would be pretty important with English) and none of the client have this as add-on information.
Non-open-class words (determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and particles)? Tested with ‘this’.: As section 3.2 of the WordNet FAQ also states, WordNet only contains "open-class words": nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Thus, excluded words include determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and particles. Most of the dictionaries (including the Windows desktop and the online one) don’t have them as add-on words. (For example here, some people have also complained of, in this case, Lextionary’s not having simple words like these.) That is, you won’t find for example ‘this’ in them. It’s only Lexisgoo and BDicty that do include these words.
Verdict
In my opinion, Lexisgoo is the best WordNet implementation on the Pocket PC. Its only problem is the definitely weaker (compared to Lextionary 2.4 or, speed issues aside, WordNetCE 2.7) approximate searching mode. It’s, however, much better than the other applications in everything else. Highly recommended!
Close second is WordBook. Of the two, I would prefer Lexisgoo; your mileage, however, may vary. Compare the two apps to find out which one suits your needs better. (For example, some people at the AximSite forums have gone for WordBook because the low-res Lexisee icon doesn't look good on a VGA device, while the Word Picker icon of WordBook is hi-res and, therefore, looks better. Yes, choosing from between apps can depend on such subtleties.)
SlovoEd is also a worthy application to be considered. It entirely depends on your needs (do you want multiple, parallel database support? A really decent speech engine? If you do, this application is the way to go) whether you should go for it (see the SlovoEd section above for a more thorough comparison.)
The free MDict is also a very nice application assuming you don't need any extra capabilities. Please read the MDict section above for more in-depth comparison and elaboration on the cases when it may prove excellent.
Unfortunately, Lextionary, which is a favorite dictionary of many, feature-wise, didn’t excel at all. The inter-word relationship (this is what WordNet is all about…) support its homepage emphasized is also supported by all the other applications (except for the, in this respect, absolutely poor AbsoluteWord WordNet, MDict and BDicty). This means there is not a single feature in Lextionary that WordBook or Lexisgoo wouldn’t be capable of; except for, maybe, the great “like” matching, in which Lextionary is clearly better than the two latter applications. That is, if you need the best matching capabilities and can’t stand the snail-like speed of WordNetCE, you may want to consider getting Lextionary. Otherwise, I don’t really recommend it: both WordBook and Lexisgoo have much more superior features (and IPA pronunciation).
The free WordNetCE 2.7, while having certain drawbacks, is still better than one of the commercial (and most expensive) alternates (AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7). That is, if you must use a free application, you need the WordNet relationships (which the other free front-end, MDict, doesn't support) and can’t pay for a much better commercial one, WordNetCE is an acceptable solution.
BDicty is another 'also-run' application. Its only strength is the three separate databases coming in the English Heritage Bundle (thus, driving down the price), the easy switching between them (which is in no way as easy as with SlovoEd) and the support for non-open-class words. Otherwise, it's a pretty mediocre product not really recommended for purchasing - WordBook or Lexisgoo are far better, as far as pure, real WordNet support is concerned (for example, there is absolutely no support for antonyms / hypernyms / hyponyms in BDicty). If you need multiple database support (or, you want to deploy other language modules under BDicty), you may want to consider it, though. (Still, as far as multilingual / multi-database engines are concerned, I'd go with Paragon's SlovoEd 2005 instead.)
The absolute loser of the roundup is AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet 4.0.7. Except for the ability to (very slowly!) to a full text search (all occurrences of a given word) in the entire database, it is clearly the worst commercial WordNet-based application. I’d say it’s even worse than the free WordNetCE, particularly if you need antonym / hypernym / hyponym information (which AbsoluteWord WordNet painfully lacks). Also, as far as the other free client, MDict is concerned, I'd definitely go for it instead of AbsoluteWord / RoadLingua WordNet.
Acknowledgements
Without Hal Goldstein’s inviting me last (and this) year to be a judge in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine Best Software Awards judge board, there would be no dictionary roundup. That is, thank Hal first if you like the roundup(s)

creating new Mdict file
Hello,
I'm trying to create a new Mdict file fro; a Star dict file, and I have a little problem.
The explaination files says :
Steps to convert Star dict dictionary files into mdx format:
1) download the dictionary files in tarball format from http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php
the following steps will use file in http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries_ja.php as example
2) download both "JMDict-en-ja dictionary" and "JMDict-ja-en dictionary"
One dictionary file is enough, but we will show you how to merge two dictionary into one file, so need to download two dictionaries here.
3) extract the file into a temporary directory for example: c:\temp
There should be 4 files in c:\temp now:
2003-07-04 01:47 1,414,385 jmdict-en-ja.dict.dz
2003-11-12 19:38 2,392,521 jmdict-en-ja.idx
2003-11-12 19:38 351 jmdict-en-ja.ifo
2003-07-04 01:47 2,702,509 jmdict-ja-en.dict.dz
2003-11-12 19:38 3,732,514 jmdict-ja-en.idx
2003-11-12 19:38 352 jmdict-ja-en.ifo
4) copy the "convstar.exe" and "star_style.txt" into c:\temp too.
5) run:
a) convstar jmdict-en-ja.ifo e2j.txt
b) convstar jmdict-ja-en.ifo j2e.txt
c) copy e2j.txt+j2e.txt all.txt /b
if you don't need to merge two dictionaries into one, you can stip b) and c)
but I'm locked on 5) because each time I run convstar.exe , a windows pops up and the close immediatly. It is impossible to write anything (I'm using windows XP, english version).
It must be the kind of problem a novice like me is bumping into...
I would appreciate your light to solve this problem !
Thank you very much

how to : build your own dictionary with Mdict
I found the solution eventually
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=290503
cheers

Browsing the Web on MS Smartphone (WM Standard) devices & Review of Opera Mini 4 beta

Browsing the Web on MS Smartphone (WM Standard) devices & Review of Opera Mini 4 beta
UPDATE (08/17/2007): a new version is in the brand new, general Smartphone forum HERE. That is, go there to read the latest version of the article. I, however, keep this version of the original article because of the responses.
(end of update)
In my recently-published, well-known Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible I’ve elaborated on how Pocket PC’s can be used to browse the Web. Please make sure you DO read the review even if you don’t have a Pocket PC. You will learn a LOT from there and, in addition, I do NOT elaborate on many questions like Web standards compliance or additional Opera Mini features in here. In the current review, I “only” elaborate on questions ONLY concerning the MS Smartphone platform. The only exception is the review of Opera Mini 4, which is a generic one and can be used by Pocket PC users as well.
Now, it’s time to review
how you can do the same on MS Smartphone (Windows Mobile Standard) devices (SP for short); what browsers you should use, what bugs you should be aware of etc.
the brand new and REALLY NICE, HIGHLY recommended Opera Mini 4 platform. This section will be of interest to not only SP users, but also those of the “big brother”, the Pocket PC – and, for that matter, any Java-capable mobile phone.
As you’ll see, on the SP platform, there’re far fewer really usable browsers and there are (currently) absolutely no Java and real Flash support. This, fortunately, makes one’s life far easier – generally, you only have three browsers to select from: either Opera Mobile, Opera Mini or the really promising newcomer, jB5. The two Operas are, as you may have already guessed, generally superior to the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile.
However, let’s start with the latter as it comes built into the operating system of all SP devices.
1.1 Internet Explorer Mobile (IEM)
Unfortunately, the SP version of the built-in IEM, even as of Windows Mobile 6 Standard (that is, the latest SP operating system version), is considerably inferior to the Pocket PC (PPC) version shipped with WM6. For example,
while the PPC version of IEM has received file uploading capabilities some two years ago (with the initial release of WM5), not even the latest, just-released, WM6 version of IEM is capable of the same as can be seen in HERE (showing the results of my traditional file upload test page – see the previously linked page for more info on what the screenshot should show). Note that the SP version of Opera Mobile has no problems with file uploading (1 2 3 4)
it also has major problems with some HTTP / scripting constructs never having caused any problems to the Pocket PC brother; most importantly, it has problems with posting to Smartphone Thoughts and Pocket PC Thoughts forums from IEM. (The PPC port of IEM has no problems with posting to these sites; neither do Opera Mobile and Opera Mini on the SP platform.) Interestingly, this is NOT a problem on several models (even including WM6 ones) - and, in some occasions, it even worked on my Vox. I don't know why - it probably depends on the size of the message. Also see for example Mike Temporale's posts and links in THIS thread.
it doesn’t support tabs and, as you may have guessed, none of the known, Pocket PC-only PIE / IEM enhancers (MultiIE, PIEPlus, Spb Pocket Plus, ftxPBrowser etc.) work.
just as on the Pocket PC, you can’t make use of the hardware buttons (except for the “Back” button) AND the dialpad buttons (except for the 2/4/6/8 buttons for page scrolls) of your Smartphone. In this respect, both Opera Mini and Mobile are better. Fortunately, the most common functionalities are accessible, in general, with two or three (depending on whether you start from full screen mode) key presses. Fortunately, there are some registry hacks that - at least to a certain degree - fix this, which I’ll later, in a subsequent section, elaborate on.
download-wise, it’s really different from the Pocket PC IEM: it’s only CAB files that can be downloaded (if at all – see later), nothing else. This is in stark contrast with both the PPC version and Opera Mobile on the platform, which uses the same, vastly superior download-specific code as the PPC version. You must do some manual, extensive Registry editing to fix this problem - and, even then, you will need to do this for each file type you'd like to see downloaded. I too address this issue in a later section.
Note that isn’t not only files that have no local, associated programs to operate on are refused to be downloaded, but EVERYTHING, even registered and, by default, supported file types like ZIP and PDF files (fortunately, Office files are supported if your device does contain Office Mobile – an example of an XLS file is HERE).
Some examples of these cases:
non-associated RAR files (for example THIS). Upon trying to download files like these, you get THIS error message (unlike with Opera Mobile).
PDF files with the, on the HTC Vox, associated, built-in Adobe Reader LE. An example PDF file is HERE
ZIP files, like THIS, associated with Resco File Explorer.
Furthermore, the old problem with CAB files served as of unknown type is present in this version too. For example, while THIS CAB file is server as binary and, therefore, offered for download, THIS one, which is returned as of unknown (text/plain) type, results in the well-known, useless textual representation (while Opera Mobile downloads it just fine). The CAB problem has always been a major problem with the PPC version as well, as is also explained in the Download Bible.
Note that I’ve also had downloading problems on my WM5 HTC s310 (Oxygen) upon trying to download a 2.5M Byte CAB file (the Smartphone version of Opera Mobile HERE) via an EDGE connection. No matter where I tried to store it (the device had about 10M free built-in storage), the transfer would stall at 300-600 kbytes (I’ve tried to download the file several times), while, under exactly the same circumstances (the same network coverage, the same file etc), my WM5 HTC Wizard Pocket PC downloaded the file without problems. I haven’t encountered similar problems on my WM6 HTC Vox (s710). I don’t know whether this was a temporary problem or generally a problem with WM5 SP IEM’s over slow(er) connections and large(r) binary (in this case, CAB) files. Just keep this in mind if you have similar problems.
As far as the WM6-specific fixes are concerned, the WM6 SP version of IEM, fortunately, supports iframes as can be seen in HERE. (It’s suffering from the same width problem as with the PPC version, though – even in Single column mode. This isn’t an issue on Opera Mobile and Mini.)
All in all, I do not really recommend IEM for regular Web browsing on SP’s if you don't apply the above-mentioned (and below-explained) registry hacks. Go for either Opera Mobile (which is, as far as the new, 8.65 beta is concerned, free until Oct. 1. Of course, being free until October doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support the company – do purchase for example their 8.60 version to support their continuous efforts to give us the BEST Pocket PC, Smartphone and, in my opinion, desktop Windows browsers) or the absolutely free and excellent Opera Mini.

1.1.1 Fixing the binary file download problem
The difference between the SP and the PPC version of IEM is pretty simple. While the latter doesn't require a given file type to be registered in the local Registry to be downloaded, the former does, and also requires a specific flag (the fifth "bit" in EditFlags) to be set to one.
This is why "unknown" file types like RAR or known file types that don't have the EditFlags value are refused to download. You can, fortunately, fix it. In here, I describe both the manual and the automatic, much easier way of doing this. The former includes heavy Registry editing, but might prove useful in cases you'd like to allow for downloading more file types than the automatic way offers.
1.1.1.1 Manually enabling downloding a given file type
Let's assume you want to enable ZIP file downloading. To do this, first, you have to fire up a registry editor (I recommend that of Resco - it's well worth the price).
First, as ZIP files end in .zip (that is, have the file extension 'zip'), you need to navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.zip to see what full name it references (it's the latter that you will, later, create a new EditFlags DWORD in). As can clearly be seen in THIS screenshot, it refers to another Registry entry, Resco_zipfile.
Go to the given extension, still under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and select Menu / 1 File / 1 New / 5 DWORD Value
enter EditFlags in the “Name” field
enter 65536 (that is, hexa 10000) in the DWORD Data field; press Done (left softkey)
now, the new entry should be visible and the ZIP download working (Similar screenshot with EXE files HERE and with PDF files HERE)
Incidentally, if you've read my past EditFlags-related remarks & explanations (for example HERE), you know the uppermost "bit" has a special download-related meaning. If it’s 1 as in HERE, the file will ONLY be downloaded to the main memory and you’re not presented the usual download screen where you can also set the target – instead, the download will start at once. That is, make double sure you don't set it to 1!
Wasit complicated? Certainly it was! Rejoice: now comes the much easier / safer, automatic way! If you're a newbie to Windows Mobile (and/or Registry editing), you will want to prefer THIS registry import file I’ve created for you. It sets the PDF, ZIP and EXE download associations. Note that the latter assumes you’ve installed Resco Explorer and PDF requires the Adobe Reader LE 2.1 (for example, the one shipped with the Vox). You will - after installing Resco Explorer, along with its Registry support - just click the file once you've transferred it to your PDA. After (re)starting IEM, the changes will be visible - and the files downloaded.
Finally, should you need support for even more (not just PDF, ZIP and EXE, but also rar, doc, mpeg, mpg, mp3 and avi) file types, you will want to check out THIS MoDaCo thread (the CAB file installer by rcperez). All you need is running the PIEPlugin.cab file (note that the Download Plugin for PIE Updated.zip file contains the same PIEPlugin.cab also separately downloadable file) linked in the first post. You won't even need to have a Registry Editor. (Note that there are some, similar threads for only one extension type: ZIP, EXE. However, make sure you prefer rcperez's hack.)
1.1.2 Adding more functionality to the phone dialpad
MS Smartphones have something that (most) traditional Pocket PC's don't have: a phonepad: consisting of 10 numeric keys, the # and the * buttons. Knowing the most common functionality a Web browser user wants to have access to (quick scroll up/down, to the top/bottom of the page; reloading; - with multi-document browsers - switching to the previous / next tab; quickly switching between the different rendering and layout modes; quickly changing the character size / zoom percentage), many of this functionality can be quickly accessed by making use of the 12 extra buttons.
As has already been pointed out, IEM only makes use of the '2' and '8' keys by default. These two buttons can be used to do page scrolls, as opposed to the link scrolls accessible on the D-pad, combined with fast scrolling introduced in later WM5 AKU's, should you continuously depress the D-pad. You can, fortunately, assign (some) functionality to all the other remaining ten buttons.
Unfortunately, there are far fewer functions you can assign to the buttons, but even this is definitely a step forward. Let's have a complete list of the functionalities that can be accessed (note that I'll explain the numbers later, when discussing how the Registry should be modded):
Functionality (Registry values):
1 - Page Up (default under (later?) WM5 / WM6)
2 - Page Down (default under (later?) WM5 / WM6)
3 - Top of page
4 - Bottom of page
5 - Page Left in non-one column view / modes
6 - Page Right in non-one column view / modes
7 - Page FULL left in non-one column view / modes
8 - Page FULL right in non-one column view / modes
9 - Default Layout
10 - Desktop Layout
11 - One Column Layout
12 - Full Screen Toggle
13 - Show Pictures Toggle
As can clearly be seen, there're no goodies like "Refresh" in here. However, even then it's pretty much useful.
Now, let's see what these numbers are for. To understand their meaning, I elaborate on how the Registry stores the keypad button - functionality pairs.
In the Registry, it's the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ Software\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ KeyMaps] key that stores values (NOT subkeys!) connecting keys with functionalities. In general, it's done in the following way: the value name's the keycode and the value of the value is one of the above-listed functionalities.
The keycodes are as follows (that is, the Registry value names):
48: 0
49: 1
50: 2
51: 3
52: 4
53: 5
54: 6
55: 7
56: 8
57: 9
119: *
120: #
I've created a registry import file that assigns most the available functionality (except for "Page FULL right in non-one column view / modes"). All you need to do is importing it (with, say, Resco Registry Explorer) and (re)starting IEM. The effects will be seen at once. The registry import file is available HERE and has the following key assignment:
0: full screen (12)
1: Show Pictures Toggle (13)
2: Page Up (1)
3: top of page (3)
4: Page Left in non-one column view / modes (5)
5: Page FULL left in non-one column view / modes (7)
6: Page Right in non-one column view / modes (6)
7: default layout (9)
8: Page Down (2)
9: bottom of page (4)
*: Desktop Layout (10)
#: One Column Layout (11)
For more (not mandatory) info, also see THIS, THIS, THIS and THIS.

1.2 Opera Mobile
(a QVGA screenshot; note that, as with IEM and Opera Mini, Opera Mobile is perfectly usable on low-resolution, 176*220 Smartphones too)
Currently, this really excellent browser is even more usable on the Smartphone than on most Pocket PC (that is, Pocket PC’s without a dialpad on the face of the phone – an example of PPC models with a dialpad is the ASUS P525) because of the functionality shortcuts assigned to these buttons. As has been pointed out in the Web Browsing Bible (which is a good read even for people that don’t own a Pocket PC), currently, it’s not possible to assign any otherwise assignable functionality – for example, page up/down, jump to beginning of page etc. – to Pocket PC hardware button. The situation is entirely different with the Smartphone platform.
This is all topped with the traditional Opera Mobile strengths: speed, standards compliance, being multi-tabbed (of course, tabs aren’t displayed in the SP version; however, it’s very easy to quickly (!) switch between loaded pages), no binary download-related problems, upload support etc.
There are some minor (!) bugs with the SP version, as opposed to the PPC one. These are in no way as bad as the problems with IEM, though.
The Register can’t be browsed without zooming out and/or switching to Landscape mode on QVGA screens. This is because, for some reason, one-column mode is just hidden when browsing The Register. Screenshots: 1 2
The standard Smartphone "Back" button doesn't work in the cache setting text input field, which makes it impossible to change the value (other than adding, say, a new number in front of it, which is NOT recommended in any way for a reason I elaborate on later). The "Delete" key on built-in QWERTY keyboards (when they exist), on the other hand, do work. This is a minor problem on models with no built-in QWERTY thumb/keyboard. Tested on both the Vox (has a QWERTY keyboard) and the Oxygen (no keyboard). Note that you can always manually edit (with a file explorer tool) the Size value in the [Disk Cache] section of \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini if you want to change this value.
If you install Opera Mobile to a storage card, the file associations won’t work with HTML files and URL’s (for example, links in e-mails) as can be seen in HERE. The problem with PPC version 8.60 was the same; unfortunately, the registry script (see THIS article) I’ve created for the latter doesn’t help with the Smartphone version.
Has some minor problems with image handling. When the browser is presented with more than, say, 7-8 images in a page, it may not download them all (or, for that matter, any of them). Give a try to THIS page to see this in effect - on my QVGA Vox, it didn't render any images. The situation was pretty similar on the old(er) Oxygen (with other pages).
When you manually enter a URL into the "Go to" text input field on the Vox keyboard, you can't enter a string longer than the screen estate size (give a try to entering, say, the above link!) This problem can only be fixed by trying to visit the part that can still be entered and, then, returning to Action / Go to, finding the first part of the URL already entered and going on with entering the latter part(s). Dunno if this problem is caused by the OS or Opera Mobile.
If you define a HUGE cache (to bring down data usage costs), the responsiveness of the browser REALLY decreases. For example, on my Vox, I had a cache with about ~10M files (in the main storage). With that, Opera takes over a minute (!) to start and, after loading a new page (WITHOUT images!) about 10-15 seconds to flush it to the cache, during which you can't for example scroll up/down to go on reading. That is, you need to stick with the default 2M cache to get rid of these problems.
If there is little RAM memory left, the Smartphone dialpad keys (2, 6, 9 etc.) stop working. Instead of their default functionality, they result in reloading pages / moving elsewhere. In these situations, an error message like "Due to RAM memory shortage, the requested action couldn't be done." could be shown.
Again and again, this is more of nitpicking – Opera Mobile for the MS Smartphone still stays THE best Smartphone Web browser. For example, it still supports even saving images (in the Image mode – see the explanation in the usage chart).
Probably the only really annoying bug is the fact that, as of 8.65 beta released on 06/01/2007 and usable until October this year, it only remembers HTTP proxy servers during the first page request after starting; the other requests are directly sent to the HTTP server. To test this, give it a working (for example, at the time of writing, 82.204.47.120:8080 was one of them) proxy address in \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini (as is explained in the Toonel-related section) and, then, after restarting Opera, go to WhatIsMyIP.com. Upon the first invocation, you’ll see the proxy’s address as the originating address. Upon later invocations (for example, after just refreshing the page), however, it’ll switch to direct access – and the IP address it displays will also reflect this.
This, unfortunately, means currently you won’t be able to local proxy-based bandwidth usage reduction solutions like Toonel with Opera Mobile. Neither will you be able to use external proxies to either conceal your real IP or get outside of a corporate network.
1.3 Opera Mini 4.x
{
"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"
}
(VGA PPC screenshot running under the Intent midlet manager (hence the non-used command bar at the bottom); a QVGA Smartphone screenshot HERE)
I’ve often reported on Opera Mini, which, as of the current 4.x series beta, has become a serious contender to even native Windows Mobile Web browsers, particularly on the touch screen-less Smartphone platform, where the lacking features of Opera Mini (for example, lack of context menus or copy / paste capabilities) aren’t a problem because of the lack of the touch screen. (That is, you couldn’t use these features on IEM either – it’s only Opera Mobile, with its excellent link / image context menus even on the SP platform, that still offers a bit more functionality than Opera Mini.)
1.3.1 What’s new with the brand new, 4.x Opera Mini series?
Nokia’s having pioneered the quick zoom functionality in their excellent S60 series 3 Web browser, Windows Mobile browsers quickly followed suit: first, NetFront in the second Technical Preview of their forthcoming 3.4; then, Microsoft in their (beta-stage and still far from being finished) DeepFish.
Opera, the, in my opinion, by far the finest (give a try to their desktop browser, particularly if you have an (W)SXGA+ or (W)UXGA screen – you’ll love it!) browser developer company, soon followed suit. In addition to announcing the forthcoming Opera 9, which is a native Windows Mobile application, with similar capabilities, they have also added full page view & quick zoom capabilities to the brand new series of Opera Mini, their Java Midlet-based, small, but still VERY powerful multiplatform browser.
Just visit THIS page (the SWF file, should you want to directly download it, is HERE) and see what Opera has come up with. It’s indeed very cool, isn’t it? All this in a VERY small package (90 kbytes), with almost unmeasurable runtime (dynamic RAM) memory consumption. Compare this to the memory consumption of traditional Web browsers – yes, they consume orders of magnitude more memory. Note that there are a some other, cool videos on Opera’s homepage running the browser in reality – those videos are far more instructive than my static screenshots.
This browser, as has also been pointed out in the Web Browser Bible, runs great on Windows Mobile, on both Pocket PC’s and MS Smartphones, in both common factory-default midlet environments, the Intent (the industry standard on almost all WM5-based PPC and SP phones, except for the Esmertec-based HP iPAQ hx6915) and the Esmertec (shipped with many natively WM6 phones like the HTC Vox / S710) midlet managers.
It’s by far the best J2ME (Java midlet) browser: other Midlet-based browsers are far worse in every respect. For example, jBrowser can’t even display middle-sized pages like the PPCMag blog page, the PPCT main page as can be seen in HERE and, for smaller pages, it will never finish loading.

As has already been pointed out, the best new feature the new version offers is Zoom-in / full page view functionality. Its “let’s crunch the text into the viewable screen estate” works just great – much better than I’ve expected or what most of the other browsers do.
You’ll REALLY love the new page view functionality if you want to check out for example
THIS is the desktop rendition of the Finnish stock exchange in a tabular form. Now, let’s take a look at them in the default, pre-series 4 one-column mode:
and this is how the new, full page layout mode renders it (zoomed in):
and zoomed out, showing the entire page:
A big difference in usability and readability, isn’t it?
Of course, in most cases, if you don’t want to browse tabular data like this, you won’t necessarily need the new mode. Then, you may safely stay with the old, one-column mode.
In addition to providing a page view & zoom-in mode, the Opera folks have come out with something unprecedented in the Windows Mobile world: smart text finding. Let me show you an example with an XDA-Developers thread:
In THIS screenshot, I’ve just started browsing and, therefore, the selection frame is in the upper left corner. Now, let’s press the Down key several times (or, even better, 8 for much quicker navigation downwards). As soon as I’ve reached the body of the text, the selection was automatically (!) scrolled to the right so that no screen estate remains unused on the left side of the screen as can be seen in HERE. Pretty smart, eh?
Now, let’s press Action to read it. As can indeed be seen, the text is very intelligently flowed in a way that no horizontal scrolling is necessary. It’s also really-really superior to how most other browsers handle non-one column modes. Thumbs up Opera, you’re indeed the BEST Web browser developers out there – and this is stated by somebody that knows a LOT about Web technologies and protocols!

1.3.2 Shortcuts
Opera Mini is pretty much similar to Opera Mobile in that it makes extensive use of the phonepad (dialpad) common on all SP models (and, as has already been stated, also available on some PPC models). Unfortunately, the default hotkeys are different, which you, if you often switch between the two browsers, will find pretty inconvenient. (But, then, just edit \Application Data\ Opera\ input.ini to make it similar to the Opera Mini shortcuts. See my other, Opera Mobile-related articles on how this can be accomplished.)
Please see section 1.5 (Shortcuts) to see what shortcuts the two browsers (and, in addition, IEM) offers. They REALLY make browsing MUCH faster – it’s really worth using the dialpad to access them.
1.3.3 Bugs, annoyances in Opera Mini 4.0 beta
The new, 4.0 series being in beta state, it has some, in most cases (if you DO use a compatible Midlet environment), non fatal bugs / annoyances not present in previous versions:
Big minimal font size (as opposed to the current 3.1.* version) and (comparatively) huge gaps between rows. A lot of people have complianed about this; in my opinion, this doesn’t hamper the usability of the client.
Cookies are not necessarily kept (as opposed to the current 3.1.* version – you may end up having to logging into your account much more frequently than with the 3.x series)
You may encounter crashes on Pocket PC’s and on Smartphones running other Midlet managers than that of Esmertec. On my Vox, using the factory-shipped Esmertec midlet environment, I haven’t encountered ANY crash over the last month of active (!) usage. See for example THIS XDA-Dev thread on PPC users’ reporting shutdowns / crashes. Most (if not all) of these users use the Intent midlet manager (which, again, is also the default midlet manager on many Smartphones.)
Let me, again, emphasize that while on my brand new WM6 HTC Vox (s710), using the Esmertec Jeodek 20070115.1.1 midlet environment, I have never encountered any Opera Mini 4.0 beta crash (while having been using it at least 2-3 hours a day!), other midlet environments may behave differently. For example, the Intent midlet manager common on most WM5 Smartphones AND Pocket PC's is known to frequently crash on OpMini4 users - it did once on me too when I (quickly) tested OpMini 4 on my HTC Universal (the latter running the 10/1/7/554 / 20060502 version of the Intent manager.) Should you encounter crashes like this, consider switching to either the IBM J9 midlet manager (according to holg HERE, it works just great with Opera Mini 4) or look around in the XDA-Developers forums for help in getting the, again, stable and reliable Esmertec Midlet manager. (I don't know whether it's separately sold; I seriously doubt it.)
The full page layout takes a LOT of memory. If you stay with the one-column mode, unless you load HUGE pages (say, hundreds of kilobytes originally), you, in general, will be able to make use of all the 30 page slots without having to reload any of these pages. If you, on the other hand, switch to the original page (as opposed to the one-column one) layout view, this will be reduced to two or three concurrent pages at most, regardless of the size of the original pages. If you often switch back to already loaded, just-browsed pages and don’t want to reload them because of the time / bandwidth requirements, you will want to stick to the traditional, one-column mode.
Note that the two versions can easily co-exist with each other. That is, if the first three problems become annoying, you can just switch back to the old versions. Unfortunately, as the favorite lists aren’t shared between the two versions, favorites that you add / edit in one version won’t be visible in the other.
1.3.4 Other (non-4.x-specific) problems
There’re still some problems with Opera Mini that may be a showstopper for you.
It’s still unable to render ANY kind of italic text (see for example THIS for a more thorough elaboration and my demos showing displaying italic text is indeed possible on Smartphones, regardless of the midlet manager in use). This is a MAJOR pain the back. I’ve already contacted the Opera folks on this matter; hope they fix this problem.
Binary download support-wise (as it’s using the IEM engine to do the “dirty” stuff; that is, to download files off the Web), it’s suffering from exactly the same problems as IEM:
CAB files with text MIME type are just rendered as text (like THIS); bigger ones (like THIS 1.5M CAB file) result in an out of memory error
non-CAB files with (correct) binary MIME type (like THIS PDF file) are correctly passed to IEM. Unfortunately, as the execution is fully supervised by IEM, you won’t be able to download any of these files because of the well-known problem already outlined in the IEM section.
Finally, CAB files with the binary MIME type (like THIS) are both correctly recognized by OpMini and, then, correctly downloaded by IEM.
And, of course, the other minor annoyances / restrictions (no file upload, no any kind of access to the IEM / Opera Mobile favorites, no URL copying etc.) – you can see them all in the original Web Browser Bible.
1.3.5 Verdict
Currently, while Opera Mini 4 is at beta stage (as is also emphasized in the documents), it’s already highly recommended if you have a SP model.
1.3.6 More information
Opera Mini 4.0 wishlist thread
Opera Mini forum

1.4 jB5
(another screenshot, now with an image)
Now, this is a really promising browser! While decidedly slower than even IEM and lacks highly useful features like FastBack (upon pressing Back, rendering the page from the local memory cache and NOT downloading it again, unlike both jB5 and NetFront) and does NOT offer multiple document capabilities (unlike the two Operas), it’s (as of the current, tested version, 5.0.56) already pretty powerful (for example, it's the only Smartphone Web browser to offer in-page text search: see it in action: 1 2 3) - much more usable than, say, the next-to-useless Minimo. What is more, it's free.
As it's in beta stage and will surely receive an ever better version, I do not thoroughly review and compare its features / standards compliance to the alternatives because the info would be outdated VERY soon. I will, however, definitely review it as soon as it gets into final (or Release Candidate). Make sure you check it out and get your free copy - if you can put up with the somewhat slower page loading / scrolling speed and the lack of multi-tabs / FastBack, you may like it very much.
1.5 Additional technologies
In this section, I elaborate on the Toonel, Java applet and Flash support on Smartphones. Again and again, CHECK out the original Windows Mobile Web Browsing Bible for more info on them. In here, I only give you strictly Smartphone-related information, not generic one you might want to also know.
1.5.1 Flash
Unfortunately, unlike on the desktop, where there is a more or less solid and compatible (albeit pretty slow) official Flash implementation from Adobe (ex-Macromedia; from now on, I only refer to it as “Adobe”) itself (and the alternative, albeit a bit worse and much more CPU-hungry player integrated into NetFront), Smartphone users have always been left in the cold. Much as Adobe has been addressed several petitions (see for example THIS one at MoDaCo), the Smartphone still haven’t received a real Flash player.
There is some light on the horizon, though. Adobe is working on Flash Lite (current version: 2.1), which is already accessible HERE. (If you don’t have an account, make sure you check in “No, I will create one now” as the bottom so that you can register. Registering can be done quickly; only after that will you be able to access the downloads. Note that, should you not want unwanted Adobe mails, you don’t need to check in any of the “I’m a developer / content creator” radio buttons – you can safely set all of them to “No” instead of the default “Yes” – you’ll still be provided access for the download).
Both IEM and Opera Mobile supports this plug-in (see screenshots below). Note that it doesn’t run MOST currently available Flash animations. For example, most games out there won’t run (unlike under the Pocket PC version). Some examples of them are Bomberman and Play with fire (this is what you’ll be shown: 1 2; IEM screenshot).
Incidentally, I’ve tried to „hack“ Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
1.5.2 Toonel
Toonel, the transparent compressor proxy, is a GREAT way to save data usage costs. If you don’t have an unlimited data plan, you really should check it out by, first, reading my related article & tutorial HERE. I’ve published several articles and tips on Toonel; the just-linked one is the one to start with.
While, it seems, it’s not possible to make the native Windows Mobile version work, the Java versions does work on Smartphones.
As far as the native Windows Mobile version is concerned, according to the folks HERE (thanks for the link to the Toonel folks; it's Russian - Babel "translation" HERE), some people managed to make the native (.NET CF) version of Toonel run. I haven’t succeeded in this on either of my Oxygen or Vox.
Fortunately, the Java version works. In general, you’ll only need the (brand new) CrEme 4.12 (download the TI OMAP version of the 4.1 series if you have a TI OMAP-based Smartphone) and THIS JAR file (version 0.45 - do NOT use version 0.50!). Install CrEme (you can do this on the storage card too – then, however, you’ll need to modify the link file I give you), copy the JAR file to the root directory of your handheld (you can, actually, copy it anywhere – but, then, you’ll need to modify the link file I will give you soon) and, then, copy THIS link file to \Windows\Start Menu. Then, just click the latter to start Toonel in the background. Upon start, you should see THIS screen. If you see THIS (note the bind() failed message!), it shows Toonel is already running.
Note that the CrEme process takes quite a lot of memory (but, fortunately, little CPU time – about 1-2% - when inactive) as can be seen in HERE. Beware of this fact – the operating system may kill the CrEme (Toonel) process in the background, particularly if you start other, memory-intensive programs. Then, you will just need to restart the proxy by clicking the startup script.
As, currently, the SP version of Opera Mobile (as with old 8.60 Pocket PC builds) doesn’t have internal support for entering proxy servers, you must enter the proxy information in the config file by hand. However, as with the old PPC betas, you can easily configure the proxy server by just editing \Application Data\ Opera\ opera.ini and adding the following section:
[Proxy]
Use HTTP=1
HTTP server=127.0.0.1:8080
Enable HTTP 1.1 for proxy=1

A screenshot of the Web admin interface of the locally running Toonel on my Vox:
As can clearly be seen, there was about 80% (fourfold!) bandwidth usage saving during the active session. This alone makes Toonel really worthy if yours is not an unlimited data plan.
A quick visit to WhatIsMyIP also shows it’s through the Toonel server that you’re connected (85.25.148.242 is one of the IP’s of the Toonel servers).
It’s VERY important to remember that, currently (as of 07/10/2007), the SP version of Opera Mobile does NOT reliably support proxy servers. Therefore, if you absolutely must use Toonel (or ANY external proxy server), you MUST use IEM and forget Opera Mobile.
As IEM, as with the PPC version, also depends on the operating-system level proxy settings (unlike other browsers), you must also configure the system to access the Net differently than before. That is, do the following:
in IEM, go to Menu / 9 Tools / 3 Options / Connections, untick “Automatically detect settings” and select “Work” in the list as can be seen in HERE
in the system-level Settings, go to 6 Connections / 6 Proxy, press Action on New and create a new record as can be seen in THIS screenshot (as can be seen in HERE, just leave “Type” on “HTTP”). You can name the proxy setting anything; in here, I’ve called it ‘t’. That is, all you need to do is setting “The Internet” to “Connects from”, “Work” to “Connects to” and entering “127.0.0.1:8080” in “Proxy (nameort)”.
Note that, after this, you will need to configure your other programs also using the system-level settings to use Toonel instead of a direct connection. Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to configure the built-in Messaging to use the built-in POP3 proxy support of Toonel (as opposed to the Pocket PC Messaging). Also, remember that, should you have the built-in Live (or MSN) Messenger, defining the proxy will also render them useless.
Unfortunately, it seems it’s not possible to make these programs work with a proxy defined in the above way. That is, you will need to delete the proxy every time you want to access your mail. It seems there are no other ways of disabling it - for example, setting the source / target networks to something else doesn’t work.
Again, keep in mind that you can have Toonel activated for IEM (that is, using a system-level proxy setting) AND still access your mail (both compressed, via Toonel, and uncompressed) via other, Smartphone-compliant mailer clients; for example, FlexMail. With the latter, you can safely use the compression offered by Toonel too and the mails downloaded just OK.
1.5.3 Java applets
While the IEM plug-in of the just-released CrEme 4.12 (the only Java Virtual Machine to be compatible with the Smartphone AND have an applet plug-in) can be registered, it doesn’t seem to be working, unlike on the Pocket PC.
Neither the applet-based Radar Weather test nor the local demo applet (Cube) shipped with the system work: the JVM plug-in just keeps showing "loading applet". Example screenshots: 1 2 (Vox); 3 (Oxygen).
1.6 Keyboard shortcuts
I’ve compiled a chart of the three SP Web browsers showing how a given functionality can be accessed. As can be seen, in general, Opera Mini requires the least button presses to do something (assuming IEM and Opera Mobile run in full-screen mode, which also means double initial softkey presses instead of just a single one to access something in menus only – that is, not having a direct dialpad shortcut).
Keep in mind that, if you extensively use the dialpad (for example, to directly enter the number of the menu item you’d like to activate – these numbers are shown in all menus and I also reproduce them here), you can navigate MUCH faster than using the D-pad to scroll up/down a menu.
You can find the chart here - make sure you check it out, you’ll find it REALLY useful!
2. Non-working or not recommended browsers
2.1 Thunderhawk 2.0
Unfortunately, this browser wasn’t updated for WM5. This means neither the SP2003 (1 2) nor the SP2002 version (these are the two versions available for download) can be installed on WM5/WM6 SP models. All in all, forget about it for the time being.
2.2 NetFront 3.4 Technical Preview 007
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).
2.3 Webby
Unfortunately, it doesn’t run either. While it can be installed, it refuses to run (1 2 3).
2.4 Minimo 0.2
(the latter is a 176*220 screenshot; as can be seen, only the last, Menu (…) icon is invisible; however, transferring the focus to it will also work. Too bad it turned out to be pretty unreliable on my WM5 AKU3 s310 (Oxygen)– even more so than on my QVGA Vox. For example, it didn’t even finish loading the SPT homepage as can be seen in the above screenshot.)
While it can be installed on SP’s, on this platform it’s far from perfect and, in general, useless, for the following reasons:
it has HUGE memory usage (the biggest problem with the 0.2 version on the Pocket PC platform too). After loading, it consumes about 12Mbytes and, when you load additional pages, this decreases even more, leaving little (if any) RAM memory
accessing the icons (to, for example, bring up the address bar) at the bottom can only be done using the right softkey. This, on the other hand, first, iterates through ALL the links in the page (yes, ALL of them), and only after this moves down to the bottom icons. A mouse emulator like SPHelper doesn’t help (to directly click the icons at the bottom) – Minimo just doesn’t sense the mouse clicks (that is, left softkey presses)
the browser often crashes (mostly if you run out of memory) and is generally slowish
All in all, I don’t recommend it. Also see for example THIS and THIS for more info / user opinions.
Note that the other available version, Minimo 0.16, isn’t installable on Smartphones at all.

UPDATE (later the same day):
in THIS thread, MoDaCo forum member holg posted something definitely worth reading - it, for example, explains how you can directly start Opera Mini from the alternative, by me, often-discussed midlet runner environment, the IBM J9. It also shows how external proxies can be used with this environment.
SPT frontpage
UPDATE (07/11/2007): Article heavily updated: added the two IEM Registry hack sections; added the jB5 section.

The following is the brand new section I've just added to the original article. Sorry for not reposting the entire article again - I hate slicing it into pieces so that they become under 10k in size.
1.5.1.1 Hacking REAL Flash on Smartphones
I’ve tried to "hack" Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
Fortunately, other hackers had better luck. XDA-Developers forum member jockyw2001 has managed to hack the REAL Flash player onto the SP.
(IEM playing back a YouTube video in One Column mode on the HTC Vox)
(other screenshots: Opera Mobile on the Vox doing the same in Desktop mode with 50% zoom, with the SPHelper cursor for controlling the on-screen controls; the same on my 176*220 Oxygen, with 25% zoom)
His thread is HERE (you will NOT need to read it to complete the steps below!) Note that you MUST apply the hacks on an application unlocked phone - it won't work on locked phones. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to unlock your phone (see for example THIS article for some links). Also note that the hack worked just great on both my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and WM5 AKU3 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310). Some people, however, reported problems with other models (see the above-linked thread). I'm pretty sure it's because they have messed up something that the plug-in doesn't work on their devices.
First, get THIS file (it's a slighlty rearranged version of jockyw2001's original. For example, I've collected the registry import files into one file and separated the files into directories named after the steps you need to do). UnRAR it with, say, WinRAR. Now, do the following:
If you've already installed Resco File Explorer (along with its registry plug-in) and at least once started the latter, copy All.reg from Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Go to the Step 3 - flash6 directory on your desktop and the \Windows\Macromedia directory on your SP. Overwrite flash.dll on your SP with the one on your desktop.
Go to Step 4 - regserv and copy regsvrce.exe anywhere on your SP. From inside File Explorer (on your SP), execute it to register Flash. To do this, enter \Windows\Macromedia\flash.dll in the Full pathname... text input field (176*220 screenshot). (To make this easier (to avoid entering the path on the phonepad / keyboard of your phone), I recommend for example Pocket Controller on the desktop. If you can’t use Ctrl-V to paste to there (the case with the version 5.06 + HTC Vox combo, but NOT with the Oxygen), use ViTO’s excellent CopyPaste on the Smartphone to copy the contents of the clipboard to the input field.)
Then, just press OK and “Yes” in the confirmation dialog. After some 2-3 seconds, you’ll hear another bell. Now, start regsvrc.exe again; you’ll immediately see a confirmation (success) dialog (176*220 screenshot).
On the desktop, go to Step 5 - Flash7 and copy flash.dll to \Windows\Macromedia on your SP in order to overwrite the in step 3 copied Flash 6 version with the new, Flash 7 one.
Now you can start enjoying REAL Flash content!
The plug-in works great (additional screenshot); you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper to click labels / buttons like in THIS screenshot.
Note that both IEM and Opera Mobile are able to make use of the plug-in. The two programs have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses.
First, IEM can't make use the up/down arrow keys; that is, if you would like to, say, play a game depending on these two directions, they will be unplayable. In these cases, you MUST use Opera Mobile. Second, as far as playing back YouTube videos is concerned, while IEM (unlike on the Pocket PC – it’s pretty strange the SP version of IEM is better in this respect) you will want to prefer Opera Mobile because it’s slightly faster at playback. You will still want to overclock your phone - if it’s a TI OMAP-based one, with OMAPClock.
Under Opera Mobile (as opposed to IEM), in the default mode, the flash plug-in size will be really tiny as can be seen in HERE. (Therefore, you’ll want to switch to Desktop mode and use a Zoom level of, on QVGA machines, in general, 50%, and, on 176*220 models, 25%) Unfortunately, you will still have problems with scrolling down / right – in the default, link scrolling mode, you will only see the top left part of the page and won’t be able to scroll anywhere (not even clicking the scrollbars with SPHelper). To fix this (and to scroll down to the Flash animation), you MUST switch to Image (scrolling) mode. With Opera Mobile, the up/down arrows do work, unlike with IEM, as can also be seen in THIS screenshot (otherwise, I couldn’t have been able to go down).

UPDATE (07/18/2007): Upon popular demand, I've added a section on installing the Flash hack on a storage card.
Again, it's available at http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2084&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

1.1.3 MultiIE
The well-known Pocket PC IEM enhancer, MultiIE, is also compatible with (WM5+ only; sorry, no pre-WM5 compliance) MS Smartphones. The standard WM5 installer works on both Pocket PC’s and Smartphones. Let’s see how it compares to the Pocket PC version!
Unfortunately, it’s far inferior, feature-wise, to the Pocket PC version. Basically, you can only expect it to add multi-tab functionality.
1.1.3.1 Differences between the Pocket PC and the Smartphone version
1.1.3.1.1 Goodies missing - a generic overview
It’s fully impossible to save images in the SP version. The same stands for the excellent, additional features offered by, for example, address bar macros. They are ALL missing from the SP version, which is, more or less, only lets for multi tabs, softkey-based D-pad scroll mode and full screen switching, HTML saving and source viewing and keeping backlight on.
There are a LOT of features just not accessible in the SP version. In addition to basic functionality like the already-mentioned ability to open a link in another tab, the lack of saving images or saving full Web pages (as opposed to only saving plain HTML files without in-line images and, preferably, CSS/JS files), a whole set of other features are also missing: for example, address bar macroing, the excellent location-based services offered by the PPC version, the ability to quickly reformat a Web page through online Web compression / reformatting services like Skweezer etc. Fortunately, at least “Keep Backlight On” works.
1.1.3.1.2 Setting dialogs
Unfortunately, a lot of menu options accessible on the PPC are just not accessible in the SP version. For example, assigning shortcut buttons to MultiIE functions (PPC screenshots: 1 2) isn’t even offered by the SP version. On the Screen tab, it’s not possible to switch off the, on the Smartphone, useless (because you can’t tap them on a touchscreen-less device) corner icons (PPC SP).
1.1.3.1.3 Impossible to open a link in a new tab
While it’s available in the SP version of Opera Mobile (where you just traverse the focus to the link you’d like to open but, instead of pressing Action, press the right softkey and select “1 Open in new window”), it’s not possible to dynamically set where (in what tab) a new link should be opened to. This, of course, is also possible in the PPC version of MultiIE as can be seen in HERE.
You can surely try to redefine the default functionality in the Open link: Tap default action to, say, Open in new back window as can be seen in HERE, but it won’t work at all (and won’t stick). This means you can NOT open links in another tab in any way without opening a new tab in Menu / 9 MultiIE / 3 Open New Window and, in there, select the link you want to display in this tab.
1.1.3.2 Compared to Opera Mobile…
The inability to open a link in a new window, as has already been pointed out, is a big problem with MultiIE – as opposed to OpMob.
Switching between open tabs also requires significantly more button presses than in Opera Mobile. In the latter, you only need to press ‘2’ once to bring up the list of open tabs, where, after selecting the right one to switch to, you only need to press Action once. In MultiIE, you need to press Menu / 9 MultiIE and, if there are not more than 3 open tabs (in Portrait mode on QVGA devices; on 176*220 ones, even two open tabs will result in the same), select the tab at the top. If there’re more tabs open (QVGA screenshot with 4 tabs) or, you’re in Landscape, there will be another level of redirection (1 Windows), making it necessary to issue another keypress.
There is, however, something MultiIE is better at: saving web pages do work. Unfortunately, you can’t fine tune what should be saved – unlike in the PPC version, where not only the page HTML itself, but also all the related resources (by selecting a full save instead of the HTML-only).
1.1.3.3 Other bugs & problems
In addition to the already-mentioned ones (for example, the Open link: Tap default action settings’s not being sticky) it has several other bugs. For example, it sometimes hides the tabs (1 2) on QVGA devices (but not on 176*220 ones). This might particularly be a case with pages using frames, after maximizing one of these frames using Expand Frame (left softkey); for example, the MultiIE page itself.
The menus may be a bit messed up (but still usable) on QVGA devices because of the too large fonts. On low-res 176*220 ones, they’re OK (screenshots: 176*220: 1 2 3; QVGA: 1 2)
While the tabs can be re-displayed after a screen rotation (if the particular device supports rotating the screen – for example, the Vox does), rotating back to the original rotation will result in not using the entire screen estate. This won’t be an issue if you NEVER rotate the screen but stay in either Portrait or Landscape all the time.
As far as the options dialog screens are concerned, the “Plugin” dialog is also different: first, as it is lacking a scrollbar, you don’t see anything under Presets / Shown on open more menu on both 176*220 and QVGA Portrait phones. On QVGA Landscape ones, however, the scrollbar is displayed and you can scroll down, revealing the lowermost GUI widgets. Not that it’d be of any use: NONE of the features work in here. That is, you can’t even set the User-Agent to be used to “disguise” your browser as a full desktop Windows browser. This is also a very bad disadvantage, compared to how it behaves on the Pocket PC.
Still in this dialog, the address bar search configuration (PPC screenshots: 1 2) don’t work either: an “Option not available in alpha” is displayed.
1.1.3.4 Tips & tricks
By default, to view the source of a Web page, it tries to use \Windows\notes.exe, which doesn’t exist on any MS Smartphones.
Unfortunately (if you have a phone with a built-in keyboard – non-QWERTY phones don’t have this program!), if you redefine this link to \Windows\TextNotes.exe as can be seen in HERE, Menu / 9 MultiIE / 6(+) Page Tools / 3 View Source will not work either.
Therefore, if you have a Windows Mobile 6 Standard phone (which come with Office Mobile built-in), you’ll want to prefer Word Mobile (\Windows\pword.exe) to view the sources. To make this word, configure MultiIE to use it as the default viewer. With that, watching sources will work just fine:

1.1.3.5 Verdict
All in all, don’t expect much of the current version of MultiIE for Smartphone. It’s WAY worse, WAY harder to use and definitely more buggy than the Pocket PC version. The Smartphone version of Opera Mobile is far better thought-out (support for dialpad buttons; menu-based link / image context menu support etc., making it far easier to, for example, open a link in a new tab instead of the current one; far faster to switch tabs; allows for saving images etc.). If you, however, absolutely need to stick to IEM and do need a multitab solution for it with some goodies (for example, Opera Mobile still doesn’t support saving pages; MultiIE does; the same stands for quickly swapping between the three scrolling modes, should you want to exclusively use the D-pad for scrolling and leave the 2/8 phone buttons alone), currently, MultiIE is the only way to go.

UPDATE: Just added a new section on MultiIE in the IEM-related chapter. Worth a read!

UPDATE (10/20/2007): I've published a review of Opera Mobile 8.65 Final (PPC/SP), Picsel 1.0.5 (PPC/SP) and the brand new Spb Pocket Plus 4.0 (PPC). A new version of jb5 (PPC/SP) has been released and a brand new, albeit very simple IEM add-in Web Viewer for WM5 (PPC). Also, I’ve linked in some of my recent reviews of some new (not very important) Web browsers: TeaShark (PPC/SP) and UCWEB (PPC/SP). Finally, I've published some genuine, never-before-published tips and tricks on utilizing the Pocket PC hardware application buttons to control Opera Mini and Opera Mobile. It's a MUST for any serious Pocket PC user - you'll LOVE my new tips & tricks. See THIS. Cross-posted to: PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers - 1, XDA-Developers - 2, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, SPT, MoDaCo.

UPDATE (11/12/2007): the final version of Opera Mini 4 has been released. I've written a VERY thorough tutorial on installing and using it; it's available HERE; cross-posted to PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers -1, XDA-Developers -2, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums - 1, HowardForums - 2, SPT, MoDaCo, official Opera Mini forum. Note that it also links in my brand new MIDlet Bible, which will be a god-send anyone wanting to run this EXCELLENT browser on his or her handset.

Menneisyys said:
Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
[*]Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
REF: STEP2...
When I try to copy my WINDOWS folder from SP to Desktop, I get error: "Cannot copy index: There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use." This error is while copying from "Content IE5" I feel I didn't understand that instruction correctly. There are 1136 objects in Windows folder on route.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

markanthonypr said:
REF: STEP2...
When I try to copy my WINDOWS folder from SP to Desktop, I get error: "Cannot copy index: There has been a sharing violation. The source or destination file may be in use." This error is while copying from "Content IE5" I feel I didn't understand that instruction correctly. There are 1136 objects in Windows folder on route.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why do you want to copy from there? To copy the local cache?

Menneisyys said:
Why do you want to copy from there? To copy the local cache?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Menneisyys, Thank you for your reply. I made reference to Step#2 of your post#9 on this thread in regards to installing/hacking Real Flash in order to view YouTube videos. While it is true that YouTube now has a mobile version, I still can't see the videos with their mobile version. Its why I was trying to follow your instructions to install Real Flash.

markanthonypr said:
Hello Menneisyys, Thank you for your reply. I made reference to Step#2 of your post#9 on this thread in regards to installing/hacking Real Flash in order to view YouTube videos. While it is true that YouTube now has a mobile version, I still can't see the videos with their mobile version. Its why I was trying to follow your instructions to install Real Flash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OIC.
"Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP."
This means you need to copy from the desktop to the phone, not vica versa.
(sorry for the misunderstanding - 1. my mother tongue isn't English 2. given that I write a *lot* (much more than anyone else) of Bibles /articles on Windows Mobile, I have very little time to actually double-check my articles before submitting them)

ERROR!
Menneisyys said:
The following is the brand new section I've just added to the original article. Sorry for not reposting the entire article again - I hate slicing it into pieces so that they become under 10k in size.
1.5.1.1 Hacking REAL Flash on Smartphones
I’ve tried to "hack" Flash Lite (overwriting \Program Files\Adobe\ flashlite.dll with the original, “full” \Windows\ Macromedia\ flash.dll). However, the checking for being a genuine Flash Lite animation is done in another DLL (daxplayer.dll); therefore, this hack doesn’t work.
Fortunately, other hackers had better luck. XDA-Developers forum member jockyw2001 has managed to hack the REAL Flash player onto the SP.
(IEM playing back a YouTube video in One Column mode on the HTC Vox)
(other screenshots: Opera Mobile on the Vox doing the same in Desktop mode with 50% zoom, with the SPHelper cursor for controlling the on-screen controls; the same on my 176*220 Oxygen, with 25% zoom)
His thread is HERE (you will NOT need to read it to complete the steps below!) Note that you MUST apply the hacks on an application unlocked phone - it won't work on locked phones. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to unlock your phone (see for example THIS article for some links). Also note that the hack worked just great on both my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox (s710) and WM5 AKU3 176*220 HTC Oxygen (s310). Some people, however, reported problems with other models (see the above-linked thread). I'm pretty sure it's because they have messed up something that the plug-in doesn't work on their devices.
First, get THIS file (it's a slighlty rearranged version of jockyw2001's original. For example, I've collected the registry import files into one file and separated the files into directories named after the steps you need to do). UnRAR it with, say, WinRAR. Now, do the following:
If you've already installed Resco File Explorer (along with its registry plug-in) and at least once started the latter, copy All.reg from Step 1 - Registry import to anywhere on your SP and click it from File Explorer. It will be imported into the Registry.
Go to the root directory of your SP and to the Step 2 - Windows directory copy directory on your desktop computer. Copy the Windows directory on your SP.
Go to the Step 3 - flash6 directory on your desktop and the \Windows\Macromedia directory on your SP. Overwrite flash.dll on your SP with the one on your desktop.
Go to Step 4 - regserv and copy regsvrce.exe anywhere on your SP. From inside File Explorer (on your SP), execute it to register Flash. To do this, enter \Windows\Macromedia\flash.dll in the Full pathname... text input field (176*220 screenshot). (To make this easier (to avoid entering the path on the phonepad / keyboard of your phone), I recommend for example Pocket Controller on the desktop. If you can’t use Ctrl-V to paste to there (the case with the version 5.06 + HTC Vox combo, but NOT with the Oxygen), use ViTO’s excellent CopyPaste on the Smartphone to copy the contents of the clipboard to the input field.)
Then, just press OK and “Yes” in the confirmation dialog. After some 2-3 seconds, you’ll hear another bell. Now, start regsvrc.exe again; you’ll immediately see a confirmation (success) dialog (176*220 screenshot).
On the desktop, go to Step 5 - Flash7 and copy flash.dll to \Windows\Macromedia on your SP in order to overwrite the in step 3 copied Flash 6 version with the new, Flash 7 one.
Now you can start enjoying REAL Flash content!
The plug-in works great (additional screenshot); you’ll need a cursor emulator like SPHelper to click labels / buttons like in THIS screenshot.
Note that both IEM and Opera Mobile are able to make use of the plug-in. The two programs have somewhat different strengths and weaknesses.
First, IEM can't make use the up/down arrow keys; that is, if you would like to, say, play a game depending on these two directions, they will be unplayable. In these cases, you MUST use Opera Mobile. Second, as far as playing back YouTube videos is concerned, while IEM (unlike on the Pocket PC – it’s pretty strange the SP version of IEM is better in this respect) you will want to prefer Opera Mobile because it’s slightly faster at playback. You will still want to overclock your phone - if it’s a TI OMAP-based one, with OMAPClock.
Under Opera Mobile (as opposed to IEM), in the default mode, the flash plug-in size will be really tiny as can be seen in HERE. (Therefore, you’ll want to switch to Desktop mode and use a Zoom level of, on QVGA machines, in general, 50%, and, on 176*220 models, 25%) Unfortunately, you will still have problems with scrolling down / right – in the default, link scrolling mode, you will only see the top left part of the page and won’t be able to scroll anywhere (not even clicking the scrollbars with SPHelper). To fix this (and to scroll down to the Flash animation), you MUST switch to Image (scrolling) mode. With Opera Mobile, the up/down arrows do work, unlike with IEM, as can also be seen in THIS screenshot (otherwise, I couldn’t have been able to go down).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe's Flash Player. Get the latest flash player.
...meaning NOT working.
Is this smartphone only?
Still no flash solution!

MIDlet Bible News / Progression Report

It seems it'll take some more days (at least) to publish my forthcoming MIDlet Bible announced here, the premiere resource of ALL MIDlet-related information for Windows Mobile users. The sole reason for this is the need to communicate with most of the developers (IBM, Aplix, Esmertec), which may take days (if they do read and answer my mails at all), particularly because I've asked them several questions (most importantly, making Aplix' and Esmertec's, now, OEM-only distribution model a bit more flexible, allowing individual users to download / purchase their MIDlet managers separately).
In the meantime, I've published an excerpt of the Bible on the TAO Intent MIDlet Manager, its different versions, where you should get it from, which one you should choose etc. It's a definitely a must read if you "only" have a 10.1-series (old) TAO Intent manager or would like to know how to speed up your current 11.1 (new) series and how it can be installed on a storage card.
Also, don’t forget that the (just-updated) charts already contain some tricks you may not have been aware of / never been published before.

I've made some VERY thorough tests with several 3D games available at http://tegos.ru/java/3D/ ; you can find the preview of the compatibility results at http://www.winmobiletech.com/092007MidletBible/Jblend.htm
I tested Jblend (ripped from Samsung, where it already supports 3D and available at http://melgurth.ovh.org/ - direct download http://melgurth.ovh.org/files/java/Jblend.cab ) and the also 3D-capable 11-series (of which, I've used the last version available, 1036) of TAO Intent (download at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=327456 ).
As can clearly be seen, TAO Intent 1036 only has the advantage of better sound (and music, which is completely missing from Jblend) emulation and, sometimes (but not always!), better error messages; in every other respect, it is clearly worse; most importantly because of the lack of softkey support, which is a real showstopper in many games.
BTW, does anyone have the time to test more titles and fill in the missing info in the chart?

Wikipedia on SD card

Does anyone know where the latest version of Wikipedia can be downloaded from for the pocket pc? I've tried looking everywhere but can't find it.

that would be a big file if im right

A very big file.
Why not download the internet onto a floppy disk while you are at it.

I tried to get the XDA Wiki for local access, it ended up as a 120mb .MDX file I think, but I don't know how to open it on my ppc. If I had more time I'd search.
As for the MAIN Wikipedia, that would be a VERY large file!

Wikipedia's Own Pages said:
Wikipedia
As of December 2007, Wikipedia had approximately 9.25 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.74 billion words for all Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on September 9, 2007, and as of February 4, 2008 it had over 2,210,000 articles consisting of over 961,000,000
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As you can see, it is quite extensive. Also scroll down the page to see the system requirements

Have you tried 'Lexipedia' ? ... unabridged version is 950MB.

Guys... ALWAYS check / search the Wiki first.... and, if you don't find something, my blog..
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/inde...P: Read & browse WikiPedia on your Pocket PC!

Opera Mini 4.1 beta released - TONS of goodies like page saving!

The new 4.1 beta of Opera Mini has just been released with TONS of new features. Get it at http://www.operamini.com/beta/ . Features include:
* Download and upload files directly in Opera Mini (wowz! UPLOAD!)
* Save pages for offline browsing (another WOWZ!)
* Autocompletion when entering addresses directly
* Find in page (WOOOOOOWZ!)
* Increased server speed during the last months
* Signed versions of Opera Mini (good news too)
Don't forget to download the latest, 3.1 version of Jbed (reviewed & linked to HERE at the bottom.)
(BTW, some of you have asked what I've been working on because I've been quite quiet. I'm
working on my Digital TV Bible, after having read dozens of related books and tons of online documents (I'll post a detailed review of them too)
I need to do some real work too
I'll make another W3C conference speech this month (on multiplatform mobile browsers) and need to update my related Windows Mobile / Symbian / BlackBerry stuff
All in all, I've been pretty busy

Opera Mini 4.1: FULL multiplatform tutorial & review
I don’t need to introduce Opera Mini for any serious mobile device user – it’s been one of the best browsers ever since the release of version 4.0 with all its goodies like favorite synchronization and full layout mode, the latter being excellent on (W)VGA Pocket PC’s and high-resolution Symbian devices like the Nokia E90. Note that I’ve written a review & full comparison to other browsers HERE – please DO read it if you don’t know what Opera Mini is or how it compares to other browsers, in which cases you might want to prefer it to native, fully-fledged browsers like Opera Mobile. Also, make sure you read my two Web Browsing Bibles, linked from the OM4 article, for additional info & comparisons. Finally, note that the linked article only discusses version 4.0; 4.1 is even better and more featureful.
The just-released 4.1 beta takes things even further and implements a lot of long asked-for functionalities. It’s REALLY worth upgrading; note that it can coexist with older versions (including 4.0) on the same handset. That is, if you, for some reason, find it useless, you can easily switch back to the older version without having to reinstall / reconfigure anything.
1.1 Availability; which version to go for?
Navigate to http://mini.opera.com/beta either with your phone’s WAP browser or, if you have Opera on your desktop, with it:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41DownloadPage.png
(mobile browser)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41DesktopOperaDL.png
(Opera on the desktop)
and select any of the upper three links. On the next screen,
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy1.png
just press the left softkey (Continue); then, unless you want to put it in a self-created category, just click OK while it’s on root:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy2.png
On the following dialog,
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy3.png
just press OK; do the same on the one that follows:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy4.png
The file will be compiled and you can start it right away by answering Yes on the final screen:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41Deploy6.png
After this, everything is done in the already-known way: accepting the license, pressing buttons for generating a pseudo-random sentence etc.
Note that the 4.1 beta page linked from operamini.com, http://www.operamini.com/beta/, doesn’t contain the signed versions, only the unsigned ones. Therefore, if you only have Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer on your desktop, make sure you download the file from inside your Web browser on your handheld. The only exception is BlackBerry, where there isn’t a separate version on the only-handheld or desktop Opera page; then, you can safely download the ZIP file from http://www.operamini.com/beta/ with any desktop browser and use the BB Desktop Manager to quickly install it on your BlackBerry.
If you have a Windows Mobile device with Jbed 3.1, any of the signed versions will do. Note that some people state you need to go for the all-certificate version; that’s not true with Jbed 3.1. Make sure you DO download a signed version and not the unsigned one so that you can easily (without any hacking) can get rid of the security prompts.
Note that, should you still not have Jbed 3.1, read the second section of THIS for more info & the download links.
1.2 What’s new?
1.2.1 Custom text input field
With the new URL input field, address autocompletion works just great:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41AddressAutocomplete.png
Note that
1, unlike with Opera Mobile 9.5 (and just like any other browser, including pre-9.5 versions of Opera Mobile), the titles of these pages aren’t displayed, only the URL’s
2, copy / paste doesn’t work. If you do need it (and you do have a compatible JVM – it’s only the non-recommended TAO that isn’t), you’ll need to switch to the regular, native JVM URL editor by pressing Delete (right softkey, shouldn’t you have a device with a built-in hardware back key like MS Smartphones) once and, then, go down to highlight "Insert Symbol":
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/om4insertsymblhighlight.png
Then, just press Action on it to get into the traditional URL input field, with the traditional menus.
3, textual input may be problematic on keyboards with combined numeric and alphabetical keys; for example, on the HTC Vox. In there, the numeric keys will always be considered as keypad numeric buttons; that is, they’ll input a for 1, d for button 2 etc. However, as they’re treated EXACTLY the same way as keypad buttons, you can still input any character or (with long-pressing) number with them. You’ll need to know the latter for numeric input with devices that have a separate numeric row (like the HTC Universal).
4, the Input Address field being new also results in the old system-level browser invocation script not working any more. To fix this,
either switch off the new direct input by just unticking the, by default, enabled "Direct address input" checkbox in Tools / Settings:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41disabledirinut.png
or, alternatively, go for a modification of the current script version available HERE. (Incidentally, note that, now, there’s a full C++ implementation of the invocation script HERE. It’s still not compatible with 4.1 unless you untick "Direct address input" as explained above.)
1.2.2 Signing
First in Opera Mini’s lifetime, it comes signed. What does this mean? When deployed under a capable, compatible JVM (for example, Jbed 3.1), it’ll, upon trying to access the Net / the local file system for saving pages / downloading / uploading files, it’ll prompt you for permission:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PermissPrompt1.png
(reading the file system)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PermissPrompt1W.png
(writing the file system)
In there, you’ll notice a (compared to the unsigned case) new "always, don’t ask again" menu item (I’ve highlighted it in the following screenshot):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PermissPrompt2.png
Make sure you do select this before pressing OK. This will make sure you won’t ever need to answer this question any more.
Upon trying to saving pages, it even prompts you to switch to the signed version, should you still have a non-signed one:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion.png
The link indeed takes you to a tutorial:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion2.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion3.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41PromptForSignedVersion4.png
(as can clearly be seen, there is not a single word on Windows Mobile. Note that the tutorial is also directly available HERE)

1.2.3 Page Saving
The new page saving feature allows for saving the current page, along with all its resources (images), to a file. The file is in the native (condensed HTML in textual mode + JPEG images) format of Opera Mini currently not readable by other applications. Should you still need some of the contents for copy/paste operations, you can still directly copy from the file with a text viewer. This also means this also allows for some kind of rudimentary copy/paste functionality if you use an external file viewer like that of Resco File Explorer. Then, based on the (latest) timestamp of the saved page (the saved pages have cryptic filenames; however, you can easily recognize them based both of their timestamp in the file system and their header, which contains the title of the page), you view it and look for the info you wanted to copy to clipboard (and, from there, to, say, Notes or Word Mobile). As you can see, it’s in no way so easy than, say, copying and straightforward than copying the full / the visible textual contents of the page into a text input field, where a user could already highlight anything and copy to the clipboard (unless she uses TAO Intent), though. Hope the Opera coders also implement this, otherwise, very simple-to-code feature.
Note that the page saving target dialog is only displayed once (upon the first page saving attempt) and is pretty much far away from being pretty and/or intuitional (and, of course, it has missing functionality present in, say, the standard OS file save dialog like creating subdirectories) but it still does the job. Just select the directory you’d like to save your pages to. Again, remember this can’t be changed later so select a directory with sufficiently large free storage.
First, you’ll need to select the storage type you’d like to save your pages to. In the following screenshot, I’ve selected Storage Card:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41SaveTarget1.png
After pressing Action, you’ll be shown the directories in there. You can select any of them (and, then, iteratively, any of its subdirectories etc.). Just press Select (left softkey) on the directory you’d like to save your stuff in. For example, in the following screenshot, I’ve stayed on Storage Card when pressing the key; this means it’ll store the pages in the root of the card:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41SaveTarget2.png
(note that, as the storage card roots can only have up to 128 files, this isn’t the best thing to do unless you’re absolutely sure you only want to save some pages.)
Finally, you’ll be prompted a "Page saved." message:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41SaveTarget3.png
Get rid of it with the Action button.
After this, all the saved pages will be listed in Tools / Saved Pages (and the latest three on the startpage):
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41StartpageSavedPageList.png
A VGA screenshot with more than one saved page:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41ListOfSavedPages.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/OM41ListOfSavedPagesVGA.png
1.2.4 Finding text in pages
Tools / Find in page implements something I’ve been asking for years: in-page text search. It not only iterates over all the occurrences of the searched-for word (see the "Next" left softkey), but also conveniently highlights all the occurrences. In the following screenshot, you can see the results of searching for the word "Opera" in the Opera Mini forums:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/41FindInPagesOpera.png
1.2.5 In-app file up/download
A lot of users have been asking the Opera folks for allowing for in-browser download and, even more importantly, upload.
1.2.5.1 Download
In-browser downloading, for Windows Mobile users, isn’t that important. It’s probably mostly MS Smartphone users that will find this useful because, as has also been explained in my MS Smartphone Web Browsing Bible (see section 1.1.1 Fixing the binary file download problem), the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile only downloads certain types of files. For Symbian users with, say, a Nokia N95 with a pre-20 firmware version, it’s more so because Symbian often killed Opera Mini when loading up Nokia Web for handling the download. This isn’t an issue with the new firmware version any more, of course – neither is with N95 8GB, N95-3, N82 or the soon-to-come, new, DVB-H enabled N-series models.)
Note that, while file system access is supported in the latest and most recommended Jbed 3.1, this isn’t necessarily the case with other MIDlet Managers. Therefore, you’re strongly recommended to upgrade to Jbed 3.1.
The new in-Opera download looks like this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download1.png
If you select Save As, you’ll be presented the usual file selector; here, I instruct it to save the contents on the storage card:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download2.png
Then, the download will start:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download3.png
If, instead of Save As, you select Open:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download4.png
you’ll be taken to IE:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download5.png
which downloads the file:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/MP3Download6.png
Unfortunately, if you go for in-process download, you can’t do anything else during downloading – as is the case with regular page loading. That is, you end up staring at the download screen. If you absolutely hate this and/or the download takes too much time (for example, during fetching a looooooong MP3), go for downloading within Internet Explorer Mobile and switching back to Opera Mini for browsing. You can safely do this: IEM will just download the file in the background without problems. (Unless, of course, you haven’t registered the file type with the system. Then, you’ll need to stick strictly with the built-in downloader of OM4.1.)
1.2.5.2 Upload
With Jukka "Yucca" Korpela’s excellent article & tester suite File input (or "upload") in HTML forms:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload2.png
Then, the usual Opera file handler will be shown (not that of the OS). Let’s upload some text file:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload3.png
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload4.png
and the results are as expected:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/042008OM41/FileUpload5.png
(note that it the (later?) 4.0 series it is rendered as can be seen in HERE but, of course, the "Choose" file chooser couldn’t be activated)
In this regard, Opera Mini (along with the commercial (!) Opera Mobile and [the, currently, severely crippled Technical Preview] NetFront) is the only browser to support file upload on the MS Smartphone platform. Let me point out that the built-in Internet Explorer Mobile (still) doesn’t support upload.
2. What’s still missing / problematic?
Now, in addition to direct copy/paste of textual contents, I only miss navigating (switching back) to any already-downloaded page while loading a new one. You can only navigate on the current page while fetching a new page but can’t use, say, #5 to quickly bring up the list of currently open pages and quickly switch to another page. There isn’t a "download page in background" feature either, which would be able for allowing this. This can be a nuisance, particularly on inherently sloooooooooow platforms like the current crop of BlackBerries.
Also, on Pocket PC devices with a built-in keyboard could benefit from some similar keyboard layout than on BlackBerries. On the latter, you can use the (wide and easy-to-reach) Space button to scroll a page down. I wish you could do the same on Windows Mobile devices. (In there, you still must use the "8" button, which is pretty much out of reach in two-hand, "bedtime" operation.)
The problem of "flashing", non-displayed pictures, particularly with pages heavily loaded with them, is still present.
Finally, the lack of italic support is (still) a big pain in the back. I don’t understand why the Opera folks don’t implement this (must be related to the additional storage the custom, smallest character set would require with added italic support, I don’t know – if that’s the problem, at least non-smallest characters should have this support) – after all, ALL major KVM’s do support rendering text in italics. (See my related tests in my MIDlet Bible.)

3. BlackBerry
The BlackBerry version doesn’t support signed versions; that is, as has already been pointed out, you MUST go with the unsigned one. I haven’t encountered any problems with it; page saving / loading, the new address autocomplete etc. all worked just great. I haven’t encountered the common bug with all OM 4.0 versions: that is, the BlackBerry (at least my T-Mo branded 8800) completely locking up upon loading pages. However, this doesn’t mean these bugs have been fixed: I "only" played with the new version on my BB for two or three hours and the aforementioned bug only turns up, say, once a day or two days, assuming actively using OM for at least 2-3 hours a day.
4. Symbian
I’ve also (quickly) tested the new (unsigned) version on my Nokia N95 v20. I haven’t really run into problems so far; neither have my fellow N95 users in the Opera Mini forum. I’ll later report on whether Opera Mini 4.1 still exhibits the well-known, but, fortunately, pretty rare problem of completely locking up the handset, which, as with the BlackBerry, can only be fixed by removing and reinserting the battery.

UPDATE (later the same day):
1. MoDaCo frontpage
2. note that the above-recommended Jbed 3.1 is NOT compatible with WM5 (or with even older operating system versions), only WM6. If you're still on WM5, use the old, "Cloudyfa" 2.1 version instead; or look around at XDA-Devs, where, according to THIS post, the 20080222 version of 3.1 is WM5-compatible.

i don't like the fact that opera mini is java.. which requires to launch java first before launching opera...that only makes the browser startup slower.. i can get to a website much faster with PIE because it launches faster.. sure it has a bunch of cool features but i guess im the only one that dislikes the fact that it's java emulated..
i'll wait for the REAL mobile opera version.

wow this new version of opera mini is great. i love the url input method. file download works great too. works perfectly on the kaiser. in fact im writting from it right now. go opera!
one thing-- the shortcuts method cooked up in the midlet bible doesnt work anymore. ill look into this at a later date. could be as simple as removing the old opera mini.

tft said:
i don't like the fact that opera mini is java.. which requires to launch java first before launching opera...that only makes the browser startup slower.. i can get to a website much faster with PIE because it launches faster.. sure it has a bunch of cool features but i guess im the only one that dislikes the fact that it's java emulated..
i'll wait for the REAL mobile opera version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read my 4.0 review - there, I've elaborated on crating shortcuts to OM so that you can avoid having to start up Jbed first.

UPDATE (04/05/2008):
1. I’ve tested the above (in the previous update) mentioned Jbed Java 3.1 20080222 (available HERE; mirrored HERE for your convenience). It runs flawlessly under WM5 (not only WM6). It supports 3D (tested with Need for speed carbon and Night Fever; neither of them run under the non-3D-capable Cloudyfa 2.1), (as usual, excellent) sound. It can’t be directly installed onto a storage card, however. (As with some older versions, it’s possible it can be hacked there, though, with some manual file copying and registry / start menu link rewriting – I haven’t tested this.)
I’ve also thoroughly tested JBed_20071119.3.1_3dMod_HeapSizeFix_v2_wm6(lovetz1) linked from THIS MoDaCo thread. As a plus, it can be directly installed on a storage card, as opposed to the version above. It, however, doesn’t support sound at all. Otherwise, it seems it’s pretty much the same as the version above – except for WM5-compliance: I haven’t tested the WM5-compliant subversion. I’d stick with the 20080222 (the first) version unless you really need every single byte in your built-in storage.
Note that neither version was able to run the s60v3 (Nokia) version of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, the latest-and-greatest real-time strategy from EA Mobile – upon loading the mission (and displaying the progress bar), it just locks up. (Needless to say, it’s working flawlessly on the Nokia N95 v20). It seems no Jbed version is compatible with this excellent game.
2. XDA-Devs user JZ SmartMort has released a very promising title making Opera Mini the system-level browser much simpler and offering a LOT of additional functionality. See his thread HERE. Note that he also posted a somewhat shorter post HERE (in THIS thread, should you also want to read the possible, future discussion of his app).

I've installed 4.1 and it looks great, However, a few points are anoying me.
When I start Opera and I type a new adres, the foll msg apear
"Untrusted application Opera Mini 4.1 wants to send or receive information from.... This will use airtime. Do you allow net access?"
Then the options to choose are:
o Yes, but ask me next time
o Yes, but ask me next session
There is no option: o Yes, dont ask me again ??
When I recall a saved page, I get the next msg "Untrusted application Opera Mini 4.1 wants to read data located on this device or removabl emedia. Do you allow read user data?
The only options are Yes or No. In the security option of Opera, there are settings about reading data. But there are only 2 options
o Ask
o Never allow
Also here, I miss the option: o Dont ask me again !
The next thing is the text input field. I have a HTC tytn (virtual and real keyboard). When I switch the option 'direct addres input' tot ON, I can only type the input via the real keyboard and not via the virtual keyboard (its dissapears).
If I can fix those items, I would be very happy.

I have reinstalled the same file and now the first 2 points are working fine !!
Leaves me to solve the text input field and the virtual keyboard...

UPDATE (04/06/2008): I have some very good news for you all.
1. Several of my readers have asked (see for example THIS) whether it’s possible to change the page save directory in Opera Mini 4.1 after you’ve set it first. Contrary to the popular belief (you must reinstall it from scratch), it’s actually very easy to do this:
a. if you have originally selected a removable storage card as the target media, you only need to remove it before trying to save any page on it. Then, you’ll be prompted an error message and, on the next page saving attempt, you’ll be offered the chance of setting the new save directory. That is, if you’ve originally given Opera Mini a storage card, you can change the save path without any need for hexediting files.
b. if you have provided it with a movable / deletable directory in the built-in storage (or, for that matter, on the storage card), just move (cut / paste) the entire directory somewhere else on your device – or on your storage card. That is, if you’ve given \My Documents to it, just cut it with the built-in File Explorer and paste it to in any other subdirectory. (Of course, you’ll need to paste the directory back once you’re ready with the – failed – page saving attempt if it’s a directory used by other apps too – like \My Documents.)
3, if, for some reason, neither of the above-listed ways works, you’ll need to do some hexediting. To do this, search for the in the name of the directory in the \Windows\appdb\s?__d?.db files with, say, Total Commander (Alt-F7) on the desktop Windows and just change this occurrence to another directory with a hexeditor. An example showing changing \My Documents to \Storage Card with a hexeditor:
{
"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"
}
Again, it’ll be FAR easier to temporarily remove / move the directory than hexediting – only do the latter if you simply can’t (temporarily) delete the directory because you’ve given it, say, \Windows or some other, undeletable directory.
2. the native C++ version of the invocation script has been updated to be compliant with 4.1. In addition, badbob001 has updated his MortScript to be compatible with 4.1 and he is also doing automatic (!!!) descriptor parsing & discovery to automatically find the current position of the OM deployment (just like the JZ SmartMort's brand new script I've reported on above), which, so far, needed to be done (once) by hand. See his updated script HERE. Both advancements are discussed HERE, starting with page 10 (post #91).

Menneisyys said:
2. the native C++ version of the invocation script has been updated to be compliant with 4.1. In addition, badbob001 has updated his MortScript to be compatible with 4.1 and he is also doing automatic (!!!) descriptor parsing & discovery to automatically find the current position of the OM deployment (just like the JZ SmartMort's brand new script I've reported on above), which, so far, needed to be done (once) by hand. See his updated script HERE. Both advancements are discussed HERE, starting with page 10 (post #91).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure if I understand this correctly. Does this make mi device able to use the virtual keyboard, even if the direct adres input is selected or does it has nothing to do with it?

Quatz said:
I am not sure if I understand this correctly. Does this make mi device able to use the virtual keyboard, even if the direct adres input is selected or does it has nothing to do with it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean the SIP? You can always assign it to a HW button so that, upon a keypress, it's briught up. If this is what you meant.
Read my Button Bible for more info.

Menneisyys said:
You mean the SIP? You can always assign it to a HW button so that, upon a keypress, it's briught up. If this is what you meant.
Read my Button Bible for more info.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, dont know the term SIP!
Where to find this Bible?

Quatz said:
Sorry, dont know the term SIP!
Where to find this Bible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A SIP is a software (on-screen) keyboard. SIP stands for 'Soft Input Panel'.
The Button Bible.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=337602
(Google search: "xda dev button bible".)

Thanks, this helps a lot.
I have installed HBsettup and indeed, now I can toggle the SIP on and off when i use Direct Address input.
I am very happy now with Opera Mini !!

having issues with setting up the shortcut to start OM
I have as follows:
"\windows\jbed.exe" -run s1_
OM is the only midlet installed.
also there are NO .jar files in the /windows/appDB/ folder
thanks
EDIT:
did a quick reset and everthings working excellent

Hey thanks for the share. Its really good, I am waiting for the stable version.

Apart from the intense marketing campaign of the moderator posting this thread, can someone give a brief comparison between this Opera Mini and the other Opera ("Opera Mobile"?) that runs on WM5/WM6? I don't get why I would want to run a java, stripped down browser when I can run Opera Mobile. Is it that Mini is intended for phones that can't run the full version, or should Mini be considered as a replacement for the other Operas that run on PDA phones (touchscreen phone/PDAs that run WM5/6).
Ideally an impartial perspective that isn't 5 posts long would be great