Agendas Icons and Memory Issues?

[J-Mac001]

Hello all.

I just installed version 1.01 on my Cingular 8125. I previously removed Agendus from this device about a month ago because of some serious memory issues. I posted about that here (http://support.iambic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27437). As soon as I opened Agendus on the device at that time my program memory would drop from 20 MB to 1.5 MB in about two minutes. At first I thought it was because I also had Pocket Informant 2007 installed, but even after uninstalling Pocket Informant the same memory loss occurred.

Earlier today I read a post from another user (http://support.iambic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27643) who mentioned that he installed the Platinum icon package and then immediately experienced similar memory issues. That is something I had not thought of at the time: I had also installed the Platinum icon package right after I installed Agendus the first time. Now I think that the icons are the cause of the memory issue. The Platinum icon package for Agendus is approximately 15 MB in size. I believe that what Agendus starts it polls its own program folders for icons and then preloads all that it finds. That would explain almost exactly the amount of space lost all my device at that time. Version 1.01 is not taking much memory at all -- of course I did not reinstall the icon package. Before I uninstalled the previous version I simply moved that folder to another part of my storage card. So this version is starting with only a very limited icon pack that comes standard with Agendus. Since then I did add one of the platinum icon databases, about 1.5 MB total, and I subsequently lost exactly 1.5 MB in memory when I start Agendus now.

This is bad news, guys. Other Pocket PC PIMs, like Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion, copy each icon assigned to a category and places that copy in its own program folder, leaving the rest of the icons in their own folder and not loaded with the program itself. Only assigned icons should load with the program -- not all available icons.

My solution, of course, is a simple one -- I will only use the icons I have loaded currently. If Agendus used individual icons, like all other PIMs, instead of whole databases at a time, I could pick and choose the icons that I know I will be using in place only those in the Agendus program folder. However the way iambic and Rich K. presently handle icons makes it so that you have to load all or none. Of course this means that my icon purchase was a waste of money for now, because if I load them all into the Agendus program folder I can't run Agendus!

See what you can do, folks.

Thank you for any help you can offer.

[EP2005]

Don't worry J-Mac, the developers are aware of these issues and will have it resolved in a future build. :D :up:

The platinum Icon pack will be fantastic once these memory issues are put to rest.

[hezahonker]

Hi J-Mac,

Good to see you here. I hope you will hang around with us. You will be a great asset to these forums with all of your experience in the Pocket Pc world. :D

[J-Mac001]

Hi J-Mac,

Good to see you here. I hope you will hang around with us. You will be a great asset to these forums with all of your experience in the Pocket Pc world. :D

Nancy? I certainly know your user name well - I just never knew you as "Nancy". Good to see you here! Actually I've been around here for a while - over in the Agendus for Outlook Edition.

I couldn't help notice that you were here the other day when I first started this thread - I think you were the last poster on every thread on the first page of this forum at that time!

I have to be honest - while Agendus for WM looks nice, it is still lacking almost all of the functionality of PIM's like PI and AF. I realize that iambic is relatively new to the Windows Mobile platform, but that only addresses the differences in coding structure and parameters. Functionality is something that iambic is most definitely NOT new to - they've been doing this for quite some time! So it is a little puzzling that Agendus for WM is so bereft of functionality-related features. Fortunately I am using other tools for my task outlining and management, so not having any heavyweight features in my Calendar or Task areas of Agendus is not that painful. However the Contacts are killing me! Hard to believe that iambic is still ignoring the Outlook "File As" order - especially since it is so doggone accessible in the Pocket Outlook SDK/API. Presently the ordering of my almost 600 contacts is a mess since installing Agendus for WM - al because it simply will not allow me to keep the order that I had them in - that is, Outlook's "File As" order.

But I am trying hard to stick with it this time. I am not even hoping that they will start allowing us to keep the File As ordering - if they have not done it in any product they offer yet, someone must be either vehemently against that ordering, or they just cannot figure out how to do it. I'm not sure which is the case.

Likewise, the keeping of icon collections in databases - that's what is causing the memory issues, and to be honest I don't know if they can solve this massive memory problem and still keep the icons stored that way. Their present code seems to be able to only grab the entire database containing a given icon, but not a single icon. I don't know if that is iambic's design or Rich Ketelson's, but to fix this they might say that we all have to purchase new iconsets which are packed differently.

Anyway, see ya around, Nancy!

[J-Mac001]

Nancy - By the way....

"Forum Team Member"??? Wow - and UH-OH...

I just spent a whole post ranting to a bonafide, real-life Forum Team Member!

Am I in trouble now? :D

[michael]

Hi J-Mac,
Thanks for your feedback here. We are investigating the optimization options for loading icon sets both for AGP and AGWM. We have shown that improvement is needed here to prevent slow loading.

We are also very aware that AGWM is not yet feature rich like AGP or AGW. Trust me thought when I say, it will get there.

Thanks again for all your constructive feedback.

[hezahonker]

Nancy - By the way....

"Forum Team Member"??? Wow - and UH-OH...

I just spent a whole post ranting to a bonafide, real-life Forum Team Member!

Am I in trouble now? :D

Nope, you are not in trouble at all! :p As Michael said, you had good feeback. :D

[J-Mac001]

Hi J-Mac,
Thanks for your feedback here. We are investigating the optimization options for loading icon sets both for AGP and AGWM. We have shown that improvement is needed here to prevent slow loading.

We are also very aware that AGWM is not yet feature rich like AGP or AGW. Trust me thought when I say, it will get there.

Thanks again for all your constructive feedback.
Hi Michael.

An upcoming resolution for the icon issue would be real nice. I don't imagine that's an easy fix, as all your coding is presently written around accessing one database at a time as opposed to one icon at a time. I imagine that might take some time.

And regarding my feedback, it really is meant to be constructive. I don't have any particular bones to pick with iambic, and since I own licensed copies of all PIM software for Windows Mobile and Palm OS it is not like my device is hanging on this one application! But knowing how effective Agendus can be (just look at the Palm version), and also knowing that the Windows Mobile platform lends itself to much more feature-rich applications then Palm OS currently does, I am hoping to see a final product that will blow the socks off all users! (By the way, for all the Palm enthusiasts here, hopefully you realize that I am not trying to criticize the Palm platform; I use it too. It's just that with the proper design Windows Mobile developers generally have a lot more to work with on that platform then Palm developers do).

I have just about ready to make another post with some of my observations and comments on this release. Again, no negative criticism intended; just some things I observed along with some features I think would help.

Oh -- Michael, you folks really need to get some documentation out. After spending a couple hours trying to set up Agendus on my device the way I had thought that I could, I am left uncertain as to whether certain features and views simply do not exist or if I am possibly just missing HAL to enable them.

Thank you.

[hezahonker]

Hi J-Mac,

I know you and I spoke briefly in another thread about the icon loading problem. It will get ironed out eventually. It is a priority. Michael himself is a big icon fan so we have good company in him! :haha:

I know you said that you can't use the program right now, but I will keep an eye out for you and when we get it worked out I will post here for you.

I also wanted to ask you if you had considered trying Agendus Outlook Edition for getting the icons assigned for those pre-existing appointments that are too numerous to do manually. (I know the point is moot right now if you don't have AGWM loaded on the device, but I throw this out for consideration if you do choose to load it again) I was thinking about your situation and I thought that Vivid Agendas might be a good way to scan your data and apply the icons you desire that are currently missing. Personally I rely heavily on the vivid Agendus feature to apply my icons. It isn't for everyone, but that is one work around that may be of help.

[J-Mac001]

Hi J-Mac,...
I also wanted to ask you if you had considered trying Agendus Outlook Edition for getting the icons assigned for those pre-existing appointments that are too numerous to do manually. (I know the point is moot right now if you don't have AGWM loaded on the device, but I throw this out for consideration if you do choose to load it again) I was thinking about your situation and I thought that Vivid Agendas might be a good way to scan your data and apply the icons you desire that are currently missing. Personally I rely heavily on the vivid Agendus feature to apply my icons. It isn't for everyone, but that is one work around that may be of help.

I was a user of its original release, and stopped using it right around the time that V.4 was released. Too many problems caused in Outlook. Check my posts in that forum if interested in details. I won't use it again until they iron out the kinks - which doesn't appear likely...

[hezahonker]

I was a user of its original release, and stopped using it right around the time that V.4 was released. Too many problems caused in Outlook. Check my posts in that forum if interested in details. I won't use it again until they iron out the kinks - which doesn't appear likely...


Ah bummer, sorry to hear that. I haven't encountered anything bad on my copy thus far.

[hezahonker]

Hi J-Mac,

The new build is ready for testing that has addressed the icon loading problem. If you want, you can try it out and report back on how it is working for you. ;)

http://support.iambic.com/forum/showthread.php?p=105216#post105216