It's nice to see that developers are reading this forum. Just for them, here's my list of gripes about ListPro.
In the last couple of weeks I really came appreciate LP for simplicity, speed and features.
Yet LP pisses me off more then most other apps. Why ? Because when most other apps have problems, they are related to the lack of features and performance. Well, this is understandable - fixing performance issues and adding killer features takes talent, knowledge, hard work - it's like an average kid trying to get excellent grades in school, takes time & effort to get there.
Now, LP is more like a kid who has all the talent and knowledge in the world, but is constantly getting poor grades because he's always too late in turning his homework. LP has about 80% of what I would consider essential features, probably more than any other application of this sort that I tried. Yet it has many annoying little interface quirks that drag it down, taking away from its enormous potential. These annoyances could be very easy to fix - it's just adjusting some variables in the code, or making some current interface presets into user settings. It could be taken care of in a single maintenance release, yet it keeps popping up since at least two version back, despite many pleas from users including myself. I had it since v3 yet I haven't been using it until recently.
The biggest problem I have with LP is when I am trying to use it in outliner mode on PDA. There's just too little information shown at the screen, compared to other outliners, and the screen real estate is wasted uselessly due to excessive indentation between levels. Anything past 2nd level is hard to read.
Here's the list of what I consider to be essential and very easy changes:
1) Word wrap in item field. Requested at least since v3. Can be done - most everybody else does it.
2) Decrease horizontal indentation between items that have different outline level. Right now, it's huge. It only needs to be big enough to make different levels stand out. Better else, make it a user option. All it is, probably, is just a variable in the code that programmers set in the beginning.
3) Decrease vertical indentation between items, or make it a user option. There's some space there that could be given up.
4) Allow setting different default fonts for PPC and PC. If I set the list font that is easy to read on PC, it shows up too big on PPC. The font that is easy to read on PPC is too small on PC screen.
5) Bring back toolbar, at least as user option. Soft buttons require just too many taps for often used features (new item, demote / promote, flters etc). And while you're at it, add a Format button to it that would open font and paragraph formatting dialog (why is it not the same dialog ? Combining it would only be logical, and it would save space )
6) Make it work with gsgetfile.dll or tgetfile.dll and FileDialogChange hack. I keep most of my files in directories on SD Card and LP is the only outlining/database program I have encountered so far that doesn't see them.
7) Make category dropdown list fall to the bottom of window, both on PC and PPC. Why have it limited to having only 6 options visible ? Scrolling is bad.
8) Make filter bar at top of the screen fold away after use. It takes lots of space and isn't really needed after filter is set. It could fold into a thick line indicating there's a filter set, tapping on that line makes it unfold, then say it could be dragged into folded state.
9) I didn't want to add any feature requests in this list - this is not about missing features, the features are all there, it's just about unlocking the full potential of this excellent program. However, there's just one feature that I think is absolutely essential - it's the ability to save filter states as custom views.
It would be great to hear what iLium guys think !
(BTW, I consider this to be a constructive critique of a very good application, so don't take it personally !)
I'm not familiar with some of the issues you're referring to but I have my own issues with LP.
I use the notes section as a sort of diary but have had to continue using version 4.1 instead of 5.0. Ilium changed the notes section to rich text and I can no longer use a spellchecker (Phatspell) on my PPC and I can't copy/paste to Word to use that spellchecker because it screws up the rich text formatting. They acknowledge the problem but they don't explain whether or not they will fix it so I'm left wondering.
I've never understood the lack of word wrap, just about any other program has it. They also seemed surprised that people didn't like the version 5.0 "stop light" symbols. Their so tiny I can't always tell the color on my 21" PC monitor!
Lastly I don't have enough knowledge to answer my final question but if SK Tools can offer 6-7 minor updates every year why does it appear as though Ilium takes years to make a few tweaks? Why for example can't they get rid of the stop lights and go back to the older icons that they used for years.
I continue to use this app every day but simply don't understand their extremely long update cycles. I really don't like dissing Ilium because they seem very customer oriented and are always fair but most other software companies seem to move faster.
Did they have hyperlinks support in 4.1 (in Notes, not in dedicated field) ? I thought this was added in 5. This was the primary reason for me to start using LP (well, this and the demise of PocketThinker).
I don't use their 3-state columns. All of 3-state icons (not only the stoplight icon) have a common problem - the icons visually misrepresent item's priority. I.e. the 3 states represent priority, #1 being the highest and #3 being the lowest (or, active, partially complete, complete). It would seem natural for most people that the highest priority / active item is also the most visually noticeable, i.e. it gets the brightest icon. Not in LP - the brightest items are usually #2, followed by #3 and then #1. (E.g. #1 - light blue circle, #2 - orange, #3 - dark blue). Same thing with 2-state icons, the completed items (that naturally are of lower priority than active tasks) are shown with a bright red checkmark that makes them stand out compared to active items (pale blue box).
However, to me this is small stuff. I don't use 3-state columns (because of icons, but also because of export to Excel - I prefer creating status categories). And I learned to live with red checkmarks.
I completely agree with your statement about development times, they would only make sense if with every release there was some major functionality added (from development standpoint, the hyperlinks were a major functionality but I don't know how difficult it was to add them), or the program was completely overhauled. On the bright side, though, I think there's not that much left to do to make it perfect.
Thanks for all the very well thought out comments. In fact, I am going to offer some point by point discussions on these because I certainly think it is deserved. It's all great feedback and I'd like to offer an honest discussion (and in some cases, explanations.)
BUT
at this exact moment we're up to our ears preparing something very very cool right now, so I won't be able to get my response written until Monday (and with the number of issues to discuss writing it could take a little while.) I will reply though. I just want to make sure I have the time to do it right.
Thanks for your patience...I usually like to answer right away.
I'd like to share my thoughts about Listpro too, but don't really have time to get them together until after next Wednesday.
I do love Listpro and recommend it regularly, but like Amamba, there are some things about it that, if changed, would make this really great application even better.
__________________ Julie | Microsoft MVP Mobile Devices | Mobility Site Moderator | Judge, Smartphone & Pocket PC Best Software Awards 2007 & 2008 | visit my blog: To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. | To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
.. does this very very cool thing have anything to do with ListPro ? :) ;)
Now that we know this "very cool thing" doesn't have anything to do with improvements to List Pro I can't wait to read the comments about List Pro from Ilium and from Julie. Nothing against this new Flexwallet/eWallet marriage but it could mean an even slower development for List Pro.
Flexwallet seems to be sort of an orphan...Two Peaks developed it and they went down the tubes...WebIs took it over and after about two years, WebIs is unloading it to Ilium. I don't know how to read that. It appears as though WebIs couldn't make enough money from it and Ilium with eWallet, the apparent wallet king, assimilated it into the empire.:)
When I looked for a password storage app some years back, there was a lot of them:
- eWallet (commercial)
- CodeWallet (commercial)
- FlexWallet (commercial)
- KeePass (freeware, open source)
- PasswordSafe (freeware, open source)
- Tombo (freeware - not specifically a password program, rather an encrypted plaintext storage)
eWallet is without a doubt the king of commercial applications but I found all of commercials to be rather heavy on window dressing and rather lacking in the security / features department. Codewallet was the worst, I read reports of it actually failing to encrypt data.
Hopefully this latest move will bring them closer to the level of development of freeware apps, although I am curious how much sales iLium gets from ListPro and how much from eWallet. I believe with these necessary and rather cosmetic changes we users were asking for LP will truly become a killer app - there's just too few good outliners / database type software available, especially now that PocketThinker is going under. I do hope they will make their fixes before Natara releases PPC version of Bonsai that was in the works for a while.
Thanks for all the very well thought out comments. In fact, I am going to offer some point by point discussions on these because I certainly think it is deserved. It's all great feedback and I'd like to offer an honest discussion (and in some cases, explanations.)
BUT
at this exact moment we're up to our ears preparing something very very cool right now, so I won't be able to get my response written until Monday (and with the number of issues to discuss writing it could take a little while.) I will reply though. I just want to make sure I have the time to do it right.
Thanks for your patience...I usually like to answer right away.
Oh, I hear you ! I used Shadow too, along with Megawiki ( and actively bugged developer way back in 2001-02, even got on his "Thanks" list :) ). There's nothing that compares to it. However it was getting rather slow on my old Visor - and looking for a better device made me switch to the other side.
The more I work with LP the more it looks, in some ways, like Shadow (although I surely miss Zoom and other little niceties). However, the small interface quirks really tick me off. Specifically because they seem so small.
We'll see about Bonsai. LP really grows on me since I was forced to start using it. I can see how it could be set up to create custom lists from bigger lists the way Ecco Pro did (remember this one ?) However, without ability to save custom views this would be just too much work.
Guys & gals from Ilium, we need your thoughts ! Heck, I might just drive to Ann Arbor & buy you some doughnuts if that's what it takes ;)
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