EDIT: Since this is longer than I ever expected it would be, I formatted it so you could get the gist of it at a glance, and read in detail to the areas that interest you.

Well, this is far from in depth, but there are a few points I would like to make in the comparison of the following two freeware task switching programs: Wisbar advanced and Icbar, two different derivatives from the original wisbar product. The review will be devided into three areas: Function, Aesthetic and performance

Aesthetic:

This is one of the major reasons that people choose these task switcher programs, the ability to skin an additional 12,480 pixels (half on the top of the screen, the other half at the bottom of the today page) on the Pocket PC screen with a greater degree of control than the simple gradients that come with Pocket PC 2002. All of these projects have yielded hundreds of skins, most of them mimicing existing operating systems with slightly different touches, including a number of OSx skins, windows XP skins, and even Pocket PC-style graphical skins. So When it comes to graphics, which is better: Icbar or Wisbar Advance?

Similarities:

• skinning of background
• Support of only the .bmp image format, with one color for transparency
• Custom skinning of icons, custom or standard
• Custom skinning of Battery/Memory meters
• System Tray Skinning (bottom of today screen)
• Different states for volume control
• 3D Effect for running tasks
• Small Date over Time, optional
• Clear Type text rendering
• Color Gradient Support
• System Color Support
• Rearrangement of all of the above, stacking from the right

Differences:

• WISbar: Support for 3d look for ALL icons
• WISbar: Separate states for "X" icon, and others
• WISbar: Dropshadowing on text
• WISbar: Support for skin files
• WISbar: In sysetm color mode, ability to decide if gradients are used overall or just on today page
• WISbar: Ability to change date formats (large-font style only)
• WISbar: If you click on battery and memory, a dialog pops up with percentages (optional)
• WISbar: Pocket PC 2002-style dialog boxes, rather than plain white dropdowns
• Icbar: With Tap-and-hold there is an option to show the little red circles, or not.

Wisbar is the clear winner for aesthetics, if you are mainly in it for skins, hands down, go for Wisbar Advance

WINNER: Wisbar

Fucntion:
I have to admit that this is major reason I use these task switchers, even more so than the skinning ability, because i often use multiple applications. This category of program has made the multitasking ability of the OS become quite a bit more useful, as I can easily switch between applications with hte running task icons, launch others, and keep tabs on my memory usage.

Similarities:

• Running Task Icons
• 2 Custom Icons
• Dropdown Task Manager/menu
• Connection Icon
• Volume Icon
• Ability to set Close/Minimize to Tap/Hold
• Abilty to pull up menu by hardware button
• Battery/Memory Meters
• Ability to map custom icons to two prorgams
• Option to automatically go to today page after close/minmize
• Ability to map icons to today screen

Differences:

• Icbar: Clock acts as a clickable button
• Icbar: More special mappings, apart from just programs and files, such as PIM etc.
• Icbar: Ability to hold on running task icons to close them
• Icbar: Ability to map separate left/right or top/bottom commands to memory and battery meters
• Icbar: Tap-and-hold support for EVERY icon, not just custom
• WISbar: Only one click with hardware button is required to activate the dropdown, as far as I've heard this is a bug in icbar
• WISbar: A dedicated icon for notifications, with dynamic featres
• WISbar: Buttons OTHER than the X can be mapped to minimize, though this should work in Icbar, this is another bug

This time it is closer than the last category, for someone mainly interested in multitasking, Icbar clearly wins this category as more space can be saved by mapping things to the clock, two functions to memory/battery, and there is tap and hold support for running task icons. I personally find these to be more major than the WISbar advantages in function.

Winner: Icbar

Performance:
I ran a few benchmarks, with BMQ, rather than post tons of stats I'll sum it up, With an Axim X5 PXA-250, 400 MHz, Wisbar used up the least memory, and performance hit, given the same skin. Both however, were fairly incrimental, at roughly (highest numebers best: 490 for system alone, 470 for Wisbar advance, 460 for Icbar. With the functionality they add, this is pretty much negligible, barely larger than the benchmarks marging of variation (I averaged 3 tests on each, and rounded)

As for the inteface, all I can really say about this is different but equal, however, this is nearly 100% subjective so I'll spare you.

However, the menus and so on of WISbar lack a fraction-of-a-second lag, the whole thing feels a bit zippier, so I'll give this to WISbar, though they are pretty close, and either one's utility outwighs this system slowdown 10 to 1.

Winner: WISbar

Overall:

This is tough, were these two not so close, I woudln't have gone on for nearly this long, the functional differences in Icbar are significant, and I have gotten a bit used to them. However, the performance (minor) and aesthetci (major) differences are still quite convincing. For this reason I'm worried I'll find myself playing "ping pong" between Icbar and Wisbar every version, however, at this time Wisbar seems the best balance of Aesthetics, Fucntoinality and Performance.

Overall winner: BOTH! WISbar for aesthetic, Icbar for Utility




Where to download:
Wisbar Advanced 1.0: http://www.lakeridgesoftware.com/
Icbar 1.1 Beta: http://icbar.ictinus.com/

Nice review, Trinity. You should post this in the the review section . I was curious as to the difference between the two utilities-you saved me a lot of time and effort. Thank you!

Hmm... I would post this in the review section.. .but I honestly can't figure out how to add new items.

nice review thanks

i'm gonna give the new wisbar a try after using icbar for a little, see which i like more

yes..great review dt...very well done & thanks for all the break downs!! saves us all alot of time
i went with wisbar adv,,,love it so far. now if someone could create more themes & skins and post the site to get them....we will be set!
thanx again!

If you just 'think' about it.......
life will pass you by.
JeepfanEd

Very nice review, Trinity....Good Job! There is a form on the User-Review section for adding new products, that is labeled as "Suggest an Item". This doesn't add it immediately, but it will alert Chris that you want it to be added. So as soon as he verifies it a legitimate product, it will at that point be added. Troublesome process, but much better than getting a bunch of duplicate products and/or people putting in stuff that isn't even a product.

Again, nice review.

Jordan M. Wigley
Aximsite.com
Email: jordan AT aximsite.com

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Very good review.

Was Wisbar the 1.1 ver. or the 1.2 Beta4. I am assuming that it's the 1.1 but want to make sure before downloading and installing.

Thanks

Dell Axim X5 400MHz,
Socket Wifi card
TM 1180 Wifi card
Blue tooth Wifi card
64mb sd,128mb sd,256mb cf,
2-256mb sd
dell leather case
foldable keyboard
2nd battery
Pharo CF GPS
Arkon PDA mount

Wisbar Advanced 1.0: http://www.lakeridgesoftware.com/
Icbar 1.1 Beta: http://icbar.ictinus.com/

It's kind of confusing, this guy probably should have come up with a different name, because that now makes 1 original, and THREE derivative lines (Wisbar -> Icbar / Wisbar / Wisbar Advanced)

There's one specific function ICBar has that made it superior to WisBar Advanced in my book. The ability to map functions to the connection icon!

When I insert my ethernet or wireless ethernet card using ICBar, I get a nice connection icon that I can then tap to get my IP settings (Cambridge's vxIPConfig) or tap'n'hold to open ActiveSync. Since I remote sync to my desktop at work via ethernet and my home PC via wireless, this is a big deal for me.

Unless I missed something, I'd have to add another entire icon for the same functionality in WisBar Advanced.

P.S. It's wonderful we all have the choice between two stable, free programs! Kudos to both authors.

-Islanti

Correct... this is one of the points I mentioned, icbar can map two functions to any icon, even the time/date. That is why I gave it the advantage in function, along with hte tap-and-hold to close programs. I'm still not entirely sure which I'll end up using myself... But I'm going to keep both installed isnce they don't step on each other, If I could ocme up with a way of switching them on the fly, that might actually be pretty nifty (to be able to have different icons etc).

Another thing is that with Icbar, it is harder to coordinate skins, but not impossible, I actually used some of the standard Wisbar Advance skins by copying the folder, renaming the contents, then renaming each respective folder to "active", when I want to sue that skin. It's kludgy, but it works.

But yeah, it is nice to see all this active development, both of these programs are great in their own way, and I'm sure they'll only get better. They are also still quite small on the performance cut for the benefit they give, IMO (just barely noticable aboice the margin of variation in the benchmark app)

Thanks for clearing that up. I would have downloaded the wrong one from the wrong company. Didn't realize that there where two different ones.

Dell Axim X5 400MHz,
Socket Wifi card
TM 1180 Wifi card
Blue tooth Wifi card
64mb sd,128mb sd,256mb cf,
2-256mb sd
dell leather case
foldable keyboard
2nd battery
Pharo CF GPS
Arkon PDA mount

Now you have to compare it against soem real competition, Pocket Facelift, haha good job!

nmkid@aximsite.com Aximsite members get discounts! ->click here<-
__________________

Umm... as far as I can tell, facelift has far fewer featrues in terms of function, it is almost ALL aesthetic, and from what I've seen, would lose horribly in the performance category. Also, it would bring into play the "price" category in which it also loses to either of the above

ok.. wisbar > icbar, this is after using wisbar and looking at the options. it has more features, looks better, so i switched to wisbar

Trinity, excellent review. Usually it is hard to find a comparison like this one for any products.

This review made it easier for many to decide between "WISBAR" and "ICBAR".

I have a question to any one who already has done this. What is the procedure to use skins/themes for the bottom bar? I think in "ICBAR" this can be done by using the background option (although I haven't done it) but how this can be accomplish in the new "WISBAR ADVANCE". Usually all the skins I ahve seen so far for ICBAR/WISBAR do not seems to have any thing for the bottom bar.

Axim5

Axim X5