Winterface by Vito
 

http://www.vitotechnology.com/en/sup...il.php?ID=2069

So, I saw this new task manager from Vito today. I already have Goodwin, but I downloaded and gave it a spin for a few hours. Here's what I found.

I like the black skin, but I have learned that in the sun the screen is pretty much no good...can't see a thing.
I like the flow once you have it set up, but it can be a pain (the manual didn't work, so I had to figure it out based on the webpage). The nice piece is that you can pick what you want to use on the screen...sorta like a huge favorites kind of thing.
There were some icons that had color and some that did not. The icons with color looked great on the black background, but I think all icons should have color.
If you have SMS-Chat or Fun-Contact, you'll find that there are some duplicate icons...like the sms icon. Also, the icons that keep count of missed sms, email, pic mail, missed calls, and tasks do not show up with this manager. So that kind of sucks.
Although this program is in the Windows start-up menu, it doesn't start up when powering up.
I like how you can put contacts on a page and it does everything you would want it to do.
I think there should be date/time/battery/antenna strength/and maybe access to ring profiles at the top of the main page...just like Goodwin has. I mean there are icons that show date (calender), time (clocks), battery (battery), but that takes up space for other things...when it could be placed at the top.
Last, the screen that ask you to swipe it to open the program is very annoying...slide to unlock is fine.

That's it for now...I switched back to Goodwin until they work the bugs out. If they do, this task manager will rock!

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Yeah, It looks like it has potential. Good Stuff

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

trying it myself and agree some ways this one rocks, very smooth and easy to setup and move around icons, but i to would like a bettery battery/signal display, i hope and am sure they will improve on it

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I assume this works much like SPB mobile shell and stays on in the background?

I am more interested in a start menu replacement and do not need a today screen replacement.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I'll be following this one as it's cheaper than SPB Mobile Shell and looks like it gives some good customizability. Still, I'm not going to replace SPB just yet,

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I tried it too. +1 for bad manual... that is not even close to explaining the lack of instructions. My 9 year old daughter could write a better manual.

It was pretty cool with the functionality but I just don't think that they put a lot of thought into the serious level of customization that a lot of like to do with our PPCs. But the idea is cool and we'll just have to wait and see where they go from here.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

To be totally honesty, it ran great on my Mogul. It had a very low memory footprint and was very easy to use. It also had a nice flow to it overall and the way you move icons around was pretty cool.

I just didn't like the lack of customizations out of the gate. Sure I could have started ripping it apart, but why should I have to go through all that? Why couldn't they just include the ability to use themes or something similar?

I already uninstalled it, but will keep watching it to see how they do in future releases. It definitely does have potential...

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Thanks a lot for your feedback! We’ve got lots of wishes of how to make Winterface even better so we’ll try not to disappoint everybody’s expectations and work hard on improving Winterface.
By the way, VITO has started its blog http://blog.iwindowsmobile.com, if you want to learn more about the application you are welcome to read extracts from different reviews on Winterface.
For our convenience it would be great if you post your ideas on improvement of the program there.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Have you guys corrected the issue with the SMS and Tasklist icons not keeping a count on version 1.02? You all are doing a great job!

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

not a bad "rip" this winterface.....I think that only thing that bugged me is that whenever i made that move "across" the screen it would launch, even if I did not wanted it.....other than that...nice interface, very usable.....manual?? don't really need one. Pretty self explanatory.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I have been a fan of Vito since I discovered FunContact and SMS-Chat. I was never a big fan of GoodWin, but I was pretty excited to see this new UI. I do have a couple of complaints after using for a very minimal amount of time so far. It looks great, but totally lacks some basic choices for the user. In fact, there are NO settings for the actual program for you to customize the way that the program actually runs. This has great potential, and I will continue to use it for now to see what else I can learn about it, but here are my initial complaints:

You can have what seems to be as many pages of applications/contacts/settings as you want, which look to have room for 16 icons on each page. LOOKS to have....for what seems like no reason at all, you cannot have anything in the bottom right hand corner of ANY page. WTF? Why must there be a hole on the bottom of the screen?

Second, it has its own S2U. It looks good and all, but I like using A_C's because I like having different custom pictures on my screen when I wake up my device. You can't turn off Winterface's S2U. Lame. So now, if I want to use A_C's S2U2, I have to slide it, then, have to slide Winterface's too! DUMB.

Third, there is no plugin or anything for weather. I have a Sprint Touch which has a today screen plugin for HTC's weather. The only way to get to it is to minimize or close Winterface and click on the original today screen plugin. The only other option (since I had this same issue with iFonz) is to get a 3rd party weather app and choose it as one of the icons. I don't wanna do that!

And Lastly (for now, hahaha), upon first installing, there are some pre-chosen shortcuts on the front page including battery, ringer profile, a task manager called 'Running,' and a few others. While initially messing around, trying to set up how I want it, I removed the battery meter icon assuming I could just pop back into the settings tab to put it back on the page. WRONG. I had to completely deinstall the program, soft reset and reinstall. Well that worked, but it erased all of the other changes that I made, so essentially, I had to start all over for one little icon (a very important one!) It's the only one that I found that you couldn't replace once you have removed it.

Has anybody else experienced these problems...or better yet...found a way to correct 'em?

edit: I should state that I am using v1.01 as of these complaints, I will try 1.02 to see if any of these were corrected, but somehow I doubt it as it is WAY too quick after the initial release.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

your right about the battery icon that is pretty messed up but as to your setup once you get it the way you want it if you back up the program folder once you reinstall winterface you can copy it over and start the program it will be back the way you like it

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Yes, but then wouldn't that overwrite the fact that the battery is now on the screen, since when you initially back it up, it wasn't there?

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

like i said do the back up after you get it the way you want before you start experimenting

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

does this have landscape support , didnt find it anywere on their site....
im using a 6700

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

It does have landscape support. When I slide out my keyboard on my Mogul, it rotates to landscape.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

This is my biggest complaint so far about the shell. I can hardly use the Opera 9.5 beta...moving the web page around contantly opens Winterface....SUPER annoying. I would like to see the option to have a custom gesture launch the app. I would personally like to have the gesture be a zig-zag or maybe even a circle....how many times do you draw that on your screen? How many times do you swipe side to side?

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I agree. I tried to play solitaire today. Seemed like every other move opened
Winterface. Lame. There needs to be a more unique gesture or the option to turn it off.

I also notice a couple of other things today. When you miss a call, it will appear as a little notification on the phone icon, but when you press it, it still just takes you to the dialer screen. You would think that it would take you to the missed call log....wrong. Another pretty obnoxious thing is that when you are on a long call and your screen shuts off, you must wake the phone, slide to unlock it, and THEN end the call - you can't just hit the hardware end key a couple times. NO LIKEY. Also (a minor one) the battery icon that i mentioned in my last rant works fine as a snapshot of how much battery power you have left, but when you press the icon.....nothing......you'd expect it to take you to the power settings so you could see the actual % and all, but it just plain doesn't do anything.

I also installed this on a Treo 800w today. I looks pretty sweet, there are 3 rows of five icons - which means NO HOLE in the bottom right hand of the screen!!!! But that's about all it has going for it....ahahahah. The phone icon doesn't take you to the dialer screen, it takes you to the treo default home screen. The sms icon doesn't work at all (unless you have SMS-Chat installed, which doesn't work on the 800w) and there is no way to put a calendar icon on it for some reason. Just these alone were unacceptable and I did no further tests on it. We'll have to see if in future releases that this might become compatible. Until then, its pretty worthless on the 800.

I'll keep checking it out...

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

everytime you zoom in or out on a pic in htc album

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

This is true. I use S2V, so i don't use circles at all i don't think, but anyone using the stock album viewer would get annoyed pretty quick! The main thing that they need to do is, if they are going to keep a gesture to open the program - simple or unique - they need to have the option to disable it and just click on their icon.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Yeah...we could REALLY use an update quickly. I paid for this software and all it's doing is pissing me off. Any time I browse using Opera, or even highlight text horizontally it pops Winterface to the forefront...SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER annoying.

VITO, if you are reading this...FIX IT! Oh yeah...and also get some damn forums for yourself so your current and future customers can communicate with you.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

For those that haven't seen it yet, there is an update to Winterface that changes the gesture to a ^ or upside-down V.

After testing for 5 minutes, it seems to be MUCH better. I haven't accidentally triggered it yet, and don't see any reason why I would.

I'm happy.

See download here: http://blog.iwindowsmobile.com/?p=8

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

hey this actually looks pretty nifty lol.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

If you haven't tried Winterface yet, it's a must have app for any WM5/6 phone. It has made my Mogul SOOOOO much more better and usable. I also highly suggest checking out SMS-Chat and Fun-Contacts by the same people...VITO. All are finger friendly apps.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I have a problem with Winterface that I had boiled down to having to do with Opera Mobile 9.5. It is not a scrolling issue. It is that when opera is installed, i am not able to use the "running programs" button in winterface. If i do my mogul just freezes up, anybody else have this problem?

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

A new version has just come out:
download it here: http://iwindowsmobile.com/files/Winterface.exe
New features:
1. New start up gesture. Instead of "rainbow" upside down tick "^"
2. New gesture to close any current application "v".
3. The ability to add separate files on the screen.
4. New applets: Calendar and Tasks show the number of upcoming events and tasks
5. The ability to disable lock screen feature.

Fixed bugs:
1. There is no ability to delete Menu and Running.
2. Bugs with battery and bluetooth were also fixed.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I could not get it to run on my 800W. Tap the EXE and it came up with the initial screen and nothing after that.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Same here on the mogul just freezes up!

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Can this be mapped to a button because if so it would be great sort of like Ifonz

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Same here on Mogul with 20270 cooked rom. Bummer, I really wanted to try it.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I really like the changes made to the most recent version of this...when you miss calls and push the phone icon it directs you to the missed calls in Fun Contact (if you have it installed as well)...very nice!!

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

For some reason, this doesn't work for me. When I have missed calls, it still takes me to the phone dialer screen. But overall, I agree. 1.1 is WAY better. Still a little ways to go, but it looks like they are taking our suggestions seriously. One of the main things that I was complaining about earlier is the fact that you couldn't turn their slide to unlock screen off. Well, now you can! Also, they made the calendar a little sexier and as stated before, they made the gesture more unique. I also like the addition of being able to choose/make shortcuts for individual files because now there is a way to do Sprint Music Store. (Menu, Files, Windows, Start Menu, Programs, Sprint Music).

I still wish that tapping the battery icon did something, still nothing. I would also like to be able to disable the opening gesture all together and use a mapped button. Also, why the f can we still not fill the whole screen? I still don't get not being able to put an icon in the bottom right hand corner!!! But overall, BIG step in the right direction! Keep it up VITO

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

Just noticed that there is a 1.12 version up now, don't know of whats changed yet, if anything

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I must say that Vito has done it again! When I started this thread, this app had just been released and had tons of issues. Well, looks like Vito listened to the consumer and fine tuned this app...so much so, that I finally decided to give it another try. I've been playing with it for a day and I love it (so much so, I will end up buying it)! As mentioned in the post above, an update was released this morning as well...which I downloaded.

Here's my only grips- As stated by someone else...I wish they would do away with the entire gesture thing...it's a pain in the ***...I want to map it to a button so that I can switch between it and my today screen (like I did with Goodwin), without having to do the gesture. Next, come on Vito let's fill that space with an icon, lol.

That's it for now...looking good Vito =D>!

P.S.

Hey Vito, where's that SMS-Chat or is it Fun-Contact update?

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

that first screen is just showing you how to launch it. if you have ftouchsl or another scrolling program, be sure to exclude winterface. worked like a charm after i did that.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I second this motion. I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE having to do the gesture. The ^ is a much better option than the "arc", but I still don't hit it 100% of the time...very annoying. I just want to map it to my "notes' button or something.

There is a reason for the empty space while in portrait mode. If you switch to landscape mode, they can only fit 15 icons (5x3)...so if they allowed 16 icons in portrait, then when you switch to landscape, the last icon would spew over onto the next page messing everything up.

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I have searched everywhere and can not find where the battery icon is, I've went through applications settings, files in the winterface folder and nothing, how do I get the battery icon on the screen?

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

been using it for a week, v1.15 and everthing is ok, 3 suggestions...1) i hope they can have option to change color of the icons from plain b&w to colored. 2) put option to change themes and not only black. and 3) that the battery meter show the real battery level of my unit like how the signal bar shows the signal strenght if strong or weak and date and time....speaking of date maybe they can add the month not just the day(monday, tuesday,....) and 1, 2, 3, 4.....

Re: Winterface by Vito
 

I love, love, love Winterface! It soooo closely resembles the clean design and high functionality of my iPod touch. (TF3D and MS are just too cluttered and inefficient.)

I'm currently using the Lynx skin and actually wish the opposite of the poster above -- I wish there was an option to change the full color of some of the icons to match the Lynx skin.

I also wish that clicking on the Winterface battery icon would take me to my power settings. (Maybe I just need to configure a setting?)

And, I'm sure this is a pipe dream but I wish Winterface could provide me with something that looks exactly like the TF3D weather. I want to disable TF3D -- the weather tab (configured to be my first tab in TF3D) is the ONLY reason I keep it running. LOL