Ballroom version 1.20 : a review by aqualung
Here’s an excellent review by one of our friends, aqualung. If you guys noticed, Ballroom is another high quality application developed by the same people who brought Swiss Manager (Pro) to us. You want to know the verdict of this app? Read the review below. Oh… And a million thanks to aqualung for this sweet review!
Ballroom (version 1.20)
by aqualung
What is the hallmark of a really good app ?
Apart from novelty or nice colourful icons, functionality is key.
A great app enhances something in the device’s user interface so completely that you just end up using it as fluidly and automatically as anything else on the phone.
UIQ 3.0’s touch interface being what it is (an uncomfortable mix of some objects big enough to tap with a finger, and others requiring fiddly stylus input) anything that smooths those rough edges is a great help.
No matter what you do with your smartphone, you’re consigned to the tedium of either repeatedly pressing the ‘back’ button or long-pressing the ‘back’ hardkey to get out of an app, and back to the Standby screen (or whatever you’ve chosen to replace it ).
(Up until now, the only workaround was to map SMPro to launch Standby on long-pressing the icon. Which only worked if the icon was set to fixed, and meant hauling out the stylus again.)
CPS has released a new version of Ballroom which does away with that, neatly combining visual system cues (such as free RAM) with a powerful new app-launching functionality which extends throughout the OS and any third party apps installed.
Ballroom uses an area of the touch screen which is usually ‘dead space’– the top left corner where an application icon is displayed.
As luck would have it, this little window is just the right size for a thumbprint-sized application launcher, and that’s what version 1.20 gives us.
Apart from the usual Ballroom settings available (Time,Date,Battery,free RAM, Cycle task, End Task) new settings options include Start Application, Action Icons and Permanent.
The active area is divided into quadrants. The top and bottom halves will each perform a different function depending on whether a short (< 1 second) or long (about 1 second) press is applied…..meaning one can launch up to four different applications.
Checking Action Icons will display a tiny icon for each application set.
You can set Ballroom to display any image you like (including animated gif), or device info such as free RAM or Time, while retaining the app-launching functionality.
The Permanent setting allows one to select up to ten apps over which BR will render its icon window. These include fullscreen apps such as Opera Mini, Xplore, Scribbler, Gdesk, Standby and so on.
There are a couple of display niggles here. Some fullscreen apps will render the background of the icon window opaque instead of transparent, so one sees a white block. Unfortunately these include Opera Mini and Mobireader.
However as one usually scrolls around the screen anyway it’s not too much of a problem with Opera Mini, and will hopefully be fixed in future versions.
Setup takes less than a minute and has immediate effect. Now you can jump from within one app straight into another, or be back at your home screen with one thumbpress.
CPS has released an app which looks deceptively simple yet has very powerful functionality. It’s a prerequisite for anyone who wants to navigate their phone’s UI with speed and the minimum of fuss.
You can get a 14-day trial version at the CPS website http://cellphonesoft.com/
Or from My-Symbian.com
At $14.95, it’s well worth the money.
Highly recommended.
aqualung, May 29th 2008
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Nice review!I used the test version and found it too concetrated for my taste.Long press,short press,up or down…too geeky for me.But hey,that’s just me,maybe others will find it useful.
Thanks 701.
You can map all 4 quadrants to launch the same app if you want. I’ve set short tap (top and bottom) to launch Gdesk, and long tap (top and bottom) to close the current app.
That gives one big area to hit quickly to jump back to Gdesk, and holding the same area for 1 second closes the current app (quite handy for those of uswho hop on-and-offline all day with Opera Mini!)
Good review. I didn’t know it could be used that way at all. I just saw the blinking animation thing, and thought that was it.
(..um, do you want a headline where the review starts, btw?)
Yeah, that’d be good, thanks.
(I suspect a lot of users think it ends at the animated gifs. Whereas its actually an incredibly useful app.
)
Hope the review clarified that
*nods*
The review is a little short, and too much directly at the point, though. I hope the next one will be better :p
Isn’t brevity the soul of wit ?
And space at a premium ?
And online attention spans short ? :p
(Alright, I’ll make the next review more eloquent !)
:p I meant, I’m just really envious of anyone who can to get to the point that well.
I suck at that. I also thought it was too short but actually it was at point.Not like me blah-blah so much:D
i used this application on my p1i.i used a gif icon and it looks great!it is very powerful that in just one press you can jump from prev app. to another prev. app. etc. i get this app. in my symbian.com my application expires may 5,2009.i thot this is just for 14 days.UIQ RULEEEZZZ.