Since the dawn of time (ok, about 1995), developers have been looking to replace the default home screen of PDAs and smartphones. Epocware's new Handy Shell seems pretty comprehensive for S60 and so we asked Ewan to install it on his main device and run with it for a week... The result? A narrowly missed MegaApp. From configurability to stability, Handy Shell seems to do a lot to live up to its price tag.
Read on in the full article.
or they can use gdesk, that is completely free...
GDesk takes a slightly different approach IIRC - great for power users. But its probably something we should cover on AAS at some point.
Hehe! I uninstalled it after 2 days.
Before anyone rushes to try this, note that the mail indicator does not work with MfE, RoadSync, etc.
E71's Quickdialer is faster and better than Handyshell's.
I used the app for 2 weeks with my E71, but the mail notifier and the dialer forced my to give up. May suite better on a N series.
Rafe, 100% agreed. Its time for you guys to give some love to Gdesk. People are doing some amazing stuff with it on uiq3 AND s60 v3
http://frenchanitya.blogspot.com/
an i imagine it will be amazing as a free solution to customize s60 v5 too...i�m sure Gary will be porting it
I'm not sure I'd like the new interface...but I would sure love the quickdialer function. My E61i doesn't have it like the new E71 does. Are there any standalone apps that do that?
pfunk: as mentioned in the text(!), Google for SkyeQuiKey.
For me, Tracker (by Smartphoneware) does a better job in all respects, be it customisability, be it performance. Only area where this one scores over Tracker is, the quick dialer. And the price of Tracker is less than half of this one.
i still don't think you can beat jbak taskman
Guys, also try t9Nav (t9nav.com). I think it is better overall than SkyQUickey with more features.
AS for Handy Shell - that second row of shortcuts is nice. That's about it. I don't like the way the softkeys have been locked, as well as the only option for a task switcher is Handy Task, which is not that good. I hate it when a program forces itself upon you - in a way it becomes more irritating than the default S60 shell.
They'd be better off had they just concentrated on adding widget/panel functionality to the S60 standby.
Epocware programs are great - I have most of the Handy series. However, I think 45 dollars is too expensive for this product.
Whilst initially impressed I found it "got in the way" too much to be useable for me
e.g. when answering a call I often switch to loudspeaker, this is almost impossible when Handy Shell is working as it grabs the soft keys over the standard ones.
I have handy shell with the handy weather plugin. I love seeing my 5 day weather forecast on the start screen!
I second Sandy and would recommend Tracker -
It doesn't have a contacts picture view or the second utility row in the standby screen but has everything else including (an optional) taskviewer and recently used list, whilst being more flexible and offers more functionality including :
Speed dials, speed contacts/sms/mms/email, links to files, folders, apps, weblinks and documents all with hot keys and in definable folders.
Still it's all personal preference....😉
I haven't checked out GDesk for a while - it looked a bit basic compared to Tracker whne I was in the market....
Cheers
Jago
Just loaded package of Handy (Shell+Weather+Calendar+Safe) on my new E71 and just love it. Adds loads of options without losing anything from the original views. One press off the 'home' button and you're back to phone's standard interface. Haven't found any loss of functions eg speakerphone icon still appears on soft blue key when you make a call - maybe it just really suits the E71 but it's a hit with me.
just tried it out on my e71 as well and its a very positive experiance so far. also i whent over to the epocware site and they have a 50% sale on everything so i got this for $22. not to shabby. oh, i'm not paid to say this btw 😊 (and today's date is 18/12/2008)
I just purchased Handy Shell . . btw electristan is right i got 50% off . . what made the deal even sweeter is that Handy Weather and Handy Taskman came for free with Handy Shell 😊 . . i am not being payed to say this either . . altough the tought is nice . . anyways on the 5800 Express Music touch interface this software works perticularly well and it deff. beats the standard contacts bar and shortcuts bar home screen.
Pros:
-Highly customisable to suit indevidual needs
-Simple to use . . altough a pain to set up (im a perfectionst)
-5 day weather forcast on the homescreen looks sweet
Cons:
-I HATE the clock and wish i could change to analogue mode or change its font
-No music display on home screen if i have a song playing in the background!!!
-Slows down phone as it keeps some applications running on stanby =(
Conclusion:
Its a no brainer for 5800 owners and its the only s60 5th compatible software that lets you modify and customized your active standby menu. Im the first guy in my office with this phone and this software makes the phone look cooler needless to say easier to use and more functional .
P.S: I NEED THE TRACK/MUSIC DISPLAY ON THE HOME SCREEN!!
O yeah i forgot to add that the "Dial and Start" feature does not work on the 5800 becuase there is no dial pad . . the "virtual" or rather "soft" dial pad does not activate this feature. The makes of this software need to come up with an alternate way for us 5800 users to access this feature as not having it is a real bummer.
Anyways im done writing about this damn oftware .. wow .. i think i just waisted 20 mins of my life .. anyways now that i have donated 20 mins of my life to this post i hope it will be helpfull to some one .. some where .. =)
I've been looking for a while but are there any alternatives to this for the 5800?
Handy Shell is an almost great application. Two "annoyances" that, for me, defeat it on my E71: one has been mentioned -- the mail indicator on the home screen doesn't work with Microsoft for Exchange, so I have no home page indicator for my most important mailbox. Second, the Contacts application appears to have a digit limit for each phone number -- so my work voicemail box, which has the log-in numbers included in the dial string with pauses, works fine with Nokia's standard 1-touch dialing, but is truncated in the Handy Contacts screen.
I also agree that the absence of the music player plug-in on the home screen is a minor negative -- but I could live with that if the two problems above were fixed
I think GDesk is the perfect replacement but it still needs some time till it brings some designs for the 5800 and i have read in some threads that Gary the guy from GDesk is looking for donations in order to make much more improvements to GDesk.
so i think it will not take too much time till we see GDesk throwing great designs for 5800 and keeping in mind that it is Free!!!1!
I wrote a review way back in September 08. Check it out.
http://www.bestofsymbian.com/review-handy-shell-from-epocware/
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I had uninstalled after only 1 day. The only thing i like is dialog screen but you can use skyquikey for that (or tnav). No more "to do"on today screen. Clock is unnecessary big.
I'm on N95 8GB and found that I uninstalled it after a few minutes. I actually use the handy taskman already which I found very nice, but I just hated the large digital clock and the missing softkey shortcuts. For N95 8GB owners, check out vHOME! Best symbian app by far! It's pretty much what Handy shell should be! Lots of customisations plus you can have two home screens!