Device-specific Features
The Palm OS supports a diverse set of handheld devices manufactured by many companies including PalmOne, Sony, Handera, Dana, TapWave, and others. Many handheld devices support unique capabilities in the hardware. The choice of what Palm OS device to use is often a strong personal preference driven by your needs and lifestyle.
Life Balance leverages the creativity of the hardware manufacturers whenever possible, so that you can expect to get smooth performance from the handheld you are planning on using. Life Balance includes many device specific features that make the experience of using a particular handheld device more natural and enjoyable.
The features described in this section are dependent on the capabilities of the particular Palm OS handheld that you are using. Not all devices support every feature. Please consult the documentation for your hardware if you are curious to know if your handheld supports a particular technology. Since there are interesting device specific features of Life Balance that you may be unaware of otherwise, you may want to reread this section whenever you are planning on upgrading hardware to help inform your purchase decisions.
One-handed Navigation
Jog Dial™ Support
When you first launch Life Balance on a Palm OS device that has a Jog Dial™, such as the Handera, Handspring and Sony devices, the Jog Dial will select among the main screens of the software when you spin the dial.
Once you select a screen, by using the Jog Dial, the dial will select the records in the list view. In the Outline, using the Jog Dial button will expand a collapsed Outline section.
With a task selected that is expanded in the Outline section, To Do List or Balance screens using the Jog Dial button will check off the task, or uncheck it if it is currently checked.
For Sony devices that have a "back" button, the various functions are reversed when you push the back button. For an expanded Outline section, the back button will collapse the section. Pressing the back button again will return the screen selection mode. Pressing the back button again from the screen selection mode will exit Life Balance and return you to the Application Launcher.
For Jog Dial enabled devices this provides simple one handed operation of the Life Balance software.
Five way navigator — early Palm style
One handed navigation using a circular rocker was introduced on the Tungsten C, T, and W, the Zire 71, and similar handhelds from PalmOne.
Life Balance makes use of the available functions in the following way.
When you first enter the application, the five way nav will take you among the four main screens of the application. Pressing the rocker left or rocker right returns to screen selection mode. Pressing the rocker up or down will scroll by pages if there is a scroll bar visible.
Once you are at the screen you want to work with, if you press the middle select button, it will select the first item in the list. Using the rocker up or down will move up and down the list item by item.
In the Outline, pressing the middle select button on a collapsed portion of the Outline, will expand that section of the Outline.
Pressing the middle select button on an expanded item or task will toggle the item's check box.
Five way navigator — Treo 600 style
The PalmOne/Handspring Treo 600 smartphone uses a similar looking circular rocker, but with a much more sophisticated concept of what objects can be selected using the hardware control.
The Treo 600 allows you to select nearly all Life Balance buttons and controls (including custom Life Balance controls) using its five way navigation rocker. Nearly all navigation in Life Balance can be done with one hand on the Treo 600, (leaving your other hand on the steering wheel where it belongs).
The currently selected object has a blue focus ring around it. As a general rule, pressing the middle button will select the control. If you are within a control, you may need to hold down the blue option button and press the right rocker to “leave” the control.
When you launch Life Balance, each screen has a most often used control, which is selected by default.
For the Outline, the Outline as whole is selected by default. Pressing the middle button selects the first control in the Outline, usually a triangle for a top level outline section. Pressing the rocker right will select each control across the line, and move through each line of the Outline, highlighting each control. Pressing the middle button when the triangle is selected will toggle the state of the outline section to collapse or expand that section. Pressing the middle button on a checkbox will toggle the state of the check box. Pressing the middle button when the text field is selected will give you a text cursor. If you are among the many Outline controls, and want to step out to select the whole outline, you need to hold down the blue “option” button on the keyboard and press the center of the rocker. This is useful to maintain the appropriate selection in the Outline so that you can “leave” the list control to create a new task, or bring up the task details. You can also access most commands using the "menu" key, which may be easier than using the option key when working one-handed.
In the Task Details, the “Ok” button is selected by default. You can move to and select all the various controls in the task details, including the description field. You can move among the tabs and select any popup. Selecting a slider will select the control and rocker left and right will move the slider along the control bar.
For the To Do list, the “Update” button is selected by default. Rocker left or right will move the focus ring to any of the major controls, including the places popup or hours toggle. Using the middle button will select the control. For the To Do list itself, the action within the list is similar to the actions within the Outline list. If you have the focus ring on a checkbox, rocker up or down will stay in the checkbox column, so that it is easy to check off multiple tasks.
For Places the place list is selected by default. Pressing the middle button will select the first task in the list. Pressing the middle button while on a place will bring up the Place details.
In the Place details the “Ok” button is selected by default. You can move between the tabs in the Place details. You can select included places by pressing the middle button to move into the control, and press the rocker up or down to move to the place you want to include. Pressing the middle button when the place is selected will toggle the include state indicated by the “+” plus sign marker. From the hours tab, you can set the hours for a place by pressing the middle button to select the starting time for the range. This brings up the side arrows. Rocker left and right will then set the time. Pressing the middle button again will toggle the side arrows, so that you can move to the end time of the range. If you use the stylus to drag across the day labels, you can set the start and end times of the ranges across multiple days. When the side arrows are showing, you can use the keyboard to type an “a” to switch to “all day” or a “c” for “closed.”
For the Balance section, the task “Details” button is selected by default. The list of accomplishments and the task details are accessible with the five way navigational buttons.
The Life Balance Preferences and the “Link with Datebook” menu options have many controls that can be reached with the navigational buttons. However, some of the detailed tables have limited navigation functionality that require use of the stylus.
Screen Features
High Resolution
Many handheld devices have screens that support higher resolution or more pixels to display the screen images. That results in a crisper view. For Palm OS 4 and higher, we draw the pie charts at higher resolution, so that the circles have smoother arcs.
Text is rendered in high resolution automatically. We also include higher resolution versions of the icons and graphics for devices running Palm OS 5 or higher.
Rotation
Some screens have a physically larger view, and support switching the view into landscape mode. This can be very nice in the Life Balance Outline, since you get more text per line.
Virtual Grafitti
Some Palm OS handhelds have a silkscreen area where you input grafitti style text. This is a permanent overlay across the screen. Other Palm OS handhelds support Virtual Grafitti. Virtual Grafitt is a temporary view similar to the permanent silkscreen area implemented in software. The virtual grafitti area can then be moved out of the way to make more of the screen usable when you are not entering text.
Collaboration Features Using the Exchange Manager
Say that you and a friend both have Palm handhelds, running Life Balance. There are various ways that you can collaborate depending on the capabilities of your Palm. Imagine that you are planning a picnic. The two of you might need to decide who’s bringing the potato salad to the picnic, and who is bringing the lemonade. You may have started a "Have Picnic" section in Life Balance already and want to send the section to your friend.
Life Balance supports the modern exchange manager, which supports wireless data transfer. This section describes the different ways of transfering outline sections. See Collaborating by Exchanging Outline Sections for details on the processing of the sections once they've been transferred.
In Life Balance, select a project or task, and choose “Send Section” from the Task menu. Depending on your device’s capability, you may see a number of choices.
Beam
Nearly all Palm handhelds have infrared sensors and support Beaming. If you are in a situation where you can plan the picnic ahead of time, and you and your friend will be together in person, beaming can help you to share picnic tasks.
The disadvantage of beaming is that you and your friend need to be in the same place, in order to share data. The infrared sensors on the handhelds need to be within a few feet to transfer. If you forget that you also want your friend to bring the insect repellent, and your friend, Elvis, has left the room, you’ll need to be responsible for it yourself.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth can be thought of as being equivalent to beaming, but with a somewhat higher distance range, approximately 20-35 feet. So, if Elvis is still well within sight, you might be able to remind him to bring insect repellent. The other advantage is that you don’t have to point the devices so exactly, which can be helpful if you are in the same large conference room and don’t want to calll attention to your delegation of your picnic task.
SMS
Elvis has left the building! Short Message Service, or SMS, is text messaging used by pagers and cell phones. You can send a short message to Elvis where ever he may be, and you do not actually need to worry about the size of the text message. Palms that support SMS will automatically break up any data that you send into smaller text messages and reassemble them when you arrive. Life Balance supports SMS.
Tip: When you delegate a task using SMS, You may want to try using the note field in the Task details as a sort of highly contextualized, purpose-driven version of email.
Life Balance also supports sending projects and tasks as email attachments from your Palm handheld. Depending on your wireless plan, SMS or email may be useful options for reaching Elvis when he’s out of sight. Sending a task or a section of your Outline via email results in one attachment. If you open the attachment, Life Balance will recognize the email attachment as Life Balance data. You’ll notice that it will automatically get a Life Balance icon.
Not all Palm OS email programs correctly handle binary or native format attachments. Check with the authors of your email program to confirm that they support binary attachments. We can confirm that SnapperMail does this well. We can also recommend Mark/Space mail.
Tip: If you plan to collaborate using the exchange manager features, you may find it helpful to coordinate your shared places. It is helpful to either match the hours for a place, or include any hours that either of you will use for that place.