Database Users

SPB Mobile Shell & SPB Pocket Plus?

I just got a Sprint Mogul, and I was wondering what the difference was between these two. Should I be using one or the other, or are they made to be used together? I'm fairly new to this, so I'm not quite sure which one I should buy, or if I should be buying both.
Thanks!

I have just the mobile shell, and it severely rocks. Well worth every penny. I tip my hat to the SPB folks.

mobile shell is just that, a shell, adds a nice finger-friendly interface (i found it to be a bit of a ram hog, which sucks with only 64mb)
pocket plus is more of a utility program, it adds functionality to file explorer, PIE, gives you additional button mappings, option to make the close button actually close apps, and safe mode (very useful if you like tinkering with stuff)
they can be used together, or separately (like most SPB apps they integrate seemlessly with eachother) its just a matter of deciding what you want to be able to do

If you go on the site, or somewhere, I forget, it shows the different features of the two to show you why you should buy both, in a checklist format. The only similarity in the two, is they both have a tabbed today plugin. If you had to decide between the two, go with Pocket Plus, it adds the perfect pieces to WM.
Found the page:
http://www.spbclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3941

I have pocket plus and have tried mobile shell. Personally, I didn't care for shell. I believe you can still download and try them both. Do that then decide if you want to buy any of them.

I used shell and phone suite and i have pocket plus but i don't think i like it as much. the one thing that I love is pocket plus and shell is when you lock it you can unlock using the bottom soft key which makes more sense i think. You can download 15 day demos and test it out but I took them all off because they do seem to leak memory.
The only programs I had was shell phone suite and live search and i'd get down to 3500kb in like 8 hours so I had to wipe it and have stock 3.1.2 with nothing added and it's a lot faster.

For those of you who have used BOTH, would you please comment on the value of using MS and P+ together, and specifically HOW you use them together?
I own P+ and have used it extensively on my HX4700. So I realize it has many utilities, like the browser extension and whatnot. The key reason I liked it was because when I used it on my PDA in a car mount, I could make the icons bigger (like TomTom and Contacts) so when I'm driving, I wouldn't crash.
But I'm having a hard time understanding why you'd want both. If you don't need the additional functionality in PIE (because I use NetFront), if you don't need the button mappings, and since there's a very finger-friendly task manager in MS already, I just have a hard time seeing the sense of installing MS and P+ together.
It seems to me that MS is the far better tool for a phone, which will be used mostly by fingers, where P+ seems to be more geared to a stylus and "power users". Therefore I'm inclined to think this is the way to go for me, despite the fact I already own a license of P+.
For those of you who are using both, would you please talk about why, and what value you find in Pocket Plus vs. Mobile Shell? Maybe I'm missing something.
Thanks!

I have used both, and find that a better combination is actually Mobile Shell and Phone Suite (another SPB program). That is the perfect combination for easy touch access to most frequently needed items all displayed very tidily on the today screen. Backlight, photo-speed dial, alarms, weather, missed calls, voicemail, texts, emails, comms manager, and ringer profiles are all neatly shown in just the top third of the screen. I should try to get a screenshot of mine...
Pocket Plus I found very useful for my Dell Axim, which was just a pocket pc, not a phone. Of course, I did a whole lot more with the Axim, and it was much faster and had a lot more RAM than a Titan. Pocket Plus has good features, but I think it has too much unnecessary stuff for a pocket pc phone, especially one short on RAM like the titan.
Hope that helps

Heinous said:
I have used both, and find that a better combination is actually Mobile Shell and Phone Suite (another SPB program).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the feedback. I did install the trial version, but found that again, it simply duplicated the utility of what Mobile Shell already gives us. I found that all it did was to pull some features away from Mobile Shell and put it on the Today screen. I think what would make more sense for me is to do away with the 'Today' screen altogether, in favor of using Mobile Shell alone. Is there any way to do that?
Heinous said:
Pocket Plus I found very useful for my Dell Axim, which was just a pocket pc, not a phone. Of course, I did a whole lot more with the Axim, and it was much faster and had a lot more RAM than a Titan. Pocket Plus has good features, but I think it has too much unnecessary stuff for a pocket pc phone, especially one short on RAM like the titan.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting. Like you, I've owned an HX4700 and found PocketPlus indispensible. But, by and large, I used it primarily to make my most frequently used programs easily accessible. One screen was named 'Car' and the icons were BIG so that when it was in my car cradle, I could navigate. But I don't find that the TyTN has less memory than my HX4700, though, so far as I can remember, and I find it to actually run faster in real use.
I think I'm coming down to trying to figure out what to do with the default 'Today' screen. It seems to have no value when used with Mobile Shell.
I'd appreciate hearing ideas on what aftermarket plug-ins I can put there that actually have value, or how to get Mobile Shell to take the place of the default Today screen.
Thanks!

I use both P+ and MS. The Today plugins are disabled for both, and I limit the today screen to Messages, Tasks, and Calender entries.
For P+ I use the Pie extensions, file browser, X Button, and File Manager improvements. MS handles the actual phone usage.
They do overlap a bit but I find that having both is a great utility

which one u prefer: TF3D v/s SPB Shell

doing a poll to see which is more popular among X1 users.
i like spb shell because its simpler and faster.

I like TF3D cause it make the PDA Phone not like PDA phone anymore = ="
And TF3D is pretty good look, also TF3D access is not slow
And I agree with you SPB Shell is access is faster than TF3D "mean the click times to access which you want"

BOTH!
Why choose between them when you can have both?!
I have Manilla 3D as a panel and SPB MS (retail version) mapped to my right hardware button

call me old-fashioned, but i am using the WM Today Screen with a couple of plug-ins (PocketInformant, Pocket Weather, ...)
SPB Shell would be pefect, but as long as it has problems showing whole day appointments, it's not usable for me.

honestly speaking i prefer the SE Panel 1...but it doesnt mask the Windows mobile as much as the other two..hence i didnt mention it.
but for quick access ..its best

tflo3d rulez. spb software is p.i.t.a. to skin (even more than manila...), poorly documented, poorly integrated even with other spb software, huge, memory hunger and drains battery very quickly. Only pro is that support landscape

I'm actually using SE panels and love them.
That's exactly what I need: a lot on the screen, all the apps shortcuts.
I appreciate all the other solutions but they're less functional just for me.
And not really my taste. Especially Spb.
So I just use panel with 25 apps on it plus all the connectivity and calendar+clock. I also have some most used apps on popup menu.
The second panel is only clock+calendar&entries and CommManager shortcut. Perfect...
P.S. As I see there's no functional difference between two SE panels....

SPB vs TouchFlo 3D

I'm seriously thinking about flashing my HTC Touch HD with the basic WM6 ROM (without TF3D) and using the various SPB products to provide me with the interface I need.
The way I see it, the SPB products will probably be faster than TF3D (I've got my HTC Wizard running pretty quickly this way), more stable and they offer more variety (TF3D tabs are very limited in what they can do and hard to customize)
Has anyone done this? Can you tell me about your experiences?

You don't have to completely install a TF3D-free ROM. You can simply go into Settings > Today > Items, uncheck TouchFLO 3D and check your replacement UI.
That's what I did when I wanted to try the new PointUI Home 2 on my Touch HD.

Zaza le Nounours said:
You don't have to completely install a TF3D-free ROM. You can simply go into Settings > Today > Items, uncheck TouchFLO 3D and check your replacement UI.
That's what I did when I wanted to try the new PointUI Home 2 on my Touch HD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah yes! I forgot about that
What's PointUI and is it any good?

Tried PointUI
It's good - very fast and I like how colourful the interface is. It's still very limited though but hopefully that'll change in the future. It's definitely one to keep an eye out for
I'm installing the various SPB packages now and will report in a short while

Hmmm.. I'm torn about SPB
It's quite clearly a very good UI with a lot of capabilities but there's still something about it that I don't like
It has a weird sort of 'rigidity' which only allows you to do things the SPB way. I also don't like the flow from one screen to the next

Try spb mobile shell - the latest version and then install this free software from here http://www.imarche.net/omnia/index.php
Think you will be nicely surprised at what you can achieve....
regards
jpw

I really like the TF3D. It has a smooth design and runs pretty fast.
I also like the weather section and although there are some nice UI in the market i think i will stick with the TF3D.

JPW said:
Try spb mobile shell - the latest version and then install this free software from here http://www.imarche.net/omnia/index.php
Think you will be nicely surprised at what you can achieve....
regards
jpw
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm.. still too rigid for my liking.

i use spb software and have ditched touchflo, dont bother with mobile shell as it offers me nothing in function
i use the following:
spb pocketplus
spb phone suite
spb weather
also on my today screen i have owner info edited to display as follows:
Owner: MY NAME
Touch to contact
at the bottom i have rsshub on autoupdate (trailling spb insight but not sure about it
in the past i have used spb diary on the today as well, but find it can comprimise some confidentiality issues so dont bother, after all my diary is but one touch away
i save at least 3mb of program memory and subjectively id say my machine is faster for it.
i can access all my functions i use daily with one touch on the pocketplus screen (ive done away with all the tabs and just have the one screen with my program icons) switch profiles with a swipe of my finger and likewise wifi etc on/off
sure it doesnt look as glam as tf3d but it offers me so much more function
as for the rigidity of spb products... yes they do want to do things their way, but ive used their software for a few years now and its second nature to me

I found this thread when looking for replacements to TF3D on my touch pro. I've been using SPB mobile shell for a few weeks now, and would mostly be ok with it if it wasn't for the annoying notifications that force me to exit mobile shell, and clear from the normal today screen. Do any other mobile shell users have that problem, or have you figured out a way around it?

Take a look at yrgo you might like it. It is highly customizable. here is a link to its website
http://www.2daysoft.com/yrgo/videos-and-tutorials/

Switched to SPB
I'm using SPB Mobile Shell + SPB Weather + SPB Phone Suite instead of TF3D.
Never looked back. And with SPB MS 3.0 coming TF3D will be like a toy
http://www.spbmobileshell3.com/

brusko1972 said:
Take a look at yrgo you might like it. It is highly customizable. here is a link to its website
http://www.2daysoft.com/yrgo/videos-and-tutorials/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, that's one heck of a customizable desktop. Seems like it could be really good once I get used to the UI.

I like the shell3 alot and have the tf3d and titanium actually removed from the 6.5 custom rom I'm using. Works much faster that way anyhow and I was growing weary of the limited functionality eyecandy of tf3d. But got a question and didn't want to start a new mobile shell thread. Anybody using ms who's figured a way to change font color on the shell ui? I know there are apps that will do it on the today screen, but can't seem to do it on the shell interface itself. Anybody got any info? Thanks

I bought SPB Mobile Shell 3 due to the good reviews it has generally received. However, after a week solid of use, I found it to be sluggish, so I asked for a refund which they promptly provided
It definitely has potential, looking forward to seeing what the next iteration is like. I'm using Point2Home now - quick, finger friendly and just pleasant to use, although I really wish some of these would go deeper in re-skinning the windows interface.

i like spb mobile shell 3 , but there is something which puts me off it but i just cant put my finger on what it is (maybe lack of customization) but im led to believe its getting better

I tried SPB3 and after a few weeks, I went back to TF3D. SPB was sluggish and it just was not as smooth as TF3D. I love the concept behind it and it definitely makes getting to your functions much easier. It just needs a lot more refinement. Especially in the area of text messaging

I'm not having sluggish issues at all and think it to be quite snappy. So I'm not understanding those comments, but there are so many diff roms out there that surely that is the difference in alot of cases. I thought that tf3d was sluggish on the email opening especially it would really lag at times. Then I read that the 6.5 roms had that issue. I'm not getting email open lagging at all with ms3. To each their own.

Hi there...
I've installed SPB Mobile Shell 3.0.1 and I LIKE IT A LOT!
but does anyone know HOW to get the name of provider onscreen?? (lifestyle)
thanx!

SPB Pocket Plus vs Mobile Shell

Hi All,
Which do you use? SPB Pocket Plus or SPB Mobile Shell? (or both).
I'm looking to get one, and both look good... but unsure which is better to go for!
Cheers,
Amnesia

Hello!
I use them booth!
u can make in MobilShell a tab for Pocket+!
this is great, so u have two plugins with more choices!
if u want i´ll post my today screen!
U also can use the plugins from MobileShell in Pocket Plus!....

Hi Amnesia,
I use both, Mobile Shell primarely for the different colour schemes and the nice foto contacts screen,
and Pocket Plus so you can place icons on you Today screen from witch you can get to all applications
on your device.
Greetz ....

i have both, but i prefer pocket plus. mobile shell is 1 of my panels so i can use that anytime. i prefer pocket plus because imo i feel theres more customizability with that.

last week i found a way of running the panel and the full app at the same time, only the theme gets messed up, has somone a solution for this?
- install spb panel
- backup the MobileshellPanel.dll + four bitmaps
- install spb full
- restore the MobileShellPanel.dll and the bitmaps
(you can extract the files from the mobile panel cab with MSCEInf)
has someone a solution for the theme?

At the moment i'm using Pocket Plus cause of it's flexibility (add plugins from other programs as a tab), but SPB are about to release a new version of Mobile Shell which looks amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2AOukFSz5o
Apparently due out sometime this month maybe next. There's another video around with someone from SPB demoing it on a phone which looks even more impressive.

gui mods

i'm curious about all the different gui mods. i think there should be a thread dedicated to that but can't find one. the gui mods i'm talking about are ones such as spb mobile shell. what other ones are out there. i've tried a few but there's bound to be more

SPB mobile shell really is amazing. I have a cracked version of the latest one if anyone wants it. The pocket plus is also very handy but its really nothing that a few registry hacks and tweaks can't solve.
SPB Shell tries to eliminate the use of having to use the stylus - a problem with windows mobiles.