Pronto Dial

[gkouri]

One of the best and least used features is the "Predefined Messages" on Pronto dial. Is there a way to have an option to add this as one of the the buttons on the bottom of the main page? (ie instead of SMS or email etc)

[wayne@angrygoat]

Originally Posted by gkouri

One of the best and least used features is the "Predefined Messages" on Pronto dial. Is there a way to have an option to add this as one of the the buttons on the bottom of the main page? (ie instead of SMS or email etc)

Not really, since there's no way for a button on the bottom bar to tell which contact you're intending to send the message to. The only way would be to have that button lead to a separate screen to select the contact, but that would just make it unnecessarily complicated.

[malpha]

Hey, so @connorlacombe just released the crossapp data that apps can use to dial out using Voogle (his Google Voice app) here: webOS Cross-App Launching Database So I thought I would drop a note asking that maybe we can get Voogle support in Pronto Dial?

[wayne@angrygoat]

Cool, thanks for the link. I'll look into it.

[malpha]

Just got the update, Voogle support is working great over here! Thanks for the addition.

[mamouton]

Yes the Voogle support is awesome. I think Prontodial just became my favorite dialer.

[mamouton]

I have been using Pronto dial to dial the number via Voogle it sends the number perfectly but upon the launch of Voogle it stops just short of being fully minimized and I have to minimize and maximize to dial the number. I am posting in Voogle's thread as well. Just thought I would let you know. Great update. I have one question what is the benefit of using the location services with this app?

[wayne@angrygoat]

Hmm... that's strange. Have you tried rebooting your phone.

The location services is for sending your current location in an SMS or email. When you hold the SMS button (or tap the button next to an email address), it brings up the predefined messages popup and the first selection is to send your current location.

[wayne@angrygoat]

Pronto Dial v1.5.0 is now available.

New features:

- Group SMS/Email. Send messages to the primary number or email address of every contact in the currently displayed category.
- Various minor tweaks and bug fixes.

Versions 1.5.x will probably be the last updates to be compatible with webOS 1.x. Just about everything else I want to add to this app requires webOS 2.x and in fact will require a major rewrite. The need for the rewrite combined with HP's recent announcements that the current application framework will be phased out and the speed at which the mobile market is moving, there just isn't a good case for future versions of Pronto Dial to retain legacy support.

[wayne@angrygoat]

This is a very late, but Pronto Dial v1.6.0 is now available. (actually 1.6.1 should be available soon, but it's only a minor bug fix)

New features:
- App data backup to Google Docs or to Email with optional encryption.
- Restore backup data from Google Docs or from a file.

I changed my mind about adding features compatible with webOS 1.x. I was going to wait till the webOS 2.x version before I do a backup feature, since 2.x would allow automatic backing up to the Palm profile. However, I had to implement Google Docs reading and writing for another app, which made adding it to Pronto a lot easier.

[murts]

Wayne, I'm using 1.6.1 on 2.1 and have a problem with group email. If each contact in the list is set for email only the first contact in the list gets added to the group email, not all contacts in the list. If each contact in the list is set for SMS this works fine with all contact being added to the SMS.

[wayne@angrygoat]

Originally Posted by murts

Wayne, I'm using 1.6.1 on 2.1 and have a problem with group email. If each contact in the list is set for email only the first contact in the list gets added to the group email, not all contacts in the list. If each contact in the list is set for SMS this works fine with all contact being added to the SMS.

Ok, this seems to be a problem with 2.1. The system is ignoring email recipients that I designate to be put in the 'CC' field. I'm trying to confirm this with HP/Palm and to see if there is a work around other than putting every recipient in the 'TO' field.

[murts]

I would have expected the functionality to put each contact in the 'TO' field anyway, I'm assuming you have designed it to put the first contact in the list into the 'TO' with all subsequent contacts into the 'CC'. To me it makes more sense that all are added to the 'TO' as the first contact in the list is no more important than any of the others.

[wayne@angrygoat]

Using the TO as opposed to CC is not about the importance of the contact. This has more to do with how email works in general. Email clients are designed to send an individual email to each recipient to the 'TO' field. So if you have 10 recipients, the email client will send 10 emails.
However, with the 'CC' field the job of sending the multiple copies to shifted to the email server that the client connects to. So when you have one recipient in the 'TO' field and the rest of the recipients in the 'CC' field, the email client just sends just one email to the server and the server would then distribute that email to all the recipients.

By using the CC field, you will cut down the actual amount of data being sent from the phone. In this day and age of data caps, i think that's a pretty important benefit of using CC.

[murts]

While I can understand the reasons for not wanting to send as much data around the planet it still sort of goes against what 'cc' tends to be used for with emails.

Here is one definition...

CC=carbon copy, this is the second copy which would have been sent to the less important person, often in their case for information only.

[wayne@angrygoat]

That may be one definition, but since there is no degradation of quality of the copies or any less of a chance that the message won't reach it's recipient, that definition is kind of meaningless. Besides, I think that definition was probably carried over from the over days with real carbon copies.

My it's the engineer in me, but I always prefer methods that are more efficient with resources.

[wayne@angrygoat]

Ok, I still haven't gotten a reply to my question from HP/Palm, so I submitted an update that will put the email recipient list in the 'TO' field for 2.x devices. Should be available in a few days.