Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

General talks about EssentialPIM

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Pinkie
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Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by Pinkie »

When I read this in the post by the admin on the v6 interface poll this morning I knew immediately that it needed to be a front line post for everyone to see:

Admin:
"This is by design and in order to unify Android EPIM and Windows EPIM interfaces. This is how it's going to look like in the future versions
of Win EPIM, less tabs with all the info on one screen."

I would strongly urge the developers and the community to talk about this one openly.
I'll avoid posting too much as I for one am strongly against this direction as I have seen it do little more than ruin good desktop software. I have yet to ever see a "unified" interface that was anything more then just an annoyance to the desktop users. Especially with the current state of the EPIM Android app this is truly freighting to me.

My biggest request is that the developers please show us a mock-up of your vision of the future and collect user opinions. As the above is quite frightening since even v7 would be terribly uncomfortable on a common small tablet or smartphone.
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Re: Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by Rose Ford »

That in indeed very concerning... Hope to see some major clarifications from the staff.
Especially given how many note tree tabs and note leaf tabs I use, along with me being in the camp hoping to see the return of the attachment tab reading the oringal post seems to indicate a war on on my favorite feature.

Newer builds of Android are getting more laptop and therefor desktop friendly but honestly a real desktop version of Android is still years or even more then a decade away, so unless this is a very long term plan for say 2025-ish I'm not liking the sounds of it either myself.
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Re: Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by Max »

Hello,

indeed, that needs clarification.
Trees and Leafs will not go away, no worries. In fact, all major UI changes have been done for the future months if not years.
With bigger screens it is only natural that more information will be placed on one screen, without need to switch tabs. The only question is in which form it should appear.
Please to not make provocative post names as if something huge is going on. We have a big amount of users that love, like and think "it's OK" interface. Therefore, this is more to your personal preferences on how the information should be placed.
Maxim,
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Rose Ford
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Re: Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by Rose Ford »

That is good to hear, of course "bigger screens" I'm not so sure I agree with. Well they are becoming more common I can still count on a single hand the number of people I know who do real office work on bigger screens then 22" on the other hand I know countless users of less then that. I myself use a 19" screen and have no plans on changing any decade soon. lol

I'd reckon topics names like this get started mainly due to the fact that Astonsoft is such a painfully quite company which was fine until recently as it now has a reputation for doing dramatic and unwanted things to it's users without really telling them... I'm afraid things like this will probably become more common for a while now until either the company becomes more transparent or the statues quo goes on long enough to reinstate a level of trust in stability. The way the release of Version 7 was handled it did a lot to damage Astonsoft public image, even if everything gets fixed in version 7.1 which it sounds like a lot will but some big ones may not, the scares very well may linger for a long while.
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Re: Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by admin »

I see people misunderstood me. What I meant by saying "unification" - same fields divided into same sections (this is already in EPIM 7.0). All that is related to contacts only. Hope that clarifies things.
Android version of EssentialPIM. Keep all your data in sync!
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Re: Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by MetalDrop »

On the tab front I'd like to point out that it doesn't make sense to get rid of these tabs for this purpose as long as the "Related Items" tabs also exists, as all it really dose it create a bunch of unused space in the interface where the other tabs use to be. Which getting rid of the "Related Items tab" would be pretty hard and feature killing to remove. Also As pointed out above Android is slowly moving to be more laptop/desktop friendly and the standard large size tablet with keyboard and mouse docking stations is 10.1" a lot of convertibles don't go much beyond this either. This is important for both windows and android actually as more and more windows users are using smaller screens as fewer and fewer need full desktop computers. I think most of the Surface line for example sits at just 12.3". So in other words targeting large screens could have been a move best done 5-10 years ago during the big climb and peek of the 24~32" monitor movement but going forward from here I'd say it would be much safer to target 10.1"~22" as that will cover the greatest range of existing and future trend users.
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Re: Warning the future of EPIM all users should read

Post by admin »

Agree about the "related items" tab. There are still things we're working at and figuring out the best ways to fit them into the program. This is a never-ending process, so come changes regarding current look and functionality are very much possible. Thanks for your comments, they help us understand users' expectations and concerns.
Android version of EssentialPIM. Keep all your data in sync!
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