All:
I did release a new version a couple of days ago, version 1.0b9 is
currently available for download. This one fixes a little problem where
if you scrub any quantity in the detail view, switching to the overview
would generate an error. Also, I don't know what happened, but in the
detail view, there used to be text label over each 5 sections. I did
restore those labels, so that the detail view makes now a bit more
sense. I know that some may find that there is a lot of information to
fill in the detail view. Understand that you don't need to have all
information to get started. The most important thing to set properly are
the fields that will locate a given item in the store.
Here is a little quick start guide:
The location of a item start with the sections. So, when you modify the
sections, you have a numeric field called "Store occurence". This lets
you numerically position the section in the store, depending on the
layout. Then, back in the detail view, you have the fields "Aisle" and
"Aisle occ." (for occurence). The "Aisle" is a numeric value to further
precisely locate an item within a section. For instance, most grocery
stores I've went to have multiple aisles (or isles?) in the Fruit and
Veggie section. That's what the "Aisle" field is for. Finally, whithin
the aisle, you can have multiple items. The "Aisle occurence" lets you
determine which item comes first when walking in this aisle. All the
benefit of this is when you switch to overview. If you carefully
represented the store layout using these fields, picking the right sort
order will put all the items in the order you will find them, while
cruising in the store.
Then, don't forget the little icon to the left of each item, whether
it's the "grocery cart" or the question mark. This tells you if a given
item has been found or not. Initially all items should not be found. You
can easily flag them out by tapping the "All" button in the overview.
Make sure that the first item in the list is flagged as being found (the
grocery cart with the check mark on it). Then, go to the routing popup,
on the bottom right of the screen, next to the close box. There should
be an option in this popup that will be labeled "Item Not Found".
Selecting this option will flag all the selected items as being not
found. Make sure the "Sort" popup selected option is "by
Store/Section/Aisle/Occ.". Then, select "Items Not Found" from the
"Show" popup. Then everytime you find an item, tap the little question
mark to the left of the item. The item will disapear from the list,
leaving only the items to be found. The cumulative total will also add
the price of this item to its running total, at the top of the screen.
I'm still talking about the overview here. That's the main part to use
when shopping. BTW, if you need to do some management with your items, I
suggest you create 2 folders (only in NewtGrocery) for each store you're
planning to go. Name the first one with the name of the store, and add
active to the name. The other one should have also the name of the
store, but with inactive. So, you would end up with something like
"Costco Active" and "Costco Inactive". Move the items you don't need to
the inactive folder, and keep the ones you need in the active folder. Do
this for any store and you'll be more effective.
Finally, don't forget that in the overview, you can change what is
displayed in each column, and you can also modify the width of those
columns. Tap the header of a given column and you'll see what I mean.
Owners of 120 and 130 might find the application slow to load. I know
and understand your pain. I've tried to tweak the application loading
operations as much as I could, and it's pretty much the best I can do at
this time. The problem here is the use of the NewtApp framework that I
used as the basis of NewtGrocery, coupled with the special manipulation
I do of the entries. Everytime you launch NewtGrocery, the sort and show
settings are always restored to those in effect the last time you set
them. That's one of the factor. Then, there is the cumulative total that
needs to compute the price of all the items in the current folder, not
only those that are visible. Finally, the overview, and also the detail
view, have a fair amount of information to display, which take some
time. So, to those that feels the pain harder than the others, don't
forget that there is a little option in the "i" popup called "Hide
NewtGrocery". Like the title says, this will hide NewtGrocery, but will
keep it loaded. You will have the blinking star at the top of the screen
to switch to NewtGrocery again. While in this sleep mode, NewtGrocery
doesn't use much memory, so keeping it open shouldn't be a problem.
For those that might be interested, I could offer you my NewtGrocery
soup. There is a good number of items in there, but you would obviously
have to edit them in order to make them compatible with your grocery
store layout. Let me know at <mailto:nemesys@cox.rr.com>.
I'm currently working on a reference guide and it should be available,
time permitting, on Friday, the 16, but in the meantime, I hope the
above little blurb will help you get the most out of NewtGrocery.
Enjoy at <http://home.cox.rr.com/nemesys/NewtGrocery_EN.html>.
All comments, bug reports or questions should be sent to
<mailto:nemesys@cox.rr.com>.
Thanks for your time.
-Laurent.
=====================================================================
Laurent Daudelin
Developer, Adaptive Infrastructure, CIS Fannie Mae
Phone: 703-833-4266 mailto:Laurent_Daudelin@fanniemae.com
********** Usual disclaimers apply **********
***************************************
NewtonTalk brought to you by:
EVOTE.COM -- the ESPN of politics on the Internet! All the players, all the news, and the hottest analysis and features (plus 'toons!) anywhere.... visit http://www.evote.com today!
***************************************
Need Subscribe/Unsubscribe info?
Visit the NewtonTalk section at http://www.planetnewton.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jul 01 2000 - 00:00:05 CDT