[mellisdesigns]

Hey Guys

My app PIPO has just been approved and is now available on the Blackberry App World:

Free Punch In Punch Out - Download Punch In Punch Out - Free Apps from BlackBerry App World

I have made the app free for a week to get some feedback on what people think of it. It's part of a range of management a la code apps that make jobs a little more fun.

Would love to get some feedback from the crackberry forums. Go and download and let me know what your think. I am not stopping you from writing something nice about the app, or bad if you want as well, but hopefully not bad.

Enjoy and let me know what you think.

regards
Mitch Ellis
MELLISdesigns

Playbook Apps: Disctract and PIPO

[HaTaX]

I'll give it a shot, thanks for the free app! Also just something I thought I'd throw out there, are you using the following line in your app xml file?

<renderMode>gpu</renderMode>

It *might* make the help portion of the app a little more fluid, at least it helped my app. Looks pretty slick and I'll try it out over the next few days and let you know what I find.

Also, the "Exterminate" button made me crack up. Doctor fan?

[mellisdesigns]

Hey HaTaX

The help screen could be a little tricky as I actually read through and xml and load 20 images at the same time, which probably explains why it comes down a bit chunky. I think I might need to optimize it a little better. Thanks for the feedback.

And of course I love Dr Who and of course I love the idea of exterminating clients, who wouldn't?

Thanks for the kind words HaTaX

Best Regards
Mitch Ellis
MELLISdesigns

Blackberry Playbook Apps: Disctract and PIPO

[JMarshall123]

tried it great app one thing that would be cool is if there was a space for client details and a project/job description added keep up the good work

[willie44]

Nice graphic design and animation in the app. Did you use Photoshop to do the original layout for the app or something else?

[mellisdesigns]

Hey @willie44

Yeah all the graphics have gone through treatment using Photoshop. It's definitely required to optimize the animation and smoothness of the apps interface. All the elements in the app are individual image files all placed using code. All the animations are scripted as well, gives the end product a more polished finish.

Thanks for downloading the app!

[dkingsf]

Too bad. Seems nobody wants Playbook apps now. We have the Android player and all the apk files we need. I've just downloaded my 6th fart app. But only after the 3 laughing burp apps.

Thanks though.

[mellisdesigns]

@dkingsf Haha, how does the android player run? Is it actually decent?

[BaconMunch]

Thanks, just downloaded the app. Looking forward to trying it out.

[anon(1482580)]

@dkingsf Haha, how does the android player run? Is it actually decent?

I downloaded PIPO last night - will check it out later today and provide my feedback.

As for the android player, it doesn't run as well as native apps and I've noticed that specifically in IM+ the keyboard lags which makes typing slow and tedious. Plus, trying to get out of an options panel and back to the application takes some sort of magic as most of the time once I go into a menu I'm stuck.

While the android player is nice, keep the native playbook apps coming, as they're all going to be superior.

[Barljo]

Nice - thanks very much Mr Ellis!

This does work indeed - very smooth, and I like the look of it. Gentle humour makes for a friendly app!

It could be clearer as to where you enter your hourly billable rate (is this the Flagfall field?), but once everything is set up, it seems to work very well indeed. I like multiple jobs per project, and projects per client - very simple to keep track of.

One feature that would be nice (unless I missed it!) would be to reset the counters rather than exterminating a job, as I have recurruing tasks monthly that would be nice to reset once everything is completed and booked off...

Definitely a clean, functional, working app - I like it!

[dkingsf]

@dkingsf Haha, how does the android player run? Is it actually decent?

No it's an emulator. If you remember the 90's we had Window emulators for Macs, Mac emulators for Sun (Anyone else remember MAE? LOL) etc. etc.

They were all slow and cludgy at best. Somethings worked, others not. Same here.

[deltadiva2]

This is neat! It would be nice to be able to email or export the timesheets

[mellisdesigns]

@1stStrike Native apps are nice, Air 2.7 gave us some great speed improvements for air especially! Makes the app work like it is indeed a native app.

@dkingsf Its the leaked version right? Not the official release version? I heard it was really buggy and that RIM have done a lot of work on it.

@Barljo Hey Mate, thanks for the kind words. I have received some great feedback from the app and some great ideas. We have something in the mix that will actually make resetting and managing job history super easy. As for an update, this has just been released so we are collating user requests and prioritizing, this will most definitely make it onto the next update.

@deltadiva2 Hi, this has always been a plan. We didn't release this feature because we wanted to get export ideas from the app user community. We were thinking .CSV export for excel and we actually have some pretty cool ideas for auto invoicing, that kind of stuff is still future developments, but its on our special list of "Stuff That Would Be Really Super Cool". Thanks for the kind words!

[deltadiva2]

auto invoicing would be awesome!!

[Whipped99]

Hey Guys

My app PIPO has just been approved and is now available on the Blackberry App World:

Free Punch In Punch Out - Download Punch In Punch Out - Free Apps from BlackBerry App World

I have made the app free for a week to get some feedback on what people think of it. It's part of a range of management a la code apps that make jobs a little more fun.

Would love to get some feedback from the crackberry forums. Go and download and let me know what your think. I am not stopping you from writing something nice about the app, or bad if you want as well, but hopefully not bad.

Enjoy and let me know what you think.

regards
Mitch Ellis
MELLISdesigns

Playbook Apps: Disctract and PIPO

This app is sweet!!! Thanks for making it free .

If you could plug this in to a backend data system that handles all our client service workorders it would almost be a onestop shop instead of having to open the online service web and Outlook to manage daily items.

Also is you could make multiple themes that would be cool. The notepad is super cool but might come off looking unprofessional if a client saw it.

Keep up the great work!!! Wish I knew how to program so I try and colab with some developers. Basic html and graphic design is about all I know.

Keep up the great work!

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[TaZ52083]

Thanks for making the app free for this week much appreciated boss.

[omgitsalive]

I love free stuff So I'm gonna go ahead and download this and give you a full review! As time = money I'm paying by giving my time

So, because the PB multitasks with ease, I'll switch back and forth and give live updates in this post via edits. I'll use MoSCoW.

Starting... Awesome how the screen builds up! Fan of the little paper sound effect, I'm gonna go ahead and add a client. I like the business card view, I'll go ahead and add 3 clients in total. Took me a while to figure out theres a cross (X) there to remove the helptext (backspacing it away sucks). Could have: Helptext 'gray' and auto deleted onclick.

Moving on, adding 10 projects, what's wih the coloring? Random? It's fun but a wee bit distracting 'wtf it's red, what did I do!?' Now I'm deleting a few, keeping 3, one per client. It's smooth enough not to need a dedicated 'select projects to exterminate' screen. Well done!
Lol, now my project colors changed... intentional? I'm not really a fan... it's starting to confuse me. Colors should add to clarity and insight, not confusion. Should have: Fix colors

Ouch... I broke your Jobs dropdown. I can only select one project now, regardless of client. Must have: fix dropdowns.
Guess I'll choose this one project and add the right client myself, to continue the test.

Nothing happens.

At this point I decide to RTFM and swipe from the top to 'show help'.

aaaaaaahhh I need to 'press and hold' to activate. That would've been an onscreen helptext I'd be willing to X away Should have: helptext on the 'Jobs' screen.

Sweet, it's now gently ticking away the time. Switching jobs is a breeze now I figured out 'press and hold'.

Final test, closing the app while it's ticking... awww... I just lost $20... must have: give me a refund!!!!

Conlusion: I really like your app, I constantly need to travel between locations for my current project, so it's a great tool for me to keep track of time (and money) spent on work and travel! Please fix the job-dropdown bug (I can provide testcases if you need) and add support for more currencies, and I'd be willing to share some of my hard earned and well tracked money with you

[John.P]

As for auto invoicing have you looked into the Freshbooks API?

[mellisdesigns]

So PIPO has been received very well. We pushed ahead of Tetris for a few hours and all in all people are constructive and appreciative of our efforts.

This is been a big test run for us. We wanted to see whether business apps could branch out of the grey and commercial style of "All the other Business Apps" and have there own comical but professional flavor. Of course there will always be users who don't like it, and we also listen to them. Based on the success of this app so far, we think that there is a commercial market for business apps to change and become a little more fun.
We have also collated every single comment on every single forum to get a rich list of features and updates to make this app even better.

We released this app as a base to establish whether people actually enjoyed using intuitive, if not a little quirky, UI design, and you do. This app is still making smellys in its nappy because its a new demographic for us. We now know it works, and we can't wait to actually give you guys more and more features. We also have another amazing management a la mode app in the design phase that we are really excited about but hush hush at the moment.

@omgitsalive Dude, loved the walk through analysis of the app, made me laugh, but also got to see a great step by step analysis of how a new user uses PIPO for the first time. We have taken all your comments abroad and will have some of the BUG fixes in the next couple of days.

BUG NOTE: Some people are having trouble with selecting PROJECTS in the JOBS EDIT MENU. Actually this is not a bug. The DROPDOWN is being hidden because of the vertical scroll position in that job edit menu. If you scroll down to where you can see Flagfall and Hourly Rate, then you click on the projects DROPDOWN, you will be able to see and select all your projects. We are looking into making this easier for users such as forcing the screen to scroll when the Projects Dropdown is clicked.

Best Regards to everyone who has tried the app and given us feedback, the app is free only for a couple more days, so tell your friends to download it and we hope you enjoy MELLISDESIGNS, Management a la mode apps.

Mitch
MELLISdesigns
PIPO and Disctract for Blackberry Playbook

[dguy123]

Thanks for making this free for the first week.
It is a really nice app that I'm finding helpful already.

One thing I'd like to see aside from the features others have already mentioned is the simple notion of calculating the elapsed time on a job merely by taking the delta between the clock time job start and the current clock time.

This way the app wouldn't have to remain running, either paused in bg or even shut down, to keep accurate time on task.

I've tried numerous time keeping apps on the playbook and they all seem to need to count seconds continuously or they lose time. A little hard to fathom really.
If I want to know how long I'm working on something I look at the clock at the start and at the end. Voila, I know the duration without counting seconds in my head. The app should do that as well. When the app is "current" it could still use the delta (current - start) and display the update each second.

Maintaining some persistent state would allow me to track time without requiring additional drain on my PB battery. I could punch in then shut the app or PB down for flight etc and wake-up/power on to punch out of the "travel" job (which is billed at its own special rate).

Again... Love the app. It's a fantastic start!
Thanks

[mellisdesigns]

@dguy123 Hey Mate, I though you might like to know, as well as the others, that we are working on implementing this new time management system. We believe that it is a critical feature for this app to be considered a main stream product. In the next two weeks we should have this system running, with the ability to auto convert your existing data, into the new system, without you even knowing. This feature will then allow you to punch in, exit app, come back later, and see your timed punch in still working.

PIPO UPDATE 1.0.2 - Sent to the app store for approval
- Fixed Edit Job production bug, now auto scrolls down when projects are selected
- Fixed issue when two or more edit screens would appear at the same time using folder managment
- Added Press and Hold activate animated graphic to tie in with the theme of the application
- Activating a new job while punched in to another job will automatically punch out the running job and get PIPO machine ready for the new one.

PIPO Update Log Blog

Please support PIPO by telling your friends. We look forward to updating you soon when the new timing system is ready to be released.

[domenic_lo_russo]

I'm a little disappointed that you're charging the folks that downloaded it for free to upgrade to the new version.

[mellisdesigns]

Hey Guys
Believe it or not, I am actually a one man developer wanting nothing best then to please other people. It makes me happy.

I have learnt something about the blackberry portal which I am trying to get fixed as soon as possible.

Currently I had the APP for free for one week, which was great, awesome response, and all you guys who tried it deserve it for free. After putting the the price up everything was good. People were buying the app as well as having all the free users out there. I decided to implement a little update that fixed some of the bugs that you all talked about.

There are options in the vendor portal to charge for upgrades, I made sure that I selected no charge for upgrades, so that my free users did not incur any fee. What I don't understand, is how every who downloaded the 1.0.0 for free is considered different from someone who purchased 1.0.0? I was as surprised as you guys when I was getting asked to pay for my own app.

I have already written a letter of complaint to RIM and in no way did I intend to charge the users who got the app for free in the first week, any upgrade price for the life of the product.

Work with me guys, has anyone else had the same issues?

[mscooley]

Hey Guys
Believe it or not, I am actually a one man developer wanting nothing best then to please other people. It makes me happy.

I have learnt something about the blackberry portal which I am trying to get fixed as soon as possible.

Currently I had the APP for free for one week, which was great, awesome response, and all you guys who tried it deserve it for free. After putting the the price up everything was good. People were buying the app as well as having all the free users out there. I decided to implement a little update that fixed some of the bugs that you all talked about.

There are options in the vendor portal to charge for upgrades, I made sure that I selected no charge for upgrades, so that my free users did not incur any fee. What I don't understand, is how every who downloaded the 1.0.0 for free is considered different from someone who purchased 1.0.0? I was as surprised as you guys when I was getting asked to pay for my own app.

I have already written a letter of complaint to RIM and in no way did I intend to charge the users who got the app for free in the first week, any upgrade price for the life of the product.

Work with me guys, has anyone else had the same issues?

I had this same issue with another app last week. It seemed to be pretty easily to fix. I contacted the dev and he replied and told me to try it again in an hour and the upgrade fee had been removed. Btw, I am having this problem with your app too.