Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Anagram for BlackBerry is Storm-friendly

No, really! A number of users have written in wondering why it’s so darn hard to push the buttons on Anagram’s dialogs on their BlackBerry Storm devices. We didn’t have a clue… everything works fine for us. But we recently discovered that Anagram is running in “Compatibility Mode” for some people, which is causing this problem.

Fortunately, tons of other BlackBerry software vendors are having the same problem and came to our rescue. The solution is simply to turn off Compatibility Mode for Anagram. Go to Options (the wrench icon) >> Advanced Options >> Applications and find Anagram in the list. Click the menu button on it and choose “Disable compatibility mode“.

And voilà! Anagram works as it should on the Storm.

Be sure to download the latest version here: http://www.getanagram.com/blackberry/

Status of IndexOutOfBounds issue in Anagram for BlackBerry

A recent post described an issue some users have been reporting where they see an “IndexOutOfBounds” error when attempting to update an existing contact with Anagram.

Some investigating has revealed that this issue occurs on some BlackBerry models and not others. For now it looks like all models running OS 4.5 are affected, while others are not. If anyone sees this issue on another OS level, please post a comment.

We’re hoping RIM engineers will help us investigate why this is happening during the upcoming week. More will be posted soon!

UPDATE: RIM engineers have confirmed this to be  a bug in some BlackBerry OS 4.5 and 4.6 releases. They suggested a work-around that we were able to implement and it seems to work well! Download Anagram 0.9.7 here: http://www.getanagram.com/blackberry/

Anagram for BlackBerry 0.9.6 posted w/big bug fix

It took much longer than expected but I think we have a very solid work-around for the missing linebreaks issue mentioned in the last post.

Basically we created an html parser to decode the html email, search for the captured text, and put the linebreaks back in! You would not believe the amount of fiddling and optimization that was required to get this to work.

Feedback is greatly appreciated! Download Anagram for BlackBerry 0.9.6 here.

Anagram for BlackBerry Press and Issues

Just got some great new press on Anagram for BlackBerry on BerryReview.com and Crackbery.com! Response has been great but users uncovered a couple of issues…

The first is a Java “IndexOutOfBounds” error that occurs when updating a contact that already exists in your BlackBerry address book. We’ve been able to reproduce this now in the lab and it’s not clear why it’s happening, but we can definitely find a work-around.

badcontactThe other error is more annoying in that it seems to be a bug built into the BlackBerry itself. Some users were reporting that contacts were coming out with the fields run together and upon investigation, it seems that the BlackBerry itself omits line breaks from the text copied to the clipboard from certain HTML email messages. Then the text cannot be scanned correctly by Anagram since it doesn’t know where one line ends and the next begins!

It’s not clear which BlackBerry models and OS versions are affected, or what the exact formatting of email messages is that triggers this issue. But one thing is clear: Anagram has no control over how the BlackBerry copies text to the clipboard.

Fortunately, it looks like there is a technical work-around that we’ll be testing out here over the next couple of days. I’m certain this issue can be worked out as well.

Lastly, it looks like BlackBerry Storm users are having problems with some of the standard dialog boxes that Anagram presents. Specifically, it’s difficult to press one or the other button on yes/no dialogs. We assumed they would work properly and did limited testing since they’re standard and built into the BlackBerry! We’ll have to research alternatives.

Overall, we’re happy to have some great feedback and exposure for Anagram!

Outlook users: Capture to a specific folder

olfoldersIf you use different Outlook folders to store information for different projects, you might want to configure Copy2Contact to use those folders instead of the defaults.

Open Copy2Contact’s Target Apps settings by clicking the Copy2Contact icon in your system tray (next to your clock) and choosing Utils, then Target Apps. Then on the Outlook page of the dialog, press the “Default Folders” button.

This is particularly useful with Business Contact Manager for Outlook, which stores contacts in its own folder.

Click here to open Copy2Contact’s Outlook Target Apps settings now (Copy2Contact must be installed on your computer).

Use Copy2Contact with more than one target app

Copy2Contact can easily be configured to work with more than one target application.

If you regularly use both Outlook and Salesforce.com on the same computer, for example, Copy2Contact can be set to capture items to each one.

Target AppsOpen Copy2Contact’s Target Apps settings by clicking the Copy2Contact icon in your system tray (next to your clock) and choosing Utils, then Target Apps.

On the Target Apps dialog you can check each application that you’d like to use with Copy2Contact, then configure a different Shortcut Key on the page of the dialog for each app.

Salesforce.com users: Capture directly to your browser

If you use Copy2Contact with Salesforce.com, be sure you have Copy2Contact set to Direct Capture mode (the default). This mode works directly with Internet Explorer or Firefox to streamline your experience with Copy2Contact.

Salesforce MenuWith Direct Capture turned on, Copy2Contact immediately loads a captured contact or appointment directly into your browser instead of showing an intermediate dialog. This means you never have to leave the Salesforce.com interface that you’re working in!

Copy2Contact also adds a small menu with some extra features to the lower-right corner of your browser window.

To turn on Direct Capture mode, click the Copy2Contact icon in your system tray (next to your clock), then Utils, then Target Apps. See the Getting Started Guide for details.

Reverse Copy2Contact

Wish you had some way to paste a plain-text version of a contact into an email message?

Copy As TextWith Copy2Contact installed, every open Outlook contact has an “Copy2Contact” menu on its toolbar (under the Add-ins ribbon in Outlook 2007). Choose the “Copy as Text” option and voilà!

Now paste the plain-text contact information from your clipboard into any document! Works with appointments, too.

Configure shortcut keys

Configure Copy2Contact to work with a shortcut key so that you can you can capture text with just one keypress!

keypressA different shortcut key can be chosen for each target application you capture to, e.g. press F12 to capture to Outlook, or Shift-F12 to capture to Salesforce.com.

Just highlight text in any open application or document and hit the shortcut key!

To configure Copy2Contact’s shortcut keys, open Copy2Contact’s Target Apps settings. See our Getting Started Guide for details or click here to open Copy2Contact’s Target Apps settings now (Copy2Contact must be installed on your computer).

/home/copy2contact/public_html/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05

Hilight only the text you need

Copy2Contact is really smart. But you have to help it out a little bit by highlighting only the text that should appear in a new contact or appointment item. For example:

Here’s my new address:
Jeff Falkner
945 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02134

Don’t forget to write me!

The text above and below the address should not be highlighted before capture. Try it!