Organizing applications
Well, now that you've got your PalmPilot memory maxed out with all those nifty third-party applications, the built-in Applications Picker is probably starting to get a little unwieldy! Here's a quick tip: write a letter in the graffiti area and you will jump to the first application that starts with this letter! Sorry, OS 1.x users, this is a feature added in OS 2.x. Of course, this tip doesn't help you if you've got 15 applications that all start with the letter "S", or if you'd like to somehow group applications in some manner. That's where a third-party applications launcher comes in.

While there are several application launching applications available, most folks use either PAL or LaunchPad (or one of their variations). Both of these applications give you the ability to organize your applications into categories or groups. Each supports viewing by "category" (although implemented quite differently) and both allow you the option of making itself the default application launcher (launches when you press the Application silk-screen button). Figure A shows a side by side comparison of PAL and LaunchPad.

FIGURE A

PAL and LaunchPad give different "views" on your PalmPilot applications.

QuickLaunch, which is included in the QuickPac suite from Landware is actually just a "souped-up" version of PAL which adds tab support. In this same vein, Launch 'Em, which is included in the Hi-5 suite from Synergy Solutions is identical to LaunchPad. Finally, the author of AppMan took the source code for LaunchPad and added a "trashcan" icon, which allows you to delete applications without going through the Memory app.

PAL vs. Launchpad
Let's look at the basic differences between PAL and LaunchPad.

PAL allows you to define up to 15 categories to "group" your applications in, allowing you to quickly switch from one group to the next by a drop-down list. It also gives you the ability to display your applications as text or icons, and even allows you to change the name displayed in PAL for each application, as shown in Figure B. QuickLaunch adds the ability to display tabs (similar to LaunchPad), that are basically the categories you've defined.

FIGURE B

PAL lets you see more information on each application, as well as re-name what they will appear as in PAL.

LaunchPad (and Launch 'Em/AppMan) uses a tab-based interface to display the applications on your PalmPilot. Since it quickly rescans your PalmPilot each time it is invoked, this application doesn't allow you to change the names that are displayed for each application. The tabs and applications in LaunchPad are easily re-organized by dragging and dropping each tab or application from its current location to where you'd like it displayed. As shown in Figure C, tabs in LaunchPad can also be quickly added, renamed, and deleted using menu commands. Although LaunchPad doesn't offer the ability to display only text application names, you are given the ability to display between two and five columns per page (three is optimal).