WHAT'S HOT

SETUP

PROGRAM FEATURES

    At first glance, NetFront doesn't appear much different from Pocket Internet Explorer.  It's when you begin browsing and navigating the menus that you find the power.
    On the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, you'll see the icons for "back," "forward," "refresh," "(dis)connect," "open," and "add" (favorite).  The small lock icon on the top right indicates whether the site is a secure SSL or TLS site.

    Typing an address into the address bar and tapping the icon to the right or tapping enter on a keyboard will load that page.  In most cases, you won't need to type either the "http://" or the "www." to enter an address.
    Unfortunately for demonstrating purposes, our web site is designed to call up the "mobile" version automatically upon detecting that it's a Pocket PC doing the browsing.  We'll have to go to a less Pocket PC-friendly site to see the SmartFit Rendering.

Here's Microsoft's Mobile site without SmartFit...

...and with SmartFit.  With SmartFit, you don't have to scroll sideways all the time just to get the search option or site navigation buttons.

The File Menu

    The File Menu is shown above.  Reading from the bottom, "Exit" is the standard "Microsoft tells us not to do this, but we know you really want it anyway" really close this application function.  "Properties" lists the background information about the page you're at which you're looking including the title, size, and address.  "Home" returns you to the NetFront splash page that load automatically when you start the program.  "Offline Browse" allows you to browse pages in memory or on your local machine without NetFront attempting to connect to resolve links.  We'll discuss "Auto-Cruise Log" and "Start Auto-Cruise" fully later.  The remaining file options are shown below:

    The "Misc" option is really a "File|Open."  It allows you to browse to and load an HTML-formatted file on local storage on your Pocket PC.

    The "History" option displays a list of pages you've visited recently and will allow you to re-visit any page in the list.  History is "treed" so that pages within a particular domain are shown below that domain.  This makes the history very easy to navigate.

    The "Page Memo" option allows you to create a shortcut to the current page which you can call up through the File Explorer.  This is like an external bookmark.

    The "Bookmark" option lets you create and organize bookmarks to your favorite sites.  You can place the bookmarks within folders to make it easier to find the specific one you're looking for.

The View Menu

    The View Menu is shown above.  Again reading from the bottom, the options are discussed below:

    The "Wrap Content" option allows you to select how the page is rendered to the small display.  SmartFit, as described above, provides the most intelligent rendering.  JustFit simply tries to squish things to fit.  Disabled leaves the page as is.

    The "Zoom" option scales the web page to show you more detail or more of the page. The "Full Screen" option removes the tool bars, showing you more of the page. The "Enable Animations" and "Show Images" options will, when unchecked, speed up the rendering of a page.

    The "Encoding" option lets you specific the "localization" (language) of a page or set for automatic localization, which is the default.

    The "Text Size" option re-sizes text on the displayed page.  Smaller text sizes will allow you to see more of the page.  Larger text sizes will improve readability.

    The "Tool Bars" option sets which tool bars will appear in the non-full screen mode.  The "Location" tool bar is the one you've already seen.  The others are discussed in detail below:

    The "Internet Search" tool bar gives you quick access to the Google and Yahoo! search engines.  This is very helpful if some or much of your Internet use involves searching for information.

    The "Page Search" tool bar lets you search for text within the displayed page.  You can search forward or backward from the current location.

    The "Auto-Cruise" tool bar gives you access to the auto-cruise functions.  From left to right, the icons are "back," "forward," "perform auto-cruise," "configure auto-cruise," and "stop cruising."  We'll discuss configuring and using auto-cruise under the Tools menu.

The Tools Menu

    The Tools menu is shown above.  At the top of the menu are the standard clipboard functions cut, copy, paste, and Select All.  Reading from the bottom, the "About" option tells you which version of the program you're running.  The "Help" option gives you access to built-in help features.  The remainder of the options are addressed below:

Auto-Cruise Setting:

    The "Auto-Cruise Setting" option calls up the dialog box shown to the right.  This is the same dialog that you'll get if you tap the "configure" icon on the auto-cruise tool bar.  The dialog shows the current sites which will be loaded by auto-cruise, allows you to add, edit, or delete the site information, and set other options shown below:

    The "Storage" tab lets you specify where NetFront will keep the cached data from each of the auto-cruised web pages as well as how long and how much to keep.

    The "Filter" tab allows you to filter out some types of web data while still downloading readable content.

    The "Link" tab allows you to set how deeply the auto-cruise function will link.  It also allows you to ignore certain types of robot links.

    The "Schedule" tab allows you to automatically auto-cruise at specified intervals.

Browser Setting:

    The "Browser Setting" option sets whether and how much cache to use for loading web pages, whether to use autocomplete for tool bar entries, and whether to allow cookies.  You can also delete any of this information already stored on your Pocket PC.

    "Advanced General Setting" allows you to change how much "history" you collect, whether web-based form entries will be auto-completed, and allows you to delete information stored by both of these options.

    The "Memory Setting" feature will warn you when memory gets low.

    The "Software keyboard" options lets you choose whether the on-screen keyboard will automatically pop-up when you have entry boxes to fill.  This is a nice option to turn off when you're using a hardware keyboard.  You can also chose whether scroll bars are displayed.

    The "View" tab lets you set how pages will be displayed.  "Mode" lets you choose between "normal," "JustFit," and "SmartFit" rendering.  "Zoom" adjust the scaling.  "Text Size" allows you to adjust what size text is normally displayed.  "Show images," "Show Animations," "Table," and "JavaScript" allow you to speed up rendering at the cost of not displaying that content.  "CSS" chooses whether you allow Cascading Style Sheets.

   "Advanced View Setting" allows you to choose whether you get a confirmation dialog box when certain events are triggered and whether the renderer will attempt to wrap paragraphs that would extend past the edge of the screen.

    The "Network" tab sets various connection-related items.  One nice feature is the option to automatically turn on Wireless LAN on demand.

    The "Security" tab allows you to turn on or off secure page features.

    The "Misc" tab is, as the name implies, a catch-all for options that don't fit into the other tabs.  You can choose to set NetFront as your default browser so that when you tap on an HTML file in File Explorer NetFront and not PIE comes up.  You can enable certain small-screen HTML protocols.  You can set how the cursor buttons work within the browser.  You can choose whether searches are sensitive to upper/lower case.  You can also choose alternate "agents."  Currently, there aren't any alternate agents to choose from.  At some point, ACCESS may release agents to perform specific functions like IIS validation.

    "Advances Misc Setting" allows you to set other rendering-related options.  For instance, you can set up your own default Cascading Style Sheet to use when a web site lacks one.  You can also choose specific areas of the web page to decode to speed up rendering.

    The Scroll Mode option toggles whether or not you can scroll the window using the stylus.  With scroll mode on, moving the stylus around the screen with scroll the window, but you won't be able to tap a link.  With it off, links operate as usual.

    Finall, the Window option lets you open a new window (up to five can be kept in memory at once) or close the current window.

HELP SUPPORT

OPTIONS

(click on the screenshot for full size image)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

BUGS AND WISHES

PURCHASING

PROS

• SmartFit Rendering displays pages readably on the small screen
• Tabbed interface allows up to five pages loaded at once
• Auto-Cruise allows you to load a set of pages automatically
• Built-in Search bar makes locating specific pages easier
• Better support of Java and other Internet protocols makes browsing more comfortable
• Non-hard-coded screen size will make upgrading to a full VGA screen seamless

CONS

• Online help is essentially only trouble-shooting  You have to use the BBS to get tech support
• Only five pages fit in the tabs.  It would be nice to have more
• Tool bars don't re-size right for VGA landscape orientation/resolution

OVERALL IMPRESSION