Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Contacts orders entries either by Name
or Company, and sorts them by Category. The Diary’s
Contacts pane forces the user to select a Contact before
a pop-up window displays all the available information,
and when ordered by Company, the white space is consumed
by each entry’s Company name; this seems pretty restrictive,
and for many, useless. The pane scrolls by ‘page’,
rather than by individual names.
The Options menu shows options for the
current pane, the application itself, selecting or learning
more about a skin, an About note for the application, and
an Exit command. Lupin’s Diary comes equipped with
five skins: BaseSkin, Fall’s Story, Jazz Bar, Lupin,
and Pocket Ball.
The Options are adequate in some
aspects, but sparse for some of the viewing panes and even
non-existent in Appointment’s Year view. Most disappointing
is the sole selection in Contacts: whether to display names
with either first name or last name first. With Lupin’s
Diary being a skinnable interface, I found the rolling Change
Screen Effect to add to the aesthetics of the package and
to make the lag in switching panes less noticeable.
I must agree with the developers’
claims that the product is easy to use and can be mastered
within 10 minutes. As such, Lupin’s Diary has few features-
and for the price, almost too few- that enhance productivity
and will fail to attract most power-users. The main attraction
for the larger demographic, casual and beginner users, would
tend to be the polished look and ability to select skins.
Drawbacks that will inevitably show themselves include speed
and the fact that the highly specialized skins for Lupin’s
Diary are few and far between.
For those who prefer form over
function, Lupin’s Diary delivers plenty of the former.
Previous Page