Hi All,

Based on the feedback from initial users, we are taking EMV to public beta. You can give it a try, its available OTA at Get Empowered

If its fast, you will notice its just 26 kb ! We aim to have zero impact on the native RIM functionality. That means all your Reply, Reply All, Fwd etc should work as expected..

Also, pls note there may be compatibility issues if SmartViewer is installed, so if you have it there, you can try temporarily uninstalling SV and test out EMV. You can reinstall SV once you are done with EMV.

Supported OS: 4.0.2+

Known Issues:
1. Scroll shortcuts like 9,space,3 on Suretype and alt-space etc may not work on all devices.
2. For really large emails, when Auto-More is on then it reverts back to native view.

We're working on both of these and expect to provide an update shortly. Let us know your experience of using it..

I can already tell. This is gonna be great!

great, it display foreign language such as Chinese.

once you fix the space scroll and auto more, you've got a customer. it is very fast.

8800 4.2 on cingular bis.

I agree with the previous posts. Nice so far. If it is free, then it is for me!!! Once the know issues are addressed, I think it's a keeper. Looking forward to tweaks and upgrades.

This is interesting. This program will be a direct competitor of the just released BlackBerrySmart Email Viewer program.

Like the previous poster mentioned, this program displays Chinese characters when viewing e-mails in HTML. BBSmart Email Viewer does not. So, this is one big difference between this program and its competitor.

I like the tight integration this program has with the Blackberry e-mail program. So far so good.

thanks ramsy. I invite you to try it out. The program is in public beta, and we are constantly working on it..

SmartViewer is a good program, lots of options for colors etc.. and i think it will definitely improve with time..

here, we are more focussed on keeping the app compact and lightweight.. I think at 26 kb we have been able to meet that idea to a great extent.. over time i know it will grow as the program matures and features are added.. Also, our no. 1 priority is to have zero impact on native email functionality.. reply, reply all, forward, mark read etc. u know what i mean.. we look forward to ur experience of using it..

Downloaded the app and testing it out. So far so good. Some questions and suggestions:

1) What are the possibilities of being able to use the native BB font settings versus the font settings available in this app?

2) May you add the ability to choose the background color?

3) May you add font sizes smaller than 7?

That's all for now. Will keep testing through the week.

Eric

is there any documentation? how do you turn on spell checking, etc?

thanks,
eric

From the looks of it, only the html viewer module is in beta.

Ani, what about the rest of the features like folder and spellchecker?

...x2

i love it, im trying out the beta HTML viewer, and its awesome!

one thing i would like it to be able to change font type and background color

o god, and even when i go to reply the orginal message looks nice too, my god. 2 thumbs up. no bugs so far, as soon as a new beta comes out, i will gladly notify you. amazing product, absolutely PERFECT!

oh and to add, its so fast, it loads like how i thought it should, loads like a web page. that other viewer loads it seperatly and your way is so much faster/better

Yes, It is FREE.

i love it so far...i wont be using smart email viewer, will wait for this. only thing is i dont like my emails being yellow background.

Thanks Eric. Will do the 2nd and 3rd one.
Also, can't promise about the 1st one but will investigate it to the best of technical feasibility.

He he. Thanks Biggem, Am glad you like it. The ability to change font type is there under a menuitem called 'Empower Options' in the message list screen. Here you can set Font Size, Type, Bold/Plain etc.. I see lot of ppl hate yellow it seems, so i will do something abt it soon

OK, Ani, I have only noticed 1 tiny problem, sometimes the rendering doesn't complete, and i get a blank page. Only happened twice.

thanks onth, yes. Both these components are under different stages of development. Out of the two above, spellcheck is at a more advanced stage of completion.

But there again, our top priority is speed.. we are currently hand-optimizing the code so that SpellCheck can squeeze the best performance from the device.. i want it to spot errors really quick.. no wait for u. no spell-checking at the end of the email..

Till that is done, we are ironing out the features of HTML component (background color etc) before we release new ones.. i guess, better to do one good thing at a time

Just downloaded it and it looks pretty good. If I start scrolling too quickly on my 8800 the message jumps back to text from HTML, but the toggle in the menu works great.

LOVE IT. Unfortunetly, I like my fonts tiny and this app actually makes the fonts larger than what I have my BB options set to... Even on the smallest '7' font.

If you can put in options for more font sizes and background colors, you would have a nice advantage over the "other guys" product. I can actually reply to emails with this which is a HUGE plus. And best of all, the reformatted emails open very very quickly. The other product actually has to load. VERY VERY nice product! I look forward to the next release!

For the font size item. It's mainly if you can't access the default BB fonts. Even at the smallest size (7), the fonts are big compared to the headers and for me detracts from the nice 'clean' presentation. Just my preference

yes, we will try to include smaller font sizes. Though not all font families support small fonts.

First off, great app, I love the small footprint and quick response (little wait for the email to "render" in HTML).

Just wanted to add some additional feedback- I am seeing the same issue as above; although additionally sometimes after I toggle back to HTML, if I scroll it jumps back to text, requiring another toggle back to HTML. I'm using a 7130e w/ 4.1.0.359

-John

I second those requests. I think this is a great program but the font I use for my email is not available for your application. The yellow background is horrible to be honest. If you keep it simple and just allow the html to be displayed properly without adding too much more, I guarantee that you will have alot more customers and they will be happy.

I uninstalled whatever the other one was that was just released because it was too much. Just integrate it into the blackberry software. Remember, most users of blackberries are businessmen and dont need bells and whistles. Just keep it simple and seemless and you could probably charge $9.99 or something and make a fortune.

Ha ha, rightly said. We are not good at colors, so we are taking suggestions for color options. We have few in mind some like Pale Yellow, Sky Blue, White, Light Pink etc.. but that is just 4.. so anything apart from them, just let us know - will gladly include them

when do u anticipate the next upgrade... next release with some of these updates included...?

Loving it. The only thing I shy away from is the background coloring. But that's already been mentioned. I really just want to go back to white. I love the speed of this and can't wait for foldering to seperate work/personal. GREAT product! Any chance that when you're done with this you can create folders for a contact list? Or is that just too much into dream world on my part

its a great app loved it finally get to see email the way they should be seen just wanna change the background color and its perfect no complain on my pearl except the ones already noted

keep up the good work

How bout none? Why have the option? What good is it going to do for your program? Its only making the file size bigger. So why not just use whatever the user has already set up as his/her option?

Just keep it simple and small and you will blow your competition away. Does anyone else agree?

I'd love to see white text on a black background.

Really like the application. As far as color schemes go, the only ones I would want would be normal black text on white background, and perhaps a white/red font on a black background for low-light situations? Another nice feature would be if the program would draw a horizontal rule (i.e. line) whenever it encounters a row of ---------------- or ===========. Also, I'll confirm that on a 7130e with the latest Sprint software release (4.1.0.384), the keyboard shortcuts don't work yet. Thanks again for a great product!

I have to say thank you to the developers of Empower for providing this much needed addition to the BlackBerry. I just posted a review of my first experiences with the Beta version .21 at this link

Beta Review: Empower HTML Email Viewer Beta for BlackBerry | BerryReview

I would love to hear what you guys think. Especially if I missed anything...

I also posted a copy in the BBF Reviews section of the forums but it takes a bit until the moderator approves the post.

Thank you Entropy for reviewing EMV. Well written. In beta I think its a fairly good review

Just one minor point - The ALX/COD is up now at http://www.getEmpower.com/emvzip.php

EMV is a work in progress and we hope you will update the review later as new features get added to EMV.

Thanks, thanks again.
- Ani.

that Reply works for those on older OS like 4.0.2.. HUGE plus. And that it displays foreign characters as well.

I believe you are making amazing headway with the Email Viewer. We will be keeping an eye on all of your updates and will update the reviews accordingly. This Beta is amazingly stable and works 90% of the time. I will update the post accordingly. I look forward to the new features expecially the folder integration and spellcheck. Something I dearly on my 8800 compared to my 8300.

Maximax
I do not have any devices older than a 8700 so i am not quite sure what you mean that reply works? Did reply not exist in earlier versions?

What exactly do you mean by foreign characters? Other languages? Russian or Hebrew or something of the sort?

this.

Its working great - but:

Issue 1. Reverts back to text when I go to the bottom of them email.

Issue 2. Received embedded pic from aol.com user and it didn't appear

1st, thank you for posting the .zip
2nd, It does everything as expected, no problems with attachments etc on my phone.
3rd, I like the fact that I can still delete from "mailbox and handheld" as well as handheld. So I am still able to reconcile my deleted items. (this is something that does not work with the "other" email html viewer. (this statement is not an attempt to disclaim the quality of any developer's work....It IS GREATLY appreciated by me)


I am using a pearl with 4.2.194 Platform 2.3.0.77

Cannot wait for the spell check!

Thanks again I just updated the review