Pocket SlideShow: Pocket PowerPoint presentations for your Pocket PC


  Face Contact
  - Features
  - Release History
  - Download
  - Orders
 

Face Contact: Contact Management with a Visual Touch Download Face Contact for 2.00 Windows Mobile

A rich set of features to browse, communicate and manage your contacts

Overview Browse Communicate Manage Customize

Kinetic scrolling with 3D rendering and index tracking

Face Contact lets you scroll and interact with contacts using the device touch screen or cursor keys.

While rapidly scrolling through the list, an index-tracking indicator provides a clue of the current position in the list, so you always know if you need to move backward or forward to reach the desired contact.

You can select between Progressive tracking, which shows the instantaneous position in the list, and Predictive tracking, which reflects the position where scrolling will stop.


Sort contacts instantly

Face Contacts lets you switch among different sort keys at any time. As contacts are sorted alphabetically, you always know where you are in the list, and if you need to scroll forward or backward to reach a given contact.

The User Defined order gives you the option of creating a custom order with specific people (such as friends or family) at the very beginning of your list.

You can keep contacts sorted alphabetically during work hours, and then switch to “User Defined” order at night or weekends, so people you call frequently are always visible in your Today screen.


Jump quickly to any position/index in your contact list

When contacts are sorted alphabetically, pressing an alphabetical key will instantly jump to the corresponding position in the list.

You can also move rapidly through the list using numeric keys: “0” will jump to the beginning of the list, “1” to about 10%, “2” to about 20% and so on.

Configurable gesture/action logic

Interacting with your contacts is as easy as performing simple gestures such as a single tap, double tap, tap & hold, or pressing the Call Key of your phone.

By default, when first installed, Face Contact implements the following behaviors:

Gesture/KeyAction
Call KeyCall contact
Single TapContact Menu
Tap & HoldSend Text Message
Double TapSend E-mail
Default gesture/action associations

You can reassign gestures/key according to your preference, choosing among a dozen different actions, including “Browse web page”, “Send Text Message”, “Edit contact”, and so on.

For instance, you can easily start calls with a single tap by associating the “Call Contact” action to the “Single Tap” gesture. And, if you are worried that calls may be triggered accidentally, you can select the “Call after prompt” action instead.


Contact Menu

A detailed and easy to read Contact Menu can be used to access the main communication methods available for the selected contact, including primary work, home and mobile phone numbers, primary email address, text messaging, and a link to the contact's personal web page, if any.

To view all contact details, just tap the header of the Contact Menu.


Smart error handling

Whenever you trigger an action that cannot be performed on the selected contact (such as sending an E-mail to a contact that doesn't have an E-mail address) Face Contact will display an error message suggesting alternate communication methods.

Contact Manager

The integrated Contact Manager lets you perform all kinds of contact management operations, without having to launch a separate application:


Adjust, replace and remove pictures

Face Contact displays whatever picture you have already associated with a contact.

If an existing picture has a rectangular shape, Face Contact automatically displays a square area at the center of the picture. But if needed, you can adjust this setting for each contact, so that the most appropriate region of each contact/picture is displayed.

You can also use the “Replace Picture” menu command to change/add photos to your contacts, rotate pictures as needed, and define the exact area to cut out and associate with a contact.


Use it with any contact: the Icon Gallery

The integrated Icon Gallery lets you assign icons to companies or services that you call frequently, such as a gym, a grocery store, a golf club, an airline, etc.

You can browse the Icon Gallery exactly as you browse your main contact list, including the ability to use alphanumeric keys to jump to specific positions in the list.

And if you need to use the same icon for multiple contacts (for example, different airlines) the color selector lets you differentiate such contacts by using different colors.

Adjust motion and index tracking parameters

Depending on the number of contacts in your list, you may want to change the scrolling speed, or the distance traveled for each swipe of your finger. The Motion settings provide access to such parameters, as well as the desired index-tracking behavior:

  • progressive tracking” shows the instantaneous position as scrolling occurs;
  • predictive tracking” provides an indication of where scrolling will stop;
  • “none” disables index-tracking.

Customize the look and feel to fit your Today screen

You can easily customize Face Contact to fit the layout and theme of your Today screen:

  • display/hide the plugin icon and phone number tag;
  • define your preferred picture size and shape;
  • disable or adjust the reflection effect for improved readability;
  • use the menu to restore default values or switch between different settings;
  • experiment and verify your setting using the preview at the top of the screen.

User interface, actions, and accounts preferences

Face Contact lets you alter most user interface parameters according to your preferences:

Face Contact: your contacts always at hand on your Windows Mobile Today screen

Finger-friendly Today plugin with
3D rendering and kinetic scrolling




   
The rationale behind
Face Contact


While we can easily perceive an image even if moving and being shown just for a fraction of a second, we definitely need some time and effort to read words, especially when scrolling rapidly on a screen.

This is the primary reason why computer systems based on a Graphic User Interface are more effective than text-only systems: icons, shapes and colors provide clues which are easier to interpret than simple lists of files, directories and programs.

So why are we browsing our personal contact list using text only, if immediate and easy clues can be provided by a contact's picture, an icon, or a logo?

Indeed there are a few “photo dialer” applications that let you browse and call contacts by their pictures. Unfortunately their use is often limited to just a handful of contacts. They don't provide any contact management feature, and they lack the kind indexing and direct access which are needed to navigate through dozens of contacts.

The idea behind Face Contact is to combine the best of both worlds, and to provide the same kind of features you would expect from a text-based Contact Manager, together with that special “visual touch” that makes everything more intuitive and easy to use.