If there's one certainty in the world of computers (and handhelds), it's that people will try to tweak their user interface - Larry Garfield took Launcher III for a spin.
Aside from the Date Book, the Launcher is the most often replaced built-in application on a Palm. Many people do not find its basic options to be sufficient, and it has not been updated dramatically since the Palm III was released in 1998. The 4.0 Launcher adds new categories for programs stored on an expansion card, but that is all. One of the more popular replacements is Launcher III, now on its third major version. We looked at Launcher III 3.0.2 to see what this latest update brought to the table.
 | Launcher III lets you organize applications into easy to access tabs, complete with color if your device supports it
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Launcher III uses a tabbed interface. Instead of a drop-down list of categories, programs are sorted into different tabs, the labels of which are displayed across the top of the screen. If you have too many tabs to fit on one screen, a set of scroll arrows in the upper right corner of the screen lets you page through them. Organizing apps is as simple as dragging and dropping apps from one tab to another. Underneath the tabs is the view of the currently selected tab, followed by a small row of utilities. One display shows the current date, time, or day of the week. You can also show the battery and memory status either graphically or with numbers, although the text is a bit small. A number of other "gadgets" are available in the next area. More on those later.
A properties sheet for each tab lets you set the tab name, whether to show large or small icons, and chose between one and four columns of icons. You can also set the tab as hidden, and then hide and show all hidden tabs together. On a color device, you can also set the background color of a tab, which will also show up in the list of tabs across the top of the screen.
Launcher III lets you select between 12 "gadgets" that appear along the bottom right of the screen. Unfortunately, you can only show up to five at a time, and not all of their functions are duplicated by the menu. There are gadgets to call up the Security app, activate backlight, lock the device, call up the contrast dialog (if your device has one), a Tools gadget, and a number of gadgets that you must drag icons to, such as a Trash Can, Information, Rename, and the new Card Tools gadget. Most of the gadgets are self-explanatory, and the most interesting are the Tools and Card tools gadgets. The Tools gadget offers a popup menu that gives access to the default launcher, preferences, and other default tools, as well as various Launcher III functions. If you drag an application icon onto it, you get a menu that offers to delete, beam, or rename the app, or get information on the database. All of these tools are available as separate gadgets, but using the Tools menu saves space.
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