Review: SplashShopper — Grocery (or any) Shopping Made Easy

Posted by: dgoldring on Feb 19 2007 - 1,784 views

 

I don’t know how things work in your household.  In my home, everything is governed by The List.  This is a scrap of paper, which is typically hung on the fridge.  There is one to tell us what groceries we need; another list tells us what we need from Target or other stores.  Heck, we even have lists of toys.  Our boys love Thomas trains…and Lightning McQueen cars.  There is an entire system of lists to tell us which ones we have, which ones we need, and which ones our friends have that we need.  And don’t get me started on birthday and holiday lists.  Needless to say, all of these scraps of paper have created quite a mess on our fridge.  At times, it seems like I need a master list…a list of the lists.  Surely, there must be some way to use my Pocket PC to dig out from under this mountain of scrap paper.  Well, now there is, thanks to SplashShopper from SplashData.  SplashShopper will help you maintain and organize all of your shopping lists in one, easy to use program.

Installation and Registration: Simply download and run the installation package.  In addition to installing SplashShopper on your Pocket PC, this will also the desktop version on your computer, a synchronization module, sample lists, the user guide and a read me file.  You can run SplashShopper for 30 days before the program will require you to register.  Purchase the registration key to unlock the total organizational experience for all of your shopping needs.

Overview: SplashShopper, as the name implies, is a program designed to organize all of your shopping lists.  Simply input the information and create as many unique shopping lists as your needs require.  If you are like my family, this program will likely become indispensable as a means to reduce the amount of clutter on your fridge.  Additionally, it is a great way to set up a holiday wish list and keep track of which items you received, and which ones you still need to buy with the $100 you received from Great-Aunt Betty.

List Filters:  The main screen is the List View.  By default, it opens to the to the first list (alphabetically).  You can jump to any of your saved lists by using the pull down menu on the upper left.  It would be nice if these menus were labeled, but they are also fairly self explanatory.  From the pull down menu, simply select the list you want to view.  To edit information about any of these lists, just select edit from the pull down menu.  Select the list you want to edit and hit edit or delete.  You can also create a new list from this screen by selecting New. 

The second pull down menu allows you to filter your list by store.  Simply select any of the store names assigned to that list and only those items with that store in its properties will be displayed.  This is a handy feature for any list that will take you to multiple stores.  Simply select the store in which you are shopping, and the list will display only those items which are available in that store.  One feature which I would like to see, however, would be a notation if this store had the item in question for the lowest price.  As I will discuss later, you can assign multiple stores for each item, and note the price for each.  So, when filtering by store, there should be some way of determining quickly whether there is a cheaper place to purchase the item.  This list can be modified to show any appropriate information.  As you will see in the example below, this pull down menu was used to sort books by author as well.

The final pull down menu will filter by category.  This is extremely handy if items in the store are grouped a particular way.  For example, if you are grocery shopping, you can create a dairy category.  Select this category and only those items assigned in the dairy case will be displayed.

One final note on the filters, they all work together in a left to right ascension.  So, for example, first select your list.  In my example, I have selected a Books list.  The screen will show every item assigned to that list.  If you then select a store in the store filter, then it will show every item on that list available in the selected store.  It will not show items from other lists available in that store.  Likewise, if you then select a category, then you will be shown only the items from that store which satisfy the selected category.  Items from other stores, even if they are on the same list and assigned to that category, will not be shown. This is extremely useful, because it means you can really customize the display to show exactly the information you need to make your trip to the store as painless as possible.  Thus, when I selected Ron Powers, a non-fiction author from my Books list, no books showed up when I chose the fiction category, even though there were other fiction books on the books list where we started.  When I selected non-fiction, however, Flags of Our Fathers appeared on my list.  In other words, that book met all three criteria: it is a book from the Books list, the author is Ron Powers, and it is non-fiction.

Creating Lists: To create a new list, just select New List from the List Menu.  Simply input a name for your new list, name the store menu (such as bookstores or grocery stores) and you are ready to go.  To be honest, I usually just called this "store" and was more specific later.  Additionally, if you want to add extra details, you can input the tax rate, change the icon and any other relevant categories (there are two custom fields so you can enter categories for author, artist, brand, even aisle in the store).  You can even select to track the per-store price if you want to do some comparison shopping.  Hit OK and your new list will be added to the pull down menu at the top of the main screen.  Frankly, I was amazed by how easy it was to create new lists.  Of course, all this has done so far is create a blank template for the list.  Now, it is time to populate your list. 

Populating Lists: One you have created a list, you must populate it with items.  So, I opened my new list, which is now blank, and selected New Item from the item menu.  Frankly, I was amazed by how easy this was as well.  The entire process is completed in minutes by using pull down menus and single line entry forms.  Let’s take a closer look.

The first thing you need to do is name your item.   You can call it anything that is descriptive enough for you to identity later.  If this were a grocery list, for example, you might just write "kumquats".   Next, select the appropriate entries from the four pull down menus (stores, categories, and the two custom fields you created).  If there is not yet an appropriate entry, create one in any of the fields by selecting Edit. 

Interestingly , you can assign multiple stores to a single item.  In this way, you can comparison shop and find the best prices for each item.  To enter multiple stores, from the Store Menu, simply click Multiple.  This will bring you to a new screen where you can enter up to eight different stores for each item.  Enter the store name, a brief custom field and the price.  Then, when you return home, you can study your findings and determine the best place to purchase each item.

Finally, there are three checkboxes at the bottom of the screen coupon, auto-delete and tax.  If you selected to show the coupon field in your list, then the main screen will show either yes (if this box is checked) or no (if it is unchecked).  Auto-delete will automatically delete the item once it has been checked off your list (otherwise, it will remain on your list but it will be marked completed).  Tax will calculate the tax for the item, based upon the amount you entered when you created the list.  If the item is non-taxable, then simply leave this box unchecked.

You can also edit or delete the items on your list at any time.  Simply highlight the item in question and then select edit from the Item Menu.  This will take you directly to the screen you used to create the item,allowing you to alter any of the fields.  Select delete to remove the item from your list entirely.

Quicklist: The easiest way to get going with SplashShopper is to create a Quicklist.  A quicklist allows you to mark a set of predefined items.  So, for example, if you regularly make a particular recipe, you can create a quicklist with the ingredients for that recipe.  To use a quicklist, just select the name of the list from the quicklist menu, and the predefined items you selected will be displayed.  Using the quicklist menu, you can create, edit, or update a quicklist with ease.

List Views: There are three different views of each list, which can be toggled by selecting the tabs at the bottom of the screen. 

• The All View will display every item in the list  Items that are needed will be marked with an icon.  Tap any item to mark it as needed.  Tap it again to mark it as completed.
• The Need view will display only those items on your list which have been marked as needed.  This is a great way to remove items as you complete them without deleting them from your list.  As you find items, just mark them as completed and they will be removed from your Need View (but will remain in All View).
• Total will display the total price for the items in either of the other views.  Select the Total tab to control the settings for this option.  Total can also be disabled in the Preferences menu.

Sharing a list: You can share a list by beaming it from one device to another in the Options Menu.  While it can be extremely useful to share lists, I found it to be unnecessarily limiting that you could only share them via beaming.  It would be nice to be able to share lists via email or Bluetooth. 

Customization/Preferences: One of the things I enjoyed about this program was the customization.  You can make your list display the information you need in the format  you want.  This is critical in a program such as SplashShopper, and I thought the customization tools worked extremely well.

There are two fonts installed Tahoma and Courier New.   You can use either font in your lists.  You can also resize any text between 7 point and 12 point, bold, underline, or use italics.  One thing that was notably missing, however, was the ability to change the font color.  Additionally, there was no way to adjust the font for an individual item.  Any changes made to the font would be assigned to the entire list.  There should be a way to highlight a specific item on a list by changing the font only for that item.

By selecting the Preferences Menu, you can control exactly which information is displayed on the screen.  It was nice to see this kind of customization.  You can control whether the Total is shown, how the price is displayed, even whether completed items will be shown in Need View, and where on the list they will appear.

Finally, using the preferences, you can control which fields are displayed on the screen.  You can sort through any of the fields you used to create the list, including:

• Store
• Category
• Custom 1 and 2
• Quantity
• Units (such as price per pound)
• Price
• Coupon (will toggle yes or no based upon whether the coupon box was checked)
• Note (if there are any notes).

The only caution I would note here is that this is a small screen, even if you display the list in landscape mode.  So, choose carefully and try not to select more than two to three fields per list (remember the item name field will always be displayed). 

Desktop Companion: Let’s be honest.  There is simply no good way to input large amounts of data on a Pocket PC.  As such, any program like SplashShopper must include a desktop version, which can easily transfer data to the Pocket PC.  Therefore, I was pleased to find a desktop version of SplashShopper included in the package.  As an additional bonus, the desktop version looks extremely similar to the Pocket PC version, making it easy to seamlessly transfer information between the two.  The desktop version also serves as a backup unit.  If your Pocket PC loses your data, simply resync it to the desktop version and your data can be quickly recovered. 

Conclusion: I have used a number of different list making programs.  There were two features, however, which made SplashShopper stand out in my mind.  First, it is geared toward a specific kind of list — namely making shopping lists.  By doing this, it becomes significantly easier to preassign fields, and customize the view to maximize the effectiveness of the list.  Additionally, by catering to a specific type of list, SplashShopper is able to significantly streamline the process of creating lists and adding items to each list.  This was an easy program to use and learn.  The desktop portion made it a breeze to enter text in only a few quick steps (I could create a list of those steps…but I won’t).  Additionally, the sync module worked flawlessly, transferring any lists I made on my desktop quickly and easily to my Pocket PC.  I thoroughly enjoyed this program, which provides an important solution for anyone whose fridge is covered with tiny scraps of paper like mine.

Vital Statistics:

Name: SplashShopper

Version: 2.72

Platform: WM 2003 SE

Also Available: WM5, Palm OS, Smartphone, Blackberry, Symbian, Series 60 (Nokia) 

Developer: SplashData 

Available From: SplashShopper

                           JAMM Store

 Price: $29.95

 SplashShopper is also available as part of the SplashWallet package, which also includes SplashPhoto and SplashID (SplashMoney is also included in the Palm OS version).  The SplashWallet package costs $59.95 at the JAMM store.

 

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