Basic Operation

Pocket TV Browser

Basic Controls

The Toolbar

    This is the Back button. Just like a web browser, this button takes you back to the previous screen or "page". In most cases, pressing on the left of your control pad does the same thing.

    This is the Forward button. When browsing TV listings, this button advances to the next time period, the next page of search results, etc. In most cases, pressing on the right side of your control pad does the same thing.

    This is the Home button. It always takes you back to the Home page, which is where you'll want to go to quickly pull up a single category or channel, look up another date or time, pull up listings for any of your Favorite programs, or simply see what's on TV today!

    This is the Search button. It activates the Search page, where you can quickly enter a search string, either by typing it letter by letter, by composing it from words in a "live" on-screen dictionary, or by picking it from a list of previous searches; names and other words that you have tapped on before are included in that list.

    This is the Favorites button. When you're browsing a favorite program or channel, you can quickly add it to your list of favorites by simply tapping this button. To remove an item from a list of favorites, tap the Favorites button again. When you're browsing a particular showtime, you can also add that showing to your Calendar, so that your handheld reminds you when the show is about to start.

The View Menu

By Time
This switches to a time-based view, which is also the same view that the "Today's Date" button uses.

By Channel
This switches to a channel-based view, which displays a list of channels, and when you tap a channel, it displays everything that channel is showing, in chronological order.

By Program
This switches to a program-based view, which displays every unique program in the database, without regard to time.

Preferences...
This is where you change Browser preferences, such as whether or not to include past shows in search results (by default, it does not), and whether to sort channels by name or by number (by default, it sorts by number). You can also change the Font used for displaying TV listings, and improve readability by enabling ClearType fonts, provided your device supports ClearType.

Help
This activates Pocket Internet Explorer to display the help you're reading now. Pocket Internet Explorer may not be not available on older devices, such as Palm-size PC's, so help may not be available in all cases. However, it will always be accessible from your PC, using the Pocket TV Manager companion application, or online at http://www.doublebit.com/ptvb/help/index.html.

About...
This displays version and other information about Pocket TV Browser. The icon on the Home page can also be tapped to display this information.

Exit
This terminates Pocket TV Browser. On Pocket PC and other Windows CE-powered devices, applications are automatically terminated, but this allows you to terminate it manually. Pocket TV Browser will also terminate automatically during synchronization, in case new TV listings are about to be transferred.

The Filter Menu

Channels...
Here's where you create Channel Filters. You simply select select channels in the Available list and move them to the Selected list; all other channels are then "filtered out". And again, you can name them for quick recall from the Home page. For example, you might want to create a Channel Filter named "Showtime" that includes only Showtime channels.

Categories...
Here's where you create named or unnamed Category Filters; named Category Filters are saved for quick recall from the Home page. There are 5 major categories -- Children, Movies, News, Sports, and Other -- and numerous subcategories. If you omit (i.e., "filter out") any of the major categories, then all of the related subcategories are "filtered out" as well.

Ratings...
Here's where you create Rating Filters, to filter movies based on their specific content ratings (e.g., "G", "PG", "R", etc.) These are managed just like Category Filters.

Clear Filters
This clears any filters currently in effect (i.e., Category, Channel, and Rating). If you think Pocket TV Browser isn't showing you everything it should, chances are a filter is still enabled. Check Pocket TV Browser's caption at the top of the screen -- it will say "[Filtered]" if a filter is active.

The Hardware Buttons

The only hardware button on your device used specifically by Pocket TV Browser is the control pad (sometimes also called a "joystick" button). In addition to the left and right directions functioning like the the Back and Forward icons respectively, the up and down directions are used to provide "page up" and "page down" functionality.

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