Great question...XBox 360 Or PS3...Hmmmm. I haven't got an XBox 360 yet and the PS3 is just around the corner. I have to say that the XBox 360 already has a bunch of games that I'd like to own...and from what I've read the PS3 is going to be way expensive! But, I guess you will be getting a Blu-Ray player as well...so perhaps the cost isn't so OTT.

"The PocketTV Team": I am totally with you on everything you said. I experienced the same problems fixing my code to run on the Motorola Q. I'm pretty sure that all the Microsoft documentation for DMDO_0 says that it should be treated as the "native" orientation, it appears to me that Motorola have done something of a hack on a standard QVGA portrait screen and physically rotated it by 90degrees, then they've done some software hacks to get the screen into landscape mode. Basically my experience of updating my game engine was that they hadn't done things quite right.

BTW: Big thanks to Paul O'Brien for putting me in touch with Motorola, it helped in finding the bug in the ExtEscape function (as mention in PocketTV's original post).

When you're selling commercial software it makes sense to support as few installers as possible but target as many devices/operating systems as possible...hence some newer APIs seem attractive but aren't really a great option because you end up with multiple versions of an app...and that in turn becomes a support nightmare. My engine works on Pocket PC 2000 to Windows Mobile 5 devices with a single EXE...and you have to jump through a few hoops to get decent performance from each OS. If only it was as easy as ditching the old every time a new OS came along...but you'd be waving goodbye to a lot of potential customers

So...the only thing I haven't fixed on the Motorola Q is the handling of number key messages: VK_T0, VK_T1 etc. It appears that you have to press a numlock button first? I don't actually own a Q so all my testing has been thanks to customers in USA who are willing to sacrifice some of their time to help test. Not ideal...but thanks especially to Juan Gomez! Anyway...and help about the VK_T0 buttons would be great...

I'd be great if MoDaCo Fairdeal (sofware store) took off. To get their software on Fairdeal, software developers have to upload their products to MobiHand. It's only the MoDaCo branded version of the MobiHand website that gives the developers 80%...most of the other MobiHand outlets give back just 60%. And...as far as I know...the software developer can not control the outlets that their software is marketed through. Personally I only signed up to sell via MobiHand because of the great publicity that these forums gave the MoDaCo software store...I was quite disappointed to find that sales were going through with only a 60% pay back.

I highly recommend Clickgamer.com. Just have a read through a few forums and you'll get a feel for how people feel about Handango, developers and customers alike find their business practices intolerable.

If you buy from Clickgamer.com then you'll get an option to download either a CAB or an EXE (desktop pc installer). This is of course assuming that the software developer has uploaded both a CAB and EXE.

Buy from Clickgamer.com...they are fantastic. They give more money back to developers, have excellent support and a great website (they only sell decent quality software unlike many of the other sites that will sell any old rubbish).

Just download the free "Microsoft Embedded C++" version 3.0 or 4.0 development tool. I've been using it for a few years and think it's pretty good (considering it's free). Using version 4.0 means you can do .NET development (I think)...but that isn't really of any interest to me so I stick to version 3.0 which allows me to write code that'll work on all version of Smartphone OS and Pocket PC OS.

If you're at all familiar with developing Win32 apps for desktop PCs then writing for Windows Mobile should be a familiar experience. If you have no experience of Win32 then I accept that starting out is a horribly confusing experience....but start simple and experiment. A classic "Hello World" app always helps to boost your confidence....

Does anyone know how to stop backlight dimming on PocketPC 2002?

I presume the SetPowerRequirement will work on PocketPC 2003....however, I haven't yet tested it.

I can confirm that the code posted by Muff works on C500!! Fantastic!
I'd tried it before Muff posted his solution but stupidly I forgot to put the TEXT macro around the "BKL1:". D'oh!!!

One thing I would suggest is for people who want to write code that works on both SP 2002 and SP 2003....use GetProcAddress instead of #include

CODE

// Copied from pm.h

typedef enum _CEDEVICE_POWER_STATE {

   PwrDeviceUnspecified = -1,

   D0 = 0, // Full On: full power,  full functionality

   D1,     // Low Power On: fully functional at low power/performance

   D2,     // Standby: partially powered with automatic wake

   D3,     // Sleep: partially powered with device initiated wake

   D4,     // Off: unpowered

   PwrDeviceMaximum

} CEDEVICE_POWER_STATE, *PCEDEVICE_POWER_STATE;



#define POWER_NAME (DWORD)(0x00000001)

#define POWER_FORCE (DWORD)(0x00001000)



typedef DWORD (*RELEASEPOWERREQUIREMENT)(

  HANDLE hPowerReq );

typedef HANDLE (*SETPOWERREQUIREMENT)(

  PVOID pvDevice,

  CEDEVICE_POWER_STATE DeviceState,    

  ULONG DeviceFlags,

  PVOID pvSystemState,

  ULONG StateFlags );

At application startup...

CODE

HANDLE HdlPower = NULL;

HINSTANCE HdlCoreDll = LoadLibrary( TEXT("coredll.dll") );

if ( HdlCoreDll )

{

  SETPOWERREQUIREMENT PtrFunc = (SETPOWERREQUIREMENT)GetProcAddress( HdlCoreDll, TEXT("SetPowerRequirement") );

  if ( PtrFunc )

  {  

     HdlPower = (*PtrFunc)(TEXT("BKL1:"), D0, POWER_NAME, NULL, 0);

  }

  FreeLibrary( HdlCoreDll );

}

At application shutdown...

CODE

HINSTANCE HdlCoreDll = LoadLibrary( TEXT("coredll.dll") );

if ( HdlCoreDll )

{

  RELEASEPOWERREQUIREMENT PtrFunc = (RELEASEPOWERREQUIREMENT)GetProcAddress( HdlCoreDll, TEXT("ReleasePowerRequirement") );

  if ( PtrFunc )

  {  

     (*PtrFunc)( HdlPower );

  }

  FreeLibrary( HdlCoreDll );

}

On Smartphone 2002 OS the following code would stop the annoying keypress click sound:

------------------------------------------
char* PtrOutputStr;
char InputStr[1024];

_stprintf( InputStr,
TEXT("")
TEXT("")
TEXT("")
TEXT("")
TEXT("")
TEXT("")
TEXT(""),
Value );

DMProcessConfigXML( InputStr, CFGFLAG_PROCESS, &PtrOutputStr );

delete[] PtrOutputStr;
------------------------------------------


This code no longer works on the 2003 SE OS! Any ideas why? Anyone know of another way to silence the keypress click sound programatically?

Thanks

Anyone know a solution that works on the C500 (Smartphone OS 2003 SE)?

I've been trying to use both:

SystemIdleTimerReset
SHIdleTimerReset

...but they don't work. They stop the home screen from kicking in...but they don't stop the backlight from dimming. Unfortunately a bug in GAPI causes games to freeze when the backlight dims

I'd just like to inform people that we are working on a fix for Pocket Mini Golf and our other games when running on the C500. The games generally work fine as long as you set the "backlight time out" to never. This can be found here:

Start MenuSettingsMore...Power Management

Hopefully the problem will be fixed properly by Orange (as it is their bug), but in the mean time we will try to find a solution that doesn't require you to change your phone's settings.