Today Screen Hacks

[Guest vijay555]

Boys and Girls.

Don't know if any of you guys have seen some of the stuff I'm knocking together for PPC/Phone edition:

To remove the bar at the bottom iof the Today screen:

To remove and replace the bar at the top:

(I'm using phonealarm, and my hack replaces your startbar at the top, allowing you to see the today screen through, and so use PhoneAlarm as your start bar. You also have full use of your start bar - it's complicated. Read the instructions! ;)

Guys - this has been updated here

VJSMS and VJDialer to make calls and SMS from the Today Screen (like speed dial)

http://forum.Bad Link.com/viewtopic....26972&highlight

And SIPSwitch to change keyboard/calligrapher etc. from command line.

http://forum.Bad Link.com/viewtopic....r=asc&highlight

Vijay :)

Edited December 14, 2005 by vijay555

[Guest Samsonite]

excellent apps.. i am dying to try them but, to be honest, i am a little overwhelmed by the knowledge i may need to install them.

I have been flicking thru the threads on the xda-dev site and it leaves me a little bit perplexed sometimes. Do you have an idiots guide to installation? i really dont understad much about the intricacies of the OS. kinda limited to basic CAB file installtion really!!

what is cLaunch? what do you mean by those command lines you show?

like i say - would love to use and fanfare your apps but feel a bit thick!!

[Guest chucky.egg]

I'm using VJDialer for speed-dials from PocketPlus, it's great.

I would agree with Samsonite though - some detailed knowledge is required to use these apps and some people don't because of that.

For example... some sample shortcuts with VJDialer would have saved me 30mins working out the syntax of a shortcut command.

Good work though. Perfect solution to my problem.

Thanks

[Guest vijay555]

Guys, the program does install shortcuts into your Start Menu folder.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to stick a shortcut with example command lines on the end because of the way that .cabs are made, but basically copy the shortcut in yoru startmenu and edit the shortcut as indicated in XDA thread. They can be edited in notepad or even Pocket Word if you don't already have gsfinder, although gsfinder etc is the preferred method.

Both programs indicate if you haven't specified a command line.

To use VJDialer, just specify VJDialer to call 123, just specify

VJDialer 123

To send an SMS to 123 just use

VJSMS "123"

Hope that's ok!

The other programs are all quite harmless. Just remember, if you're using ToggleToday _AND_ ToggleStart, use toggletoday first.

Don't put toggletoday in your startup folder.

V

[Guest chucky.egg]

Thanks Vijay. Didn't mean to sound ungrateful - VJDialer is exactly what i needed.

The shortcut I had problems with is the one to actually place the call.

What I found easiest in the end was making a new text file and copying in something like this:

50#"\Program Files\VJDialer\VJDialer.exe" +441234987654

Then rename the file to your-filename.lnk

The path, and obviously the number, might need changing for other people.

Very nice app though, your efforts are very much appreciated.

[Guest Samsonite]

vijay - i really want to try your apps but i still feel out of my depth!!

I dont understand what you mean about editing a shortcut. Does your app have such an interface that would let me choose a picture and have that picture linked to a number and then appear on my today screen?

chucky.eggs post showing code makes me think i havent got the knowledge to do this... :cry:

this is where i wish i'd gone to the meet... someone could've walked me thru it! Anyone wanna give a 'How-to' workshop sometime?

Edited August 28, 2005 by Samsonite

[Guest vijay555]

Samsonite:

VJSMS and Dialer will just allow you to make calls and sms's. How you use it is up to you.

However, for my use on the today screen I'm using claunch:

download from here http://home.pacific.net.sg/~welic/claunch.html

It takes some configuring, but basically you want to launch VJDialer for instance.

1. So, set up an item to launch on one of your "tabs"

2. Call it "Home".

3. File path - navigate to \program files\vjsoft\vjdialer.exe

4. Set the command line to 0207 blah blah

5. Press change icon

6. Click the dots and navigate to where your picture or icon to use (ie picture of your wife etc) is located. Zero/previous/next will go through the icons stuck in an executable - you can have a bunch of images in an executable or .dll. Don't worry about this, you don't need it! Just find a picture. It's best to use a smallish picture so it doesn't look to poor when resized.

7. Click OK in the top right.

8. Hopefully that's it. Clicking on the "settings" button will allow you to click "icon name enable" to show the name,ie "Home" underneath.

The rest is just for personal preference.

The commandlines etc are for use in other launchers, eg sticking a bunch of shortcuts in a folder in your "Programs" menu. To do this, use gsfinder+, find vjdialer.exe, click on it, choose copy, then choose paste shortcut.

Then click on the shortcut and choose properties.

Edit the properties to have a command line

"VJDialer.exe" 123

To call 123.

How's that?

V

[Guest Samsonite]

thanks for the details... i will try it all out!

i know that its my own laziness saying that its too hard without trying - it's simply not good enuff!!

so to be clear: get claunch, get the VJdialer, install both onto the PPC and run claunch to then run VJdialer...from there it'll come clear, right?

really appreciate ya sticking with me on this!!!

edit: oh cr@p... the USB lead is on the car!! not gonna get it tonight.. have to carry on tomorow.. i've downloaded cLaunch CAB and VJdialerSMS CAB so i'm getting a much clearer picture of the task... thanks for helping!!

Edited August 28, 2005 by Samsonite

[Guest vijay555]

Should all fall into place after you've got claunch!

I'll post step by step screenshots if you get stuck.

V

[Guest spyda]

What is the name of that appl that has the normal, vibe, silent and flight icons?

Is this appl available for the smartphone?

-icky

[Guest illi]

NICE but any for 2003?

[Guest PaulF]

6. Click the dots and navigate to where your picture or icon to use (ie picture of your wife etc) is located. Zero/previous/next will go through the icons stuck in an executable - you can have a bunch of images in an executable or .dll. Don't worry about this, you don't need it! Just find a picture. It's best to use a smallish picture so it doesn't look to poor when resized.

vijay555

Thanks for the info - I've found claunch, and got that working with VJDial - it's briliant!!

I'm having a little trouble with Icons. I've set the icon size (in claunch) to 57 (this gives me 4 icons across the screen, and they're big enough to hit with my finger/thumb reasonably accurately). I tried to create some icons by editing a picture on my PC down to 57 pixels square, and then saving it as a BMP file. When I point claunch at this file, it only seems to display about a quater of the image (i.e. the top left hand corner) - as if the image file is too big

How do you create your images for your buttons?

Cheers,

PaulF

[Guest vijay555]

PaulF - if you look on the claunch webpage it says that it has some troubles with odd sized images. You should consider that normal icon sizes are 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48.

In my screenshots I'm using 32x32. If you use that size and space them out well, you can still hit them with your thumb.

As I said, resize to 32x32 in an art program and use that size.

spyda - my flight, silent etc icons are shortcuts to phonealarm to change profile by thumb! You could do something similar with PocketZenPhone, but it would be an extra plugin. I do it all in claunch for compactness.

illi - all of my stuff is for WM2003 - my magician is WM2003se.

If you've got a non phone edition, togglestart and toggletoday still work. In fact, they're NOT for WM2005 really yet. Have you tried them yet?

V

[Guest Samsonite]

vijay

sorted!!! excellent!!!

Just spent an age messing around with cLaunch tabs/icons/settings etc and then followed your instructions for a VJDialler shortcut.... dont know what i thought was so hard!!

i know thats easy to say now but it really was simple!! thank you very much for your efforts and guidance!!

now its just a case of fooling around with images to get some neat icons for my often-dialled people..... :) ;) :(

[Guest vijay555]

Samsonite, put up some screenshots when you're done, here or on the XDA thread here

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=26972

I'm glad it helped out - I wrote this program after being away from PocketPCs for about 6 years. I got my magician a couple of months ago, and it seemed like a useful tool to me. I'm surprised other people have found it helpful - I'm really glad :)

V

[Guest PaulF]

PaulF - if you look on the claunch webpage it says that it has some troubles with odd sized images. You should consider that normal icon sizes are 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48.

In my screenshots I'm using 32x32. If you use that size and space them out well, you can still hit them with your thumb.

As I said, resize to 32x32 in an art program and use that size.

spyda - my flight, silent etc icons are shortcuts to phonealarm to change profile by thumb! You could do something similar with PocketZenPhone, but it would be an extra plugin. I do it all in claunch for compactness.

illi - all of my stuff is for WM2003 - my magician is WM2003se.

If you've got a non phone edition, togglestart and toggletoday still work. In fact, they're NOT for WM2005 really yet. Have you tried them yet?

V

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank vijay

I've created an icon in Fireworks at sizes of 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48.

I've set claunch to use 48 icons

The 16x16 icon appears less than a quarter of the icon size (in the top left corner)

The 32x32 icon appears to be the full size of the icon

The 48x48 icon only shows about the top 2/3 of the image.

Fireworks has a setting for resolution which I normally leave at the default of 72Pixels/Inch - would this make any difference?

I tried resetting claunch to 32 icons, and I got the same pictures as above (one tiny, one correct and one that didn't fit), only smaller!

It's very hard to get a decent image in 32x32 pixels, what software do you use?

(I tried another icon using a much higher pixels/inch setting, but the quality doesn't seem to be any better)

Thanks

PaulF

[Guest vijay555]

Paul, I've never used an icon bigger than 32x32, but it seems to enlarge 32x32 to bigger sizes perfectly well. I don't know if it works the other way in shrinking, but I wouldn't get the PPC to shrink/enlarge the image - do this before hand in an art program.

As I said, I resized my images in Paint Shop Pro. There's no magic in it though, any art program should be able to do that But, crop your images very small, considering how little detail can be in an icon that size. Have a look at the icon on your pc and see how it looks there - it won't look any better than that on the PPC!

I think if you specify icon size as 58, you should be using a 58x58 icon. But most icon editors don't like custom icon sizes. I'd stick with say, 48 for icon size, and try to produce a normal 48x48 icon and see how that looks. as I said, I use 32 for icon size, 32x32 icon images and just space them out well to get 4 or 5 across, plus my little up/down arrow on the left (see my screenshots if that's not clear). That works well thumbwise for me.

V

Edited August 30, 2005 by vijay555

[Guest Samsonite]

vijay

screenshots? now you are asking for something beyond me!! havent got a clue how to take a snapshot of my Today screen...

dont you need software to do that?

[Guest vijay555]

:) How does it work for you? Ok?

You do need some other software for screenshots, fraid I don't have any. But it's ok right?

I spoke to the claunch author and hopefully he'll be making the code open source soon. Will have lots of fun taking it apart!

V

[Guest Samsonite]

vijay

VJDialler works great! i have my wife, home and other call-every-day icons on the Today screen now and they have worked all day today so all should be spot on! havent setup VJSMS part yet - not a big txter, you see..

i s'pose one day i'll find some software that'll let me show it off to all for ya!

[Guest PaulF]

Paul, I've never used an icon bigger than 32x32, but it seems to enlarge 32x32 to bigger sizes perfectly well. I don't know if it works the other way in shrinking, but I wouldn't get the PPC to shrink/enlarge the image - do this before hand in an art program.

As I said, I resized my images in Paint Shop Pro. There's no magic in it though, any art program should be able to do that But, crop your images very small, considering how little detail can be in an icon that size. Have a look at the icon on your pc and see how it looks there - it won't look any better than that on the PPC!

I think if you specify icon size as 58, you should be using a 58x58 icon. But most icon editors don't like custom icon sizes. I'd stick with say, 48 for icon size, and try to produce a normal 48x48 icon and see how that looks. as I said, I use 32 for icon size, 32x32 icon images and just space them out well to get 4 or 5 across, plus my little up/down arrow on the left (see my screenshots if that's not clear). That works well thumbwise for me.

V

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep, seems much better using 32x32 icons and 32x32 buttons on claunch

I've tried 48x48 icons with 48 buttons but it doesn't like it.

Brilliant programs though - claunch combined with your dialler makes the M500 so much better than 'out of the box'

Is there anyway to make the tabs bigger (vertically) - I can find the width setting but no option to make them 'taller' (I have trouble hitting them acurately with my thumb....)

Cheers

PaulF

[Guest vijay555]

I'm afraid I don't use tabs - I have it set to switch tabs on hitting a blank bit - and then leave a blank bit to the left of my quick dials so i can switch "tabs" quickly. Fine if you don't need named tabs.

If you >still< need named tabs, just put the name of the tab on a graphic image and use that as the backdrop for the whole of claunch. That image is selectable per tab, so it would look like you have a nice artistic tab. I'll send examples if that doesn't make sense.

V

[Guest vijay555]

Guys - my today hacks have been updated here

[Guest Samsonite]

thought i'd add to this thread rather than start another.... that should keep beersoft happy....

does anyone know the command line for the Running Programs screen? I tend to be a bit of an obsessive when it comes to keeping memory free and i know its only a couple of taps away but with cLaunch i can have a dedicated icon on the Today screen.

[Guest Pondrew]

thought i'd add to this thread rather than start another....  that should keep beersoft happy....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

hehe :o

(sorry, can't answer your question but couldn't help laughing at the Beerie comment)