UPDATED 16/03: Howto: Homescreen design Quick Refresh

[Guest Taoski]

Dear all,

I have found a way to quickly refresh the homescreen when doing designs - with the phone connected over ActiveSync.

I have only ever written one homescreen - and that was a slow enough process for me! I had to find a way to make it quicker.

With my method - you don't even have to touch the phone at all! Works well when using a utility such as the Activesync Remote Display as you can see the changes pretty quickly.

Also - thanks to MrMagoo who's font changer took me down the right route. I was nearly there - just needed a little nudge in the right direction.

You will need to use the following files (included in the ZIP file):

RAPIConfig.exe

cecopy.exe

scheme.xml

scheme2.xml

upload.bat

Extract the ZIP file to a folder such as c:rapi and use the program from a command prompt as follows:

upload

e.g

upload taoski.home.xml

Here's the science bit:

1. Copy your homescreen XML file to the same c:rapi folder and work on the design/layout there.

2. run upload

a) The .bat file uses CECOPY to copy the updated XML file to IPSMapplication datahome - overwriting the existing one.

:) RAPIConfig updates the registry with a new color scheme name and then sets it back again to the "Default" scheme.

c) this causes the homescreen to reload with a bit of "hourglassing" and the updated XML file is applied.

Of course this does mean that the color scheme is always set to Luna - but i'm sure that people can ammend the settings to suit.

Also - this was designed with SP2002 in mind (as i got a good ol' SPV).

Obviously - the path may need to be changed on an SP2003 phone to copy the homescreen XML file to the Application DataHome location. So you will need to do that too if need be. I think it needs to be set to Dev:StorageApplication DataHome - but i have'nt got an E200 to test it on. Sorry.

Of course this comes with no promises and no proper testing apart from on my phone. If you don't know what you are doing - then leave well alone!

This little project of mine is no way properly finished yet and i am open to comments and ideas. I suppose that rather than changing the color scheme - the actual homescreen name could be changed instead.. not sure if this would be a better idea? What do you all think? I might even wrap this up in a little VB app if i ever get time.

Taoski. :wink:

16/03 - Updated the tool to ammend the Color Scheme to "Default" rather than Luna - as this obviously makes more sense when doing homescreen designs.

rapi.zip

[Guest Mort]

Holy crap!

I've been waiting for this for like 18 months... i've looked into all the power tools and it was staring me in the face the whole time.

Bless you for opening my eyes :shock:

Well done mate... :)

Mort

[Guest stevewright]

Ace work!

Can I get it to end up with the colour scheme as Default?

[Guest Taoski]

Ace work!

Can I get it to end up with the colour scheme as Default?

Patience grasshopper!

I'm just off out to the pub - so no further work until tomorrow!

All depends on how much beer i consume :roll:

[Guest Taoski]

Just updated the tool to change the Color Scheme to "Default" rather than Luna - as requested!

[Guest MPXtricky]

For someone like me who can't code homescreen XML for toffee, this is a huge time saver. Excellent idea. I will be happy to buy you a pint one lunchtime as I work in MK (for now anyways). Cheers geezer

[Guest TheCardinal]

At Last!!!

Great work taoski :)

[Guest stevewright]

It doesn't go to Default for me. It reports it as "Default", but the colours are of "black.scheme.xml"

[Guest Taoski]

It all works for me...

What happens if you change it manually to another color scheme and then run the updater?

Also - if it is set to "Default" - is this not using the color scheme from the homescreen XML file? I assume it is - just have'nt got round to testing it yet.

Anyway... just got my old dusty VB disk out - so i will recode it using that which should make it more accessible.

I might also add the ability to upload a new copy of the background pic to the phone too - as i was tweaking both when i did my recent (and only) homescreen.

[Guest madu]

VERY TRULY AWESOME!!

If this was around when I had time to fiddle with homescreens it would rock.

It still rocks! And for the first time I have managed to get my homescreen perfect in no time!

Cheers man

[Guest Taoski]

Glad to be of service!

[Guest Taoski]

Maybe one of the mods could put this thread on the news page - i'm sure it would make peoples lives soooo much easier when developing homescreens - and make it more accessible for newbies.

If i get time i will wrap a VB app round the process to make it easier.

[Guest Speedy]

EDIT: Never mind.... silly me, found out that you had to have the homescreen you are working on loaded on the spv for it to apply the new version. Sorry, great app :) /EDIT

Awesome app..... but i cant get it to work

Have followed your directions but i must be doing something wrong.

All it does is set the colour scheme to black and nothing else. In the command prompt it says successful to everything however my new homescreen does not show.

I can see that it copies the file alright but it just doesnt apply the new scheme.

Any ideas of what i might be doing wrong?

[Guest zeta101]

brilliant app!

good work, hope you carry on work with it!

[Guest TKJ]

This is great :)

I have tried the few homescreen editors and Viewers, but this is the only one where you can see your actual work on the phone quite easily. WYSIWYG :wink:

Great

TKJ

[Guest seanmcleary]

sounds like a great little program but i can't get it to work. it copies over the XML file fine but gets caught up with the registry changes. it says "Config failed (0x80070005): Access is denied." i tried messing around with both the privileges on the files and the executable with no luck.

for reference, i'm on Windows XP, using a Samsung SCH-I600 running Windows Mobile 2002.

[Guest Taoski]

I assume that this will only work with an app unlocked smartphone.

Never tested it with an unlocked phone.

Is yours like that?

[Guest debaillon]

Great work!! I spent a day and a half scouring the less-than-adequate Microsoft document on coding XML for the 2002 Home Screen and got just a little frustrated. Things like "list your plug-ins in the order you want them to appear on the screen" and "X,Y is relative to the last plug-in defined" would have been a HUGE time saver. :D I should have checked out this discussion first. Thanks! You guys are awesome!!

[Guest crafty]

Firstly great work on this - i think it has has saved me roughly 7 years!

I can confirm that this also works fine with Smartphone 2003 on my E200, i just edited the upload.bat file to read:

cecopy.exe /is "%1" "dev:/StorageApplication DataHome"


rapiconfig /p scheme.xml


rapiconfig /p scheme2.xml[/code]


I have however had a couple of problems.  Sometimes the phone hangs when using this causing me to have to pull the batt!?!  Also sometimes the colour scheme updates to the black scheme rather than that defined in the homescreen's xml.


Any plans to continue work on this and maybe fix some of the above?

[Guest Taoski]

The real way to get this to work would be to change the name of the actual scheme rather than the colorscheme. This would then make it revert to the correct color scheme (i think).

The way to do this is to edit the 2 scheme files as follows so that scheme2.xml contains the name of the file. At the moment i cannot see a way to pass this parameter through using the batchfile.

Scheme.xml

<wap-provisioningdoc>


   <characteristic type="Registry">


      <characteristic type="HKCUControlPanelhome">


         <parm name="scheme" value="temp" datatype="string" />


      </characteristic>


   </characteristic>


</wap-provisioningdoc>

Scheme2.xml

<wap-provisioningdoc>


   <characteristic type="Registry">


      <characteristic type="HKCUControlPanelhome">


         <parm name="scheme" value="IPSMApplication DataHomekl1wdr.MSN2mc.home.xml" datatype="string" />


      </characteristic>


   </characteristic>


</wap-provisioningdoc>

Obviously i am using the "kl1wdr.MSN2mc.home.xml" file as my homescreen - so change that to reflect yours.

I suppose it would not be too much effort for people to ammend the value in scheme2.xml - as most people work on only one homescreen design at once (i assume). I am looking to convert this into VB app/script too which may make things a little easier to do this as i could write the XML files on the fly - but it does work this way.

Let me know how you get on. :wink:

[Guest crafty]

Obviously i am using the "kl1wdr.MSN2mc.home.xml" file

tee hee - thats my mod to kl1wdr's homescreen - glad that someone is actually using it after it recieved a grand total of 1 comment about it...

[Guest Taoski]

How spooky is that!

I like it btw... thanks - to you and kl1wdr.

[Guest loratio]

Thanks! This is a great help. WYSIWYG the only way :D Thanks for sharing a good tip.