Help Required With SPV1 Animated Homescreen

[Guest SMYKUL]

Hello,

For those of you who don't know me I am one of those people that thinks nothing is impossible.

I am trying to create a home screen for the SPV1 that has animated menus, for example i would like to have some stuff scrolling in from the side of the screen. I apologize if this question has already been asked but i got fed up with all of my search results being for E200.

Question: Are animated home screens possible for Smartphone 2002 devices ?

I was thinking along the lines of (code wise):

[start]

blob = 3

if blob = 3 then

Display "stage 1"

blob = 2

else

if blob = 2 then

Display "stage 2"

blob = 1

else

if blob = 1 then

Display "stage 3"

else

if blob = 0 then

Display "transparent"

goto [start]

Probably completely inappropriate but still...

any help GREATLY Appreciated ! Thanks.

[Guest midnight]

err, yeh, kind of, xml in itself cant do anything animated, but, plugins can. You'll have to get someone to make you a plugin that allows animation, but, dont forget, animation will kill battery life.

[Guest SMYKUL]

Will it kill the battery life even if it is not constant, im thinkin you press down and Message counter pops out from the side. i dont want the animations running all the time.

p.s. are there any tutorials on making plugins, im crud with the win32 api's but ive got EVB, EVC and the smartphone sdk for when i feel like messin. BTW Midnight, i am a BIG fan of ur work, you like know how to do everythin ! LOL :D

[Guest midnight]

errr, the animations should only use battery power as you actually animated them (using cpu=using battery power), there actually isnt that much info at all regarding homescreen plugin creation, all i can suggest is contacting maybe some plugin authors and ask if they have any source you can look at. (i think theres one small example in the SDK)

[Guest nedge2k]

The french homescreen creator TmR has some awesome examples of skins with animation elements :lol:

SEE HERE

You'll also need the lcd plugin for these to work

HERE

LCD WMP, Blue Latern and LCD Final are my personal favourites :wink:

The lcd plugin already allows animaton. You define how and what it animates in an .ini file although i think you are limited to what you can animate i.e. apointments and battery charging. If you install LCD WMP you can see the best example of that. Dont ask me how it works, havent quite got my head round the .ini yet.

I had a smilar idea to you a while back but didnt have the time to get started on it

Good luck to you. Cant wait to see the results :wink:

P.S. Dont worry bout midnight. "It'll kill the battery" is his answer to everything cool like that :D :D

[Guest SMYKUL]

Lol :D . Thanks for all your help guys, ill keep you posted. :D

[Guest midnight]

nedge2k, unfortunately its true though, i can have animation on the E200 for RJHtml stuff (in fact, MoDaCo 3 is animated), but it does tend to use battery power much quicker, so once the novelty factor of having an animated homescreen wears off, you will just get annoyed with something that needs charging every 8 hrs :D

[Guest drblow]

That is totally true - I've used the RJHtml plugin for my own animated screen, and it really does suck the battery big time. So much so that I stopped using the animation coz it wasn't even lasting a full day at work without charging. Shame, but I guess thats the way it is until we get some more battery life.

In the past I've used skins with the LCD plugin, & its also a battery killer.

[Guest nedge2k]

My Justification For Animated Homscreens:

-You dont buy a fast car for its mpg rating

-You dont buy an MS Smartphone for its battery life

I think animated homescreens would be cool - we need more of them. The way this guys describes how he'll be doing it (animated menus) sounds great and as its only gonna animate when you move to a different plugin then i dont think it'll suck up too much batt anyway :wink: :D

I imagine it'll look like the Richie M Longhorn/Win XP range but wth sliding menus...cool 8)

How did you use the LCD Plugin doc? Havent been able to find too much documentation on it and im loving the "animation when charging" feature. The .ini file looks well complicated and dont get me started on the bloody SDK :D

[Guest midnight]

we've been talking about doing animated menus for quite some time (even going so far as doing steam, flickering lights, 3d swingout menus etc. and including sound effects), but then i thought about it, sure, its great to show off to your freinds, but, (i can now go to your fast car analogy) all it would do is slow down the homescreen, taking longer to switch between plugins.

It was Eclipse's menu's that kinda inspired us to think how we could implement it on the homescreen (and we could if we wished), but we've even had complaints that the menus are too slow on that and all people want is instant page switches (i disagree personally cos i'm shallow, i like things to look good :D)

What i hope/wish would happen is that MS talk to Macromedia about having Flash homescreens using actionscript for actions and for getting info such as battery life, signal strength, system clock, appointments, carrier info etc. This would open up almost infinite possibilities. Macromedia have now made this for other phones, it just needs the weight of MS to persuade/pay Macromedia to make this possible for MS Smartphone. The SDK and source for this is available, but costs a small fortune (i looked into it for doing game intro's, asked Macromedia about licensing, and the reply was something along the lines of 'You wont be able to afford it'), would be totally cool to have a 'Flash' homescreen plugin.

[Guest drblow]

YES YES YES! It would be the best thing to have flash homescreens, especially if they responded quickly. Bit of a dream ATM I guess!

Mid - I would love to know more about how you planned to implement animated menu's etc using the currently available plugins - the menus in eclipse are ace! Its something I would love to have, and I feel the same way, I would sacrifice battery life & slowness to have something that looks great! Surely anyone that doesnt want it doesnt have to download it, but there would be a good number of people interested I'm sure.

@Nedge - I only ever used other peoples LCD skins, and then just changed a few images here & there to fit my own themes. I never got into the actual plugin itself coz, same as you I guess, it looked a bit freaky!!

[Guest midnight]

it aint that much a dream :D (just needs MS to pick up on it)

As for our implementation, we where gonna make a whole new plugin that essentially does the work of all the other plugins iconbar, time, date, appointments, mru etc. It would be a very dedicated plugin in that no-one else could make anything with it. A one-off so to speak.

[Guest drblow]

Ooh, ya tight git! :D

But, that link seems to suggest that smartphones WILL get flash lite, while the rumours would suggest its still doubtful, or at least prohibitively expensive.

[Guest SMYKUL]

Is there anyone here who can give me the basics of makin plugins for the home screen, i dont know where to start, i really only need a plugin that can be fed, say, 5 images and swap them for each other in a certain amount of time. It doesn't seem that hard a concept really, just not sure what the plugin would have to refer to (MS API wise).

[Guest nedge2k]

There's a guy...well..more of a hero on this forum called RemyJ. He's the brains behind the awesome RJHTML and others. I think your best bet would be to PM him or ask him to post guide. Just think if everyone started making plugins the kind of stuff we could end up with :D