homescreens on the c500??

[Guest drblow]

Is it just me? Or is everybody getting problems from installing/editing homescreens on the c500?? :shock:

My c500 regularly freezes up, or displays never-ending eggtimer ... especially when using the e200 plugin.

I really want to know coz there is still a distinct possibility that some of my xml coding is poor enough to corrupt stuff! :? Although I do get the same effect with other people's themes, not just mine.

I do alot of homescreen editing, as you can imagine! I spend several hours probably a few days a week at least, constantly changing jpgs, gifs, & xml. Could it just be down to repetition of this process that the phone is freaking out sometimes?? I honestly hope it is just something I'm doing, coz right now the c500 seems a huge step backwards in terms of homescreens! :?

Help me out here!

[Guest chucky.egg]

Im using Kleinweder's screens (Mac-14 ATM) nad have also used Darna, Technika, Plast'X, Corona and a few others without any problems.

Sometimes, after the phone has "gone to sleep" I get a flickering effect, but that is only obvious on some screens and frankly not a problem

I did have problems with some of the French screens (can't remember their name, but there are Red Green and Blue versions with a digitial clock) but I put that down to poor skin design and probably missing plugins

[Guest drblow]

Hmm ... :x

Well, I have spent the entire night trying various things with homescreens, & unfortunately for me, it seems that every time I try to use a screen using the e200 plugin, it freezes my phone so badly that it won't go past the sunset boot screen & needs a hard reset - & I even tried installing one just after a hard reset, & the same thing happened. I dunno what the problem is coz I know other people using my Opera theme on a c500 without any problems. :evil:

Typical, eh!? :shock:

[Guest zeta101]

its my understanding that you cant have "bad" xml coding, i mean homescreens are simple enough, and if you code something wrong the homescreen wont be given as an option until you fix it.

maybe you have something installed or thast running in the background that somehow conflicts with the e200 plugin?

[Guest drblow]

Thats interesting ... I've spoken to a few people who have worked in smartphone software that have told me of phones that are actually damaged beyond repair from testing homescreens - although I think thats more related to creating plugin dll's & stuff. I would be very reassured to know that homescreen xml can in no way damage your phone, or at least not beyond a hard-reset ... but I'm not sure, coz I know other people - some on this forum - are using my Opera e200 theme without any problems. Its hard to know, coz the very first thing I did with this phone obviously was to start designing a new homescreen, and testing it thoroughly - which led very quickly to numerous battery pulls & hard resets.

I would love to get a conclusive answer to this.

I'm not running any software that I wasn't running on my e200 where the homescreens worked OK. Can you be a bit more specific about which kind of apps could cause that? I can post a list of whats generally running on my phone at any given time, but its probably not much if anything at all. I don't tend to have many apps beyond task manager, smart explorer & oxios todolist!! :) & I don't think I've anything installed ATM that runs in the background.

[Guest kurtfhouse]

Yeah my phone doesn't seem to like being customised anymore on the homescreen front :cry:

I have had several freezes etc.... and when I installed Midnights MSN theme it garbled my MMS settings to the point where I needed to hard reset as they couldn't be changed. Shame as before I have always had that theme as I love it.

Right now I am on the default homescreen as I'm worried what will happen if I change it :)

[Guest midnight]

drblow, who have you been talking to???? hehe, as you know i've developed LOTS of homescreens, and the worst thing that has ever happened to me was when I was tweaking the InCall logo banners (as you know, these MUST be on the phone, i tried them from the SD card), but hey, those things happen. I have never damaged a phone in any way just by making a homescreen, it shouldnt even be possible. By the way, all my homescreens install on my C500 with no probs, and so far i've developed about 3 homescreens using the C500, of course, none use the E200 plugin, cos well, i dont like it :)

As for my Homescreen screwing up MMS settings, that would only be possible if i modified the reg for those settings (which i dont), just sounds like a coincidence to me.

[Guest drblow]

drblow, who have you been talking to????

:) Now that would be telling, wouldn't it!!?? :lol:

See, the problem is, that my c500 now seems to have severe problems with alot of homescreens. Anything with the e200 plugin seriously crashes the phone needing a hard reset. I installed the MSN theme, and after sitting idle for a while, the homescreen disappears, leaving the 'no valid homescreens ...' error message. I left it on the default Orange screen last night & when I got up this morning had the 'no valild homescreens ...' error.

If it's impossible to damage the phone by doing homescreens, then what is going on?? & how come other people seem to not have this problem??

[Guest samjam]

Old homescreen layouts will not work on the C500 without some changes.

If you get via orange update the new "e200" homescreen you can do a diff on the new layout xml with the old layout xml.

The main different which is likely the cause of your problem is the use of simulated keystrokes to select from menus.

The keystrokes string in the xml can wait until the right window (or also not the wrong window) comes to the top before sending more keystrokes.

This means that keystroke strings can be dependant on the OS release, and withthe C500 also on the system font size.

So I advise folk to tget the new C500 "e200" layout and base C500 designs on that.

Sam