PocketTV BETA-25, faster, more stable

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Those two info dialogs are showed by PocketTV, but the black bar are definitly abnormal, and it looks like they are caused by a bug in one of the Home Page plugins that you have installed on your phone. Have you installed any sort of home page plug-ins on your phone ?

If yes, try removing them to see if the problem goes away.

Also try using the default Home screen layout:

Home Programs > Settings > Home screen > Home screen layout set to "Full Layout".

Normally the Home screen layout should not be a problem as long as it is not buggy (we have tested with several custom Home screen themes).

I don't think the color scheme will make a difference, since PocketTV runs fine and looks nice with any color scheme... But try setting the color scheme to "Default".

[Guest jim80b]

hey ric, thats because the xbox extras align to the bottom right corner... this means if the txt flows over a page the pic gets in the way of the txt. theres no fix unless you dont use the extra skins.

sorry dude

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

hey ric, thats because the xbox extras align to the bottom right corner... this means if the txt flows over a page the pic gets in the way of the txt. theres no fix unless you dont use the extra skins.  

sorry dude

So that's a bug in the "xbox extra" skin, correct ?

That skin should use the display size, and not the size of the front-window, which can be larger than the display (e.g. when it's a scrollable Info window, which is a common case).

You should make sure that whoever developed this skin fixes that bug!

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

> I'd suggest you look again at that area of the code, is there a way you can make it more 'bombproof?', and not to rely on blaming the 'xbox extra' designer..

I totally agree with you in general, but Info-windows are generated by the system's standard MessageBox function, and they are made scrollable on the Smartphone, so that's a normal thing.

An app should never assume that the window of another app is the exact same size as the display. This is not true in general, even on smartphone, even though all windows seem to be fullscreen on smartphone, even the Info windows.

There is are routines to get the display size, so that's what people should use.

something like:

GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN),

GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN),

or

// work area under the NavBar

SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETWORKAREA, 0, &r, 0);

We'll certainely not stop using standard Info-windows just because one skin is buggy :)... they'll have to fix it, so make sure the skin author's knows!

I'm sure many other apps use standard Info windows and will cause the same problem.

[Guest Will]

[MASSIVE EDIT]

Summary of what was cut:

Some custom skins seem to conflict with the way Pockettv Shows a normal dialog window, This was discussed, and no Resolution was found, so PocketTv have added a section to their forum about this.

Will

[Guest jim80b]

s'ok will

anyway this is what my reg say in the :vol key. if anyone can work out what the other settings do we might be able to align to the top and that would be a workaround. the bottom would be plain white (or a background colour of your choosing) but thats fine

sorry mods i know this is not in right topic but pockettv seem rather clued up so maybe....

Image1.jpg

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Thanks, jim80b :)

I suppose Will was the author of that skin...?

[Guest jim80b]

it work!!! it really works!!! i had so many problems with the old betas telling me its unsigned i had given up but this one works!!!!!

good kob. now to try getting really good quality with ok fps :) hehe :(

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

> it work!!! it really works!!! i had so many problems with the old betas telling me its unsigned i had given up but this one works!!!!!

good kob. now to try getting really good quality with ok fps :) hehe :(

Thanks!

Yes, this BETA-25 is solid.

Now this is a poll: what do you think is most important to make next:

1) internal file selector

2) volume booster

i.e. when you increase volume to more than max, it goes in "booster" mode (sometimes called pre-amp), i.e. it scales-up the audio sample in the audio decoder, to get a higher volume, specially useful when using the internal speaker of the phone.

Of course the "booster" mode can cause distortions if the audio gets saturated.

Personally I think that should be the next feature to add, then after that, File Selector and other stuff...

What do you think ?

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

I'd go for a file selector next so the app can stand on it's own

without any help :)

[Guest Will]

file selector. go on!

Will

[Guest caio1]

file selector please

Caio

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Due to a problem in some home screen plugins using background images (e.g. xbox), large black bars can appear on standard Info boxes displayed by Smartphone applications, including PocketTV.

If you see this problem, please select another Home screen plugin (or use the standard Home screen), and notify the author of the Home screen plugin of the problem.

We'll just add that in our FAQ: < home page plugin, you may see black bars on your screens when PocketTV or any an application displays a standard Info box. If that's the case, please remove the plugin and notify the author of the problem.>> :)

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Will wrote:

Please notify us of further developments to this app, but keep away from forcing your views onto others.  

I understand you want user feedback, but please take it in the 'constructive' rather than 'complaints' spirit.  

This board and it's members has a diverse level of users, but you seem insistant on maintaining a 'we're right, you're wrong attitude.  

I and the other moderators have had to warn off other users from continuing a discussion thread with you, and fielded complaints that you have an 'attitude'.  

No one is always right, you may well be putting forward a correct and valid point, but I don't think you are doing your OWN company a favour, I'd be scared to contact your support team with a problem!  

Any further developments, or comments on anything on this board are welcomed, and I still look forward to the finished app.  

I am going to 'sift' the thread, removing all irrelevant posts, but retaining the questions and answers.  

> Please notify us of further developments to this app, but keep away from forcing your views onto others.

We will. We have *never* forced our views onto others.

> I understand you want user feedback, but please take it in the 'constructive' rather than 'complaints' spirit.

This board and it's members has a diverse level of users, but you seem insistant on maintaining a 'we're right, you're wrong attitude.

I'm sorry that we feel like that. But in same cases it is just the reality, and you must recognise when that is the case. We are trying to be professional. Some members that frequent this forum are young and have obviously little experience in development or making real products. There is nothing wrong with that, they need to learn from experience. Like we all do.

> I and the other moderators have had to warn off other users from continuing a discussion thread with you, and fielded complaints that you have an 'attitude'.

Again, we have always argumented our answers very professionally. Do you feel that by doing that, we have an 'attitude' ?

I suppose that you are refering to some discussions that took place about PocketDivX. We said *many times* that it is *good* that some people port software like PocketDivX to the Smartphone platform.

> No one is always right.

Sometimes, there are facts that just are facts, whether you like them or not. Other times there are just opinions, and opinions are not always right, naturally. In fact they are never right, they are just *opinions*.

> you may well be putting forward a correct and valid point, but I don't think you are doing your OWN company a favour, I'd be scared to contact your support team with a problem!

No-one has ever been scared to report a problem to us. And we do fix problems when people report problems that are in our applications. When problems are traced in other applications or in the OS, we try to convey the word that something needs to be fixed. And sometimes it goes as high as OEM's or Microsoft, and we have caused them to fix problems in their kernel or in the drivers. In this way we have contributed to make WinCE better, and that's something that benefits to everyone. It's better to do that than to just sweep problems under the rug.

Trust us, we have more experience than many developers on this forum, because we have developed very popular applications on Pocket PC (99% same as Smartphone) for years. With close to a million people running our apps, we must be professional in our approch to problems.

> Any further developments, or comments on anything on this board are welcomed, and I still look forward to the finished app.

> I am going to 'sift' the thread, removing all irrelevant posts, but retaining the questions and answers.

I see that you have *censored* the discussion (in this thread) regarding the bug in your friend midnight's skin that interracts negatively with standard MessageBox dialogs. If you think it's a good way to solve the problem... We think the dozen posts that you have forcefully removed from this thread were perfectly relevant to the problem that was reported by a user on this forum.

In the future will recommend people to discuss this sort of issues on our own PocketTV for Smartphone forum, to prevent MoDaCo moderators from censoring postings that they just don't like for personal reasons.

[Guest midnight]

i think will was correct to remove those posts, it was getting into an argument between myself and you and not relevant to the topic.

as for removing the post where the user expressed the bug, simply check out page 4, that shows the bug, and a couple of comments made later.

i apologise to all for my negative attitude, and i will fix the problems with the extra screens (by the way, it isnt a skin, as i said, merely a reg tweak to access additional screens not normally skinnable), these are fixed for individual users who may, or may not replace the existing screens with the new ones i create.

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Yes, maybe he was correct... after all.

Sorry, I did not see that the user's comment were still there, so I edited my post above.

You don't have to appologize, really, since you are now having a good attitude! :)

I totally understand that what you did was a simple, quick registry hack, but obviously it does not work very well in some cases, and you could not have anticipated that.

Hopefully there will be a way to fix that...

Thanks, midnight! I hope, no hard feeling...

And I think I know understand completely the problem... You were trying to replace the background GIF that is displayed in Info boxes. Unfortunately the OS seems to align the GIF with the bottom of the window, making it impossible to use your image bacuse in some cases the window background is larger than the display size, causing the image to wrap around...

I understand what you were trying to do. Maybe you should try to convince MS to change the way they handle Info box background images, so that they can be skinnable, too.

That would be nice!

[Guest Will]

I have a duty to ensure that users who visit the thread get information, not an argument.

I will not and have not censored anyone, But as a moderator I want to maintain the quality of the content on this site.

I think that on re-reading the last 2 pages of the thread as it now stands, you should notice that I have presented both sides of the argument, and the fact that no 'satisfactory' resolution was found.

I would like to stress that you and any other developers are welcome to continue using MoDaCo for product feedback.

Will

[Edit] Oh i see you've posted - are we all friends again[/Edit]

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

I assume that you will *censor* the discussion regarding the bug in your friend midnight's skin that interracts negatively with standard MessageBox dialogs.  If you think it's a good way to solve the problem, go ahead :-)

I can only presume there is some sort of language barrier here :?

The title of this topic and some of the posts are valid and helpful

the main problem is the way some of the replies have been written.

They way I (and it seems most people in the UK) am reading your

replies they do seem very defensive and closed.

In regards to "*censor* the discussion" again you are not understanding what is being said,

we are trying to tidy up the topic to keep it relevent,

as I said it contains some very usefull information. We do not censor

anything unless it conflicts with the site rules.

On an aditional note please use the quote facility when replying as it

makes reading of the post easier. Also you do not need to break down every sentance,

just quote the post and give a give your reply, long posts

with lots of gaps do not go down well.

Everyone is treated the same on this site but remember I'm not as

forgiving as the other mods.

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

Ok, Will, I think we all agree now. Yes, we are all friends :)

Sorry we posted some inappropriately agressive answers, maybe...

And if you read my post above (edited), you'll see that (I think) I fully understand the issue, and I think midnight should convince MS to make it possible to make Info-box skinnable, which is what he was trying to do with his registry hack... but with the way MS handles background images in those dialogs, it does not work too well with his skins. Is my understanding correct ?

[Guest midnight]

yup, that is correct, ms has defaulted them to bottom right alignment, it is fixable by having a faded background that any text can be displayed over that does not affect any scrolling etc. only prob is, ms have already done that, and it looks a bit weak, oh well, lets see if i can find the standard dialog box xml files, if those can be edited maybe theres another solution

[Edited by will (language)]

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

> yup, that is correct, ms has defaulted them to bottom right alignment

Top-left might have been smarter!

But then again, it the background image wraps, with top-left aligment, it may render the bottom of the scrollable message unreadable, so it would not have been much better either...

[Guest jim80b]

is there a way to change to default colour of these alerts as when i do the txt stays black.

please dont tell me until u try first cause i have tried numerous times and i cant do it. if you can please tell me!!!

[Guest midnight]

well, two images would have been better, one that is top aligned, non-tiled, that is the title of the page, eg Information, alert etc., then, in the background is a static, non-scrolling image, that way the screens could be made to look real nice

jim80b, i have a feeling its fixed to black, cos the standard default ms screens have a white background. I'll have a look around tho, may be in an xml file somewhere.

anyways, enough of this, it isnt related to the topic :)

[Guest The PocketTV Team]

> well, two images would have been better, one that is top aligned, non-tiled, that is the title of the page, eg Information, alert etc., then, in the background is a static, non-scrolling image, that way the screens could be made to look real nice

I agree!

> jim80b, i have a feeling its fixed to black,

mhhhh... not sure.

I think the text color is one of the system colors, and on Smartphone, system colors can be changed (i.e. color theme Mint, Orange, etc... in Settings > Home Page).

Look at GetSysColor and something like COLOR_STATICTEXT.

So there's probably a way to configure this color using xml.

[Guest maxh2003]

For anyone looking for test files and other legally-downloadable content (!), the now-famous Cog advert for Honda is available from Honda's web site... it plays better in PocketTV than PocketMVP (which isn't surprising for an MPEG-1 file, of course...)

Cog advert from Honda's website