Database Users

Stopwatch Software for Himalayas

I'm just a newbie here on the board as well as a user of an O2 XDAII.
I would just like to ask if anybody have made a stop-watch or timer software that could be installed on the XDAII?
Thanks in advance.

Yes, actually I have as my first attemt at a .Net CF application.
It is a very simple stopwatch/strokecount application. If you want it, I can upload it.

That was a quick reply... please do upload it. If it is not a hassle, can you also indicate on how do I load it....I am really very new with my new toy..it's too high tech for my existing knowledge. TIA Kim

Now, as you will be able to see, it is an application in a very rough stage. AND there is a little thing that is not implemented (Save splits).
What you do is you unpack the zip file to a folder on your harddrive. Then you uploade the exefile to your XDA II using ActiveSync and Explore. (You just press the explore button in ActiveSync and you can copy/paste the .exe file to your device there.)
You can put the exefile anywhere, but you have to your Explore on your XDA II to execute the file. (I think you can make the program show in programs by placing a link in the \Windows\Start Menu\Programs folder)
Now, in order to use the app, here is a little explanation of the buttons.
Time gives you the pace of your presses. You have to press this button 3 times before you get a result. It gives you the number of presses you would have if you continued for 1 minute. (Used in rowing and swimming)
Then you have your start/stop button, and a split button. And the reset, just clears the boxes. Unfortunatly I have not made it pause. When you stop the watch, it starts from 0. This will be in another release
Hope you can use it, and do not hesitate to come with some surgestions.
Oh, and by the way, if you have .Net framework 1.1 installed on your pc, you can try out the application on that too....

You can also try these freewares:
Pocket Counter
StopTime
You may find them in the PocketPCFreewares site

tnx to you two

I don't know what else you are adding to the app but I would suggest button mapping.

wildthing said:
I would just like to ask if anybody have made a stop-watch or timer software that could be installed on the XDAII?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could look at Spb Time - multiple up and down timers, very nice.

gunsandrosses said:
I don't know what else you are adding to the app but I would suggest button mapping.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually that was part of my first alpha version made in eVC++ 4.0. But after switching over to C# and .Net I haven't gotten around to it. BUT it is going to be in there.

anyone know a stopwatch for the wizard - supporting wm5?
thx

[release] PhoneContacts

This is my first project for PocketPC. It's a simple Contacts replacement with search keypad.
PS: .NET CF 1.1 is required.
16/9/2006
- WM5.0 version added (category filter, contact update, contact delete bugs fixed)
11/9/2006 - 1.1.3.0
- Contacts list loads more faster on large amount of data
- Name filter and back button improved
3/9/2006
- Load Categories bug fixes
14/7/2006
- Added .NET 2.0 version
5/07/2006 - 1.1.2.0
- Added category filter
13/06/2006 - 1.0.1.6
- Some bug fixes
- Added Tools - Save Config
- Added Name [display] format

any screen shots of usage screens and config screens?
tested with which models?
tested with which os? wm5 or 2003se or?
Size of program after install?

It' tested only on O2 XDA mini, WM2003.

can you please upload it here. it says the file is corrupt if i download it. thanks

Here it is...
... moved into the first post

does this work with WM5?

Installed on Qtek 9100 WM 5. It works perfectly.
The only defects are:
When it is exited from the program loses the formulations of the English language and the dimension of the font.
Is not possible to set up the order of reading of the contacts 1°/2° or 2°/1° name.

dborello said:
Installed on Qtek 9100 WM 5. It works perfectly.
The only defects are:
When it is exited from the program loses the formulations of the English language and the dimension of the font.
Is not possible to set up the order of reading of the contacts 1°/2° or 2°/1° name.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About configuration(lang, font...): I dont know how program works on WM5. I'll try to correct it as soon as possible and i will add order of reading ( <FN MN LN> and <LN, FN> ).

thanks CDK. ill post it on my blog http://oldsap.blogspot.com

Great job - really. I love it. it works perfectly on my QTEK9100 as posted already. This is one tool which will replace the built in contacts.
Some more suggestions and hints:
- Program loading lasts very long - maybe it is decreasable??
- If i write a name the tool greps for all matches in the first and the last name. That is great. I love it. Is it possible to search also in the middle of the string. Example: Alex and i type lex
- Is it possible to grep not only first and last name but also the other fields which are defined in the Pocket Outlook Object model?
- Is it possible to have more search boxes or filter for the categories?
- Maybe it is possible to have a WM05 compile where for example a context menu pops up with all the selectable categories
- The russian/english problem posted already is also on my device
A lot of requests. Let me know if you find some useful.
Thanx anyway for this great app.

how do you install this? just copy all the files into a folder and run?

topcaser said:
Some more suggestions and hints:
- Program loading lasts very long - maybe it is decreasable??
- If i write a name the tool greps for all matches in the first and the last name. That is great. I love it. Is it possible to search also in the middle of the string. Example: Alex and i type lex
- Is it possible to grep not only first and last name but also the other fields which are defined in the Pocket Outlook Object model?
- Is it possible to have more search boxes or filter for the categories?
- Maybe it is possible to have a WM05 compile where for example a context menu pops up with all the selectable categories
- The russian/english problem posted already is also on my device
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok. I give some explanation. This program is written for my request and with my collaboration. That's why i try to answer some questions and I will post, sometimes, new release.
1. This is .NET :-( Here is a "hide"-feature added to solve (temporary) this problem. I think F.T.D. post here the source code as soon as possible. May be someone rewrite this on native C.
2. May be. But this may be unusable with huge contacts lists...
3 & 4. Describe, please, what you want to see. Perhaps this will be added in the hext releases.
5. ... requires WM5 device... :-(
6. This is corrected and will be posted today (if we understand the problem correctly)

ikkoku said:
how do you install this? just copy all the files into a folder and run?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes.

topcaser said:
...
- Is it possible to have more search boxes or filter for the categories?
- Maybe it is possible to have a WM05 compile where for example a context menu pops up with all the selectable categories
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will be VERY appreciate if you show me how to get available categories in system (it might be as well in .NET)

good job
have sudjustion.. i think it's beter to put the keys in ordenary like on the keybord .. it will be faster to tape for users how know where is every key in the keybord
thanks

miky420 said:
good job
have sudjustion.. i think it's beter to put the keys in ordenary like on the keybord .. it will be faster to tape for users how know where is every key in the keybord
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it will become customizable in the next releases.
For example:
- main file is a list: [picture name=text file (symbols code list)]
- every keyboards are: picture itself and text file with symbols code.

updated. see first post for details.

that's really gr8.... i like it......

is there a way this can work with .net cf2 because i have a .net cf2 loaded rom on my 8125 and when i try to run this it gives me an error

cybiker123 said:
is there a way this can work with .net cf2 because i have a .net cf2 loaded rom on my 8125 and when i try to run this it gives me an error
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
uploaded

I want to ask "How to cook a shortcut"?

Hi
Is there some convinient way to create shortcuts on wm5 ppc? some app with
-browse for file
-cmd line params
-browse for icon-dll
-insert icon number into cmd line
if there is no, one should be developed immediately
………

Turist said:
Hi
Is there some convinient way to create shortcuts on wm5 ppc? some app with
-browse for file
-cmd line params
-browse for icon-dll
-insert icon number into cmd line
if there is no, one should be developed immediately
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i cant believe everybody makes it manually
Come on! You help is needed!

thanks for the idea!

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
thanks for the idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i quess its irony... ;(
nevertheless i found one _ttp://www.s-k-tools.com/sksmgr/sksmgr.html
its almost free for ex-USSR so i`ll give it a try.

Turist: you might want to read some of OdeeanRDeathshead's posts. I don't think he was being ironic.
Frankly, I've never found it difficult to write shortcuts by hand, but the sktools app is great, as ever.
V

There was no irony. As I was reading your post I was coding my app to check on startup its current location then generate a new shortcut to replace its existing one in the startup folder. One reason i use a shortcut done by hand is to get the command line arguments in it. I use the command line to tell my program if it is being started after a soft reset. If it is it minimises itself after a couple of seconds. Of course I don't need to look up the icon because my shortcut is for my executable, from memory it was just trial and error getting the correct icon for things like poutlook. I think any shortcut generator would have to be able to copy the info from existing shortcuts to make it useable over different versions/os etc.

vijay555 said:
Turist: you might want to read some of OdeeanRDeathshead's posts. I don't think he was being ironic.
Frankly, I've never found it difficult to write shortcuts by hand, but the sktools app is great, as ever.
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not really difficult, but i`d like a little bit more comfortable way.
yep, sk-software is really good. paid yesterday for sktools, skshems, skshortcut manager.

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
There was no irony. As I was reading your post I was coding my app to check on startup its current location then generate a new shortcut to replace its existing one in the startup folder. One reason i use a shortcut done by hand is to get the command line arguments in it. I use the command line to tell my program if it is being started after a soft reset. If it is it minimises itself after a couple of seconds. Of course I don't need to look up the icon because my shortcut is for my executable, from memory it was just trial and error getting the correct icon for things like poutlook. I think any shortcut generator would have to be able to copy the info from existing shortcuts to make it useable over different versions/os etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you`ll never know what could happen with those little apps designed "for my internal use only"
ps: got myself vs2005, msd, wm5 sdk. would like to try to make an xml-parsing/registry-editing engine for universal registrytweaking tool. I really like the idea of RegistryWizard-tool, but not very much its design and functionality. will see...

I just finished updating my file open dialog. It can now create shortcuts that have command line arguments and it can extract the icons and their id from any file that contains them (exe dll). This will be available shortly as part of my almost (really) finished project.

OdeeanRDeathshead said:
I just finished updating my file open dialog. It can now create shortcuts that have command line arguments and it can extract the icons and their id from any file that contains them (exe dll). This will be available shortly as part of my almost (really) finished project.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great! And please notice - i`m not chraging you for this brilliant idea
will it be available as standalone utility too?

The shortcut functionality will not be limited in any way on the program, but no, it will not be stand alone. I tested on jamin today (wm2005) and the handle htc give for the port is good, unlike the atom. I spent the last week converting my lists in the file open dialog to owner drawn to try and cut the display time on the windows directory. It has 1300 items and was taking 23 seconds, I have cut that to 7 seconds. Resco take 3.

"Wrap" a Today plugin

I have a little project in mind, but would like some input from the pros to cut research time:
Is it possible to "wrap" a Today plugin dll with another, providing a "pass through" for operations (such as screen taps, etc)?
What I'm trying to accomplish is this: Add selectability and other one-handed d-pad operation to an older plugin that is not selectable.
What do you think?

it's possible but the problem is that the plugin have to keep track on what plugins it include and which handles it have to pass to them
could end up big and slow

Rudegar said:
it's possible but the problem is that the plugin have to keep track on what plugins it include and which handles it have to pass to them
could end up big and slow
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is specific to a single plugin - it would only keep track of one.
Perhaps plan B would be easier - a plugin that manipulates another plugin. Such that it would "appear" the older plugin was selected, etc. I guess I'd better go study some more...

Actually its really simple.
Any plug-in DLL exports a function called InitCustomItem. In this function the plug-in does all its initialization, and creates its window. The return value is the handle to this window which you can subclass to add functionality.
as for selection, there is a value in the registry for each plug-in (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Today\Items) which controls whether the system passes selection events to the plug-in or not.
it has three settings:
0 - non selectable, item will be skipped by the system.
1 - Automatic, the system will paint the item and handle selection on / off
2 - Manual, the system will pass the selection event to the item and the item will take care of the rest. In this mode the return value of the WM_ACTION determines whether the selection is moving on. This is good for multiline plug-ins that don't want to give up focus when arrow keys are pressed.

levenum said:
Actually its really simple.
Any plug-in DLL exports a function called InitCustomItem. In this function the plug-in does all its initialization, and creates its window. The return value is the handle to this window which you can subclass to add functionality.
as for selection, there is a value in the registry for each plug-in (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Today\Items) which controls whether the system passes selection events to the plug-in or not.
it has three settings:
0 - non selectable, item will be skipped by the system.
1 - Automatic, the system will paint the item and handle selection on / off
2 - Manual, the system will pass the selection event to the item and the item will take care of the rest. In this mode the return value of the WM_ACTION determines whether the selection is moving on. This is good for multiline plug-ins that don't want to give up focus when arrow keys are pressed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, thanks for the response! I've set the Selectability registry item for the older plugin, and it's ignoring it - that's what started me on this little project.
I'm a software developer by trade, but not with C++, so I don't want to waste people's time here asking a lot of dumb questions. If you could point me in the right direction on a couple of things, I'll go off and learn:
1. If all I have is a dll and nothing else (no .defs, etc), can I determine all of the functions it exports (other than InitCustomItem)?
2. Process check: My custom plugin's InitCustomItem would call old-plugin's InitCustomItem, snagging old-plug's hwnd. New-plugin would then initialize it's own window - transparent(?) and pass that hwnd back to windows. Also, my custom plugin would pass all messages to old-plugin, etc. Theoretically, old-plug would look and operate like normal?
If this is already written, just sent me the code!

Well I am afraid it will be difficult to do all this without C++. As far as WM based devices are concerned you need to use something that translates in to native code to create system components like the plugins son ,no .NET languages, and embedded VB doesn't do well on anything never that WM 2003 (not even SE), plus I am not sure if you can make DLLs with it at all.
To your questions:
1) There is a tool which comes with VS 6 called Dependency Walker. It shows you what functions a given DLL exports, what it imports from other DLLs and what DLLs it is link to. Woks on EXE files as well.
If you can't get that, download a demo of IDA 5. It's the most powerful disassembler for WM devices out there.
2) Not sure, I never tried anything like that. The thing is, the system resizes the plugins, on initialization (it controls height) and when screen rotation changes so if you pass back HWND for a window other than the one visible, it might cause some problems.
I think what you should do is learn about subclassing. It's when you replace the procedure of an existing window with your own (just replace the function, not create new window). You then get all the messages for that window, you can do what you want and call the original function when you done.
By the way, if you want to learn about writing plugins there is an article with code samples on this site: www.pocketpcdn.com and a lot of other interesting stuff.
Good luck.

What plugin is it? It might be easiest just to rewrite the plugin if you've got the code.
V

levenum said:
Well I am afraid it will be difficult to do all this without C++.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I should have been more clear - I am using C++, I'm just have to learn how to program with it first!
vijay555 said:
What plugin is it? It might be easiest just to rewrite the plugin if you've got the code.
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have the old-plugin source code. My little project is to add some sort of d-pad operation to the WeatherPanel plugin, which you're probably familiar with.
Progress: I've written and deployed my first little plugin - based on the source code samples available in the internet.
Next step: In my InitializeCustomItem, I thought I'd try to call WeatherPanel's InitializeCustomItem (instead of creating my own window). Thing is, I don't yet know how to properly link the WeatherPanel dll to my project. As expected, it only exports two functions: InitializeCustomItem and CustomItemOptionsDlgProc (I used dumpbin.exe)
I'll keep plugging away - any input would be appreciated.
Thanks for your help!

It's real easy:
Use LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress functions to call functions in other DLLs without linking them.

levenum said:
It's real easy:
Use LoadLibrary and GetProcAddress functions to call functions in other DLLs without linking them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What a coincidence! My studying led me to the same functions.
From within my plugin's InitializeCustomItem, I was able to successfully load the dll with LoadLibrayl, GepProcAddress of its InitializeCustomeItem (at ordinal 240) and call it. But it whacks the Today screen so that none of the plugins load.
Next I thought I'd try FindWindow and EnumChildWindows to find it and all it's children. Then manipulate them by sending messages...

storyr said:
What a coincidence! My studying led me to the same functions.
From within my plugin's InitializeCustomItem, I was able to successfully load the dll with LoadLibrayl, GepProcAddress of its InitializeCustomeItem (at ordinal 240) and call it. But it whacks the Today screen so that none of the plugins load.
Next I thought I'd try FindWindow and EnumChildWindows to find it and all it's children. Then manipulate them by sending messages...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Update: So far, so good. As it turns out, EnumChildWindows doesn't work on the PPC, so I used GetWindow to find the plugin's handle. I can successfully send messages to it and initiate various actions.
Question: I'd like to visually indicate (on the old-plugin) what's being clicked (such as drawing a box around it). Is it possible to draw things outside of my own window?

It is, but it's tricky.
You can always use the GetDC function to retrieve the DC for another window and paint on it, but the problem is that unless you subclass the window you have no way of knowing when it repaints it self and all your changes are erased.

levenum said:
It is, but it's tricky.
You can always use the GetDC function to retrieve the DC for another window and paint on it, but the problem is that unless you subclass the window you have no way of knowing when it repaints it self and all your changes are erased.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that exact thing (GetDC) and drew a rectangle in it, but it didn't do anything. I realized the reason was the WM_Paint event wasn't firing on old-plugin, and when it did, my stuff was erased (just like you said).
Next idea - open my own dialog window than overlays old-plug. The entire window needs to be transparent - except for the visual indicators that I position where I want. When the user ok's, I close the window and send the click to old-plugin...
Thanks again for keeping tabs on my progress..

No offence, but with all these rather advanced programming tricks you are attempting just to "sup up" an old weather plugin it looks to me like you would be better off just writing the whole thing from scratch.
It you are familiar with WinInet and / or sockets this should be pretty easy and it will look and work much better than the hack you are attempting now.
Plus you can make it exactly the way you like.

levenum said:
No offence, but with all these rather advanced programming tricks you are attempting just to "sup up" an old weather plugin it looks to me like you would be better off just writing the whole thing from scratch.
It you are familiar with WinInet and / or sockets this should be pretty easy and it will look and work much better than the hack you are attempting now.
Plus you can make it exactly the way you like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offence taken. I thought of that, but I figured this would be a good way to cut my teeth a little. Once I complete this little project, I may pursue that route...
Question: Do you have a favorite forum (or forums) besides this site that you use for your research/programming questions?

This is my favorite forum
But here are couple more sites I found very valuable:
www.pocketpcdn.com - They have tips and tricks with code examples arranged in categories like how to make MFC dialogs not full screen or the one I used in LVMTime to put the clock back on the taskbar.
www.codeproject.com - It's not specific to WM development but has tons of interesting stuff including entire sources.
You should also check out www.buzdev.net If you're not familiar with the great work of buzz_lightyear you should see some of the stuff he did for this forum like grab_it - the invisible ROM dumper.

OT
Just a quick OT question:
If I would move some of the plugin-dll's from \Windows to \Storage Card, would it be enough to change the adress within the corresponding item in the registry entry HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Today/Items ?
Of course I'm not talking about plugins like tasks a.s.o but rather third party plugins
Cheers
hrb

It won't work.
The problem is that the SD card is mounted too late so if you put the plugins on it they will not be loaded when device boots up.
You can move them to the extended ROM this way or to a folder other than windows but there is no way to move start-up stuff to SD.

Thanks for the help with this "little" project. After many hours, the product is out for beta testing. When it's released, I'll post more info...

Finished!
It's finished. The app is called WP-Pilot and it provides one-handed operation of WeatherPanel. If anyone's interested, it can be found here. Here's how it ended up:
There's a plugin (WP-PilotPlugin.dll) with an options dialog, and an executable (WP-Pilot.exe).
When the plugin gets selected, it looks for Weatherpanel. If it finds it, it fires off WP-Pilot.exe
WP-Pilot.exe opens. It does this stuff:
Look for WeatherPanel, and get it's screen coordinates.
Read the registry and determine which layout file WeatherPanel is using.
Open the layout file and read it: Record the coordinates of each "clickable" item found. This was a real PITA because of Unicode.
Sort the coordinates for left-to-right, top-to-bottom order.
Select the first coordinate and position a tiny window (10x10) at that x-y position.
Draw a "pointer" in the window (the type and color depends on what's selected in the options).
Show the window and process input:
[*]Left/right pressed - selected the next/previous coordinate and move the window to that location.
[*]Up/down pressed - close WP-Pilot and tell the plugin we're done.
[*]Center button pushed:
[*]Send a mouse click to the WeatherPanel plugin at the coordinates
[*]Close WP-Pilot and tell the plugin we're done.​
Thanks again for your help!

Close App with Command Line

I have SPB Pocket Plus and Oxios Memory's Close and Hibernate.
I was wondering if there is any command to target and close a particular program?
Basically i'm looking for something which is extremely simple and doesn't require a massive installation of another additional program.

Guys this is real important... I hope somebody can throw some light on this. I just need a small executable to be able to close a particular appliaction via the command line so I can make a shortcut out of it.
I've looked around a lot but can't seem to find anything.

The program SKScheMa (http://s-k-tools.com/) has the ability to kill a named process.
It will let you create a script to do it.

Hi ishra,
Thanks for the tip. However i'm looking for a much simpler way to do it without having to install any additional software.
Ideally, I'd like an exe file which via a command line parameter can shutdown a partucular application.

http://www.vijay555.com/?Releases:VJTaskKiller
It will also be improved (eventually) to close invisible tasks. If you need that feature, let me know and I'll prioritse.
V

hahaha... VJ... you rock.
I dunno why I didn't think of looking up your website. It was the most obvious thing to do... I looked everywhere and I missed your site.
Thanks so much.
EDIT:
VJ, I mainly wanted this app to be able to close a program called IDTransfer. The name of the task is also IDTransfer and that is exactly what I put in the shortcut. When I click on the shortcut for some reason it says
Warning - window
'IDTransfer
' not found!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The following is the line in my shortcut
61#"\Program Files\vijay555\VJTaskKiller\VJTaskKiller.exe" IDTransfer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Vijay, same problem here. It's not working (Orbit WM6). Is there any chance to have you to take a closer look what's wrong?
I tried to run it against a couple of application in order to kill them. Results as above. Window - not found