I am new to the whole PDA form so please forgive me if this is obvious but I have not found the answers on this site.
I have an O2 XDA mini s and am slowly getting the hang of it.
Problem: On closing all running programs in task manager I loose the use of the phone keypad, pressing the green call button brings up the phone application but minus the number keys, calls can still be made through contacts. A soft reset is required to recify.
?Related problem: In task manager, there are programs running that are not visible on the list (if I press below the last visible item something is selected and I can "goto" it.
Plus on occation the listed item takes me to a different program ie. selecting media player takes me to Word (no set pattern though).
All help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
StefanF: what task manager are you using?
V
Sorry, just to clarify, PDA is "as out of the box", so just the WM5 task manager.
Thanks for your interest, I have followed several of your posts and seen your site. You have some great programs I would like to use, particually like the big phone buttons and close application tool but am quite scared of this thing.
It may be a while before I mess to deeply.
Stefan: that sounds like an odd problem.
The built in task manager is useful but not very comprehensive.
If you want to view all running tasks etc, there are much better programs out there, many are freeware. If you can't find any better, check out one I've posted here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=190257#190257
It's not written by me, I've just re-added some features.
Note - closing the phone (cprog.exe) is not a particularly good idea unless you really need it, because some other apps expect it to be loaded (eg contacts)
My programs
Some are ok. You might want to try my program VJOkButt if you just want to close apps to keep your memory healthy. But that's subject to taste and it's not clear how useful - although on the Wizard, it might be helpful.
The big phone buttons are actually just for the universal, it's not designed for Wizard. Basically it's for VGA phones that are using the ful VGA hack.
I've got some other stuff coming out soon. Stay tuned :wink:
V
Phone application
Thanks for the info.
I think, from what you have said, I need to know what I am doing to shut down the phone application as it is never my intention.
Pitty about the big button program. Why is there not full customisation of the screen (as in desktop PC's, can change the size of buttons, scroll bars... both of which are to small for finger use on this)
As a side note, when I am in an application the menus and any selections within make a click upon pressing ie. in word, Menu>Cut each selection makes a click. I have all tap sounds off but the only way I can stop it is to turn the master volume all the way down. Any ideas?
Once again, thanks.
You have to overwrite some of the default sounds with empy sounds to disable all click sounds. At least that's what I did, but that was a long time ago..basically you use your pc, make an empty .wav file, and overwrite the necessary files in your \windows\ folder. If you're interested in doing this and need more help, shout out!
Closing the phone - yes, you would probably not close it without knowing what you're doing. I presume when you're not using the task manager you're not having the phone problems?
Try a program called CETuner to help play around with your scrollbars etc. It's good for modifying colour themes and various settings on the go. Another program worth looking at is Tweak 2k .net.
V
Many thanks.
Personally i'm currently using Magic Button to close apps and act as a task manager. http://www.freewareppc.com/utilities/magicbutton.shtml
It allows you to close or minimise apps, and by clicking the "house" icon on the windows bar you can also close all, soft reset etc. Final point on it is that you can see X number of running apps and touch to swap to them, or "hide when inactive" and "keep alive" so you dont close (or even see) some apps - i keep messages & phone in this state to improve response times but close use close all to kill everything else.
Danger using Task Manager
Stefan,
I had the same problem. Ideally you should use Start/Settings/System/Memory/Running Programs to close down active tasks. Yes, the Task Manager does it and you can launch it from the menu, but it is a bit dangerous (as I found out). The Phone app appears in Task Manager as an unnamed icon and its icon looks like the Windows Media Player one (at least it does on my XDA Mini S). Shutting this down will do exactly what you describe (I started a thread called 'Help I'm stuck in Contact History on this).
By all means use Task Manager if you want to, just don't shut all apps, leave the unnamed 'media player lookalike' icon.
Cheers. :wink:
To the original poster:
I had this problem when i got my XDA at first. To be honest, i think its the o2 active stuff that messes up the phone app.
My suggestion is this: back up any important data, then do a hard rerset of your phone. When the screen comes up about Standard, Corporate or Basic install choose the Corporate option and use the passcode 0506. this will allow you to use the phone without any of the o2 crap and since i done it i've had no problems with the phone.
just to let you know, this will stop the phone setting up its own GRPS and MMS settings, but if you phone o2 ar go into a shop then they will happily send them to you.
Hope this helps.
Task Manager or Active ?
I suspect that it is shutting down the phone app that's causing the issue not Active. I agree, get rid of Active if you don't like it (I use Basic so I still get the MMS settings), but I don't think Active is the cause.
Just my humble opinion of course.
I'd completely overlooked that StefanF was using o2. I'm an O2 and Orange user, but O2 active has never touched my system. Sounds like that's quite an oversight by them if the O2 Task Manager allows you to close the phone app... not recommended!
V
Oooer indeed
My friend has an XDA Exec (Universal) and he had lots of problems with the phone app which I strongly suspect were much the same thing. (although his apps in task manager were not unnamed, he had multiple phone apps running). I didn't know the Task Manager was an O2 add-on, I assumed it was a WM5 feature.
Related
G'day all
I recently got myself a lovely HTC wizard (branded O2 XDA Mini S, ). It's a device I've been researching for a while so I was very much excited to try out my first WM product when it arrived this morning.
However, for all it's beautiful design, it's really been a bit of a big pain on several ways. Most significantly and immediately noticable is the very sluggish interface. Some things, like notifications, I can dismiss fine, but the majority of actions, such as starting a program, opening one of the left-hand buttons or switching to landscape mode, take several (maybe 10) seconds to happen and even then the screen will only be partially and very slowly redrawn. This seems to only occur at the 'today' screen (other programs are pleasantly snappy). Anyway, it's rendering the today screen pretty useless and since it's the starting screen it means everything is taking much longer to do. Is this just my device or is this a recurring issue?
Cheers
Have you reinstalled without the o2 Active stuff (basic mode option I think). It the real hog.
Other than tat have a look around the messages is the forum for various registry hacks to speed this baby up.
It does work well, you just have to tweak the heck out of it.
So it's a matter of going around deleting stuff that 02 put on?
Basic install plus something like SPB or Magic button to close apps properly (apart from the ones you regularly use, such as phone/messaging/IE) makes the device at least twice as quick.
wilesd said:
Basic install plus something like SPB or Magic button to close apps properly (apart from the ones you regularly use, such as phone/messaging/IE) makes the device at least twice as quick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is exactly what I've done on my mini S...O2 Active is really doggy, the interface looks fine, but mini S can't affort....
Basic intall with SPD Plus work fine for me....I can now play mp3 & mp4 files smoothly with beta player, connect BT GPS receiver with TT5...
To really clear all the clutter, perform a hard reset and when you get to the 'about to customise' step (short countdown) perform a soft reset.
This results in a completely clean OS thats much more responsive. SPB pocket plus is a good app to install next.
There are other registry tweaks such as disabling menu animation that make an additional improvement to the responsiveness
There are plenty of discussions about this in the other threads - have a search around.
Dunno if this works on the Wizard but on the magician, if you map one of your buttons to the "Start" menu, then you can do a lot of program switching without going via today page - and the whole re-draw of it.
Particlulrly if you chose wisely the 5 programs that you can specify for the start menu.
jacro said:
To really clear all the clutter, perform a hard reset and when you get to the 'about to customise' step (short countdown) perform a soft reset.
This results in a completely clean OS thats much more responsive. SPB pocket plus is a good app to install next.
There are other registry tweaks such as disabling menu animation that make an additional improvement to the responsiveness
There are plenty of discussions about this in the other threads - have a search around.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The soft reset method is OK if you don't use MMS as the MMS app will not be installed, if you want to use MMS though the Basic install is better
I cleaned my mini-s the hard way
Hard reset, soft reset, then installed some of the extROM cab files manually and setup the GPRS manually too. Wizard now runs ok, its not fantasticly fast, TTN5 still takes time to load, and incoming calls while it loads cause problems (but thats only 15 secs!). Magic button is great, pick the apps you need to keep open (phone, text messages, etc) and "keep alive" and "hide when inactive" then just use close all to keep the RAM free.
Alright - I'll try one of these hard/soft reset cleans. But...
Another problem I've been having is that ActiveSync refuses to detect my device over USB. The USB connection seems fine (Windows XP detects new but unkown hardware - seems to lack an RNDIS driver or something), but a sync I can't make work.
So I can't install anything again. After a hard reset will applications such as phone and messaging be restored or will the require a reinstall (that I can't do)?
Also, remapping the buttons sounds like a brilliant idea. I'm not so big on IE so if I made that my start menu toggle I could reach a whole load of things one-handed. One thing that oft annoys me is when you have to close a program or dialogue box with the cross in the top-right. Can that be remapped to, say, the voice recorder button so I don't have to keep awkwardly touching the screen?
That Magic Button sounds handy also - freeware by any chance? I'll google it in a sec. It's annoying (well, peculiar, coming from a PalmOS background) to have several applications running at once - all that's needed is the phone/messager apps and perhaps the music player.
Thanks for all yer replies!
Hi. I've used the phone a bit, and I have GSPocketMagic++ but the phone app won't close with the X. Plus, even worse, in the menu I can see that there are 4 instances of the phone running! i.e. Seems like every time I go to the phone interface then it has a new instance in the list. (GSPM seems to be fine and great otherwise.) Thanks.
Now with another app, I'm seeing strange behavior on the part of GSPM (not closing another app and keeping it always on top), unfortunately, I'm guessing it's GSPM but it could also be the phone app.
what do - as a sufferer of this also s use magic button - free . . it solves it about 50-6-% of the times - but this is still my main cause to reboot . . .
I wrote an app, VJPhoneToggle or something, that will close cphone.exe
I've also written a generic task killer.
However, you should know that closing cphone.exe is not advisable. On my Mio A701 it puts the phone in flight mode and prevents calls coming in.
On the HTCs, trying to commence a call from the contacts screen will cause an error.
But otherwise, it's a good way to save a bit of memory. I wuoldn't really advise it though.
re the various instances of cphone running. Probably unlikely - more likely is that the various dialogs in cphone, eg callhistory etc, show up as seperate entries.
VJOkButt can help close some of the dialogs sometimes. But VJPhoneToggle is probably what you need.
V
As Vijay was hinting - you can get rid of the app by putting the device into flight mode. But the purpose of that eludes me. It's a (Pocket PC) phone after all...
AFAIK
MB doesn't really close the phone either.
Need to try the phonetoggle - lol i am still a vijay-virgin!!!
I have seen lots of posts that explain how to close running programs,
and how to get memory back.
But I would like to know how I can let software run continuously
in the background.
I put the exe. of the program it in my start-up folder, and after a reset the program runs.
But sometimes during the day I close all other running software, to get
back memory. But when I do, I forget to startup the one that needs to
run in the background continuously.
Can someone please explain how to let it run continuously, without
accidentally closing it ?
tnx.
Is there really no-one here that knows how to do it ?
winny said:
Is there really no-one here that knows how to do it ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends which soft you're using to close the whole set of running applications. Some of those applications managers have an option where you can put exceptions, so when you call the close all functionality, all the excluded apps won't be closed.
Cheers,
.Fred
or if u use vbar make ur program active and use the "close all axcept active" option...
How are you closing these apps?
As by default Windows Mobile keeps every app running in the backround (and is why you see so much talk about how to <i>really</i> close applications).
frazell said:
How are you closing these apps?
As by default Windows Mobile keeps every app running in the backround (and is why you see so much talk about how to <i>really</i> close applications).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows mobile just minimize them. In order to close them, you have to post a WM_CLOSE to the main window of an application. This should in most cases be enough to close an app.
Cheers,
.Fred
tnx guys for your help.
I use Wisbar, but I am not sure if there is an option in it to exclude
a program. I will look into it and see if it works.
I was also thinking about making a change in the registry to
keep the software moving.
As I am not a tech-guy, I do not know if this makes sense.
So forgive me, if this sounds stupid.
Having quite the same problem, just another exe - the CardAutoRun.exe, just another device, a Prophet; see my thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=278672
I also have a TaskMangager, but there CardAutoRun is not visible at all - and I very seldomly use it to close *all* applications.
Yesterday I did a soft reset, after which the CardAutoRun worked for two tests with two different cards - then I simply switched off my Prophet (sent it to sleep), switched on again - and the next SDcard inserted didn't autostart (as it _did_ just before off/on).
Obviously CheckAutoRun gets kicked out by that automatic task managing of Windows ...?
I found out that Wisbar does a good job.
In Wisbar/Settings/Task Management you can clearly define which
programs need to keep running in the background continuously,
even if you close all at the same time.
It does not work
Now, I thought that Wisbar (or taskmanagers in general)
would do a good job. There still is a problem.
Yes, wisbar (or some other task manager) will keep software
running in the background at startup.
But as soon as I start Internet Explorer, the software that
should keep on running in de background is closed.
No matter how I configure the Taskmanager, as soon as I
start Explorer ALL programs are closed automatically.
Does someone know what is happening here ?
hope this is the right place to post.. I am using the live 10.6.34.0800 and everything works fine except one part, closing it. I can't option to close the program. If i click on the "x" on top, it only minimize it and even so I can't find it under task manager. The only way to bring it back up is to click on the live.exe short cut again. So far the only way I can really shut down the program is to kill the process. I've used 10.6.33.0600 before and same problem.
Anyone else is experiencing the same thing? How do you go about it.
Thanks,
silvscorp said:
hope this is the right place to post.. I am using the live 10.6.34.0800 and everything works fine except one part, closing it. I can't option to close the program. If i click on the "x" on top, it only minimize it and even so I can't find it under task manager. The only way to bring it back up is to click on the live.exe short cut again. So far the only way I can really shut down the program is to kill the process. I've used 10.6.33.0600 before and same problem.
Anyone else is experiencing the same thing? How do you go about it.
Thanks,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use a task manager like X Button, HTC Task Manager, WkTask, etc.
That is way it is. If you still like it, use it. Can't argue with MS. There were more older WinCE programs were like that. The argument was why you need to close the programs? I was steamed. Take Pocket Informant as example, it opens automatically when bootup. By default, the "close" option is hidden until you know how to config the program (older version did not have that option). Another example is ActiveSync. It took tons of time to figure out how to control the damn sucker. Tell me who doesn't hate it. In fact you can find custom ROM's in this forum with added feature called "Kill ActiveSync". It is not only can't be close, it starts by itself and drains your batteries. Go figure!
tnyynt said:
Use a task manager like X Button, HTC Task Manager, WkTask, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In general under the "x" for htc task manager, all the active programs will be listed, (active sync, file explorer, etc) but after the Live Messenger is minimized (running in background) it doesn't even show up. Only way to close it is by killing it under task manager or process.
jychan28 said:
That is way it is. If you still like it, use it. Can't argue with MS. There were more older WinCE programs were like that. The argument was why you need to close the programs? I was steamed. Take Pocket Informant as example, it opens automatically when bootup. By default, the "close" option is hidden until you know how to config the program (older version did not have that option). Another example is ActiveSync. It took tons of time to figure out how to control the damn sucker. Tell me who doesn't hate it. In fact you can find custom ROM's in this forum with added feature called "Kill ActiveSync". It is not only can't be close, it starts by itself and drains your batteries. Go figure!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well if this is the way it is with the program then i guess i can kill it through process. Unlike active sync, this drains a lot memory, if I don't kill the program it will just hide in the background and constantly running, if I disconnect wifi, it'll auto connect to data network, so obviously this is a big problem.
Hello, I've just been thinking about using our devices in the car and have an idea, that I'm not sure has been developed, but I think would be useful for a lot of people on here:
It's nothing fancy, but I would like an application that allows programs to be made active by pressing a button. What I'm thinking is that if I'm driving I would like too have ready access to a handfull of applications (TomTom, MP3 player, FM Radio, G-Meter, Google maps, phone)
How this would work is that when the program is running a button press would move to the next application in a pre-defined list, and a second button would move to the previous application in the list. The 'next' and 'previous' app buttons should be configurable to take into account peoples devices and their preferences and the applications on the list and their order should be fully configurable.
As I said, the idea is to make using the device in-car a bit more practical, so I would like a couple of additional features, the application could be setup with a number of startup options, for example I would like to run the application and have it load up any of the listed applications that aren't already running and have a specific application as the default start position. I'd also like wi-fi to turn off if the phone isn't on charge and bluetooth to turn on and connect to my headset. Other options people might want are to turn the phone off, turn 3g off or close all other programs, or anything else to improve performance or battery life., such as turning off g-sensors, light sensors etc. it would be good if the notification preferences could be changed, so that for example emails don't pop up over TomTom, or a separate screen that shows the new message enlarged to full screen perhaps, then goes back to TomTom. Closing the application could also return everything to the way it was before hand. I'm sure you all have loads of ideas for in-car options as well.
I'm basically thinking, one screen press and the device becomes optimised for use in-car, close the application and it goes back the way it was.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud, I don't have the skills required to take something like this beyond the ideas stage as my programming skills don't extend beyond modifying other people's html, but I'm hoping someone will see this and think its a good enough idea to be worth putting into practice.
Cheers
Paul.
No one think this would be useful?
I like the idea, but to develop it could be a bit too much...
for use in car especially with tomtom i believe that task managers like dynamo, taskfacade or mortbuttons are very useful:
one button and you switch from apps to apps without stylus...
having already used it while driving, i think its very comfortable to use...
another existing app that can be useful is voicecommand... clik and speak to run the app, it works great if your car is not too noisy (so not in my case lol )
Oh ok, I'll have a look at those programs, see if I can make those work. The only thing I'm thinking is that it might be quite important to have two different setups for in-car and normal use.
Don't suppose you know any apps that can be used to turn on bluetooth and attach to my headset through on press of the screen do you?
ht buttoon sllows you to use one button for multiple applications, but i dunno about the task manager stuff.... basically you want a program from different profiles, kind of like airplane mode
Might not be exactly what you are looking for but what about using a launcher like Throttlelauncher and setting up a custom tab with only the application buttons you need to use in the car? At the moment I use TomTom and Audio Manager together and find it very easy to switch between the two while driving using Throttlelauncher.
Not sure about notifications off though - maybe a script?
Just my thoughts out loud too.
its too hard to develop i hope u r thinking motivate someone
Thanks for the replies, I'm playing around with Mortbuttons to see if it'll do what I want and will have a look at a few other things.
A couple of people have said it is too difficult to develop, I know I don't know very much about whats involved, but I would have thought it would be much easier than most of the applications that are developed on here. What I'm looking for is basically a script that when run will load a list of applications, then use two of the hardware buttons to 'scroll' from one app to the next. I did list other things that would be good additions, but the basic premise seems pretty straightforward and wouldn't have any graphical element, other than the configuration menu.
Anyway, if someone wants to have a go, I'm sure it would prove very popular with the drivers on here!
Cheers.
Just create your own theme using something like WAD2.