Database Users

"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!

Open Source Today Screen Widgets app

There are a lot of clock area today screen apps out there, from the simple such as PDClock, through mid-level stuff like HTC home, up to the fully customizable rlToday.
Few of these seem to be a good all-round solution though, except maybe rlToday, but I am having issues with the rlToday / Sys-to-Reg / Mortscript combo, both in terms of features (ie no support for "on" or "off" images), stability, and ease-of install (S2R seems a bugger to set up right, especially for the less technically inclined user), and the whole rlToday / S2R / Mortscript combo is hardly a turnkey one-install solution.
So to that end, I decided to try my hand at crafting a solution more appropriate to my needs.
Now, until this point I have never coded for C++ or windows mobile. I am not even a professional coder, far from it, but I do have a knack for designing good solutions, so I thought I would start teaching myself native C++ and see what I could come up with. Ultimately, my goal is to release as open source, I am hoping to maybe start a sourceforge project at some point...
I am making this post because I am now starting to get past the proof-of-concept stage and am coming up with some working code. I am tackling the various hurdles one by one and learning as I go, but it is starting to look promising.
This thread is to serve two purposes:
1) Gather my thoughts on how things are going to work so potential users can chime in on possible tweaks or changes to the features and how they should work.
2) Serve as a rallying call for any (preferably more experienced) coders who wish to get involved. I will post up any problems that I am having surmounting various issues, please feel free to help out on those. If an experienced coder liked the project that much and wanted to take the lead, I have no issues with that, as long as it remained open source.
So, with that out the way, here is what I am thinking so far:
Overall idea is pretty similar to rlToday - a script (ie a .INI or .XML file) which lists Widgets is processed and the result is drawn on the screen.
For example, here is an example INI file for a background (say transparent) PNG with a clock overlaid in the middle of the PNG, that has different layouts / images for portrait and landscape mode on a qVGA device.
Code:
;ini profile for qVGA (240 width and 320 width)
;PORTRAIT
[PortBG]
width=240
widget=image
clickable=0;
image="bgport.png"
x=0
y=0
[PortClock]
width=240
widget=text
subwidget=clock
clickable=1
clicktype=exe
clickstring="<exe to launch calendar>"
dateformat = "dddd MMMM d"
x=120
y=25
origin="cc"
;LANDSCAPE
[LandBG]
width=320
widget=image
clickable=0
image="bgland.png"
x=0
y=0
[LandClock]
width=320
widget=text
subwidget=clock
clickable=1
clicktype=exe
clickstring="<exe to launch calendar>"
dateformat = "dddd MMMM d"
x=160
y=25
origin="cc"
The [Name] of each section actually does nothing, but it will be useful in debugging / error messages ("Image for [PortBG] not found!").
Widget = choses which kind of widget it is (eg Image, Text)
subwidget = choses the subtype of widget (eg clock is a subtype of text)
The Width= entry is an idea I came up with to handle multiple screen orientations and resolutions within one profile. Basically, as this is not intended to be a full-screen app, the only relevant dimension is the screen width. Each widget therefore has an associated width. When the screen is rendered, it will check what the current width is and only render widgets that match that width. Furthermore, if a script has entries for resolutions not supported by your device, these will be ignored. Profiles are likely to be a directory with one .INI file and assorted images. Images can be in subdirectories, say grouped by width (ie a "240" dir and a "320" dir for qVGA) - that way you could release a skin as one zipped dir that supported all devices and resolutions, and you would not need to upload the "480" and "640" dirs to a qVGA device, thus saving storage space.
Each widget also has x/y coords, which usually refer to the top left, but the origin entry can change that (eg cc would be centre horizontally and vertically)
Each widget will also be able to be specified as clickable, with options as to what to do when it is clicked.
With this system it should be possible to create most things, however, here is what I am currently NOT planning on doing:
I am not aiming at offering tabbed pages of widgets, or an easy way to change widgets without writing a new script. This is aimed at a companion to something like UltimateLaunch for handling the top of the screen - a Clock, SMS / Missed Calls / VM messages, BT / WiFi status and toggles etc.
I am currently using VS2005 and the WM5 SDK, but the app is still so simple that this could probably be changed. I would like to support as much as possible, but am not overly worried about providing backwards compatibility beyond WM5. I am using Native Win32 - I want to avoid as much bloat as I can.

Planned features:
Per-pixel Alpha PNGs - IMPLIMENTED
Widgets parsed from INI - IMPLIMENTED
Parse only items from INI that match screen caps - IMPLIMENTED
Display only items that match current screen width - IMPLIMENTED (Effectively switch profile on screen orientation change)
Options screen to set current profile
Widgets
======
Text Type: - IMPLIMENTED
Source: String in INI - IMPLIMENTED
Source: String in Registry
Source: Date from format string - IMPLIMENTED
Image type: - IMPLIMENTED
Plain image - IMPLIMENTED
Status Image - Registry value
Toggles - BlueTooth / WiFi / Phone etc
Other features
===========
Multiple screen resolutions supported per INI - IMPLIMENTED
Detect Power but no Activesync - Allow enabling of BlueTooth for automatic pairing with in-car BT handsfree.

Current questions and stumbling blocks:
Having issues finding a lightweight way of displaying per-pixel alpha PNGs. Current thinking is that AlphaBlend is perfectly capable of doing the blending, it is just SHLoadImageFile that is stripping the alpha info.
See threads here and here
Not sure how I am going to handle toggling of BT / WiFi. Could use VJ's tool, but I would rather do it in my code. Any pointers on how to do it and maintain maximum WM5 / WM6 compatibility would be appreciated - VJ's tool will not toggle WiFi on my Kaiser anyway...
Could do with decent chop and chomp routines (split by char and remove leading / trailing whitespace) - does anyone know an easy way to do this in native code?
Need to work out how to find the size of a text string in pixels *before* it gets drawn to the screen with ExtTextOut
Need to impliment a date format string to text string converter that can handle date and time objects in the same string
Currently I use a bit of code to look at the string and pass it to either GetDateFormat or GetTimeFormat, but not split the string and pass relevant bits to relevant routine, then reassemble.
Need to make whole thing a today item, but delaying doing this as it seems that debugging will be harder? I also guess this would be quite easy, so I am planning on leaving this until near the end. Any advice on this subject would be appreciated.

I am interested in this. I don't know C++, but I have experience coding with other computer languages. I'll definitely be following this thread and watching for updates.

iContact source contains some pretty lightweight INI library. It isn't written by me, and it's called SimpleIni. Everything is contained in one .h file and it's very easy to use.
good luck,
larna

larna said:
iContact source contains some pretty lightweight INI library. It isn't written by me, and it's called SimpleIni. Everything is contained in one .h file and it's very easy to use.
good luck,
larna
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice one, thanks

I got simpleini in and working - you were right larna, it was really easy and pain-free. Thanks!

Update:
I have a working prototype.
All basic functionality coded - text and image widget types, orientation switching, ini parsing...
Currently still not a today item, and there is loads to do in terms of error checking and freeing up memory etc, but it parses INI files OK
Once I have done some tidying up, I will release some source and maybe a demo EXE.

Hey!!
I'm already developing an application which load and extends rlToday Themes!
sources will be released soon!
The app is XIAMultitheme:
Done:
- fully working rltoday themes on a HWND
- done today plugin
- loading external dll
- all widgets are external dll
To do:
- avoid image loading via ImageFactory due to memory leak on wm6x
- port to CxImage to load PNG
- use AAROT to free rotate images (analog clock)
- today plugin does not load the engine yet
http://www.xiaprojects.com/?section=All&project=XIAMultiTheme
what do you think? mail me on priv (stefano) on xiaprojects.com

stefanux said:
Hey!!
I'm already developing an application which load and extends rlToday Themes!
sources will be released soon!
The app is XIAMultitheme:
Done:
- fully working rltoday themes on a HWND
- done today plugin
- loading external dll
- all widgets are external dll
To do:
- avoid image loading via ImageFactory due to memory leak on wm6x
- port to CxImage to load PNG
- use AAROT to free rotate images (analog clock)
- today plugin does not load the engine yet
http://www.xiaprojects.com/?section=All&project=XIAMultiTheme
what do you think? mail me on priv (stefano) on xiaprojects.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi stefano
i see nothing on your web site , nor screenshots nothing in download binaries
Why ???

evilc said:
Update:
I have a working prototype.
All basic functionality coded - text and image widget types, orientation switching, ini parsing...
Currently still not a today item, and there is loads to do in terms of error checking and freeing up memory etc, but it parses INI files OK
Once I have done some tidying up, I will release some source and maybe a demo EXE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you upload here the demo program ?

Sounds pretty neat!
I don't understand some of the terminology you use, but I think you may be talking about a feature I had an idea for:
profiles (XML files) can be associated with a today plugin such that you can make a profile appear in the today plugins list for each skin (XML file) you have installed - thus making each XML profile behave like it was a today plugin in it's own right.
Is that what you are talking about?

brunoisa10 said:
can you upload here the demo program ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Demo uploaded to first post. Unzip it to \Storage Card\shared on your device and run.
BE AWARE, there is very little error checking when parsing the INI.
If you omit a horizres line for any widget, for example, the program will crash.

Well I checked out XIAMultiTheme and it looks promising.
I was not aware that there was a memory leak bug in IImagefactory, I wasn't planning on using it in the final version anyway, so no biggie.
If XIAMultiTheme is capable of doing what I had envisaged for openClock, I will probably stop development, as you obviously know what you are doing much more than I do
However, a couple of points:
1) Size.
XIAMultiTheme seems to be a lot bigger and requires .NET - This seems to mainly be to do with the CxImage library - just PNG support seems to add more size than my entire app is! I am flabberghasted that supporting per-pixel Alpha PNGs takes this much, an alphablend routine can be done in a K or two, hundreds seems overkill. Apart from the requirement for rotation (for analogue clocks) I do not see why a full image lib is needed. Just a load and alpha blit.
2) Orientation awareness.
As in I don't see any in XIAMultiTheme. I am really happy with the way I have handled this in openClock - each item in the INI (XML in your case) has a "horizres" value associated with it. At render time, current screen width is compared to each item's horizres and if it matches, the item is drawn, if it doesn't then it isn't shown.
This provides a nice way to combine portrait, landscape and multi-res capabilities into one theme. And as long as you allow relative paths in the theme(eg 320\320bg.png, 240\240bg.png, common\common.png) then you can have a theme which supports all resolutions and orientations, and allow the user to store what they want on their PPC (eg if their device is qVGA, they know they do not need to put the 640 and 480 dirs on their PPC for a given theme, as they won't be used)
3) Stateful buttons.
Items like a voicemail button / wifi button etc should probably have two images associated with them - one for "no messages", one for "have messages". I was planning on putting something in openClock along the lines of specifying a reg key, an operator and an image.
eg:
regkey=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\...
on=thisimage.png, gt, 0
off=thatimage.png
To set to thisimage if the key is of value greater than (gt) 0 or thatimage.png if not.
Good luck!

evilc said:
just PNG support seems to add more size than my entire app is!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep. Same goes for MortButtons... (and MortPlayer, but there, the player itself is bigger in relation...)
I am flabberghasted that supporting per-pixel Alpha PNGs takes this much, an alphablend routine can be done in a K or two, hundreds seems overkill.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The alphablend routine is in the Draw method, and even in source code not much more than 1kB.
The trouble is to load the PNG without losing the alpha information. With Windows' API, you can't do it - there's only the crippled SHLoadImage. So you need the entire code to decode PNGs, i.e. libpng, which in return requires zlib - over 200kB only to load PNG! The remaining kBs are spend to load/decode JPEG (quite some kBs, too), GIF (if enabled), BMP, ... and some basic image processing (resample, rotate, ...).
btw, you might want to check MortImg.dll and MortImage.lib, which is a (quite) simple wrapper. If only one image library is used, at least some memory on the device is saved (and if MortButtons or MortPlayer since b72 is used, also main memory).
Check out http://mort.svnrepository.com/svn/mort/MortTools/trunk with any SVN client (e.g. Tortoise), use "guest" for login and password.

evilc said:
Well I checked out XIAMultiTheme and it looks promising.
I was not aware that there was a memory leak bug in IImagefactory, I wasn't planning on using it in the final version anyway, so no biggie.
If XIAMultiTheme is capable of doing what I had envisaged for openClock, I will probably stop development, as you obviously know what you are doing much more than I do
However, a couple of points:
1) Size.
XIAMultiTheme seems to be a lot bigger and requires .NET - This seems to mainly be to do with the CxImage library - just PNG support seems to add more size than my entire app is! I am flabberghasted that supporting per-pixel Alpha PNGs takes this much, an alphablend routine can be done in a K or two, hundreds seems overkill. Apart from the requirement for rotation (for analogue clocks) I do not see why a full image lib is needed. Just a load and alpha blit.
2) Orientation awareness.
As in I don't see any in XIAMultiTheme. I am really happy with the way I have handled this in openClock - each item in the INI (XML in your case) has a "horizres" value associated with it. At render time, current screen width is compared to each item's horizres and if it matches, the item is drawn, if it doesn't then it isn't shown.
This provides a nice way to combine portrait, landscape and multi-res capabilities into one theme. And as long as you allow relative paths in the theme(eg 320\320bg.png, 240\240bg.png, common\common.png) then you can have a theme which supports all resolutions and orientations, and allow the user to store what they want on their PPC (eg if their device is qVGA, they know they do not need to put the 640 and 480 dirs on their PPC for a given theme, as they won't be used)
3) Stateful buttons.
Items like a voicemail button / wifi button etc should probably have two images associated with them - one for "no messages", one for "have messages". I was planning on putting something in openClock along the lines of specifying a reg key, an operator and an image.
eg:
regkey=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\...
on=thisimage.png, gt, 0
off=thatimage.png
To set to thisimage if the key is of value greater than (gt) 0 or thatimage.png if not.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks you for your good words
1) beta version will be lighter ... (need to known what image loader use)
2) will be done on Page component (tab themes are already working)
3) will be done on sensor dll with "regex" (maybe)
XIAMultiTheme is in alpha development...
I would like to "merge" code with you or may be DLL collaboration.
XIAMultiTheme does NOT need .NET it's low level GDI "C" source
When XIAMultiTheme go on Beta status the dll will be around 10kb
Configurator is .net
Thanks you

Thanks for that mort!
However, if my entire app is (currently) 61K and it supports per-pixel alpha PNGs (Via the apparently bugged IImagefactory), then surely it is more than possible in less than 100K.
It seems like libpng must be grotesquely bloated for our needs. In an ideal world, someone would re-code SHLoadImage to not lose the alpha channel for PNGs. Maybe a workaround would be to convert the PNG into a 32bit per-pixel BMP with alpha before it is passed to SHLoadImage, as SHLoadImage deals with alpha BMPs just fine and AlphaBlend works just fine with AC_SRC_ALPHA data.

stefanux said:
thanks you for your good words
1) beta version will be lighter ... (need to known what image loader use)
2) will be done on Page component (tab themes are already working)
3) will be done on sensor dll with "regex" (maybe)
XIAMultiTheme is in alpha development...
I would like to "merge" code with you or may be DLL collaboration.
XIAMultiTheme does NOT need .NET it's low level GDI "C" source
When XIAMultiTheme go on Beta status the dll will be around 10kb
Configurator is .net
Thanks you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi stef,
I am more than happy to help out on your project with design ideas, testing and proofreading of english translations.
I have plenty of ideas on what the ultimate today screen widget app should feature, I just had to set my sights lower due to my (lack of) coding abilities.
Do you have a forum or something on your site? I don't see one.
I am slightly concerned about point (3) and your regex example. I would maybe try and keep it simpler, XML is already a little complicated for non-technical users to understand, throwing regexs into the mix may be the straw that broke the camel's back. That's why I went with INI files - simpler to use for lusers

evilc said:
Thanks for that mort!
... it supports per-pixel alpha PNGs (Via the apparently bugged IImagefactory), ....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please try to do this test:
load 20 png's with imgfact. and start drawing all of them like a simple animation for 10 fps... image[]->Draw() after 5 minutes my application will blow up my pda (wm61) I thinks it's a "COM" bug because it happend only calling "Draw"

stefanux said:
Please try to do this test:
load 20 png's with imgfact. and start drawing all of them like a simple animation for 10 fps...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you kidding??? 10FPS? I have a kaiser!
Seriously though, if we can get a code snippet that proves this, surely we can get MS to issue a patch?

MyQuotes 2.5 Released! - Powerful Today Plugin Reader

Overview
MyQuotes is a desktop application which you can read eBook or study vocabulary or display personalized picture. In addition, MyQuotes is very customizable, you can configure MyQuotes to change the quotes and/or background image every several seconds/minutes/hours, you can also change it by clicking or key-press for prev/Next/Random. MyQuotes support many modes that be suit for different scenes(like as reading/learning...), you can append new mode and delete old mode, and these modes can be convenient switched by desktop context menu.
MyQuotes has appended three modes by default:
1. Reading: for reading eBook;
2. Learning: for learning vocabulary words
3. Exciting: for dislpay picture/quotes/affirmations/saying
MyQuotes fetchs the content from TEXT files (specified at mode settings) that can be created and edited for convenience.
Features
Blow is a general list of features for MyQuotes Today Screen Plugin:
Desktop eBook reader
Can display quotes/affirmations/saying
Can display BMP/JPG/PNG/GIF image files
Support fixed display lines
Support fixed file lines( Word Wrap/Scrolling text)
Conveniently switch mode and file by context menu
Full customizable text files and image files
Support TEXT file format(ANSI/UTF16/UTF8)
Manual actions, such as clicking/draging/scrolling/pressing
Automatic actions, such as every several seconds/minutes/hours
Multiple change style, such as Next/Prev/Lock/Unlock/Random/Direction by region
Multifarious appearance, such as Background/Margin/Alignmeng/ProgressBar/Font
MyQuotes lights your heart.
You can access the MyQuotes's BBS : www.addintimer.com
or download at : http://classic.pocketgear.com/software_detail.asp?id=26723
or direct download the attachment following

Nice, but is it freeware or what..?
Has anyone tried...??
cheerz

it sounds so great idea
good work
but which format does it support for reading ?
pdf ? txt ?
thanks for the hard work

This costs $9.95 at Pocketgear.

haam1978 said:
it sounds so great idea
good work
but which format does it support for reading ?
pdf ? txt ?
thanks for the hard work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MyQuotes fetchs the content from TEXT files (specified at mode settings) that can be created and edited for convenience.
Support TEXT file format(ANSI/UTF16/UTF8)
Thanks

Unfortunly it says is trial version...
Registration
By default, MyQuotes will be installed as a trial version, which will expire after 14-days from the original installation date. To permanently activate MyQuotes on your device, you¡¯ll need to purchase the software to obtain a valid 5-digit reg key code number. Entering this code number in the ¡°About¡*¡± form will convert the trial version to the full version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Needs instructions or help file
Guoyd
MyQuotes looks pretty flexable and seems to have capabilities that I'm looking for. So I bought it. However, I'm having trouble in configuring the program. Can you provide some instructions on what each of the configuration setting do? This would make things so much easier!
To help me learn Japanese, my goal is to use it to randomly post different Japanese words and phrases with their meaning on the today screen every few hours.

Today Screen Item Disabler

Ok,
So after digging around and reading a lot on MSDN, I found no way to disable all plugins on the today screen. I also discovered that XML provisioning does not like certian kinds of characters even if you use HTML coding
so... that being said, allow me to introduce my first (and very basic) application to the XDA forums.
TodayDisabler.
What it does is it opens the protected registry keys that control what items appear on the today screen and sets them all to enable = 0
I purposefully wrote this app with no interface so that you can use it in your provisioning to disable all items on your today screen no matter what items are currently enabled.
How To Use:
Place the item on your storage card wherever you want
Use the XML: or CPY1:/CPY2: (SDCondig.txt) commands to copy the file to a location without spaces (maybe \windows)
Use the EXEC: (SDCondig.txt) command to launch the file
I would recomend using XML to delete the file afterwards so its not wasting space on your device (a whopping 9k) or maybe so you dont run it accidentally and disable all of your plugins
Now that all of your plugins are disabled, you can use WAP provisioning, CAB files, or reg files to enable just the ones you want!
I know I am still reletively new compared to others. so if any of you are a bit unsure about running any of my app, I would be more than happy to post the source code to this application

thanks I try..coming soon

So if I understand this correctly once I run TDY Disabler all of my plugins are disabled and won't show in the Today Settings list, so I would have to use something such as SKTools to re-enable the plugin so I can check it off in Today Settings????

Sorry to appear thick, but... why?
I mean, apart from the instructional value writing it, why would someone use it?

NICE
little app

So if I understand this correctly once I run TDY Disabler all of my plugins are disabled and won't show in the Today Settings list, so I would have to use something such as SKTools to re-enable the plugin so I can check it off in Today Settings????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No thats not the case, all of your plugins do show in the today plugins list, so you can enable them at any time
Sorry to appear thick, but... why?
I mean, apart from the instructional value writing it, why would someone use it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The point of the app is for those of us who constantly flash and use provisoning scripts. Each rom has different plugins enabled on the today screen. While its not much to just go into the today applet to disable them, it is an extra step to do so.
Running this application simply disables all of them (same thing as unchecking them in the Items tab on the Today settings screen.) This way a frequent flasher can run a cab or XML file to enable only the plugins they use

RickoT said:
The point of the app is for those of us who constantly flash and use provisoning scripts. Each rom has different plugins enabled on the today screen. While its not much to just go into the today applet to disable them, it is an extra step to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, got it - thanks for the explanation.

Thanks for the clarification, would have been great if it actually gave you a list and the ones you did not want would be removed from the list entirely.

iggy said:
Thanks for the clarification, would have been great if it actually gave you a list and the ones you did not want would be removed from the list entirely.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was thinking about doing something like that, but all it would do is remove the registry entries, not necessarially the application from your device.

No I did not want the application removed, just the today item disabled and removed from the today settings list. Their is a bunch of today items for installed apps and apps that are standard in the ROM that I do not use at all but they are all listed in the Today Settings. Right now I have to use SKtools and remove the registery entry 1 at a time.

True, I will put something together for you today

Here ya go
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=404662
Today Item Remover

[XAP][SOURCE] WP8 Registry Tools

Rebranded to WP8 Registry Tools from Lumia Registry Modifier
This is a basic registry viewer/editor demonstration using Registry dlls pulled from Nokia xaps within the latest FFUs.
First, a few things to note.
1) This only retrieves values from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
2) It CAN read DWORD values now, but can't write. (Hell you probably won't be able to write ANYWHERE, but the code is there)
Instructions are quite simple.
To Read Values:
1) Put the Registry key in the first box (ex. SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Codepage\1254
2) Put the Registry Value in the second box (ex. 1254)
3) Press Get Value.
To Set Values:
1) Put the Registry key in the first box (ex. SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Codepage\1254
2) Put the Registry Value in the second box (ex. 1254)
3) Put the new registry value result in the Set Value box.
4) Press Set Value.
This is very very basic, but I wanted to just show off something using what Nokia has provided us.
We can't write dword values unfortunately so hopes of using this to change the MaxUnsignedApp value are lost. This MAY be possible with @GoodDayToDie 's WP8NativeAccess library, but with this it isn't.
In case everyone wondered what that key is... SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DeviceReg\Install
Side load away

Hmm... I get Access Denied in my library on most keys that I've tried to write. If you can write the codepage, that's interesting (generally speaking, HKLM has stronger protections). I'll double-check whether I can write there myself. If not, but you can, then we have an elevated privilege attack vector...
Also, we should see whether the app runs on non-Nokia devices. I suspect that it will, if it works the way I think it does, but in that case it also won't have much in the way of permissions.
Getting DWORDs to work is a good project, I'm sure it's possible (works fine in NativeAccess, incidentally).
EDIT: Any chance you could include the source?

snickler said:
This is a basic registry viewer/editor demonstration using Nokia's Native Registry dll pulled from one of their apps.
First, a few things to note.
1) This only retrieves values from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
2) DWord values aren't supported.
Instructions are quite simple.
To Read Values:
1) Put the Registry key in the first box (ex. SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Codepage\1254
2) Put the Registry Value in the second box (ex. 1254)
3) Press Get Value.
To Set Values:
1) Put the Registry key in the first box (ex. SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Codepage\1254
2) Put the Registry Value in the second box (ex. 1254)
3) Put the new registry value result in the Set Value box.
4) Press Set Value.
This is very very basic, but I wanted to just show off something using what Nokia has provided us.
This doesn't seem to work with dword values unfortunately so hopes of using this to change the MaxUnsignedApp value are lost. This MAY be possible with @GoodDayToDie 's WP8NativeAccess library, but with this it isn't.
In case everyone wondered what that key is... SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DeviceReg\Install
Side load away
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
atleast its a start.

GoodDayToDie said:
Hmm... I get Access Denied in my library on most keys that I've tried to write. If you can write the codepage, that's interesting (generally speaking, HKLM has stronger protections). I'll double-check whether I can write there myself. If not, but you can, then we have an elevated privilege attack vector...
Also, we should see whether the app runs on non-Nokia devices. I suspect that it will, if it works the way I think it does, but in that case it also won't have much in the way of permissions.
Getting DWORDs to work is a good project, I'm sure it's possible (works fine in NativeAccess, incidentally).
EDIT: Any chance you could include the source?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ah yes, sorry about that. Let me load up my laptop
EDIT: Source added.

Hi I found the Registry item
(File path : <ffu>\Windows\Packages\RegistryFiles\SOFTWARE.REG)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\KindMap
where we can set extensions and their types.so is it possible to add a new extension so that it will also be supported and visible in sdcard ?

vivekkalady said:
Hi I found the Registry item
(File path : <ffu>\Windows\Packages\RegistryFiles\SOFTWARE.REG)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\KindMap
where we can set extensions and their types.so is it possible to add a new extension so that it will also be supported and visible in sdcard ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't support creating new key values, only modifying existing ones. If the data is within one key value and it's able to be read, then it should be able to have things added to it.
EDIT: From what I've seen, what you're trying to do won't be possible with this. Each extension has a different key value.

We may need to start an "interesting registry values" thread here, similar to the one for WP7. Of course, it'll be more interesting if we can actually change any of them.
Oh, and the app works on my ATIV S, just by the way. Need to find some interesting paths to test it on, though.
EDIT: Have you been able to write to *any* values using this? It fails for me every time, but I haven't tried that many yet.

GoodDayToDie said:
We may need to start an "interesting registry values" thread here, similar to the one for WP7. Of course, it'll be more interesting if we can actually change any of them.
Oh, and the app works on my ATIV S, just by the way. Need to find some interesting paths to test it on, though.
EDIT: Have you been able to write to *any* values using this? It fails for me every time, but I haven't tried that many yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it has failed for me also. The only values I could write to were the ones that corresponded to Nokia. I'll look through the code again and make another update. I'm going to also rebrand it since it works for non Lumia phones.

Interesting about the Nokia paths working. That could be some characteristic of the DLL you use having better permissions or something specific to OEM stuff, but I actually suspect it's just that Nokia didn't bother to lock down the ACLs on their parts of the registry. You can easily adapt the app to my NativeRegistry class to test this, if you want.

Hmm that's a good idea. I just rebranded it to WP8 Registry Modifier. I'll add in your NativeRegistry class to work along with the RegistryRT class to see what comes about.

DWORD support
For DWORD support, take a look at the Nokia.SilentInstaller.Runtime.wim... The "CSilentInstallerRuntime" class contains multiple methods to interact with the registry including:
CreateKey
GetRegDWORDValue
GetRegSZValue
GetRegSZValueL
IsRegistryDWORDValueExists
IsRegistryKeyExists
IsRegistryREGSZValueExists
SetRegDWORDValue
SetRegSZValue
A bit off topic, I found a way to launch any URI... Literally, ANY URI (app:// http:// or anything). I can launch any application (using the GUID - so it must be a registered application but doesn't have to be one that you see in your programs list) and go to a specific page within that application. I can also pass any kind of query string that could unlock some hidden features in an application (such as the Extras+Info application - I can launch it using any dial string even though my ROM has that particular dial string disabled). I do so by launching a Toast message which allows me specify a launch uri and once it pops up, I click it. If anyone's interested, I can post a code sample for that...

@GoodDayToDie I'm able to read DWORDs with your NativeRegistry framework. I haven't been able to write though (I've only looked at the MaxUnsignedApp reg value).
What I think I'm going to do is possibly scrap the RegistryRT framework and just use yours. I can then make an even more robust app.

cpuguy said:
For DWORD support, take a look at the Nokia.SilentInstaller.Runtime.wim... The "CSilentInstallerRuntime" class contains multiple methods to interact with the registry including:
CreateKey
GetRegDWORDValue
GetRegSZValue
GetRegSZValueL
IsRegistryDWORDValueExists
IsRegistryKeyExists
IsRegistryREGSZValueExists
SetRegDWORDValue
SetRegSZValue
A bit off topic, I found a way to launch any URI... Literally, ANY URI (app:// http:// or anything). I can launch any application (using the GUID - so it must be a registered application but doesn't have to be one that you see in your programs list) and go to a specific page within that application. I can also pass any kind of query string that could unlock some hidden features in an application (such as the Extras+Info application - I can launch it using any dial string even though my ROM has that particular dial string disabled). I do so by launching a Toast message which allows me specify a launch uri and once it pops up, I click it. If anyone's interested, I can post a code sample for that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was actually looking at the SilentInstaller not long ago. I got sidetracked by the fact that I could use the NativeRegistry read DWORD values. I'll check that out and upload a new build in a few

GoodDayToDie said:
We may need to start an "interesting registry values" thread here, similar to the one for WP7. Of course, it'll be more interesting if we can actually change any of them..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can write one up later. I have several registry keys that I'd like to bring attention to.
NOTE: I don't see anything editable yet, at least I can read it to compare it to the files in the ffu.

Launching a URI should be possible more directly than that, using ShellExecute, or similar, but that way is cool (and doesn't require importing unofficial native functionality).
Just a word of warning: NativeRegistry is under heavy modification. I hope to have the next Alpha release done soon, which brings a ton of changes, but in the meantime you might want to follow the changes on CodePlex; while I test every build that I push, I don't always publish the binaries.
There will be two ways to use the registry through NativeAccess soon: one is to use fairly thin wrappers around the native functions (that's mostly what's implemented now, but it will be expanded to include key and value enumeration, key creation, etc.), and the other is to use a class more akin to a .NET RegistryKey class, offering the ability to interact in a more object-oriented manner (where the object itself represents an open key).

Something I did notice when I tried to compile the NativeRegistry source (I just ended up using the binary you had for my testing) is that it kept blowing up on the include for WinReg.h. I don't have that anywhere. Am I missing something?

snickler said:
Something I did notice when I tried to compile the NativeRegistry source (I just ended up using the binary you had for my testing) is that it kept blowing up on the include for WinReg.h. I don't have that anywhere. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure how GoodDayToDie did it himself (probably same approach I take it) but I compiled it using the "WinReg.h" from the Windows 8 SDK and removing the desktop-only compiler "if" instruction (lines 49 and 1446). And like he mentioned, you also have to create the KERNALBASE.LIB with the required registry export functions for the linker.

cpuguy said:
I'm not sure how GoodDayToDie did it himself (probably same approach I take it) but I compiled it using the "WinReg.h" from the Windows 8 SDK and removing the desktop-only compiler "if" instruction (lines 49 and 1446). And like he mentioned, you also have to create the KERNALBASE.LIB with the required registry export functions for the linker.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah ok, thanks!

cpuguy said:
A bit off topic, I found a way to launch any URI... Literally, ANY URI (app:// http:// or anything). I can launch any application (using the GUID - so it must be a registered application but doesn't have to be one that you see in your programs list) and go to a specific page within that application. I can also pass any kind of query string that could unlock some hidden features in an application (such as the Extras+Info application - I can launch it using any dial string even though my ROM has that particular dial string disabled). I do so by launching a Toast message which allows me specify a launch uri and once it pops up, I click it. If anyone's interested, I can post a code sample for that...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, please post your code and give yourself your own thread (at least keep it here in development ). There are a lot of underlying dialer codes that Nokia disabled when flashing the 928s. Also this could mean we could have a custom app launcher, if you wanted to customize it that way. Most of the work we have done on WP8 has occurred in the past few months; we are finally getting so close to the first InteropUnlock for Nokia/WP8.
Sent from my RM-860 (Lumia 928) using the OFFICIAL Tapatalk app.

I'm trying to figure out the correct method prototype (since this is a method that appears to be WinPhone only and isn't part of the SDK so, no details on it whatsoever)... I stumbled upon this toast functionality in "NokiaFrameworkOBAWinPRT.dll" under the "DevPropHelper" class. The method to call is "InvokeToast". This method ends up calling "Shell_PostMessageToast" in "ShellChromeAPI.dll" (this is what I'm trying to invoke directly without going through the Nokia dll).
Add a reference in your project to "NokiaFrameworkOBAWinPRT.winmd" (you can find this in newer versions of the Extras+Info app)
Add the necessary <InProcessServer> tag (to allow the "NokiaFrameworkOBAWinPRT.DevPropHelper" class) in the <ActivatableClasses> section of you WMAppManifest.xml file
In the code... Create an instance of "NokiaFrameworkOBAWinPRT.DevPropHelper"
In the code... Call the "InvokeToast" method (of the previously created object) passing it:
Application GUID (can be your local app's GUID - doesn't seem to matter)
URI to launch in string format
Toast title (can be anything)
Toast content(can be anything)
When the Toast notification pops up, click on it and that's it.