Database Users

How does one create a Today Plug-in?

I have a program called Weather Watcher Mobile. It's a great program that I would love to see a Today Plugin incorporated. I have seen some developers on these forums who have made Today screen plug-ins. How would one create a Today Plugin for an established program? Thanks.

Here is an excellent article that helped me wright my plugin:
http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/5461a.aspx#100
The problem is from what I can see on the developers site (is this the one you are talking about http://www.singerscreations.com/RSS/Posts/339.asp)
he programs in .NET
There is no way to create a plugin using .NET languages, only using C / C++.
In any case I believe it would be best if you referred this developer directly to the forum so he can ask the specific questions he has himself.

levenum said:
There is no way to create a plugin using .NET languages, only using C / C++.
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Sure? http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms839442.aspx

Ok, my mistake, I should have said There is no way to create a plugin using only .NET languages."
I forgot I read about something similar briefly - using a .NET dll and a C++ dll together.

Thanks. I'll direct him to this thread.

Is it possible to write a today plugin, the text on which can be controlled through command line or any other way ?

Plugins do not except command line - they are dll not exe files, but there are plenty of other ways to control plugin text.
For example I am going to release a plugin soon that takes a string from registry, displays it and checks for changes couple of times per second.

levenum said:
Plugins do not except command line - they are dll not exe files, but there are plenty of other ways to control plugin text.
For example I am going to release a plugin soon that takes a string from registry, displays it and checks for changes couple of times per second.
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When...when...when....????
I am planing a very nice plugin but it is really difficult to make one. All examples on the net are for evc++, I did not find a single sample for Visual Studio 2005.
If u are making something like this, it will really save a lot of my time.

Soon I hope, but it will be evc++ as well. I hate VS 2005, its fat, slow and costs a lot.
But if you are using c++ (there are samples on MSDN for c#) it doesn't matter what compiler the project is for, just use the source files.
See the links in previous posts for detailed explanations.

Coders new to WM5 "help" (advice)

Hi,
I have a fair background in various coding languages, and there are a couple of programs I want to try and build.
However, while I can usually pick up and understand a language quite easily the problem I usually find is a lack of knowledge of the objects available to make life easier and the functions which are available.
So far, I've sat around and got a setup which I think should allow me to write and compile WM5 applications and today plugins, but I have suddenly found I am missing that "thing" that made writing in other languages easier - effectively a "Cheat Sheet".
What I would appreciate from the other coders with experience in writing software for WM5 is a list of what windows or books you have open for reference when coding. Is it just MSDN, is there a specific page that you have bookmarked or do you just google for it every time?
Any further advice (like good compilers I might have missed) will also be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

I'd like to hear from others too about this..
So far, My buddies for development help have been:
1. Search in MSDN
2. Search in Google
3. Ask on xda-developers
4. Search in MSDN forums and usenet groups for pocket pc developers
5. A book (that i dont refer to too often) whose name goes smthing like "Programming for Microsoft Windows CE .net" by Douglas Boling (Its not for .net development, it covers native development mostly. Windows CE .Net refers to a version of CE)
6. I also have another book that i have not even opened till now. It is solely for .net development (which is not my forte). Its by Wrox Publishers. If I remember the name correctly, it goes smthing like "Professional Microsoft Smartphone Programming"

There is an exellent documentation on .NET & Native Code on MSDN.
Then there are samples as well, again on MSDN.
For a today plugin, there is a very good sample by levenum which u can easily find in this section of the forum.
For me its always been google & this forum, no boooooks !!!

or
www.codeguru.com
in most cases programming for pocketpc's is like programming for pc's

Thanks for the replies guys. I see what you mean, MSDN is rather good. I was beginning to think it was just WM6, but I eventually found the section on WM5 (which I am planning on coding for given my phone is WM5). Their Wiki also had some good info on it too. Don't know whether these will be my coding buddies yet though....
shantzg001 said:
I'd like to hear from others too about this..
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I'm glad someone else is interested. TBH I am surprised there is not a sticky at the top of the forum with this information in or a link to the Wiki for further details, but I could only find details of Development Tools on the wiki.
shaileshashar said:
For a today plugin, there is a very good sample by levenum which u can easily find in this section of the forum.
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Thanks for this pointer. I found two (here and here) which look promising. Don't know if there are any I missed....

Just a small tip when searching in MSDN... add ce in the search pharse. For e.g., "ce WM_TIMER" will give you the CE related sessions at the top.

I like www.pocketpcdn.com - articles and code examples for Pocket PC and Smartphones arranged by categories.
Also www.codeproject.com has been helpfull at times.

html page on today screen ?

is it possible ?

there's an example on the MSDN how to achieve this.
It's a tutorial to make a Today Screen plugin with the .NETCF Framework. SInce it's impossible to make a TodayScreen with .NET they use a c++ host which enables you to create an HTML container on the Today Screen. I think that's what you want

activetoday?

Interesting, can you point out what is the title of the example?
So I can search in msdn.
Rhapsody said:
there's an example on the MSDN how to achieve this.
It's a tutorial to make a Today Screen plugin with the .NETCF Framework. SInce it's impossible to make a TodayScreen with .NET they use a c++ host which enables you to create an HTML container on the Today Screen. I think that's what you want
Click to expand...
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I had to search for a while but here it is:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms839442.aspx
I tried it a long time ago, but couldn't get it to work. (but I think that's because of me and not because of the article)

Modaco wrote a plugin for Modaco Plus users to do this.
Also the Plugin app SideX does this, probably others to!
Not so hard to write from scratch if you wanted to.
V

vijay555 said:
Modaco wrote a plugin for Modaco Plus users to do this.
Also the Plugin app SideX does this, probably others to!
Not so hard to write from scratch if you wanted to.
V
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If you're not familiar with C++ it can be hard

Extensible Theme/Skin Changer

(originally posted here)
I would like to propose the open-source development of a new program for Windows Mobile theme changing.
Themes are very popular. People love to personalize their mobile devices. Many ROM cookers will create their own themes that are implemented across a variety of included applications. Unfortunately, themes for third party applications cannot be defined or changed from within Windows Mobile’s native “Today” Control Panel Appearance tab. There are completely different methods of changing the Today screen theme, Media Player theme, and Phone dialer theme. Then if you’ve got some HTC applications in your ROM, there are yet other methods of changing the HTC Home Plug-in theme, TouchFLO Cube theme, Comm Manager theme, SIP keyboard themes, etc. The possibilities are endless.
I would like to propose a standard unified way of changing the look on all of these applications as well as future applications.
The program could be similar to the HTC Home Customizer where users would select named themes to be applied to specific programs, and the software would copy the proper images/files to the proper locations. The difference would be that there would need to be a way for users and 3rd party developers to interface with the program in order to let it know where its new theme files are supposed to go. Maybe there’s a master XML file that lists application specific XML files which include image/file location information.
Anyway, I think this type of program would be extremely useful both for power users and beginners who want to easily customize the look of their device and apply different themes to their applications from a central location. However, I’m not much of a programmer at all, so I am seeking help from the community.
I’ve started a project on Popfly called “WM6ProThemeChanger”. If you search for that name using the Popfly explorer, you’ll find it. Also, you can add me as a friend using “Adamz1977”. I'm not sure if that's the right way to do this, so if anyone else has any thoughts, feel free to post 'em.
I guess we should start be creating a central list of locations and filenames for various theme-changing image files for the variety of applications we all use. Any thoughts??

**reserved**

**reserved**

**reserved 3**

That's a great idea!
I have installed Poorlyduck's vista theme for the cube and if you look at his thread, not only did he worked hard at making the theme but he had to help out a really big bunch of people who had a hard time installing it.
Hope this works out!

Are you looking for this to somehow have one file type that contains all of the necessary files, or some sort of "it reads what it can from a folder and copies them where they need to go" style? I guess I can't picture what your goal is...

xd1936 said:
Are you looking for this to somehow have one file type that contains all of the necessary files, or some sort of "it reads what it can from a folder and copies them where they need to go" style? I guess I can't picture what your goal is...
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The "it reads what it can from a folder and copies them where they need to go" style would probably be easiest, right? That's what the HTC Home Customizer does I think. Plus, a lot of applications might need text files, GIF, PNG images, and maybe even a DLL to be placed somewhere in order for the theme/skin design to work. The Media Player skins need a SKN text file. I think the phone dialer needs a DLL sometimes in order to change its skin.
I just think it's too difficult for us users to figure out how to change the theme/skins of all these great programs. If you know any one who might be able to help with this, please send them to this thread.

Titanium and wm6.5

Dear friends, I just installed RRE Series 6 WM 6.5 Build 21501 BETA 2 ROM for my Fuze and I think it is an awesome RO, but for the Titanium, I really need to understand some more about it. I searched a lot and found titanizer and CHome Editor v1.5 beta by showaco, and can't seem to understand about the tabs or the panels how does they work. can I, for example, put a panel for internet calling, for wifi management, or these panels are only for using as is, and can be only hidden, because even when trying to create a new panel I can't use it for example as a launcher, please guide me in the right direction

medman said:
Dear friends, I just installed RRE Series 6 WM 6.5 Build 21501 BETA 2 ROM for my Fuze and I think it is an awesome RO, but for the Titanium, I really need to understand some more about it. I searched a lot and found titanizer and CHome Editor v1.5 beta by showaco, and can't seem to understand about the tabs or the panels how does they work. can I, for example, put a panel for internet calling, for wifi management, or these panels are only for using as is, and can be only hidden, because even when trying to create a new panel I can't use it for example as a launcher, please guide me in the right direction
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Sure you can use a panel as launcher, check in the CHome Editor thread or in the WM 6.5 themes thread. You create a panel and save it, then you create a new page and there you set the program to launch, then you create another page and you set another program to launch and so on, up to 20 pages are possible. In the above indicated threads you find a lot of info and tips to do that.

Titanium
claus1953 said:
Sure you can use a panel as launcher, check in the CHome Editor thread or in the WM 6.5 themes thread. You create a panel and save it, then you create a new page and there you set the program to launch, then you create another page and you set another program to launch and so on, up to 20 pages are possible. In the above indicated threads you find a lot of info and tips to do that.
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Thank you very much