Hello, this is one of the first posts, I don't know if you have any interest on this, but here it goes:
fact 1: EXE's and DLL's may be compressed
fact 2: PNG's may be compressed without any quality loss
based on that, I will explain what I do to make smaller CAB's and do not waste so many space when you have those installed.
tools used:
UPX (http://upx.sf.net)
pngout (http://advsys.net/ken/util/pngout.exe)
msceinf (http://www.codeppc.com/telechargements/msceinf/msceinf.htm)
cabwiz (from Microsoft)
let's put this together with a simple example with HTC Audio Manager CAB file:
size before: 1.135.294
size after: 327.204
(yes, 347% reduction, and all works well)
1. used msceinf to decompile the cab, and decompress it to a directory
2. used command "upx *.exe *.dll" on the decompressed directory
3. used command "for %i in (*.png) do pngout "%i" /kp" on the same directory
4. recreated the cab using "cabwiz Audio Manager.inf /compress"
that's it, until now I could regain a lot of space, of course that using exe compression makes programs a bit slower, but I believe there are more advantages than disavantages.
On Themes you can also achieve better compression using the same technique, decompiling the file, then using pngout on them and recreating the cab's back.
some results on a theme file:
Htc_New_Default.tsk original: 106.828
Htc_New_Default.tsk optimized: 44.835
I also saw some problems on some icon packages: sometimes the authors compile them with thumbs.db on it, resulting in complete waste of space.
Regards.
interesting. I never thought about it this way.
Optimized rom chefs, start your engines!!!!
In other news, dig the title.
It should be pointed out that one of the main negatives to upx'ing files is that they take up more memory. Example..a 100k program upx'd to 50k takes up 150k when ran and not all of the ram is released. This is typically why everyone doesn't just go crazy with compressing everything in site. If you need the space and are willing to sacrifice some memory then upx it..otherwise you'd be better off leaving it be. Also..if you are going to use upx or one of the other utils make sure you are using the most recent version to get best performance.
Yes, that's why I wrote that last sentence regarding EXE compression, some figures for CommManager that occupies 508KB as a process, it was tested by reading the in use memory when CommManager was running, and after I forced it's close (to check real memory usage, since process memory reads the same):
using UPX EXE: 33.77-32.89 = 0,88MB
original EXE: 33.67-32.89 = 0,78MB
so it's about 100KB difference for this EXE (since I don't usually run a lot of programs at the same time, I don't care about this), but for PNG's that are used more and more on pocket pc programs, it really makes a difference.
I've updated this with how to optimize Themes as well...
BullGates said:
I've updated this with how to optimize Themes as well...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know there is a upx --ultra-brute switch that basically tries everything to get the smallest size?
Yes thanks. But as you pointed well, it's better to use EXE and DLL compression evaluating your needs. I've rebuilt many cab's concentrating on the graphics compression and I'm quite happy with the results. Smaller CAB's means smaller install times (not very noticed, but it's a fact) less need for storage - if you build your setups based on extended rom storage, this is quite handy. Also you have better performance since less bytes are involved on the loading (so better loading times).
Actually, I was looking to do exactly the same!
I had already found upx and was going to combine this with infocabxp and my own simple parser for the *.000/_setup.xml files, until I found the free msceinf tool - and about an hour later I find your post.
I just wish I found your post first, it would have saved me a lot of time
It is probably best to apply upx compression on exe's and dll's of standalone applications that you start manually or for short time use, and not all background processes as well, but I see there are already some thoughts on that subject
Thanks
How to do this
. used command "for %i in (*.png) do pngout "%i" /kp" on the same directory
Would u please explain more?
Regards
my 3 cents..
there's no reason to upx small files, lol...
40 kb of space may be equal of 40 kb mem less, if dll is persistent/resident(works all the time) - also not every dll/exe may be upxed - it may be broken after upx(i.e. isilo).
.net apps CANNOT be upxed for now.
DO NOT upx today plugins' dlls! they may lose stability/ you may have loading problems etc + mem loss, of course.
you can upx cpl's too.
always crunch at maximal pack setting!
do not pack exe icons, and relocs.
do not try to make xip modules from upxed files!
gfx resources like bmps may became smaller after pallette decrease(it is quite useful while reshacking - i.e. commgr may be smaller = faster launch times etc) regardless of saving method(24,32bit).
almost 100% of pngs, that are used in software/system etc usually loses its size after reedit = faster software loading/ working/less mem used(dialpad res's, home plug, etc) - usually palette decreasing works in same way, as with bmps - smaller file size(yeah, i know, that png is saved as 8bpp, but..sometimes palette may be 4 bit i.e.).
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?
For those who know what it is, I have created a complete install for the HP 48GX Emulator optimized for WVGA devices. The emulator itself is based on Sébastien Carlier's Emu48 (now maintained by Christoph Gießelink).
My goals were to have a realistic but finger-useable HP 48GX. I have included the complete package in a single CAB (the ROM is an HP 48GX-R model). As HP released the ROMs for all the 48 models about 9 years ago, I can't imagine them complaining that I'm packaging them together as a useful package these days
See the attached Todo.txt before posting any bug reports please. FYI, I do not really plan to address any of the Todo items anytime in the near future.
Enjoy!
HP 48GX-R 1.18.1
Change Log
2009.09.24
v1.18.1
Converted 709 KB bmp file into 94 KB gif with no data loss. The screen should now load much faster.
Updated CAB file installation to allow for Storage Card installation.
P.S. The thumbnail doesn't even begin to do it justice. I spent *DAYS* on the visual appeal of the interface and for anyone who owns/owned an HP 48GX I hope you'll agree the level of detail and realism is nearly perfect.
P.P.S. If you don't know what an HP calculator is, or more importantly what RPN means, then its probably not worth your time even trying this.
48GX State Files
I have now attached some state files which includes two .e48 files and a SHARED.BIN file. The SHARED.BIN file is a 512K Port 2-5 attached card which both .e48 files share. The files are as follows:
SHARED.BIN
Port3
EDFlags 2.0G
HPTabs (Part of the Jazz package, see below)
Hack 9.4.1 (Based on Hack 9.4 with my own customizations)
StringWriter 4.4
MiniWriter 1.2
SmartKeys 1.59
Port2
Unitman 7.2001
QPI 4.3
ALG48 4.2
ALG48_SpecialFunction 4.2 (Part of the ALG48 package, see above)
ALG48_LongPrecision 4.2 (Part of the ALG48 package, see above)
ALG48_SymbolicIntegration 4.2 (Part of the ALG48 package, see above)
ChemLab 2.7
Neopolys 6.5
Bode-Routh 7.1
HP 48GX-R Math.e48
Port1
Erable 3.201 Beta
Marable
Erable_MODULO 3.2 (Part of the Erable package, see above)
Erable_GEO 3.2 (Part of the Erable package, see above)
Erable_PREP 3.2 (Part of the Erable package, see above)
Erable_LIN 3.2 (Part of the Erable package, see above)
Matrix 1.2
MathTools 7.0
Universal Font Library 1.0.2
Port0
Java 3.6a
HP 48GX-R Dev.e48
Port1
Jazz 6.8
Universal Font Library 1.0.2
MathTools 7.0
Matrix 1.2
Port0
Java 3.6a
Included in the zip is a file called InstallConfigure.txt which is simply the steps I took to create the .e48 files. Please note that I did not include the application .lib files themselves, though I did link most of them above. Remember, you can always recall them to the stack and save to your device if you plan to use any of them to make your own state file(s) from scratch.
48GX WVGA Photoshop Source
If your goal is to modify the visual appearance of the calculator without modifying the position or operation of any of the keys (onscreen or keyboard) then you may be interested in downloading the Photoshop source (attached).
Using it you must create a BMP file that is dimensionally identical to the one included in my installation (else you must change the KML appropriately). This means that there must be the entire image with no buttons pushed followed by the annunciators, followed by an image with the buttons pushed (without the annunciators again though). See the BMP that comes with the installation to know what I am talking about here.
The photoshop source is currently set to output an image with no buttons pressed and the annunciators. You will save as a BMP image to get the initial image with annunciators. You must then hide all the appropriate layers (and there are MANY) for unpressed button mode, and finally show all the appropriate layers (again there are MANY) for pressed button mode. Now change the image canvas size (cutting 14 pixels--the annunciators) from the bottom of the image, and save this as a BMP image. You will then take the first BMP image, expand the canvas size by 748 pixels at the bottom, adding the second BMP image (with the pressed buttons) in that area. Then simply merge layers and convert that image to Indexed color mode (selective) and save as the final BMP image.
If you are planning on changing colors note that where possible all you have to do is select every appropriate text layer and then change the colors for all of them at once. However, you will notice there are two layers (one for text graphics, and one for button graphics) that you cannot do this. You may deal with these in one of two ways:
Use the wand tool selection with shift to select all items of a given color, and then use some form of Image|Adjustment|... to match the colors.
Recreate the items manually. This is where the HP48.csh file comes into play. These are vector items I created for some of the button graphics (and annunciators). Access them through the custom shape tool (load custom shapes from file).
The button pressed version of the button graphics is precisely the same as the non-pressed version, simply shifted down one pixel. So my recommendation there is to simply make changes to the non-pressed version, duplicate it, shift down one pixel, and make that the new (Pressed) layer.
If you spend the time to properly create a graphics file that you think others would enjoy, please upload it and the source for others!
Cheers!
I still have my 48gx from more than 10 years ago, now I am just a HP12c type of guy
Excellent Work! Much appreciated! I also have a Emu48 version used by a company called EaglePoint (used to be SMI). It is called Pocket SMI v8. I have a licensed version but it is no longer supported. It is basically a custom tweaked Emu48 with a different skin and kml script specifically for surveyors/engineers. I would like to modify the skin but I am not sure how to get started...
Very Nice! Thanks much!
You think you can skin it for my 48SX as well?
The GX colors annoy the heck out of me...
wow, I haven't tried it yet but will, awesome idea. I still have my 48GX from college but I doubt my professors would like me to use cell phone during tests.
Thanks, will try it.
Thanks!
Quentin- said:
For those who know what it is, I have created a complete install for the HP 48GX Emulator optimized for WVGA devices. The emulator itself is based on Sébastien Carlier's Emu48 (now maintained by Christoph Gießelink).
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AWESOME!!!!
glhs509 said:
Very Nice! Thanks much!
You think you can skin it for my 48SX as well?
The GX colors annoy the heck out of me...
Click to expand...
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If you have Photoshop and some time/know-how to make minor changes (difference in keys) to the KML file I can provide you with the graphics source that you can work with to make an SX skin.
Thank you!
This is fantastic, I will be looking for any updates and improvements. Will test and report back.
Wow... that's amazing...
...Here's my HP 48SX from my college years (circa 1992) for comparison...
glhs509 said:
Very Nice! Thanks much!
You think you can skin it for my 48SX as well?
The GX colors annoy the heck out of me...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See the original post now for the Photoshop source files!
Version 1.18.1
For those that subscribe to the thread, this is notification of a new version in the First Post.
Change Log
2009.09.24
v1.18.1
Converted 709 KB bmp file into 94 KB gif with no data loss. The screen should now load much faster.
Updated CAB file installation to allow for Storage Card installation.
Thanks a lot for this.
If anyone doesn't know there is a HP Calculator Conference in Fort Collins, CO next weekend.
http://holyjoe.net/hhc2009/
help on resizing the skin hp48gx
I have tried to resize it with photoshop, but I don't know how to remap the keys.
Could be a way to include scroll bar option?
Thanks