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Hey all,
I'm using the latest VJ today toggle program on my 700wx, but whenever a call comes in, the answer and ignore soft key bar remains and cannot be removed until I hard reset. I have yet to find an answer to this problem searching. Let me know if anyone has any ideas.
Thanks
I would hypothesise that the the Palm addons for answering/rejecting calls, which are custom Palm software, work by creating soft keys which are normally hidden behind the normal softkeys that would be there.
When call comes in, they're brought forward. After the call ends, the normal softkeys take their place in front of them, and the world is at peace.
Hiding the normal softkeys exposes the Palm softkeys to the world. Thus, on this basis, a solution would be to force the Palm softkeys to be hidden as well.
I have no real life experience of the Palms, so just a guess...
V
vijay555 said:
I would hypothesise that the the Palm addons for answering/rejecting calls, which are custom Palm software, work by creating soft keys which are normally hidden behind the normal softkeys that would be there.
When call comes in, they're brought forward. After the call ends, the normal softkeys take their place in front of them, and the world is at peace.
Hiding the normal softkeys exposes the Palm softkeys to the world. Thus, on this basis, a solution would be to force the Palm softkeys to be hidden as well.
I have no real life experience of the Palms, so just a guess...
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would say that's a pretty good guess.
Hello, I'm thinking about switching over from my Palm OS Treo 700p to a Sprint Mogul and would like to develop some apps using .NET. I'm a long-time VB developer (VB3 thru VB6) but a more recent newbie with .NET (focusing on C#). I've also had experience with several Pocket PC / WM devices and dabbled with eVB long ago (hated it). Anyways, I've got some ideas for apps/applets/hacks that I'd like to create for WM devices (and the Mogul specifically), but I'm not sure what's possible with WM6 and .NET, so some questions:
1) Let's say I wanted to create an app that "runs in the background" all the time. I'm fairly certain that I can create an app that gets started after a soft reset but doesn't show any visual signs of being started. I want this app to essentially "listen" for other events. So, if for example, I'm using IE and the user presses a specific hard button, I want my app to trap that before IE notices it. My app might then fire up a window which displays on the screen.
a) Can I do this?
b) Can I trap *any* button (including the Start button, the OK button, and the two "soft menu" buttons?
c) Can I distinguish between a regular button press and a "press and hold"?
2) Can I effectively "replace" some/all of the built-in phone functionality? For example, when a call comes in, instead of the built in phone functionality taking over and showing on-screen an answer/ignore window, could I create an alternative app that had answer/ignore buttons?
3) What are my options for displaying windows on top of other apps?
a) Can I have a small window display on top of other running apps?
b) Can I do something fancy like have my app display a translucent full-screen window on top of a running app?
Thank you for any help you can offer.
Scott
all those things are possible but I think you had better use c++ especially for the phone stuff.
for the button pushes, the problem is that other programs can change it after you start up. Because the user will not see you app they will not know it happened.
There is not a good way to replace the phone answer dialog but you can just stop it and put up your own, you will need to be careful to prevent any uncontrolled ringing or vibrating that can be left when stopping the phone. If you are using c# to know when the phone is rinning you will not catch it fast enough to prevent the phone app rinning before your one.
You can put windows on top of other windows but you will then have to make sure the ok/x is correct. Its very easy to screw up the os smart minimize so that it no longer corresponds to the window the user sees. Maybe it would be better to just subclass the window you want to cover and make it look like you want.
While I was fascinated about the idea of a new UI for WM, the introduction of PointUI was a bit of a damp squib. The story of PointUI is like the story of the emperors clothes: its far from perfect but nobody wants to speak out against the overwhelming hype.There are a few things about the interface that irritate me. Hope fully the updates will take care of this:
1. You cant close any programs from within the UI,only minimise. You get to see running programs after looking through many menus only to find that you have to exit/minimise the UI to really close the program.
2. No app shortcuts. The first screenshots of the UI gave the impression that you could access shortcuts via pages which could be accessed through a simple left or right sliding motion. The current setup puts it just below a properly configured HTC Home with 6 tabs. Whats the point of seeing two versions of the time and the calendar?
3. Screen locking is ridiculous. In this day and age of slide to unlock programs with dpad unlocking and additional information displayed,it seems the prog prioritised being different rather than being practical, especially with the apparent lack of a clock.
Then again, I could be wrong....
hmm
i think PointUI are just in its early stages, however i do agreen with some of your points. We just need to give the developers some time. they have started off with a great base.
they have a fix for the first problem you listed
check the pointui forums for it
its still in beta..so i'm still awaiting how the final product will be
im sure they'll be making some major improvements and additions to it
Vukile said:
1. You cant close any programs from within the UI,only minimise. You get to see running programs after looking through many menus only to find that you have to exit/minimise the UI to really close the program.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
press title of the running program ... you get to the same screen as going through the running programs.
but with the rest i agree its very inefficent to start a program ... efficent handling has to be priored ... not just eyecandy. so i don't use it anymore...
if you are in a program tap where the start button used to be top left and you will get the option to force close.
I also find it better when changing the setting object navigation to slide navigation for getting to my apps.
however
One must admit that it does have an amazing UI. i feel is much better than the iphone UI
# 3 is also addressed by allowing 3rd party screen lock progs like S2U2. Their latest official build 1.01b enables this. I applaud their efforts. Not because its free. Not just cuz its new. But because it is pretty well thought out and performs more smoothly than any other shell app out there, esp w.r.t. animations and transitions.
I second that. I have good expectations for it.
jomo25 said:
# 3 is also addressed by allowing 3rd party screen lock progs like S2U2. Their latest official build 1.01b enables this. I applaud their efforts. Not because its free. Not just cuz its new. But because it is pretty well thought out and performs more smoothly than any other shell app out there, esp w.r.t. animations and transitions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you like PointUI,then youll love SPB Shell. My main problem with this UI is that I can get better efficiency with HTC Home and a couple MortButtons shortcuts. I can access anything faster with that combination than with PointUI. Its not a revolution,its a fancy skin.
Does anyone else find the scrolling to be annoying? How it's inversed and extremely painful to scroll through large content?
chunga168 said:
Does anyone else find the scrolling to be annoying? How it's inversed and extremely painful to scroll through large content?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its supposed to be like that. Like you are grabbing the page and flicking it. Have you tried "flicking" its fun.
In fact, I don't like ftouchflo because it doesn't seem to allow me to flick like I want to.
Things I don't like about PointUI:
1) clocks, calendars all don't need to be on seperate screens. Would be nice to have a home screen that shows time/date/appoints/etc and the be able to flick over to application.
2) Not integrated (same problem I have with the cube). Along with the cube, its useful getting to stuff, but when you actually open the program it usually requires a stylus.
Thins I like about PointUI:
1) Smooth scrolling and animations. Honestly its amazing.
Vukile said:
1. You cant close any programs from within the UI,only minimise. You get to see running programs after looking through many menus only to find that you have to exit/minimise the UI to really close the program.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the new patch on the point UI forum posted by the devolepers 2 test, it has the x buttom insted of the - minimise buttom and it closes the programmes ....
@ Vukile: Don't count me in the camp of people who need to have access to "everything in as few clicks as possible". I'd rather have a simple to understand, clean, uncluttered interface, even if it takes a few extra gestures/taps to do it. Very frequently used stuff should be quick, and less frequent, further away. While I understand how some want to have every function within one screen, I'd prefer otherwise. So, I actually like the promise of this more than SPB Shell...But to each his/her own.
@ Chunga168: I also intuitively prefer the iPhone/PocketCM type scrolling, however, the method they have implemented is actually better for long lists. If you have to "iPhone flick" to the bottom of a long list, it could take a while. Being able to have it scroll while holding is actually faster for some. It's a case of preferences IMO, so I hope (and expect) they will implement both and make it optional.
I dont know...ive been trying everything from spb products to all kind of invented cubes...but i guess i will stay longer with pointui because IMO its so interacitve and fast...but a hiccup here and there is normal...but the developer is going to take all of our [email protected] to improve...
Well I've really enjoyed Pointui. It's good that there are developers taking a good look at the Windows Mobile UI, although to be fair HTC themselves have been working on obvious improvements, and Lg might be worth keeping an eye on.
Pointui.Home is beautifully animated, looks good and feels good to use, the developer team seem pretty dedicated, and it has the potential to be an amazing phone interface.
However that is my niggle, see to me, my Artemis is not a phone with a PDA attached, but a PDA with a phone attached, and for all it's graphical loveliness Pointui.Home actually makes using my PDA more complicated. I enjoyed Spb Mobile Shell, it's NOW screens were great, and it's version of finger friendliness with big chunky thumbable buttons worked well. Funnily enough the reason I stopped using it was because it was bloated and buggy, and I wanted to give HTC Home a good run for it's money.
But to me Aesthetics are important, it's nice to use a good looking interface, and Pointui seems to be top for that, but I'm already tempted to remove it, and even tempted to forgive Spb's faults.
Fantastic and I cant wait for some updates, but I really don't like it forcing the left soft button into its own home button!!
daverage said:
Fantastic and I cant wait for some updates, but I really don't like it forcing the left soft button into its own home button!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, it should at least give you the option of choosing what you put on the soft keys. It sits on the top bar anyway, why map it? Only seasoned users of PDAs will appreciate the need for simplicity before aesthetic,much in the same direction that Android is headed. Try this exercise for example : uninstall a program using the PointUI and then try it the old fashioned way. The old way is quicker.
does the calendar on the main screen suppose to highlight the days with appointments,etc.? If not, then the calendar is not very useful, and there should be an option to turn it off. Same thing with the analog clock.
A better app launcher is definitely needed. I have suggested in other posts having an icon based launcher a la iPhone when you press the botton down arrow button on the screen, or at least on the main scrolling screen, give us about 4 user definable icons for apps...or have BOTH.
PointUI has a pretty nice interface but is really not that time efficient.
Has anyone tried to remove this program?... Its a headache! I had to find various reg entries and delete them to fully remove it
daverage said:
Fantastic and I cant wait for some updates, but I really don't like it forcing the left soft button into its own home button!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is something you can easily change
Having written StylusLock I wanted an additional lock/unlock method. Although StylusLock works great, I wanted some extra features:
* to have it possible to lock and unlock "one handed". The StylusLock approach cannot be done "one handed", e.g. on a bike.
* Also some people do not like to operate with the StylusLock (always).
* The combination with this new CapacitiveFingerLock and existing StylusLock will suit more people.
* And sometimes people will use the Stylus, so they will get the right behaviour depended on the usage pattern
* Still the goal is to let it consume almost no CPU and battery and KISS to operate
I discovered with StylusLock that when the TouchPanel and Hardware keys are locked, still the Zoom function works in e.g. Opera.
You can try yourself, using StylusLock:
1. Start Opera
2. Lock the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro with StylusLock
3. TouchPanel and all hardware keys are locked
4. Try to Zoom in/Zoom out in Opera, this still works with the NavWheel
5. Also the Ok button seems to react
I figured out via Scott Seligman and Koushik Dutta how to programmatically access the Capacative Touchpads. You can read also more here: [REF]Capacitive touchpad apps
So this idea is implemented in CapacativeFingerLock. But I am not using the NavWheel idea, but just uses the Capacative hardware area for locking/unlocking. The idea is again simple and clever. When you softly touch the area where the hardware keys are located (so do not press the keys, just gently touch them), the up/down and position area can be detected. I programmed that when the same area is touched gently 3 times within a second (without touching another area), the lock status is toggled.
I made a proof of concept program (just copy the exe inside the zip file attachment to your phone and just execute it), which shows how it is going to work. Just play around with softly touching the hardware panel, to see what happens.
If am working on integrating CapacativeFingerLock with StylusLock, to have a working "real locking" application. The Proof of Concept program just shows that it is possible.
Reserved for future use
Another one for future use.
very nice concept....now i noticed you posted a link of this thread in the wheel to unlock thread...would there be a way to possibly implement a config tool that lets you choose say, touch 3 times softly, or run your finger around the circle?
Malik05 said:
very nice concept....now i noticed you posted a link of this thread in the wheel to unlock thread...would there be a way to possibly implement a config tool that lets you choose say, touch 3 times softly, or run your finger around the circle?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In principle this can be done. But because the NavWheel is also used for other purposes (Zoom In/Out), I have chosen not to use the NavWheel, but the 3 times gently touching. In this way there is no interference with other existing applications.
I'll try that, it seems like no one cares aboyt the capacitive touch pad, it seems like an amazing thing that we've got that is so neglected. I hope to give some positive feedback later, but first I have some rom flashing to play with!
Thanks for the work, there must be so many possible implementations for this, I hope this is just the beginning of something much bigger.
How about a simple tap to launch app?
i went ahead and installed it, and it works very well...Will there be a (pretty) GUI to show that it was unlocked?
Also the diamond does have multi touch on that pad area, which enables a "trace" of the movement of your touch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Owgcos_KY
Since the nav sensor wont be so ideal, how about sliding your finger from the top of the pad to the bottom (lets say, place your finger on the back button, and gently moving it down to initiate unlock, with a GUI on the screen following your movement, as you go closer to the bottom, the color changes from lets say, red, to green...with incremental color changes in between)
Instead of 3 taps, why not a swipe between the home and back keys, which seems much more natural.
Surur
surur said:
Instead of 3 taps, why not a swipe between the home and back keys, which seems much more natural.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I imagine it is just harder to implement for a proof of concept.
Personally I think there are enough ways to lock the diamond, whether you swipe the screen or 1cm below it is not a revolution, but if swiping the capacitive touch pad could be made to launch desired apps from selected gestures, that would be a revolution, like dynamo3 or hibernate or even standby. I think a lot of people here would want that over another locking solution. Good will intended!
Just tried it.
This is very cool very very cool
Thanks for time invested in such a cool development.
surur said:
Instead of 3 taps, why not a swipe between the home and back keys, which seems much more natural.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiping is not so easy one handed. Touching gently 3 times is much easier one handed, holding your Touch Diamond or Touch Pro firmly and touching with your thumb.
However, I can imagine other sort of applications which can use the swiping for other sort of operations. Both are possible with the programming API I made.
uniqueboy said:
I imagine it is just harder to implement for a proof of concept.
Personally I think there are enough ways to lock the diamond, whether you swipe the screen or 1cm below it is not a revolution, but if swiping the capacitive touch pad could be made to launch desired apps from selected gestures, that would be a revolution, like dynamo3 or hibernate or even standby. I think a lot of people here would want that over another locking solution. Good will intended!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am going to share the source code. I have written it in C#. And others can get ideas and take over some of the source code for their own application. At the end we profit all of it.
ZuinigeRijder said:
I am going to share the source code. I have written it in C#. And others can get ideas and take over some of the source code for their own application. At the end we profit all of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like your style, that is the the kind of development attitude that keeps here!
ZuinigeRijder said:
Swiping is not so easy one handed. Touching gently 3 times is much easier one handed, holding your Touch Diamond or Touch Pro firmly and touching with your thumb.
However, I can imagine other sort of applications which can use the swiping for other sort of operations. Both are possible with the programming API I made.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are open to other ideas, I would love the area from the back to home key to be a scroll bar when the device is in landscape mode. Grabbing the narrow on-screen scroll bar can be tricky, and the Touch Pro lacks the scroll wheel of the HTC Kaiser.
Surur
Have been looking into this myself as well. The only code I found was managed C#. Do you think we can use this in our native C code? Looks promising though!
ZuinigeRijder said:
Having written StylusLock I wanted an additional lock/unlock method. Although StylusLock works great, I wanted some extra features:
* to have it possible to lock and unlock "one handed". The StylusLock approach cannot be done "one handed", e.g. on a bike.
* Also some people do not like to operate with the StylusLock (always).
* The combination with this new CapacitiveFingerLock and existing StylusLock will suit more people.
* And sometimes people will use the Stylus, so they will get the right behaviour depended on the usage pattern
* Still the goal is to let it consume almost no CPU and battery and KISS to operate
I discovered with StylusLock that when the TouchPanel and Hardware keys are locked, still the Zoom function works in e.g. Opera.
You can try yourself, using StylusLock:
1. Start Opera
2. Lock the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro with StylusLock
3. TouchPanel and all hardware keys are locked
4. Try to Zoom in/Zoom out in Opera, this still works with the NavWheel
5. Also the Ok button seems to react
I figured out via Scott Seligman and Koushik Dutta how to programmatically access the Capacative Touchpads. You can read also more here: [REF]Capacitive touchpad apps
So this idea is implemented in CapacativeFingerLock. But I am not using the NavWheel idea, but just uses the Capacative hardware area for locking/unlocking. The idea is again simple and clever. When you softly touch the area where the hardware keys are located (so do not press the keys, just gently touch them), the up/down and position area can be detected. I programmed that when the same area is touched gently 3 times within a second (without touching another area), the lock status is toggled.
I made a proof of concept program (just copy the exe inside the zip file attachment to your phone and just execute it), which shows how it is going to work. Just play around with softly touching the hardware panel, to see what happens.
If am working on integrating CapacativeFingerLock with StylusLock, to have a working "real locking" application. The Proof of Concept program just shows that it is possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A while ago I posted about the Windows Messages received by the form for capacitive touch events. Is that what you ended up using to figure out where on panel is being touched? Mind posting some code so I can add it to the Sensors assembly?
Great idea. Defienetly it will be my way of locking device. StylusLock works nice but can't be operated by one hand so its useless for me. SensorLock uses battery and i've drop my phone already unlocking it.
surur said:
If you are open to other ideas, I would love the area from the back to home key to be a scroll bar when the device is in landscape mode. Grabbing the narrow on-screen scroll bar can be tricky, and the Touch Pro lacks the scroll wheel of the HTC Kaiser.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This can be surely done, programmatically. But I do not know if you can control the scrolling of other applications. The latter seems to me difficult?
Anyway, when a lot of applications are going to use gestures using the capacative areas, there will be going conflicts (different programs reacting differently on different gestures).
For the locking application I want to made, I see also some different gestures possibilities:
- 3 taps for locking/unlocking
- swipe left to right for Power off
- swipe right to left for starting a configured application
And I am sure I can come up with other gestures and actions....
drvdijk said:
Have been looking into this myself as well. The only code I found was managed C#. Do you think we can use this in our native C code? Looks promising though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I started with C++ and had also a working Proof Of Concept. However, because I am new to Windows Mobile Programming, I also wanted to use C# as next project. I have developed programs in a lot of languages (also in C++ and C#), but I like C# more. And I wanted to do this now for Windows Mobile, to get experience with this. Note that the C# sample is using only .NET 2.0, so you do not need .NET 3.5.
You can find a C++ sensortest program, which was available on Scott's weblog:
http://scottandmichelle.net/scott/cestuff/sensortest.zip
ZuinigeRijder said:
This can be surely done, programmatically. But I do not know if you can control the scrolling of other applications. The latter seems to me difficult?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont know if you can manipulate the scroll bar of another application directly (though this would be ideal) but at the least maybe a page down keystroke could be sent to the active window.
Surur
Hi,
The last two phones I had have both been Blackberry's.
I tried an iPhone recently (1 week) and just found myself pausing to do things that I would do on the blackberry very quickly.
It was almost like I had to completely stop what I was doing and give all my attention
and thought to navigating my way around the iphone, where as with the bb, I seem
to be able to do many tasks with one hand and dont have to think about the task
too much.
I'm wondering if I switch to a G1 how will I go on. Will I find myself waiting for the OS to catch up, continually opening the keyboard to do simple tasks etc?
I like the idea of placing shortcuts on the home screen to dial numbers etc, are there other shortcuts like this?
One task I find myself doing on the bb a lot is taking a quick photo and sending it to a single email address. (the same address every time).
Would this be possible on the G1?
I press the side camera button which opens the camera app,
take the photo by pressing the trackball,
move the trackball to the right and press once.
This gives me the sharing options, "send as email" is the top one.
Click the trackball which adds the photo as an attachment,
type my two letter alias in the To field,
scroll to the subject, type something.
Click the trackball once more and press send.
It sounds a lot when you read it but its pretty quick and simple. Any way of doing this without opening the keyboard?
Thanks
Mike
The camera after taking a pic will offer 4 options, Save/Set As/Share/Delete.
With SnapShotPro you get these options, Save/Delete/Share/Edit.
Touch Share and it will give you a list of options....Gmail/Email/MMS/Myspace/Picsay...the more apps that are able to use your camera the more options...
You only need to open the keyboard to start typing the contact and it will autofind the name for you. But you will still need to open it since there isnt a onscreen keyboard for it yet.
I love snapphoto.. but jesus it's slow to save a photo.
Dirky said:
Hi,
The last two phones I had have both been Blackberry's.
I tried an iPhone recently (1 week) and just found myself pausing to do things that I would do on the blackberry very quickly.
It was almost like I had to completely stop what I was doing and give all my attention
and thought to navigating my way around the iphone, where as with the bb, I seem
to be able to do many tasks with one hand and dont have to think about the task
too much.
I'm wondering if I switch to a G1 how will I go on. Will I find myself waiting for the OS to catch up, continually opening the keyboard to do simple tasks etc?
I like the idea of placing shortcuts on the home screen to dial numbers etc, are there other shortcuts like this?
One task I find myself doing on the bb a lot is taking a quick photo and sending it to a single email address. (the same address every time).
Would this be possible on the G1?
I press the side camera button which opens the camera app,
take the photo by pressing the trackball,
move the trackball to the right and press once.
This gives me the sharing options, "send as email" is the top one.
Click the trackball which adds the photo as an attachment,
type my two letter alias in the To field,
scroll to the subject, type something.
Click the trackball once more and press send.
It sounds a lot when you read it but its pretty quick and simple. Any way of doing this without opening the keyboard?
Thanks
Mike
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The biggest hindrance to super quick operations on the G1 is the lack of on screen keyboard. Without one you'll be much happier on a BB.
hopefully we will get an on screen kb soon. Perhaps with cupcake or it ported over from another phone. It would be so useful for small simple tasks like thsi
axion68 said:
hopefully we will get an on screen kb soon. Perhaps with cupcake or it ported over from another phone. It would be so useful for small simple tasks like thsi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm being drawn to the G1, an on screen keyboard for occasional use will be very nice.
I'm not keen on the G2 as this will only have an on screen keyboard so it seems?
IMO the real problem is developers making user workflows that require using a keyboard. In many cases I feel that if an app is written properly the need for a keyboard (flip-out or onscreen) should be minimized unless you're doing heavy data entry. As the apps get better over time it's my hope this situation will improve.