Database Users

Fun with Scrollbars

Okay - I know how to change the width of scroll bars but what I am wondering is if there is a way to control where the start or end. Basically, I like to display my calender on my screen and I prefer the Calender app to the Today Agenda plugin included in the Faria ROM. When I get lots of appointments it puts scroll bar on the front screen.
Problem is that these start below the date line and block off part of the screen that I want to see. As you can see from the attached screen shot, the right hand side of the PhoneAlarm control panel is not visible, so I cannot see signal strength. I know I can see it at the top, but let's just say I am anal like that
What I wondering is if there is a way to force the scroll bars to start below the speed dial plug-in?

I don't think so. But if you use a different plugin for your calendar, then some of those can have a fixed size and their own scroll bar. I use Pocket Breeze and have mine set up just for that reason. PB has a scrollbar but the whole screen does not.
BTW: What is the tool bar right under your Date plugin???

BTW: What is the tool bar right under your Date plugin???
it's phonealarm,
i second 'the change the today agenda plugin height'
and also try out vijay's toggle to gain screen space
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=243211

The tool under the date plugin is PhoneAlarm.
It's a great tool, and Bruce the author is a great developer, but I've had a few troubles >= WM5.
But, I love the app, and AlarmToday.
dcdivenut: regarding the scrollbars, it is possible but a little complicated and you have to registry edit, so backup first.
1. Backup Registry, then using a good registry editor go to
HKLM > Software > Microsoft > Today > Items
2. Find the Plugin you want to be scrollbar less, eg in my case VJAudioNotes.
3. Glance through the entries and find the one that says "Type". Double click type and change the value to 5
4. Go into Settings > Today and make some minor change to your today screen to force it to refresh (or just soft reset). Hopefully the changes will now be reflected.
This will force the plugin to the top of the screen and force scrollbars to occur under that plugin.
Eg:
V

Thanks
Thanks for the ideas (and sorry for the delay in gratitude, it has been a crazy day at work!)
The bar is indeed phoneAlarm and I am using the B&W Pure skin in minimized mode. It is a VERY useful tool that adds true profile capability with both time and activity based profile switching. The product has great support (forum based) and the next version (1.6) is in beta right now. There is also a lite version.
I will try some of the solution suggested and see what I can make work. I really wanted to stay away from utilizing another app just to prevent scroll bars so I will give vijay's process a shot and see what happens.

Worked perfectly
I tried Vijay's suggestion and it worked perfectly. Then for kicks and giggles I tried it with Battery status as well and it worked there too, forcing the scrollbar below that. Then I tried it with the photo dialer and it would not take so this is where I am at now, which is definitely a situation I can live with. Thanks Vijay!!

Not that I'm "Mr. OG" and been around this forum for a long time but I've done a **** load of reading in this forum and never once came across this. That is a fantastic little tip there VJ!
Good stuff!

j3d1n4s7y said:
I've done a **** load of reading in this forum and never once came across this. That is a fantastic little tip there VJ!
Good stuff!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I'm here for. I have to say, I've also excreted an enormous amount of reading on the site, and can't say I've seen this tweak either, but one day I was fussing about with my plugins and thought I'd try it, and hey presto, Robert's your father's brother.
Post more screenshots guys.
V

Enlarge your today screen (how to remove the bottom menu bars)

If you're looking to get rid of the menu bar at the bottom of the Today Screen, read on. This is not a new tip, but might save you time, as there's a lot of different versions of these programs flying around. Only the one below works on WM6 / HTC Touch.
I personally find that the Menu Bars at the bottom of the Today Screen really spoil the look of the HTC Touch's sleek black/grey theme. Besides, the Comm Manager and Contacts are both accessible via the spinning cube (or the camera button if you install Double Launcher) so there's no need to have on the Today Screen, you may as well get more space for plugins, or just to keep everything looking neat and tidy. See screenshot below!
Here's how to banish them forever (?!) :
1. Download ToggleTodayIIAlpha from this link:
http://www.vijay555.com/vj/releases/vjtoggletodayii/vjtoggletodayiialpha.exe
2. Copy it to your \Windows\Startup directory. (or somewhere else and paste a shortcut instead)
3. Go into the registry and edit this key:
HKLM/Software/Vijay555/VJTodayToggle
Change these keys:
Softkeysize = 1
StartSize = 26
TrayVisible = 1
That's it! I've had no massive problems with this so far, although I haven't been testing it for too long. I'd be interested to hear how people get on in terms of stability/bugs. You WILL get problems if you try to use any of the older VJTodayToggle programs in the thread on this forum:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=243211
(SIP keyboard staying on, SIP moving to the top of the screen, menu titles disappearing but not the background, etc.)
...in fact, that's precisely why I'm sharing this info with you, as this thread is 39 pages long and it's only towards the end that things become totally clear! I'll post again if there's any unexpected side-effects, I'm currently minimising BatteryStatus and I don't know whether this will
Good luck!
Carlos
NOTES / ADVANCED
=======================
A: If you want to make your screen even neater AND still overclock your Touch, then, in step 3 above, you can make TrayVisible=0 then you can minimise the BatteryStatus plugin and it won't show up on your today screen. (right click on batterystatus icon, choose 'show rows -> minimise') I haven't tested this properly yet.
B: If you want to explore hiding the Start Menu, feel free, it looks superb when you first do it, but then I have found that the HTC biotouch (spinning cube) automatically re-instates the start menu bar when it's deactivated each time.
C: Please note, this program ( tt2.exe) DOES NOT TOGGLE, even though it's called that! Again, it's a 39 page thread, I warned you...
D: You can also run TT2.exe with a -config option to avoid editing the registry, but this would actually make the above even more long-winded to explain to any n00bs.
E: A nice new HTC wallpaper is doing the rounds without the logo. (As you can see from my screenshot, it's mis-positioned with the extra screen space) See http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=319830
F: Vijay555 has been meaning to release a new (non-alpha) version of the software for some time, but sounds pretty busy. He seems like an all-round splendid guy though and I'd like to thank him for this software and his continued postings/programming.

I have the HTC X7500 WM6 and I've been desperate to make it works.
I've been trying other version from the 40 pages thread, so I'll try this one and I will post result.

BigDede said:
I have the HTC X7500 WM6 and I've been desperate to make it works.
I've been trying other version from the 40 pages thread, so I'll try this one and I will post result.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good luck! The honest truth is that after I'd posted this, I discovered a couple of bugs that appeared in soak testing. I gave up in the end - it worked 90% but I would still occasionally get conflict, e.g. the SIP keyboard would appear at the top of the screen sometimes and only a soft reset would put it back where it was meant to be!

carlosp_uk said:
Good luck! The honest truth is that after I'd posted this, I discovered a couple of bugs that appeared in soak testing. I gave up in the end - it worked 90% but I would still occasionally get conflict, e.g. the SIP keyboard would appear at the top of the screen sometimes and only a soft reset would put it back where it was meant to be!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I confirm that, SIP keyboard is there, and sometimes as well softkeys stay there after softreset.
Well actually for me it's even worse, it's hiding the system tray (the bar just above the softkeys bar) where we can add shortcuts icons and keep the softkeys bar enabled..
Im disappointed but thks for vijay555 for all the efforts

Perfect... without HTC Logo is even better...
Thanks Carlos,
I've just installed and its working fine. With the clean background from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=319830 looks even better.
Cheers,
Marcelo

BigDede said:
Yep I confirm that, SIP keyboard is there, and sometimes as well softkeys stay there after softreset.
Well actually for me it's even worse, it's hiding the system tray
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See my original post, have you tried setting TrayVisible=1 in the registry, this should show the system tray.

I followed exactly what u posted, it displayed it correctly the first time, then after soft reset it was displaying only the softkeys bar and hiding the system tray bar
Thks anyway

How does this look on screens BESIDES the today screen? I have used other programs on different WM phones in the past and although the bottom bar disappears on the today screen, it is still on other screens.
Also, can you use the bottom of the screen or is it just dead space? Some of us have moved the HTC Home Plug to the bottom of the page and if it is just dead space, it is going to look bad....

maevro said:
How does this look on screens BESIDES the today screen? I have used other programs on different WM phones in the past and although the bottom bar disappears on the today screen, it is still on other screens. Also, can you use the bottom of the screen or is it just dead space? Some of us have moved the HTC Home Plug to the bottom of the page and if it is just dead space, it is going to look bad....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The menu bar is visible on other screens, this behaviour is by design. I cannot see why anybody would want it invisible on other screens, as you normally need those softkeys for menus in most programs!
As far as I know you can use the bottom of the screen, it is not dead space. But why not try it out - it's unlikely to do any harm. You can always delete it from your startup directory to uninstall if you don't want it.
C

Well it works well so far.....(Not my screen, Neo's screen @ HoFo)

I can't remember if the TrayVisible setting even works - I think it was something I was intending to build in, but never got around to it.
Apologies... I'm kinda programming again, had lots going on, so never finished the app. Sorry for you guys having to use my unfinished piece of cr*p. I'll make it work properly one day!
V

vijay555 said:
I can't remember if the TrayVisible setting even works - I think it was something I was intending to build in, but never got around to it.
Apologies... I'm kinda programming again, had lots going on, so never finished the app. Sorry for you guys having to use my unfinished piece of cr*p. I'll make it work properly one day!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thks a lot vijay555

HELP!!!
I installed this, but I don't know how to get into the registry from an .exe file, so I just tried to open the file through my phone, and instead it has hidden my start bar, as well as the bottom bar. How do I reverse this???

maevro said:
Well it works well so far.....(Not my screen, Neo's screen @ HoFo)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you "move" the HTC Home plugin to the bottom part of the Today-screen without any plugin above it? I searched all over the forums, but I cannot find the answer to this question
--Marc

soulstar said:
HELP!!!
I installed this, but I don't know how to get into the registry from an .exe file, so I just tried to open the file through my phone, and instead it has hidden my start bar, as well as the bottom bar. How do I reverse this???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just soft reset your phone.

marc2503 said:
How did you "move" the HTC Home plugin to the bottom part of the Today-screen without any plugin above it? I searched all over the forums, but I cannot find the answer to this question
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use the HTC Home customizer to "unlock" it. Then you can move it around like normal.
However, it doesn't redraw correctly on the right side if you unlock it, and a scrollbar comes and goes.

i have a other solution!! PCM shrink installe it and your bar remove it s very easier! For become to the original config juste delete the programmz!!

won't stick
Hi..very nice and easy Zip File..just one problem: the toggle won't stick after a soft reset = one has to go into File Explorer..double click the Toggle File and only than the screen is "clean" again.
Any way to make the toggle "stick"?

I have not this problem! I install the cab i going on the explorer and today shrink and clik on after i reboot my pda ans the bar not appear ... You can try put a abbreviated of today skrink in WINdows/started for star the application automatic on windows sartup
the result of the appl:

I have this running at startup on my Tilt, works with screen rotations and everything! And the hard keys are still mapped to calendar and contacts for quick access, awesome.
Many thanks, couldn't stand those useless soft keys before.
- Charles

Add ons and fixes for Mogul

I know there are a few threads similar to this, but most of them quickly get off topic and are not all that useful. I was thinking about having everyone post what fixes and add ons for people have, and their overall experiences with each. Then we can have a single source to see which dialers work best, if any of the so called fixes actually work... all without searching 10 forums on 15 different sites.
Heres mine
Sprint Mogul
Pocket CM 0.15
jpl4 touch dialer
xda-developers power bar
the 8 button comm manager
spb mobile shell today add on
sms text sent notification disabled
I have noticed that my mogul is slower... especially when changing to landscape to use the keyboard, but i feel like this is pocket cm... please make additions... i think i am not the only one sick of looking through at least 5 different forums

I did away with PocketCM as it has some lag when opening. I switched over to iContacts and love it. Loads fast, does what I need which is to find contacts one handedly and when i hit OK or the top right X it closes it out completely. PocketCM stays open and running which can slow device down.

i meant to mention, right now i can't get redial to work properly with my dial pad... i have to go to call history and hit the hard dial button. Other dialers have worked, but i like the setup of this dial pad best... not sure if i'll change back to the mogul big button or not.

x button 2.0
todayAgenda (MT software)
tomtom navigator 6
total commander
lordsmiff battery level
all works

sms text sent notification disabled
How did you do this... I have been searching around and havent had much success
"sms text sent notification disabled"

every1isevil said:
How did you do this... I have been searching around and havent had much success "sms text sent notification disabled"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
should be done with this regkey:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Inbox\Settings]
"SMSDeliveryNotify"=dword:00000001

petervbeck said:
should be done with this regkey:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Inbox\Settings]
"SMSDeliveryNotify"=dword:00000001
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you do that you will also disable your vibrate function. There is a cab file that will stop the notice.
Here's one:
http://www.trianglepowers.com/PPC/ViewApp.aspx?ID=54

so i changed back over to the "mogul big button dialer" which i don't like the looks of as much, but it works perfectly.
Also 2 days ago I installed the task manager 2.0 I found over at the hermes forum... suddenly my battery doesn't need to be recharged!! More like I unplugged it yesterday morning and a full 25 hours later it said 80% charged this am... maybe just a fluke. Anyone else get better battery with this addon? (Task_Manager_2_0_30487_2.cab)

nursemm05 said:
if you do that you will also disable your vibrate function. There is a cab file that will stop the notice.
Here's one:
http://www.trianglepowers.com/PPC/ViewApp.aspx?ID=54
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops, sorry! I was referring to the wrong thing! If you disable the light, you disable your vibrate function! Sorry for th confusion!

I like the concept
I've been looking for a thread like this for a while. If I could make a suggestion, could you please list or attach the freeware files along with your posts. I'm having to do just as much searching to find out what a certain program does and download location as before.

I got rid of PocketCM... way too slow for me.
I'm running:
PIEPlus
10 button CommManager
WkTask
SPB Mobile Shell, Phone Suite, and Backup
Arcsoft MMS
dcd's touch dialer
Disabled SMS Sent Notification
Plus a bunch of other irrelevant stuff.
I notice lag sometimes when I go to send a text message and pop out the keyboard. Seems to have some lag going to landscape, and lag opening up the new text message window. Other than that it's fine for the most part.

I've used the following registry tweaks and gotten dramatically better battery life:
http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127164&highlight=registry
A couple of us have tested this and found a nice increase in battery life. On my Treo 700 it seemed to do nothing but on the Q it greatly helped (I ran for 12 hours yesterday push email in a low signal environment and stayed at 4 bars battery--normally would have been at 2 or 3)
Quote:
"...simple registry trick and hack that will enable power management on several communications protocols to save and conserve the battery life, and thus extend and prolong the battery of the Windows Mobile devices."
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\AsyncMac1\Parms
Default value type and value are
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:1
Change to
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:0
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\Irsir1\Parms
Default value type and value are
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:1
Change to
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:0
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\PPTP1\Parms
Default value type and value are
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:1
Change to
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:0
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\L2TP1\Parms
Default value type and value are
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:1
Change to
“DisablePowerManagement”=dword:0
(Again, use at your own risk -- I disclaim any liability -- except to say I've tried the above and it works well for me with no apparent downside).
On memory use, I found that people have tried removing the HTC_CM_Guardian and dddaemon from the \Windows\StartUp folder. I personally moved them to a "save" folder so I can restore them if I run into problems. One of them loads the voice dialer function and the other prevents certain changes to the system --- both appear to be memory hogs. I don't use voice dialer (I think even without this program the voice dialer will loan on demand anyway). Removing these two has improved my memory usage.
I use tMan as a task manager --- very handy and fast to close and manage running processes. Also very lightweight and easy to use.
Another REALLY useful tweak, the FlashVideoBundle along with the TCPMP player --- enables full screen YouTube videos launched from PIE. Is not compatible with the Flash plug in however, you can only have one or the other installed. See here for details:
http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=1319431&postcount=1

From o2 Mini to Touch Dual 850: A journey of discovery part 1

My beloved o2 mini was having a few 'issues' - dropping calls, bad battery life, periods of no network - it was time for an upgrade.
So I bought a Telstra branded touch dual off ebay from a company called 'viper technologies'. I discovered why it was called that when the parcel arrived with 'Mike Metcalfe' in the 'from' section - Mike Metcalfe was Tom Skerritt's *real* name as the head instructor of 'Top Gun', otherwise known as 'Viper'.
I'd done some prereading at xda developers and discovered the Telstra version is the 850, which is the NEON and not the NIKI. On the upside the 850 apparently has a larger battery, the ability to work on Telstra NextG, an FM radio, and the power button is in a different place (the same as the o2 mini fortuitously)On the downside it has the telescopic stylus, which is fine because I tend not to use it much. I found that the fact that it was in the bottom right corner took more getting used to than the fact that it was telescopic.
Anyways. First, that telstra branding had to go. I found the right spl uploader at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=377260>, and installed version 1.06.841.4 ROM on it.
The only issues with the flashing was that I missed a crucial step of unplugging and replugging the cable, as per the instructions (in capital letters even) in the aforementioned thread.
I made my own little startup splash screen to replace the windows mobile one and stuck it in the windows directory by making a 240 x 320 pixel jpg in photoshop and naming it 'welcomehead.96.png'.
Before that, of course I had to discover that ActiveSync 4.5 is the latest version for XP, and will always be, because Vista now has some other sort of thing to transfer to mobiles. ActiveSync 4.5 has behaved itself quite well for me, much better than I remember 3.7 ever doing with the o2.
I decided to make a partnership without syncing any data at first, because I knew I'd be connecting and disconnecting and didn't want to always wait for it to sync hundreds of files before it let me do anything. At this juncture the little rubber USB port cover on the bottom first began to annoy me, but more on that later.
OK, it was time to try and make this little fella do everything the o2 could - and more. Familiarising oneself with the new WM6 was fun - the o2 ran 2003 and while they haven't changed much, there were a few things that needed getting used to.
HTC HOME VS CLAUNCHER
My thinking usually centres around getting things done efficiently. And whilst it looked so cool, I came to the realisation that HTC home had to go. The clock? Too much screen real estate (and I have a watch anyway). The message/call/appointment notifiers? I wanted to see the actual appointments written there. The launcher? Only NINE programs? Please! The weather? Firstly I didn't seem to be able to get it for Australia, and secondly... I actually realised that I don't really care about the weather that much! Ringtones? Don't use 'em. Right.
So I stumbled upon a program called clauncher, which it turns out is incredibly cool and efficient. You can just load it up, select it as a plugin and then click and hold on the empty space to access a huge variety of settings. It comes with 8 tabs for categories, like Main, Tools, Comm, Games etc etc. One of the excellent things about clauncher is that you can just import your start menu folder into an empty category and then just cut them out into the right ones. It's easy to move them with a multiple selection function and 'move up' and 'move down' buttons.
I found that keeping the icons at their native 32 pixel size looked nicest, and it's also about the right size for a thumb. I gave them a 3 pixel space between them but then I put a large right margin of 12 pixels, because clauncher has a cool feature which flips icon screens when you touch the blank part. You can also set the total height. So the sizing above gave me five icons in two rows, with a blank portion on the right to thumb to the next page. I discovered also that you can get more screen space (and a neater look) by hiding the tabs altogether.
Earlier on I'd discovered a terrible problem with clauncher - The pop down keypad would only type the first letter or number in the boxes! So I had named the second tab '2' and moved on. The lack of keyboard became an issue when I wanted to add manual shortcuts etc. Luckily I stumbled upon the fix for it. Instead of press and hold for the settings, if you access them via the 'today items' control panel, it gives you the softkey bar at the bottom, and hence your keyboard options back again.
Currently I've got four screens - my most frequently used (vaguely) apps, less frequently used apps, communications stuff and then games.
All I need to find out now is how to anchor it to the bottom part of the screen.
I noticed that WM6 no longer puts your messages on the today screen - 'no unread emails' or whatever. But a shortcut to messaging was an easy fix with clauncher.
HARDWARE KEYS/LONGPRESSENDKEY/SLIDEACTION
The lack of hardware keys was something I didn't realise I'd miss so much. The o2 had phone buttons, volume slider, camera button, the normal nav buttons PLUS appointment, contacts, and voice recorder buttons. I used to run buttonmax on my o2 which let me map press, double press and long press to each of the extra buttons.
I thought I'd found a solution in AEbuttonplus - it was free, it let me map buttons - but the only buttons I could really map were the phone ones.
So I mapped a double click on the green button to close a window (when I'm thumbing around it's actually easier to get to the bottom part of the screen, particularly when using the sliding keyboard). It was working great - until I got a phone call. The green button seems to change purpose depending on what's going on. I had mapped its usual use to 'phone', but that didn't seem to cover 'answer call' or even 'send call' - I had to use the on-screen softkeys. I'd installed 'slide action' software which had been working great, but I realised it must simulate a 'press green button' or something, because it stopped working for phone functions too. So AEbuttonplus had to go.
The small consolation came with the 'longpressendkey' setting somebody thoughtfully put in the ROM - I can at least set my phone to vibrate with one key, which I could never do easily on the o2. I'd love to see 'longpressendkey' set up to allow any customisable link, and while they're at it, make BOTH the green and red keys mappable for single, double and triple press as well as long press. That would give six extra hardware key options and make up for the lack of them elsewhere. Anyways.
ACTIVESYNC/MACROREADER/CEREGEDITOR
Dang it, I stuffed around for a LONG time trying to solve this. On my o2 I had a hardware macro (double press contacts key) which would start activesync, and then another activesync specific hardware macro (hold contacts key) to connect bluetooth and start synchronising. And then to disconnect, I was running the Magic Button task manager and a tap on the X would disconnect and close activesync.
How to do it? I didn't have hardware keys, I didn't have macros, OR didn't I? I ended up discovering a little piece of software here:
http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/download.php?ID=1645&BID=23
in what seemed to be the VITO 'boneyard' where they keep all the seconds and dodgy stuff - I couldn't find a link to it on the main site. It was called 'MacroRecorder' and it comes with no manual or other information. But it works if you just want to record a tap-based macro. Next problem then - how to make a tap for starting Activesync always be in the same place?
You gotta love those registry hacks. I found a program called CERegEditor which lets you connect up the phone, and then edit the registry on your PC. Sure beats keying in all the weird info on the tiny screen using the tiny buttons.
I remapped the bottom left softkey to ActiveSync using the Key 112 registry entry, and now I had my solution to making a tap-based macro. MacroRecorder isn't that tricky actually - you just start the exe, click the okay screen, do your thang, and then press the little red square which has appeared in the middle of the screen to finish. It asks for a name and then creates a file in the same folder as the exe, which you can put wherever. I created an entry for it in clauncher, gave it the activesync icon (Windows\repllog.exe) and now I can start activesync and connect via bluetooth with one press!
While I was there in the registry I did a few other tweaks like making the scroll bars 15 pixels wide (the widest you can make them whilst keeping the 'settings' screen three icons wide) and making the date one line instead of two. There's a list of registry tweaks here:
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=50029&st=0
Getting activesync to close and disconnect in one action was a bit trickier. None of the task managers I tried would close activesync down altogether, like magic button used to do on my o2. I found some trial software which advertised the ability to 'close activesync on disconnect', which it DID... but the only problem was that it wouldn't OPEN it again when you reconnected.
Given that WM6 now gives you the option of the OK button actually closing things rather than minimising, Magic button sadly had no use anymore. Goodbye, trusty software.
So it seems I've gained a step in making Activesync connection a one-click process... but I've lost my one-click disconnection. Oh well. There's some software which people talk about which was supposed to be able to automatically schedule bluetooth connections, but it sadly seems to have disappeared.
CONTINUED IN PART 2

PART 2
MS READER
I had been using MS reader for my ebooks and it worked fine on my o2, but for some reason it seemed to be painfully slow on the dual. I ended up converting my .lit files using 'convertLit' and downloading Mobipocket to read them. It's not quite as pretty as MS reader, but it's definitely faster to load, and it takes you to your last read book straight away instead of having to go through all the intro screens. Second shortcut in clauncher, then!
TOUCHFLO
Well that cubey thing is super cool - so I spent considerable time trying to get it to have the elusive fourth face. BUT then I asked myself, 'what does touchflo do that I can't do with one press in clauncher?'
About this time I had to hard reset and rebuild everything because I'd added in some irrepairable registry stuff and the cube was whacked out completely.
I left it as three sides, then. Now - it's not immediately obvious, but the 'quicktasks' screen that comes up when you open the slider is actually part of the Touchflo 'family' and it's settings are in the same place in the registry.
So it was relatively easy to replace the 'Email' on the third side of the cube with 'new email' from the APlauncher screen, 'SMS' with 'new SMS', 'Notes' with 'new note' and 'calendar' with 'new appointment'. That way the icons matched up just great.
The problem is that now that I've figured out the shortcuts, it's probably just as easy to put an icon in clauncher for them! So rather than 1. turn on, 2. swipe up, 3. swipe across, 4. press icon; you could eliminate the swipes...
I'm finding too, that new things involving contacts (SMS, MMS, email, phone calls) are best handled by sliding out the keypad, typing the first few letters, click down to them with the navigation keys and press the centre key. Then you get a screen with options to call any of their numbers, text them or email them.
If you go the 'new message' route, you have to access the contacts list in a far more cumbersome manner - smaller type entries which are harder to click with your thumbnail and that you either have to scroll to or type an exact match for it.
I've also found the following when using the touchflo features:
* to get the touch cube every time, start at the htc logo and sweep up with the thumbnail.
* you don't have to be 'twitchy' with the photo gestures. A slower and deliberate circle or half circle tends to make it do what you're asking a lot better - more nail, less finger for the photo stuff too.
* for scrolling, press quite firmly, and use a lot of finger surface area. Too much nail tends to make it click. I imagine I'm smudging stuff off my finger and that seems to work well. For long scrolls do a finger 'flick'.
THAT RUBBER COVER
After only a few days of activesyncing, I noticed the rubber cover on the USB port was starting to not close flush anymore. A bit of research turned up that it was an extremely common problem. So I bit the bullet and cut it off, but I cut it in a way that I could put it back on if I wanted, by slitting through one of the sections that anchors around the little pin, leaving the rubber in a hook shape to hold it in when needed. I tried putting it in the freezer for a time, but that seemed to have no effect, and I was already sick of pulling it off everytime I plugged it in to charge or whatever. So I trimmed that baby off, right next to the middle section, so that it was still held in at two points, but so that the USB port was now exposed. I then took the remaining bit and trimmed it right close to its anchor thing, and slotted it back as well. So now the USB port is exposed but none of the ugly holes which the rubber thing slotted into are. I shouldn't have to worry about wear (because I'm not taking it off all the time) or expansion bulging (because it has one free edge), and because of the way the curves sit it looks like a nicely recessed USB port. I'm not certain the tiny little piece will stay put, but if it falls off (and I can still find it) I could easily put a spot of glue on it - it doesn't look too bad without that little bit anyway. If I did it again I'd probably leave a little bit more rubber on the side closest to the centre, so that the USB port looks better centred in the hole. (see attached pic)
CLOSING THE CAMERA/ALBUM
I found that pressing the X on the camera only minimised it. Fortunately there's a registry tweak called ok_minimize which you can change to make it actually close the app.
IE
Internet explorer is a dog for scrolling big pages. Replace your webview.dll file and it's much better.
.lnk FOR 'PROGRAMS' FOLDER
If you make an .lnk to the programs folder normally, it opens in a file explorer window - not cool. The solution is to make it point to the HTC app 'folderview.exe' and it works a treat. 'Settings' is not so simple though. You can map to individual control panels but not the main one with them all in there. A bit of a weird one.
Anyway, all in all I can't wait to put my dual to work now that it's been primed and readied - my wishlist at the moment would be:
* map double/triple/hold functions to the phone keys
* get slideclose to send a 'close current app' command rather than just go back to today screen
* align clauncher to the bottom of today screen (easier to thumb, and looks neater)
* figure out an .lnk file for the 'settings' control panel (this seems surprisingly difficult - in fact I installed some software that remapped the start menu and I couldn't get into 'settings' to remove it!)
* find a taskmanager or utility that actually kills activesync while it's connected
* to get faster at typing with the dang half-qwerty keyboard!
* I reckon a taskswitcher that used the touchflo 'across' gesture to scroll between open apps would be really cool.
There you have it - hope some or all of that is actually helpful! Thanks to all you guys out there cooking ROMs, writing software and thinking outside the box.
Cheers
jbng

jesus christ are you competing for the longest post of the year award??

holy crap !! i read it from the very beginning and never read such a post before ..... well done dude !! and keep up posting ;-)
re : * find a taskmanager or utility that actually kills activesync while it's connected
i searched such a tool a long time ... never got something which lets me charge niki without syncing on the pc.
workaround: i placed the network connection of my niki on my xp taskbar . when i want to sync then i enable network connection - if not, disable . not the best solution , i know , however - it works and since then i got used to it.
cheers

I take my hat off for these post's! Great job man!

nice post, even better to know there are people out there that search for answers before posting question after question
jbngar said:
I found that pressing the X on the camera only minimised it. Fortunately there's a registry tweak called ok_minimize which you can change to make it actually close the app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you try changing the setting in settings -> task manager -> button -> to end program by tapping x, works ok for me

WEEK 2
Week 2 of touch dual has been a whole lot of fun. I'm still looking for an absolute 'killer' of an app that will make anyone and everyone go 'oooh, aaaaah - that's SO much better than your o2 mini could ever do'... but I'm yet to come across it. The most impressive thing is the voice activation, but whenever I show someone and tell it to 'play track twenty' it always seems to try and 'ring jack henty' or something like that.
AEBUTTON PLUS
I thought I'd try a trial full version of AEButton plus. I began by mapping a double centre-nav press for 'ok/close' and several other cool things to the left and right nav buttons. Worked great, for a time, until I tried typing. It turns out the 'enter' key on the slider does exactly the same thing as the centre press, and so every time I'd make a new paragraph I'd close the window! Not to mention all the weird and wonderful things that would happen when I went to correct a mistake. Click back... click back... click and hold... and the screen is rotating and all sorts of applications are launching!
So I realised the reason that most button mappers don't let you map the nav keys.
The camera button had issues too - even though it was mapped to let a single press do the default action, it wouldn't take a photo. No good.
The red button wouldn't work for some reason either, I can't remember why, but all I know is that I was left with my button mappings on the green button only:
single press = default action, double press = ok, triple press = switch application, hold = close application.
3G, GSM, INTERNET and MMS
The big news this week was the arrival of my 3G sim card. Both of them. I'd ordered one from Optus about a week and a half ago with the promise of '2-3 days'. It didn't come so I rang again and was told 'there's no record of you being sent one, we'll send you another'. And they both arrived on the same day - one at work and one at home.
Then I rang at lunchtime thursday to activate it, and then spent most of the rest of the day restarting the phone to see if it had provisioned in the '15 minute to four hour' window they gave me. I ended up slipping the card into an old Nokia 3200 when I got sick of waiting for the dual to boot up and hang when it was looking for the network. The Nokia flashed up a much more informative 'sim card not registered' message, which it continued to flash up until I gave up late on Thursday night. But in the morning, wonder of wonders, it was working! My family breathed a sigh of relief because they didn't have to listen to the dodgy Nokia startup tune any more.
The first thing I did was try the internet and it performed very respectably. But MMS messages refused to work.
I made a couple of calls to Optus to get the settings and was told 'you have to enter them manually'. So I faffed around with that for ages. The problem seemed to be that MMS would work if 'mms' was the default setting, but then internet wouldn't work. If I changed the default to 'internet', then MMS stopped working. Rah!
Then I discovered in the connections settings an icon called 'network wizard'. I thought it was for WiFi or something. But after clicking it, selecting the provider and restarting, everything worked just fine! Thanks for the heads up, tech support guys! I'll be sending them an email shortly.
3G tends to use more battery, so I tried a tool called bandswitcher to easily change between GSM and 3G, but it didn't help my config problems. And I thought that if I lock it to GSM, if someone tries to video call me it won't work; and if I lock it to 3G, if I go out of coverage it won't switch over. So 'Auto' it was.
BLUETOOTH RANGE
The bluetooth range seems to be a bit paltry on the dual. I tried switching off 'secure connection' and it was marginally better, but I couldn't connect from the next room like I could with my o2. Once the connection is established it seems to be better, but I have to say activesync via bluetooth has been flakier than I'd like - with lots of dropouts etc.
KEYSWOP
Try as I might, the shortcut path '\windows\poutlook.exe calendar -new' that was working for 'new appointment' on the touchflo cube would not map to the right softkey using the registry. So I found a free utility called 'keyswop' which makes .lnk files and helps you to map them to the softkeys. So everything in the software side of the touchflo cube is now in clauncher, a softkey or something else:
* New SMS/MMS/email - open keyboard, press first few letters of name, press 'send message'
* New appointment - press right softkey, enter details
* New note - open notes from clauncher, press left softkey
* IE/comm manager - clauncher icons
CLAUNCHER
Speaking of Clauncher, since last week I now have 15 icons (3 rows of 5) and less screens. It's very seldom that my appointments push it off the bottom of the screen, and if they do it's easily scrollable.
Further to my last investigations about needing to access the options via the today settings control panel to get the keyboard, I've found that you ALSO have to use the bog standard WM6 'keyboard' option - the other HTC keyboards will only give numbers. This seems to be the case in some other applications like Visnotes too. Visnotes is an awesome free application for storing encrypted numbers like bank accounts etc which uses an innovative 'password' - you press three times on a picture in preset places.
TYPING and XT9
I tried out an application called 'touchpal' which advertised itself as 'typing faster than a hardware keyboard'. But I think the dual's 2.6" screen is just a bit small for it to be effective. I've decided to stick with the half-qwerty keyboard and just keep practicing - and it seems to be paying off. My goal is to get to the stage where I can type without looking at the keys with either two hands or one.
XT9 is actually incredibly intelligent software. It uses complex algorithms based on what keys were near the one you actually typed, and combines them with its dictionaries to guess what you were trying to type. And it does very, very well. Anything that can guess the word 'friend' from the keystrokes 'ddeuabd' or 'thorough' from 'ggoedoujgg' is pretty darn clever.
The issue I had was that the default keyboard kept going back to 'ABC' aka multitap. This was fixed by switching the registry key CarrierDefaultTextMode as outlined here:
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=97265
A couple of other xt9 tips:
* I found I had to use thumbnails (not thumbs) for the keys to avoid double pressing etc.
* For two handed entry, the 'Alt' key is quickest to access numbers and symbols on the top of the keys. For one handed entry, pressing and holding does the same thing.
* every so often XT9 uses a strange default word. My issues were 'boy' for 'not', and 'st' for 'at'. You can fix this by typing and selecting the word you want three times in a row. This seems to 'teach' it and sets it as the first word it chooses each time.
* the first row of symbols can be quickly accessed by holding down * and the relevant number (e.g. *7 will give you a smiley).
I *wish* there was some way to change the symbol matrix. The first three in the first row are already on hardware keys (.,?!) and the next ones are smileys. I would like to at least put a hyphen in the top row so I could access it without leaving the hardware keyboard. I've found the easiest way to enter symbols is to scroll to the row and use their numbers.
ACB TASKMAN
This software tells you which actual PROCESSES you are running. Quite useful. I used it to close down AEButtonPlus when it was mucking up.
I think that's about it for now - the main outstanding issues are still a shortcut to the settings control panel, and a way to align clauncher to the bottom of the today screen.
Otherwise, enjoy!
PS. A fun app I found is called 'guesser' - it basically gives you random numbers for all sorts of things like heads/tails, yes/no, agree/disagree, A/B/C/D, alphabet, 1-100 etc. We were with some friends the other night and everyone picked a number between 1 and 100 and the winner was the first one to have guesser pick their number. Fun in a bizarre kind of way...

Blimey, Claunch is nice, but I swapped to Ultimate Launch, just for the Today plugins within Tabs and animations, plus lots of Icons for it. If you do swap, remove cLaunch first as it buggered up my UL when I removed it afterwards.

Help me choose a launcher!

So, i've tried a whole bunch of them, but none of them works quite the way i want them. What's most important for me is the ability turn on/off WiFi and BT with one click, and device locking, all of that on the home screen. Instead of just piling up links to programs, i'm much more interested in launchers that allow me easy access to settings.
TF3D - don't like it at all.
SPB Mobile shell - i can turn BT and WiFi on/off with two clicks, but device locking is buried somewhere in the menus and it's a pain using it, cause i'm always locking it. Also the problem is that that half of the menus were empty, for instance "Games" menu - nothing inside, even though plenty of games were installed.
PointUI - doesn't have the two most important things, and also doesn't support croatian characters, so all my contacts look screwed up. Aside from that, i like it a lot.
FingerPoint - also missing the key ingredients and is quite buggy.
From what i've tried, i definitely like SPB best, but would love to know if there was a way to get the "lock device" button somewhere on it's first screen and to fix the empty menus.
Oh yeah, another thing - analog clock is a must.
Thanx

why dont you try spb phonesuite. Its Today plugin got everything you want.
(if you using TF3D then you need to host it outside of Today screen with TouchFlo Detacher)

Thanx for the suggestion. Works great. I also found this - Quickmenu. amazing start replacement, has everything i need.