Develop Bugs

Dock-N-Play Animated Today Background [Beta - 0.8 Beta Cab Available]

Beta Cab (0.8) available here: http://rapidshare.com/files/198951161/DNP_0_8_Beta.cab
All,
Dock-N-Play (DnP) is a "Craddleware" application that detects when your phone is craddled and on external power. If so it launches a "animated" today screen that provides a clock, email, current weather and appointments along with... wait for it... an animated background! This is one of those - "WOW that's neat... can I get that for my phone?" impress your co-workers applications. I have posted a few screen shots. My hope is a small community will help create animations to share with others. After the initial release in WVGA I will create a VGA version for others (likely not QVGA though - sorry)
The next release (after this one) will include some more options to:
- go full screen,
- assign quick-launch programs to front icons,
- change clock to completely transparent, semi transparent or fully non-transparent
A later release will add assignable quick launch icons to the middle of the screen for things like GPS navigation, Phone, Locking etc
Here are a few preview screens:
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Blessing one and all
Andy
Video here: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4422400/11856834
Beta Cab available here: http://rapidshare.com/files/198951161/DNP_0_8_Beta.cab
Some known issues! {beta}
I believe this will only work on English ROMs... the next release will fix this. Setting location for weather requires "blind" typing or use of something like My Mobiler... also will be fixed. Please feel free to create your own animation skins but be forwarned that I will be making minor changes to the config.ini and txt files to accomodate needed internationalization changes. The next major release will include a PDF guide for creating skins but I'm guessing many will be able to just look and edit existing sample files. Also current CAb does not allow/display option to load to storage card... as soon as I figure out why I will fix this too
Please enjoy and know that fixes/enhancements will be forthcoming

Wow...very nice indeed.
One request, can this app have a lock feature?

Sounds Great, Hope It Goes Well, And Keep Us Updated

Incredibly nice idea, I'll definately test this out once you release the beta. Cheers!

try to make it run in fullscreen and take advantake of the hd's resolution.
thanks, and great project.

Great job...
Looks very good.. keep up the good work looking forward to test it

Can we have a youtube preview ? 'cause the picture previews doesn't really give us an idea of what it is like to have an animated background

I'm rebuilding my dev box with Windows 7 and watching the Superbowl... I'll put a video on my blog tomorrow and add a link to the first page.

Looks like a really great idea! Looking forward to testing it out, keep it up!

an Idea
abeery, what about an option to turn Touch HD into a picture frame ?
i.e full screen picture slideshow.
Good Luck to you and all Developers!

Some quick comments and answers
Added video to first link
Animations can be created by end users so picture frame possible
Full screen an option I will add but not use myself because I need full notication task bar icons for work

i love the idea!
what i would like to see in this app is a three mode function(or more).. for use in the car, home and office..
lets say i get in my car and i dock the phone on its holder, a screen will pop up with 3 big buttons that say "Car" "Home" "Office"
i click the button Car and the car menu shows in screen.. maybe it has a big clock a big "Call" button a Button to launch my GPS app etc..
when i receive a phone call in Car mode a screen should pop up with some nice buttons to answer or reject the call.. maybe a photo of the caller etc!
Now for the "Home" and "Office" modes what you already developed seem to fit
cheers!

I love this idea... Let me play with it and see what I can come up with... may end up being a version 1.5 release but I will do it.

abeery said:
I love this idea... Let me play with it and see what I can come up with... may end up being a version 1.5 release but I will do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no rush no rush..

UNmexed, fantastic ideas to add to an already fantastic idea. This is exaclty what I've been looking for, hopefully this will lead to us being able to use our WM devices as Windows Sideshow type desktop extensions........definitely going to be loading the beta~!

abeery said:
I love this idea... Let me play with it and see what I can come up with... may end up being a version 1.5 release but I will do it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Brilliant work can't wait finally something to show off to the iphone boys.

Will we be able to get rid of the bottom "curtain" and make the clock smaller in order to see more of the background?

Maybe make the clock background transparent instead of white so that more of the beautiful animation background can be seen.

Beta Cab now available

Wow thanks will give it a try
Thanks a lot for your idea and work
I like a lot the idea of umexed +1

Sweeter Home - SKINS

(Edited original post)
Sweeter Home Skins from this thread:
Dark Rising - by Puny Weakling
Be Square - by Puny Weakling
Dark Rising 2.0 (with springboards) - by PW
Be Cubed - by PW
Thrillho - by PW

That is extremely nice. I would have continued using Sweeter Home if it had themes like that.

Soon it will be yours. Just need to write a readme.

wow very nice i might use this =D

nice, havent heard of sweeter home. Maybe I'll make a theme for it 8)

I dont see this app in the market

mrpandainc said:
I dont see this app in the market
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have a Dev Phone it won't show

[Sweeter Home Skin]: Dark Rising
[Sweeter Home Skin]: Dark Rising
Skin:
Dark Rising 1.0.zip
Some suggested wallpapers
Preview:
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"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
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"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
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PLEASE post here or email me with any probs. I have no idea how sharable this is or how your trays will appear. The wallpaper should use what ever your system has set as wallpaper. Disable WallCal if you have it.
FEEDBACK on installation please!!!!

I sent you a PM punkweakling. Check it for me please.

Install help:
gerryeff said:
hey ! i loaded the dark rising theme in the sweeter home file when i mounted it...but it wont show?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unmount the SD and remove the USB cable from your phone.
Home into Sweeter Home
Hit menu button, then Themes
Hit menu button, then SD Card
Dark Rising.sly
Works?

wow thanks again your amazing :]

neat!!..so clean..good job man

Thanks team! I'll work on some new ideas soon. There's some good opportunity to build customer wallpapers into the skin too.
With Dark Rising how did you find the trays loaded with your apps? Did you have to do much drag/dropping to customise the trays the way you want?

how do you make themes for sweeter home?

Nice Job
Installed w/o a hitch - you might want to mention the directory to copy the .sly file to, [sweeterhome] in case people might not already be aware. All of my icons in your trays ended up being copies of the default - e.g., browser, camera, mail, maps.... Incidentally I have about 330 apps installed, so I likely have most of the same as you.
Also, the right side screen is hard to swipe to the left from, as you cannot switch screens by swiping on anything other than the desktop itself - this is an issue with sweeterhome itself, so I'll mention it at the app's website, as I'm sure it bugs many other people, especially when they want to maximize the desk space.

elikser said:
Installed w/o a hitch - you might want to mention the directory to copy the .sly file to, [sweeterhome] in case people might not already be aware. All of my icons in your trays ended up being copies of the default - e.g., browser, camera, mail, maps.... Incidentally I have about 330 apps installed, so I likely have most of the same as you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah the dev confirmed that for me yesterday, he's starting to think about possible solutions I think...
elikser said:
Also, the right side screen is hard to swipe to the left from, as you cannot switch screens by swiping on anything other than the desktop itself - this is an issue with sweeterhome itself, so I'll mention it at the app's website, as I'm sure it bugs many other people, especially when they want to maximize the desk space.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you talking about the contacts sreen (to the right of the middle screen) I left the whole bottom section of the screen clear for swipping (aside from the contacts icon). Or do you mean you'd prefer to be able to swipr from anywhere on that screen. You could always move the contacts list and the favs list up to the top of the screen giving you more real estate underneath and then re-saving. Anyway the dev is thinking of ways to fix this too. Might require a significant re-write.

Thanks man. Greatly appreciate you sharing.

I'm currently working on one right now to match with the Aero theme. I'll upload a few pics of what I have done in a bit.

Double post ><

What I have so far. Screens are top, middle, left.
Any suggestions? I've been trying to think what I could do with the left/bottom and how to work on the right screen.
I've currently changed the borders so they are bigger and black. Not sure if I'll keep it though, I like the white. I've also managed to add the name of the docks on the top ones.
I'm also planning a completely different setup for when the phones in landscape mode.

[REQ] Start Menu Replacement

I want to share my Start Menu concept for Windows Mobile.
As we know, the new honeycomb start menu in 6.5 is hard to use, because the icons are not sorted. We can move a program to top, but we can't sort it alphabetically.
May be it will be good if someone can make this start menu replacement.
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Here's the explanation :
1. As seen in the picture, the start menu "level" is like in the older WM than 6.5 (we have see white gradient on the start button). In 6.5, the start menu is like a folder which contains all the shortcut.
2. All apps will not displayed in Honeycomb. Honeycomb is only for favourite app. Because, in Favourite app, we don't need to sort all the objects alphabetically. Also, tap&hold will bring some menu, including "move item", not "move to top".
Sliding to right or left, will switch to task manager (running apps), still in honeycomb style..
For Smartphone edition (non-touch), no honeycomb, just a normal icons.
3. The left soft key open the programs menu
The program menu is very similar to Spb Mobile Shell Launcher, with some differences :
a. The programs menu will load all the shortcut (without icon)
In lower priority, icons will be loaded, without eating resources, so we can quickly scroll down, and launch the app we want.
b. It will be closed when an app is launched.
4. The right soft key open the settings menu
a. Just take the older WM settings screen. We don't need eye-candy settings screen, because we will not open it everyday.
Now, would you make this start menu replacement. I'm not a programmer..

Million A$ idea...but i am also unfortunately poor in programming ..but i hope soon it will be formulated..
COOl

patrick_spd4u said:
I want to share my Start Menu concept for Windows Mobile.
As we know, the new honeycomb start menu in 6.5 is hard to use, because the icons are not sorted. We can move a program to top, but we can't sort it alphabetically.
May be it will be good if someone can make this start menu replacement.
Here's the explanation :
1. As seen in the picture, the start menu "level" is like in the older WM than 6.5 (we have see white gradient on the start button). In 6.5, the start menu is like a folder which contains all the shortcut.
2. All apps will not displayed in Honeycomb. Honeycomb is only for favourite app. Because, in Favourite app, we don't need to sort all the objects alphabetically. Also, tap&hold will bring some menu, including "move item", not "move to top". For Smartphone edition (non-touch), the favourite apps will not honeycomb, because it will make us confused when press left/right button.
3. The left soft key open the programs menu
The program menu is very similar to Spb Mobile Shell Launcher, with some differences :
a. The programs menu will load all the shortcut (without icon)
In lower priority, icons will be loaded, without eating resources, so we can quickly scroll down, and launch the app we want.
b. It will be closed when an app is launched.
4. The right soft key open the settings menu
a. Just take the older WM settings screen. We don't need eye-candy settings screen, because we will not open it everyday.
Now, would you make this start menu replacement. I'm not a programmer..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dare2know said:
Million A$ idea...but i am also unfortunately poor in programming ..but i hope soon it will be formulated..
COOl
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look HERE

this is such a good idea that htc already did it.

What do you mean? The Rhodium Start menu?
The Jack of Clubs said:
this is such a good idea that htc already did it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you mean? The Touch Pro2 (Rhodium) Start menu?
In Rhodium Start Menu, HTC didn't add honeycomb
No white gradient to indicate the start menu is opened, like in older WM.
No Task Manager
The Program menu hasn't organized folders (for example : games), and items are displayed in list instead of grid/thumbnails
The last one, I can't get it in my Raphael and Hermes !!
EDIT: I can get it in my Raphael but I prefer the Panoramic Launchpad than Manila Start Menu..

[Future Release] Tile Concept

So I was thinking the other day that there is no reason why some tiles couldn't be smaller. It would be cool if you could long hold a tile and have an option com up to split it into a half tile. Other hub like tiles could be further subdivided. I use IE to demonstrate this, but the music up could allow you to pin a favorite artist or two to it. Or the game hub could likewise use 1/2 tile to display game invites, and then two 1/4 tiles to link directly to your two favorite games. What are your thoughts?
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Edit: here is what it would look like in your hand:

+1!
I would love to see this

like this too...

Here's what I've been wanting MS to do, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full width sizes

If only Microsoft would actually come in here and read some of this stuff...

Genius!
Sent from my HD7 T9292 using XDA Windows Phone 7 App

I realy like it too. Eather I don't understand why there is no option to make smaller icons at the beginig of WP7.

There should be an option when pinning to the home screen which size you want. It would call for more work on the dev's part to add all of the extra icons in their apps that encompass all of the sizes, but WP7 is already easy to work with.

this will be great..... i hope MS will look at this and add this to the mango update...

hmmm, honestly dont really like the split tiles. Just doesnt look as clean and simplistic as the original. I like the interface as it is now, however adding more options or subdivisons(and not separate tiles) within a single tile would be welcome.

hey, they're almost icons, keep going!

PsychoAssasin said:
hmmm, honestly dont really like the split tiles. Just doesnt look as clean and simplistic as the original. I like the interface as it is now, however adding more options or subdivisons(and not separate tiles) within a single tile would be welcome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are probably one of 1000 who don't like this opinion. So if you don't like, just use biger icons. Us who like smaller, than could use smaller.

I really like this layout. It adds diversity to the screen and also allows you to see more at the first glimpse. I would really welcome this, but I am pretty confident we'll never see this

I would love this layout as an option! Make it so that to add it you would need to go into the app settings, then people wouldnt complain about it being mandatory.
Edit- Imagine this concept with a facebook app, you could have different parts of the tile split into different functions, like one could be facebook chat with notifications, just a straight notifications one and then another with new messages. So, each would have seperate notifications and tapping it would take you directly to it.

brilliant!

The concept is nice, but I like the original tiles any smaller and it will look like icons

I would bet the OP used to have a HD2 because this reminds me of a great mod everyone was using to be able to accomodate more icons to the homescreen. While it was awesome for Winmo 6.5 I don't really like it for WP7 because the tiles are not just icons, they're supposed to display information.
I've just read the comments over this concept at WPCentral and this is what I had to say...
I think the people who see an issue with the tiles don't actually see where the real issue is. The real issue is some(most) tiles only act as counters and are the ones wasting space. However we have to keep them on the start screen because there isn't a notification center.
I said that before, Windows Phone needs to go the Meego route and have a 3rd page that's just for notifications (and maybe one more useful feature like data/wifi toggles as someone suggested).
Example: I currently have Accuweather and AlphaJax pinned to my start screen. Accuweather is an informative tile that shows useful information at a glance. AlphaJax doesn't do anything. It just shows a number that tells me it's my turn to play, it's just a counter. AlphaJax could be on my notification page and moved away from my start screen in favour of a more informative app like prime tv.
Think about it, how many of your "live" tiles are just counters?
Also I'm not too keen on the "they could still make it and make it optional". It's not like it would require a snap of the fingers, there's still lots of work to be done (including changes to the core UI) for something people might use. All these resources would be better used in creating something like a notification page.

Looks too cluttered, smaller icons will be harder to hit on smaller screens, more frustration which will be blamed on "Windows Mobile".

I definitely like this idea of adjusting the live tile size, more options and choice is always good. That coupled with adding extra pages to help categorize your apps would make the UI that much better for notifications and wifi/bt/etc toggles or even just a page with live tiles dedicated to news or games or whatever. I would have thought that MS who prioritize efficiency would give us the option of additional pages so we don't have to endlessly and skillfully scroll down our home screen to find what we want 'quickly'

Love it. Ability to fit a few more things on the home screen without scrolling would be awesome.

LineageOS - Is There a Way to Turn Off Adaptive Icons?

Like the title says: is it possible to turn of the adaptive icons in order to just show the legacy old Android style icons. I personally don't see the point of having these circles, squares, "sqircles", or "drops" or whatever around your icons and I sure don't need to have a uniform look (in over thirty years we didn't need this on Linux or Windows either, so why now with Android we need this feature and everything needs to have a uniform shape at the cost of readability?)
Anyway I don't want to rant about this. Is there a way to disable it?
Here is some nice discussion about this: https://mobileinternist.com/disable-adaptive-icons-android-oreo
Also, I know that Nova Launcher has the legacy icons option, but I'd rather keep my launcher the same or at least open source.
I added a poll just to see folks' opinions.

Well, I don't mind it... even though I'd agree with you but consider it a typical 1st world problem:
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I think the following is a bigger problem, and it concerns real usability:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/sms-messaging-only-4-lines-help-needed.4370319/
Question is, do we have any means to solve these things?

SigmundDroid said:
Well, I don't mind it... even though I'd agree with you but consider it a typical 1st world problem:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True. Although what I see waaaaaaaay more as a first world problem is that people started wanting uniform icons several years ago, which is the reason why Google came up with adaptive icons in the first place. I mean, clamouring about your icons having different shapes?!
In general I'm a bit annoyed that everything on phones needs to be so polished compared to other computers. And it's not just manufacturers and developers who put so much resources into this. Also users go our of their way with icon packs, carefully crafted backgrounds, skinning, etc. (Of course if that's just a pastime for you, fine.)
What's more, since you cannot apparently get the normal/legacy icons back, this is just a feature degression. So what we have now is a bad "solution" to a "non-problem".
</rant>
SigmundDroid said:
I think the following is a bigger problem, and it concerns real usability:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/sms-messaging-only-4-lines-help-needed.4370319/
Question is, do we have any means to solve these things?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll take a look!

It seems there are enough ideas how to do this, seeing by the clever people on this site: https://stackoverflow.com/questions...of-an-adaptive-icon-including-removal-of-back
One of those methods mentioned there is probably also the way Nova Launcher bypasses the adaptive icons (when you check the setting "Prefer legacy icons").

So all the kidding about first world problems aside, this is possible to solve with any launcher now that supports icon packs. I came across a workaround here:
How to Create a Non-Adaptive Icon Pack? | Matthew Miner's Blog
The official blog of Matthew Miner. Sometimes I might say something.
matthewminer.name
.
After installing Icon Pack Studio, the steps in the app to generate a non-adaptive icon pack are as follows:
Hit "New" at the bottom and create a new "Adaptive icon" pack. (Yes, you want to hit "Adaptive icon" even to make non-adaptive icons. This basically just means you want colors.)
Go to "Background" and toggle off the Shape to get an icon with no background.
Go to "Logo", then "Design, then change the "Type" to "Not adaptive" and change "Compositing" to "Overwrite".
Turn the size up to 100 to compensate for not having padding added all around it.
Hit "Preview", then "Apply", then "Overwrite", then "OK", install the resulting icon pack, and apply it. (It might take a minute to generate.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not related to this hack, but after these steps don't forget to open the generated apk (i.e. the icon pack), clear your launcher's cache, and maybe do a force close (with the latest debug version of Lawnchair it took me even two times force closing to get rid of the old icons). And also make sure "Auto Adaptive Icons" is off (to disable making adaptive icons out of icons that do not support adaptiveness).
Interestingly, it also works with icons for newly installed apps, without having to reload anything. You can even remove Icon Pack Studio altogether. Presumably, the simplicity of this "icon pack" only has the descriptions of the background and the logo size, applying it dynamically to any icon. Possibly there could be a "generic icon pack" that can be installed on any phone that disables legacy icons. I will test that when I have the opportunity.
This is just a workaround of course, but serves its purpose until there is some general Android setting to disable adaptive icons, or if that seems impossible, when launchers start to hack this in as an option (in the same fashion as this workaround, presumably also like Nova does and the previously linked Stack Overflow page).

Interestingly, when you turn "Auto Adaptive Icons" on then new icons for newly installed apps do not get a legacy icon, but when you turn it off they do. For existing apps that were installed at the time of the icon pack generation they stay legacy regardless.
And one more thing:
Quigley said:
I will test that when I have the opportunity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just did that on another phone with the same launcher but was unsuccessful. The icons do not change until you make a specific package for that phone.