This is my first app for WinCE so please be nice!
Rant
It seems I'm part of a minority of users who understand that mobile devices and PDA's are not designed to run multiple apps at once. You can, but anyone with a decent sense of quality will agree that it's a rubbish experience once you get under 50% free memory. In fact the iPhone by default design doesn't let you multi-task apps (jailbreak changes this) which may be one of the reasons peeps think its a faster device. I say I'm part of a minority because most apps around are coded so that when you hit the 'x' close button they minimize instead of close (even by holding x). Also Windows has no inbuilt mechanisms for keeping your apps closed, and none of the roms I've tried (cooked or otherwise) seem to have these types of tools included.
Disclaimer
Firstly I hope I haven't reinvented the wheel or stolen anyone else's idea. I didn't research for months but didn't find anything like this around so apologize in advance if I upset anyone. Also I provide this tool "as-is" in BETA form - so it could damage your device - so use at your own risk.
Kill****?! What is it?
It is a simple app that kills running processes.
Why would I want it - what's wrong with Task Manager?
A common example is you open up Calc to do divide a dinner bill, lookup how to get home in Google maps, send an SMS to a friend and hit Home key. Then you wonder why the thing is running like a dog. You open task manager and notice you have these 3 freakin apps are open still and taking up your memory. So you're expected to open Task Manager after every time you're finished with an app?...no I dont think so..because you've got Kill****! You manage an exemption file, assign the app to one of your softkeys (or events) and it will quickly, quietly kill all other **** running for you.
How Does It Work?
It stores a text file on disk with names of processes that you wish to exempt. You can manage this via the included config tool. When you run the app (which is a console app) it just kills every running process other than the ones on your exclude list. The exclusion file is stored in your default MyDocuments folder and is called something like "NoofnyKill****.settings". Real simple.
What Do I Need To Run It?
Microsoft Windows Mobile (4 and above)
Microsoft .NET Compact Framework 3.5
How Do I Install It?
Simply run the attached CAB and everything is installed for you. 2 icons are added to your Start Menu (the config tool and the console app itself). The app is installed in the default Programs folder.
How Do I Use It?
If the exceptions file does not exist it will be created new and will contain all of the running process at the time the app ran.
The best instructions are;
1) Have your device in your preferred state with only your basic apps running.
2) Open the config tool from the start menu (Kill**** Config).
3) All of the running processes will list with a check next to them (which 4) means they will be exempted).
4) Click Menu -> Save Exceptions and close the config tool.
5) Assign the console app (KilL****.exe) to one of your softkeys or other buttons using your favorite tweak tool.
What Else Do I Need To Know?
I am not responsible for anything negative or positive this app will do to you, your device or life. Use at your own risk. I have not tested this app well and can only guarantee that I have fundamentally screwed something up. If anyone does use it and wants help I will do my best but try to help by giving as much detailed info as possible when reporting any bugs. I'm open to suggestions and are planning to put the source code up here if anyone shows interest.
That's about it - hope it makes someone's life a little brighter.
Hi!
This looks interesting. Is there anyway to cook this into a ROM properly? I dont like to have users make a file in their my documents folder.
Cheers
Epiphany
EpiphanyNL said:
Is there anyway to cook this into a ROM properly? I dont like to have users make a file in their my documents folder.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks...i can have the file live anywhere really, I just chose MyDocuments cause its easy and accessible. It's easy to even have them define in the config tool where they want to save the settings. I'm new to mobile dev and the whole rom cooking thing, so could you expand about what would be needed to cook this app into a rom?
actually after giving it more thought it would be more practical to store this in the registry. I chose to use a text file at first because I was not going to bother have a config app and you could modify it using notepad or something.
In registry would be the most preferred method yes.
Hi,
I did up a home replacement for my Nook simple touch, thought I would share it. This is an initial release, no doubt there are bugs, incompatibilities, etc, you were warned. There are no checks for other devices at this point, NST only.
Thanks to the nook community for the noogie.img file, touch nooter, and relaunch for source code ideas and various threads regarding quick refresh and e-ink support.
Disclaimer: Now, what I am using currently is the bare minimum, I have tried quite a bit of the work in this forum and it works well, but I wasn't satisfied or 100% confident and I wanted less installed. So, I restored my nook to stock, used noogie and copied over a rooted ramdisk. That was it, no touchcolortools, nooktouchtools installed, adw minimal this or that, or button saviors. I am sure they are great programs but I don't know enough about them or have the interest/time to do research on them to want to keep them installed.
For me, the point is to keep things simple and maintain battery life. It's an e-reader not a tablet after all. I just want to read books, check email, check a website or two, get some more use out of wi-fi since I don't live in a B&N supported nation.
To install:adb install EPubBrowser.apk
Optional:
I also installed Email.apk and set up my gmail from there, no certificates required or a million google app files and plucking a chicken on a Tuesday after jumping on your left foot crap. No offense to those who like chicken plucking.
adb install Email.apk
Done and done.
I can do up a CWM zip upon request, but last going off I have a continuous reboot after installing the latest version and if you know enough to get the Nook's CWM installed you should be able to use adb.See attached files.
What is not working:
Since Android doesn't really know about multiple external storage locations (at least for the Nook's 2.1 and/or my knowledge of android) EPubBrowser is unable to detect when the internal storage has been remounted, there is no notification of that, just notification of external storage. So if you plug in your usb cord to the computer the list of books will be empty even when you remove it. So if you don't have an sdcard you will have to hit the back button and launch home again to refresh.
Also, B&N books are not listed, whatever is in My Files will be scanned only. That applies to internal and sdcard storage. You can still use B&N's Library to access those.
I don't have any option of uninstalling apps either. adb uninstall works fine or you can just delete files from /data/app via adb shell.
What is working:
Launch of EPubBrowser via nook's home button, without use of nooktouchtools, it duplicates how the B&N home app works.
The notification icon for resuming reading goes through the app. As long as the book was launched from EPubBrowser it can remember the last book, otherwise the main display will show up. Reason being that for whatever reason the last page read doesn't work with the B&N home screen if it's not a book bought from B&N. But if you are just using the B&N Reader app it's not a problem.
When you are prompted which home you want you can select EPubBrowser and hit default. This may not stay set and will go away the next time you reboot.
How to use:Left / right swipes to go to the next 6, previous 6 books, no indication of the current page is displayed, (e-ink and aesthetics).
Touch a book cover to launch a description of the book, swipe up and down to scroll through the description, touch the cover displayed there to start reading. Hit back button on top of screen to exit without launching a book.
To bring up the list of apps installed, swipe a clockwise circle starting at 10 O'clock. Touch an app to launch it, left or right swipe to go back to main screen.That's it for now.
If you have any ideas for improvements, bug reports, please provide as much detail as possible, and when you have done that add some more detail.
Cheers!
Updates:
2/19/2012:
Added screensaver for last read book. (Jpeg 75%) Settings->Display->Screensavers->EPubBrowser
11/4/2012:
Added src project
Looks nice! I'll give it a shot later when my Nook's charged.
Thank you for making and sharing, i am going to try tomorrow and tell you,
Improvements
First of all, thank you for creating this cool launch screen. I love the simplicity of it. Here are is brief list of improvement that you can perhaps easily implement.
-When on the homescreen with the covers of all the books, I am not sure if I am suppose to scroll down or to the right to view the rest of my books.
-When on the page with the details from the book, there is no back button to take you back to the homescreen. I end up using the button savior back button.
-The circle gesture that takes you to the apps does not feel very responsive to me.
Anyhow, great job. Can't wait to see how you plan on improving it
OW MY EYES
I installed this, and everything just kept flashing. GO Locker and GO Launcher are both broken, and the only way I could fix it was by getting into ADW and closing the task. Did I install it incorrectly? I put it onto an SD card and used ES File Manager to install it.
ChunC said:
First of all, thank you for creating this cool launch screen. I love the simplicity of it. Here are is brief list of improvement that you can perhaps easily implement.
-When on the homescreen with the covers of all the books, I am not sure if I am suppose to scroll down or to the right to view the rest of my books.
-When on the page with the details from the book, there is no back button to take you back to the homescreen. I end up using the button savior back button.
-The circle gesture that takes you to the apps does not feel very responsive to me.
Anyhow, great job. Can't wait to see how you plan on improving it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Thanks for the feedback.
You swipe left to go to the previous page of books. You swipe right to go to the next page of books, assuming you have more than 6 books. Personally, I know what books I have on the device so it's not a problem knowing how many are left to see for me.
The back button should be on top of the screen in the middle, not sure why it wouldn't be there on yours. I will give it a think, maybe remove the scroll control in the book description and just use gesture detection and scroll the text via code.
Responsiveness and speed will likely improve over time, I am using the gesture library, maybe there are some optimizations there I can do.
Cheers!
Googie2149 said:
OW MY EYES
I installed this, and everything just kept flashing. GO Locker and GO Launcher are both broken, and the only way I could fix it was by getting into ADW and closing the task. Did I install it incorrectly? I put it onto an SD card and used ES File Manager to install it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
Noted, so it doesn't work with GO Lancher/Locker. Never tried GO stuff, so that wasn't tested. It was tested with ADW and relaunch, and I had all the rest of your typical touch nooter install there without problems, android market, etc.
I have run it with Home.apk renamed to Home.apk.bak and that works fine as well.
As for your other question, if it is installed it is installed, there are no configurations to modify, however you get it there it should be fine.
Cheers!
WANT
Noted that it does not work with go, will have to get rid of that first.
From the screenshots, I can already tell you put time into polishing! Good job!
NFHimself said:
Hi,
Noted, so it doesn't work with GO Lancher/Locker. Never tried GO stuff, so that wasn't tested. It was tested with ADW and relaunch, and I had all the rest of your typical touch nooter install there without problems, android market, etc.
I have run it with Home.apk renamed to Home.apk.bak and that works fine as well.
As for your other question, if it is installed it is installed, there are no configurations to modify, however you get it there it should be fine.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try it again without the GO software, but it was making everything just keep flashing, like the lock screen.
@NFHimself, any plans for taking this to github? It is very close to what I always wanted but I was also looking for:
- some kind of usage of Calibre data
- library filtering for series, highly rated, etc.
- tracking of books that are clicked to maintain sort of recent read filter
- sorting options by rating, series, and other Calibre properties
- option to display 6 or 12 (smaller) book covers.
I hope it already does use intents for selecting a different epub reader for those who have no defaults and multiple ones installed.
I know its a long list, and I have some Android experience. I am sure there would be other developers here so a combined effort might help.
Screenshots looks good, but on the Nook - only flashing screen like Googie2149 said
tazzix said:
@NFHimself, any plans for taking this to github? It is very close to what I always wanted but I was also looking for:
- some kind of usage of Calibre data
- library filtering for series, highly rated, etc.
- tracking of books that are clicked to maintain sort of recent read filter
- sorting options by rating, series, and other Calibre properties
- option to display 6 or 12 (smaller) book covers.
I hope it already does use intents for selecting a different epub reader for those who have no defaults and multiple ones installed.
I know its a long list, and I have some Android experience. I am sure there would be other developers here so a combined effort might help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I use Calibre as well, I just connect via adb and calibre picks up the nook and I copy books over and it converts on the fly, cool program. Using Calibre data is an idea worth looking into, if I can fit it into the theme of no preferences, no extra buttons or config. There are plenty of those kind of home apps already. Relaunch for one is great, just missing a graphical front end, I was going to mod that, but decided that I didn't really need so much stuff and I wanted to learn more android API.
I did up the app using pretty straight forward epub standards (note the plural), it works with most epubs I have run across, not sure if looking for extra xml is a good functionality vs performance tradeoff. I haven't been using EPubBrowser for very long myself, so when I add more books and find something annoying I will probably make changes to fix it. I want to keep things simple, if I need a preferences menu, it is already going the wrong way.
I am not specifying any class, just a regular launch this epub file intent, so it should work with any reader. I like the stock reader myself, cool reader seems to dislike some epubs I have above a certain size, and I didn't want to deal with it.
I may github it, I am kinda time limited these days.
Cheers!
AgentSlash said:
Screenshots looks good, but on the Nook - only flashing screen like Googie2149 said
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
More details are needed to figure that out. What device do you have? What do you have installed on it?
Cheers!
I just wiped then manually rooted my Nook, and this works now. Although I'm having some trouble with getting to the apps page after the first time I did it. Could you possible change how you get to the apps page? Maybe change it so you have to click the menu key to get to apps.
Edit: Now that I've added my books, it shows me two books, one empty, and another book. Now it just flashes and removes/re-adds the last book. :/
Edit 2: I found that there are a few books that just don't like this launcher and cause the entire Nook to start flashing. I've been adding my books one by one to see which work and which don't and I'll try and find similarities between those that don't.
Great launcher replacement.
Running right now, but after the second page, I get sent back to the first, regardless of left-to-right or right-to-left swiping. Ideas?
Also, any chance for a page up/down use for scrolling through books?
I took a quick vid. It looks like when I swipe again from R to L, it tries to redraw the next books, but gets confused?
http://youtu.be/K1ukWFK0syg
ace7196 said:
Great launcher replacement.
Running right now, but after the second page, I get sent back to the first, regardless of left-to-right or right-to-left swiping. Ideas?
Also, any chance for a page up/down use for scrolling through books?
I took a quick vid. It looks like when I swipe again from R to L, it tries to redraw the next books, but gets confused?
http://youtu.be/K1ukWFK0syg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I'm busy painting the baby's room, but it looks like it is resetting, perhaps one of your books is crashing the app and it is being relaunched as the home screen. Or could be some other bug, how many books are involved, if you remove one or add one, does it go away?
If someone could open the e-pub (it's a zip file) that causes the error and paste the contents of the .odf file (it's an xml file) , that would help.
Cheers!
NFHimself said:
Hi,
I'm busy painting the baby's room, but it looks like it is resetting, perhaps one of your books is crashing the app and it is being relaunched as the home screen. Or could be some other bug, how many books are involved, if you remove one or add one, does it go away?
If someone could open the e-pub (it's a zip file) that causes the error and paste the contents of the .odf file (it's an xml file) , that would help.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've gone through and removed / added ebooks, and still the same problem.
Sorry, been kinda busy.
I need to be able to see the bug on my end to work on it. Maybe I've been lucky with the book selections I have made or converting using Calibre has set them all to have the same kind of format, vs the variety you might see in the wild from multiple sources.
Does the error happen with no books?
What happens when you have just one book?
How many books do you have on your nook? (If it's something like 1000 then yeah, maybe you'd have issues, no checks in the code for being out of memory.)
What firmware are you using?
Are there any hardware differences? (Can't imagine that being a problem, but I am using a NST, not the original Nook.)
What can I do to reproduce this error on my end? What are the steps?
Cheers!
NFHimself said:
Sorry, been kinda busy.
I need to be able to see the bug on my end to work on it. Maybe I've been lucky with the book selections I have made or converting using Calibre has set them all to have the same kind of format, vs the variety you might see in the wild from multiple sources.
Does the error happen with no books?
What happens when you have just one book?
How many books do you have on your nook? (If it's something like 1000 then yeah, maybe you'd have issues, no checks in the code for being out of memory.)
What firmware are you using?
Are there any hardware differences? (Can't imagine that being a problem, but I am using a NST, not the original Nook.)
What can I do to reproduce this error on my end? What are the steps?
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, it doesn't matter how many books I have, it's just a few specific books that crash, independent of the other books in my library, and some books are more severe than others (one makes the entire Nook start flashing (all software), others make only this app flash).
I have the same problem as the people above but I can't get past the first page. I can't seem to narrow it down to a certain book making it crash. It's a shame I love this home screen, but hopefully we can get this fixed and running great.
DOWNLOAD: http://forum.xda-developers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1404609&stc=1&d=1350332484
Hello Guys
I'm here to bring you more comfort to your registry edit life,
No more thousands lines of code to edit the registry no,
Just 1 simple line of code and a '.reg' file,
What you want more? (if you want more reply on this thread )
ALERT: this SDK/DLL needs WP7 Root Tools SDK to work(I cant include it because its Heathcliff74 his work)
and now some code
Code:
RegistryHelper.RegFileHelper.RegisterFile("");
Look you did nothing now
but put the source of the .reg file in that empty string and it works
like
Code:
RegistryHelper.RegFileHelper.RegisterFile("[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\MyOwnReg]\[email protected]=\"Doggyyyyy\"\n\"nope\"=hex:ab,ab,ab,ab,ab");
thats it you now created a key in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT with the name MyOwnReg and set the default value on Doggy and added an byte(/hex) value with the name nope
Big shoutout to:
Heathcliff74 for helping me and giving this neat SDK
my mum for screaming at me at 11 O'clock because I wasn't sleeping yet
Regards,
EaterOfCorpses
P.S. My site is down
UPDATE
Today I fixed the export of REG files and it does work (from my side) only there are some strange bugs with WP7 Root Tools, but I think it'll be fixed soon (I hope)
Code:
Code:
RegistryHelper.RegFileHelper.CreateFromRegistry("HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\test")
this will return the source of a REG file
Happy Coding, Guys
Regards EaterOfCorpses
UPDATE:
Tried to fix some bugs but it are bugs in SDK
Reserved
Just to confirm, this is a library which parses a standard Windows .REG file and applies it to the WP7 registry, using Heathcliff74's Root Tools SDK?
Cool.
Yes, exactly!
NICE
edit: Added here.
Heathcliff74 said:
NICE
edit: Added here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yaaay
btw maybe Im gonna create an VS2010 add-in to make it complete
Edit:
Stupid me (facepalm)
Heathcliff, thanks
One other feature that would be really cool would be the ability to export .REG files from the registry. This could be used to take registry backups (similar to the way you can in regedit on the PC). Provide an API that specifies a registry path, and return a string containing the .REG data, or possibly one that takes a registry path and a file path, and automatically writes the reg data to that file path...?
Just a thought, but it would be tremendously helpful. One basic thing that is sorely missing from the current WP7 reg editors is a way to back up registry data easily, short of making a full phone image backup. For ome thing,s you need the full image backup anyhow because messing with them might make the phone unable to work normally, but for other things it would just be good to be able to tweak things while knowing they can be easily reverted (I'm thinking about stuff like the GPS settings, for example). I actually started work on a program that could export registry data to a file, but it got abandoned in the face of the many other things I found myself working on.
GoodDayToDie said:
One other feature that would be really cool would be the ability to export .REG files from the registry. This could be used to take registry backups (similar to the way you can in regedit on the PC). Provide an API that specifies a registry path, and return a string containing the .REG data, or possibly one that takes a registry path and a file path, and automatically writes the reg data to that file path...?
Just a thought, but it would be tremendously helpful. One basic thing that is sorely missing from the current WP7 reg editors is a way to back up registry data easily, short of making a full phone image backup. For ome thing,s you need the full image backup anyhow because messing with them might make the phone unable to work normally, but for other things it would just be good to be able to tweak things while knowing they can be easily reverted (I'm thinking about stuff like the GPS settings, for example). I actually started work on a program that could export registry data to a file, but it got abandoned in the face of the many other things I found myself working on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's an excellent idea! Im gonna work on it tomorrow!
I took a week vacation from my work so I got all the time (if you forget the point that my mom limits me )
And with the experience I have I think this will take 2 hours to build, but It will take very long time to backup, so do you know something to block the phone so the user cant use it while it backups?
I figure people usually wont make the backup from super-low-level; they'll mostly want to create it near a "leaf" of the hierarchy, so neither creation nor restoration of an export should take very long. Doing a full backup would probably be a bit messy, because as far as I know there isn't any way to lock the entire registry at once, and parts of it are changing constantly. There are actually APIs for creating an entire duplicate of a registry hive (HKCR/HKCU/HKLM/etc.) but you'd have to write a bunch of native code to use them.
One other option would be to put a limit on the API, like an integer for how many levels deep to recurse, as that should reduce the size o the backup created. If you want to do it in a multi-threaded / abortable manner, you could also make the backup API offer a timeout, which if it expires before the backup is complete, would simply stop constructing the .REG file and return whatever it has so far. Also, of course, don't forget to use StringBuilder or some other class that allows quickly combining text.
GoodDayToDie said:
I figure people usually wont make the backup from super-low-level; they'll mostly want to create it near a "leaf" of the hierarchy, so neither creation nor restoration of an export should take very long. Doing a full backup would probably be a bit messy, because as far as I know there isn't any way to lock the entire registry at once, and parts of it are changing constantly. There are actually APIs for creating an entire duplicate of a registry hive (HKCR/HKCU/HKLM/etc.) but you'd have to write a bunch of native code to use them.
One other option would be to put a limit on the API, like an integer for how many levels deep to recurse, as that should reduce the size o the backup created. If you want to do it in a multi-threaded / abortable manner, you could also make the backup API offer a timeout, which if it expires before the backup is complete, would simply stop constructing the .REG file and return whatever it has so far. Also, of course, don't forget to use StringBuilder or some other class that allows quickly combining text.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha I can't write C++
So I will just start a new thread and make it event based and complicated
GoodDayToDie said:
I figure people usually wont make the backup from super-low-level; they'll mostly want to create it near a "leaf" of the hierarchy, so neither creation nor restoration of an export should take very long. Doing a full backup would probably be a bit messy, because as far as I know there isn't any way to lock the entire registry at once, and parts of it are changing constantly. There are actually APIs for creating an entire duplicate of a registry hive (HKCR/HKCU/HKLM/etc.) but you'd have to write a bunch of native code to use them.
One other option would be to put a limit on the API, like an integer for how many levels deep to recurse, as that should reduce the size o the backup created. If you want to do it in a multi-threaded / abortable manner, you could also make the backup API offer a timeout, which if it expires before the backup is complete, would simply stop constructing the .REG file and return whatever it has so far. Also, of course, don't forget to use StringBuilder or some other class that allows quickly combining text.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just fixed it only there are some strange bugs in WP7 Root Tools and that takes a bit of the functionality
almost forgot to say:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=32846003#post32846003
Updated the dll tried to fix bugs with wp7 root tools :/
Regards
Eater
How To Access The Metro Apps Folder
Windows 8 introduces a new type of apps called metro apps or modern apps.These apps can be installed with a tap from the windows store.This system works out great for the average consumer but its a nuisance for power users.And since most of the xda devs are power users I decided to write this guide to accessing the metro apps.The metro apps are installed in C/Program Files?Windowsapps/ This folder is hidden and locked away to prevent users from modding the apps.However there is a way to access the folder which I am going to describe in detail here.This procedure is really simple and there is absolutely no need to go into the command line like how I read in some other tuts I found on the web.
STEP 1
The Windowsapps folder is a hidden folder so first of all you will need to go to the control panel and display it in small icons view.Then go to folder options and tick the option that says show hidden files,folders and drives.After doing this click apply and ok and exit.Now when you navigate to c program files,you should be able to see a folder named windowsapps.It will appear in white.
STEP 2
Now double click on the folder.It will not open.Instead,you will get a warning saying that you currently don't have access to this folder.Click continue.Another warning will pop up saying that permission to open the folder has been denied.Click on the security Tab Link.
STEP 3
In the security tab,click on continue.A box will open which will list all the permission holders of the windowsapps folder.It will display TrustedInstaller as the owner.Click Change.A box will open up.Change The Owner to your name and click check names,correct it if you have written the wrong name.Click Ok.The permission will be changed.Check replace owner on subcontainers and objects too.
STEP 4
Now you will need to restart windows explorer for the changes to be effective.Now,you have complete access to the windowsapps folder.:victory:
USES
Now that you have got access to the folder,There are a great many things you can do..Ill list some of them to increase productivity.
1.Delete Preinstalled Useless Apps
2.Read the Source Code
3.Modify/Play around with the apps
etc etc
Enjoy Guys....Hope I helped.......
This has been posted here since at least the Win8 RTM, possibly before. Please search before posting. Also, I would expect a "power user" to already have "Show hidden files and folders" enabled and to be familiar with NT and NTFS permissions systems. Oh, and getting to Folder Options is way simpler than going through Control Panel; you can either open it right from the Explorer ribbon (View -> Options) or just via Start search.
Also, be aware that "Metro" is not the actual name of the interface anymore (officially); some metro transit agency apparently raised a legal fuss over it. The new name is (in classic Microsoft branding failure style) "Windows Store apps" although you'll occasionally hear "modern" used too. When I'm feeling snarky (at least 70% of the time I'm on this site) I call it TIFKAM (The Interface Formerly Known As Metro).
modifying metro app
i modified the code in one of my app's java script files, but it does not affect the app itself... just to check i even made the whole code a comment (with /*....*/) and still the app ran normally... why?
in the other hand if i touch the .css code or the html code the app crushes, even if i only want to change the color code.... why?
i will be thankful if someone could answer these two questions for me, it will help me alot....
thanks in advance
Pinto
We all know that we can add custom games to Geforce Experience in order to stream games to our Shields that are not officially supported by Nvidia. Last year, Nvidia added the ability to display Gamestream game shortcuts directly on our home screens. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they did not carry this ability forward for custom games that have been added to Geforce Experience, but only to the officially supported ones. After a lot of digging around, here’s a way to circumvent this limitation. It’s important to note that this method bypasses the ‘Add Custom Games’ function in Geforce Experience, in order to have our games appear as officially supported ones. And now, a warning: this guide is long. It’s long because the process is long, but it’s also long because I’ve never been good at concisely explaining things. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Now, navigate to:
Code:
\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Nvidia\NvBackend\ApplicationOntology\data\
Here you will find a file called fingerprint.db. This is an XML file that contains information on all of Nvidia’s officially supported games. Inside you will find entries such as the following:
Code:
<Fingerprint name='the_witcher_3'>
<DisplayName>The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt</DisplayName>
<Version name='steam'>
<CMSID>10534111</CMSID>
<CMSVersion>1</CMSVersion>
<Distributor>Steam</Distributor>
<Files>
<File name='bin\x64\witcher3.exe' />
<File name='bin\ddi\Steam.dll' />
</Files>
<Hypersampling>0</Hypersampling>
<HypersamplingFactors>2;4</HypersamplingFactors>
<Icon>bin\x64\witcher3.exe</Icon>
<Image>bin\x64\witcher3.exe</Image>
<IsAutomatable>1</IsAutomatable>
<IsStreamingSupported>1</IsStreamingSupported>
<Launch>start steam://rungameid/292030</Launch>
<SteamAppIds>
<id>292030</id>
<id>124923</id>
</SteamAppIds>
<StreamingAutomatedLaunch>0</StreamingAutomatedLaunch>
<StreamingCaption>The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt</StreamingCaption>
<StreamingClassName>W2ViewportClass</StreamingClassName>
<StreamingCmdLine>start steam://rungameid/292030</StreamingCmdLine>
<WhisperModePopsFactor>0.588</WhisperModePopsFactor>
</Version>
</Fingerprint>
It’s fairly obvious what most of the tags inside this entry are for. The most important one, however, is the CMSID tag. This is the id number that Nvidia identifies your game with and uses to launch in GameStream. Also take note of the Files tag. In here you will find the files that Nvidia is looking for when scanning for new games.
I’ll also point out here that when you launch an officially supported GameStream game on your Shield, the shortcuts that are created on the homescreen are actual self contained apps.
The method of this guide is fairly straightforward:
1) We make an new entry in fingerprint.db with a custom CMSID, and fill out the rest of the information inside our entry to ensure that our game is detected and launched properly.
2) We extract one of the apks for the GameStream shortcut apps that are on our Shield’s homescreen, and copy this apk to our pcs.
3) We replace every instance of the old CMSID in the apk with our newly created CMSID, then recompile the apk and install it on our Shields.
Once this is done your newly installed shortcut app will launch your game as defined in the new entry you made in fingerprint.db. One thing to point out is that Geforce Experience overwrites fingerprint.db frequently (how frenquently, I don’t know.) I’ve changed this file to be read-only (via the security tab) on my system, which I hope will stop it from being overwritten. As a backup, I keep all of my custom entries in fingerprint.db backed up in a separate file, which I will simply append to the original database if the above method doesn’t work. (not sure how Window’s permission policies work.)
I’m not going to write a step-by-step guide here, but rather describe the game I’m launching and go from there. I like playing games on the WiiU emulator, Cemu, through GameStream. What I did here is create a shortcut in Steam to launch Mario Kart 8 directly in Cemu (if you have questions on how to do this, you can Google it.) I then used the option in Steam to make a desktop shortcut for this Steam shortcut, which creates a .url file that launches the game. Looking at this file’s properties shows that it runs the command: steam://rungameid/9898741384892907520. This is the command that I have GameStream launch. Note that your command will differ depending on what you are launching.
Now, here’s my entry for Mario Kart 8 in fingerprint.db:
Code:
<Fingerprint name='mario_kart_8'>
<DisplayName>Mario Kart 8</DisplayName>
<Version name='generic'>
<CMSID>500000001</CMSID>
<CMSVersion>1</CMSVersion>
<Distributor>Nintendo</Distributor>
<Icon>Mario Kart 8.url</Icon>
<Image>Mario Kart 8.url</Image>
<Launch>start steam://rungameid/9898741384892907520</Launch>
<IsAutomatable>1</IsAutomatable>
<IsStreamingSupported>1</IsStreamingSupported>
<StreamingAutomatedLaunch>1</StreamingAutomatedLaunch>
<StreamingCmdLine>start steam://rungameid/9898741384892907520</StreamingCmdLine>
<StreamingCaption>Mario Kart 8</StreamingCaption>
<StreamingClassName>W2ViewportClass</StreamingClassName>
<Files>
<File name='Mario Kart 8.url' />
</Files>
</Version>
</Fingerprint>
Adding this entry will cause GeforceExperience to add the game to GameStream as an officially supported title. However, It won’t do so right away. To get GeforceExperience to use our newly updated fingerprint.db, you can either end the correct nvcontainer.exe process in the Task Manager (there are a few) or just restart your computer. After this, scan for new titles in Geforce Experience and your new entry should be detected, and should appear on your Shield. Sometimes it takes a further restart of your PC for the game to finally appear on the Shield. It won’t, however, create a shortcut on your Shield’s homescreen. That’s the next step: making your custom apk.
I won’t explain all the different ways to extract apks from your Shield and so on. Here’s what I did:
1) Extracted the apk using Total Commander on my Shield.
2) Copied the apk to my desktop
3) Decompiled the apk using EasyApk (available on Xda-Developers)
4) Opened the AndroidManifest file and all the files in the res and smali folders in my code editor. I use Atom. Replaced all instances of the old CMSID with the new CMSID in all these files. (ctrl-f, find all, replace all.)
5) Replaced the banner and icon in the \res\mipmap-xhdpi-v4\ folder with new ones. You can also change the title of the app in strings.xml, as well as the color of the animation that is displayed when the app is launched in colors.xml. These are in \res\values\.
6) Recompiled the apk with EasyApk, and installed it on my Shield.
That’s basically it. The new apk will launch the game as defined in fingerprint.db, directly from the Shield’s homescreen.
Now, there are some drawbacks to using this method. One is that no poster and blurred background will be displayed on the screen as the GameStream stream loads. This can be solved, but only with root. Briefly, here’s how to solve it:
When GeforceExperience detects and adds a new game it creates an entry in the following file:
Code:
\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Nvidia\NvBackend\journalBS.main.xml
Here’s the beginning of one of these entries:
Code:
<Id_57f8f0c0 Type="1">
<Id Type="2">1475932352</Id>
<CmsId Type="2">500000001</CmsId>
<CmsVersion Type="2">1</CmsVersion>
<DisplayName Type="4">Mario Kart 8</DisplayName>
<ShortName Type="4">mario_kart_8</ShortName>
The important info here is the second Id Tag: 1475932352. Keep it in mind. Now, copying your poster image to tegrazone3’s cache folder, located here:
Code:
/data/data/com.nvidia.tegrazone3/cache
on to your Shield will allow the poster to be displayed when the game is loading (and also while inside the Nvidia Games app.) However, a couple of things first:
One is that you must copy this image after the Nvidia Games app decides to move all its images from whatever internal mechanism or database it uses to store them, to the cache folder. This shouldn’t take too long. 5 mins? 10 mins? No idea. However, one way to force it is to clear Nvidia Games cache and data in Android Settings so that it is rebuilt. About 10 minutes afterward you should be good to copy your posters into the cache folder. You’ll know that it is time when you are being asked to overwrite the old files in the cache folder (to which you will reply ‘yes’).
Here’s the other thing, your poster must be named like this: img_s2_g1475932352_t2_i0null. Notice the part in bold. This is the ID taken from journalBS.main.xml. Also notice: there is NO file extension.
And that’s about it! Be aware that the Nvidia Games app may overwrite these cached images at some point, such as when the cache is cleared in Android Settings. I keep all my files in another folder on the Shield to be quickly copied back if and when that happens. Also, this doesn’t break the game’s launching ability anyway, so it’s not such a big deal. I’ve thought about experimenting with the read/write permissions of these files like I did with fingerprint.db. Haven’t tried it yet but it’s a potential solution, and also a potential Nvidia Games crashing error.
I’ll also mention tegrazone3’s database files. I’m not sure what the cause-effect relationship is between these files and Geforce Experience. However, there is the potential to edit this database directly as an alternative to the above guide. I tried editing it with a sqlite editor on my pc and it caused all posters to appear blank in Nvidia Games. And since the above guide worked for my purposes I decided not to spend any more time on the matter.
And now, finally: IS THIS WORTH THE TROUBLE??? Probably not. Not for most people, anyway haha. I don’t play that many different games so doing the above for those handful of games wasn’t a huge deal. I also really hate having to go through the Nvidia Games app and seeing all that tegrazone grid streaming what-have-yous. I don’t use that stuff, and much much rather have everything I do use displayed on my homescreen. But if you have hundreds of games that you would like added to your Shield’s home screen, I’m sure you stopped reading long ago.
That’s it! Hope I didn’t forget anything.
Awesome Guide!
I've never done any of this stuff before, and I was able to follow this guide and it seemingly worked perfectly! I do have one question about an issue I ran into, though. The game I made "gamestream ready" now defaults to mouse/keyboard controls versus shield controller controls. So now when I open the game, I have to hold the start button to make the "on screen controls" go away. Here is my custom fingerprint entry. (ignore my formatting here, I couldn't get it to paste right)
<Fingerprint name='monster_energy_supercross'>
<DisplayName>Monster Energy Supercross</DisplayName>
<Version name='generic'>
<CMSID>500000002</CMSID>
<CMSVersion>1</CMSVersion>
<Distributor>Steam</Distributor>
<Icon>supercross.exe</Icon>
<Image>supercross.exe</Image>
<Launch>start steam://rungameid/711750</Launch>
<IsAutomatable>1</IsAutomatable>
<IsStreamingSupported>1</IsStreamingSupported>
<StreamingAutomatedLaunch>1</StreamingAutomatedLaunch>
<StreamingCmdLine>start steam://rungameid/711750</StreamingCmdLine>
<StreamingCaption>Monster Energy Supercross</StreamingCaption>
<StreamingClassName>W2ViewportClass</StreamingClassName>
<Files>
<File name='supercross.exe' />
</Files>
</Version>
</Fingerprint>
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
wooow so, maybe, will be possible to share gamestream games unsupported from nvidia?
will be awesome!!
Sorry for necroposting)
Great tutor!! Thanks for your investigation!
I've also seen there some lua wrappers over each supported game. Maybe main magic is there?
I think all this actions can be described in the lua scripts for each title and running automatically after game detected.