This was from the windows mobile team blog. More to follow but wanted to post it for those who don't read that.
Original link: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2008/06/03/customizing-the-sliding-panel-homescreen.aspx
Customizing the Sliding Panel Homescreen
from Windows Mobile Team Blog by Jorge Peraza
Hi, my name is Jorge Peraza; I am a Developer on the Windows Mobile team that was responsible for the new “Sliding Panel” home screen in Windows Mobile 6.1.
When we were working on the visual style and functionality of the home screen we tried to make something that looked both professional and appealing while still showcasing all the information the user is going to need to know what’s important and requires attention. While I think the default design looks really cool, we added some customization features to enable users to make it their own.
Customizing the layout
The home screen layout can be modified using the same home.xml file from previous versions of WM, the schema of the file was extended to allow the customization of many of its elements, this includes the art assets that are used for most of the plug-ins.
When you open the SlidingPanel.home.xml file (inside \ApplicationData\Home) you will find the plug-in element that corresponds to the sliding panel home screen (its CLSID is {E9267CAB-02EE-4f37-8216-6BF6A8FF5A71}). All the child elements inside it are designed to tweak and customize the way the home screen will look.
The top level element is the plugins tag, this has one attribute called “Order” and it’s used to list the plug-ins that will be shown and the order they are going to be laid out on the screen.
The built in plug-in names are:
1)CClock – The big clock
2)CAppointments - The calendar plugin
3)CHome – The notifications plugin
4)CMyPhotos – The photos plugin
5)CMessage – The message center (this is off by default on all sliding panel built in layouts.
6)CMusic – The music plugin
7)Settings – The settings plug-in
8)Custom Plugin – Users can specify custom plug-ins with static content that can be displayed on the home screen.
For example, the XML snippet bellow moves the photos plug-in to the first position and enables the message center (which is turned off by default on both "Sliding Panel" and "Sliding Panel Media")
<plugin clsid="{E9267CAB-02EE-4f37-8216-6BF6A8FF5A71}" name="Bronze" height="266">
<Plugins Order="CMyPhotos;CClock;CMessage" />
</plugin>
There are many other ways of customizing the home screen using the plug-in settings like overriding the default images or even adding your own custom plug-ins that display static content, I'll post and updated entry latter on on how to do this in detail but for now, you can use the provided home.xml files to start experimenting with this.
The notifications plug-in and message center
In the sliding panel home screen, the notifications plug-in by default serves as a dual-purpose notifications/gateway to all you phone/message accounts where every page represents one account (so, if you have multiple notifications in one category they will be shown as one summary page).
There is however an alternative behavior where individual notifications are added as independent pages (Similar to what the T-Mobile shadow home screen does) and the plug-in only shows accounts that have new notifications in them. One cool feature of this alternate behavior is that each individual notification can be dismissed without having to leave the home screen.
You can enable this alternative behavior by setting the following registry key to a value other than 2 (The actual value indicates how many pages of each notification type will be added to the home screen before collapsing them into a summary page. We have tested 2 and 5 but feel free to experiment with other values)
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Chome\Chome]
PageCollapseThreshold: DWORD
Note that this prevents you from being able to access the email/phone account data if there are no notifications for it. If you still want to be able to do that you can always re-enable the message center as described in the previous section as a separate plug-in.
There is one more behavioral change you can make that allows you to “dock” the condensed view of the first plug-in to the top of the screen when it is not active, we added this for people like me that want to have the clock always visible. To enable just set the following registry key to “1”
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Chome]
DockOperatorBar: DWORD
Advanced layout modification
There are even more advanced things you can do to further tweak the look of the home screen but it is unsupported by Microsoft at this moment so you’ll have to experiment on your own J (Hint, look at the following files \windows\CHome_240x320.cpr and \windows\CHome_320x240.cpr).
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Thanks to djNutz for posting this information & OrganicM for his efforts.
I wanted to create a post with info about what the different keys do in the CHome section of the registry. So, I'll start with a brand new one, that I bet nobody knows about....
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Chome\Chome]
PageCollapseThreshold: 2 or 5 (DWORD Value)
This will collapse your Notifications panel to only show active notifications. You can enable this alternative behavior by setting the following registry key to a value other than 2 (The actual value indicates how many pages of each notification type will be added to the home screen before collapsing them into a summary page. 2 and 5 were tested and work pretty well.
More to come of course....
should this change be made to the security section too, or does that matter? actually, do changes to the security section ever matter, cause they seem to apply even when you only edit the software section.
p.s.
i'm pretty sure people are gonna ask, so maybe i'll save some trouble instead of looking like an ass by answering preemptively. This DWORD value must be created with your registry editor, it's not already there, at least on ricky v24.
2 = default or normal (i assume cause it looks the same as before) and 5 = condensed.
But for the rest of us who don't have the time to be on every WM blog and forum at once here's my favorite:
To “dock” the condensed view of the first plug-in to the top of the screen when it is not active, set the following registry key to “1”
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Chome]
DockOperatorBar: DWORD
This is so you can have the clock always visible, no matter which panel you're on. You could also set it so that CHome Weather's compact view is always on top. Whatever plugin is first on the list.
More info from MS coming down the pipe:
We can get the day of the week on the clock plugin at the top of CHome by doing this:
Replace this portion...
<!-- Date --> <Text ID="Date" Left="180" Top="83" Width="110" Height="19" FontFamily="Segoe Condensed" FontSize="9" FontStyle="Bold" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter"></Text>
With this!
<!-- Date -->
<Text ID="Date" Left="180" Top="83" Width="110" Height="19" FontFamily="Segoe Condensed" FontSize="9" FontStyle="Bold" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter"></Text>
<Text ID="Day of Week" Left="65" Top="83" Width="110" Height="19" FontFamily="Segoe Condensed" FontSize="9" FontStyle="Bold" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter"></Text>
I will incorporate this in Chome Weather fore sure!
Here you go, the first is my Home
2nd is Scroll Down once
3rd is Scroll Down twice
4th is Scroll Down Thrice
heh
Edit: Tried Month in cpr, no luck.
will keep trying
I'm glad people are finally getting this information out. It makes customization that much easier. I'm adding the tips to the wiki as well, as they come out.
How to Reload the Homescreen
I have two questions:
1. After editing my CHome cpr file, how do I reload the homescreen without having to reboot the device?
2. How can I show any text on the clock panel? Regular text is defined by Text ID = "xxxxx", where xxxxx is something like Time, Network Name, etc. However, suppose I want to have the text "Knowledge Rules", how do I set it up in XML?
I have very little programming and Excalibur experience. So, I apologize if these questions are too naive or have been answered before.
Thanks a lot in advance.
you can use this if you dont use OrganicM Chome Weather
I don't think Microsoft has put out much documentation on the sliding panels plugin yet. Most of the CHome configurations use
Code:
TextID="text 1"
as the delimiter for static text. But that's not to say that the clock plugin will recognize that as a valid section. Could work. Could make your phone useless.
beartard said:
I don't think Microsoft has put out much documentation on the sliding panels plugin yet. Most of the CHome configurations use
Code:
TextID="text 1"
as the delimiter for static text. But that's not to say that the clock plugin will recognize that as a valid section. Could work. Could make your phone useless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not understand. How do I make the phone know that:
text 1 = Knowledge Rules?
Typical syntax seems to be Text ID = "xxxx", where xxxx is a variable name, which is recognized by the device. If Text 1 is a valid variable for the device, how do I assign it a value? Am I rambling here?
No, you're not rambling. As far as the information coming from Microsoft and disseminated here on this site goes, it's a best guess right now.
someone at msdn blog asked the same question.
Someone at msdn blog asked the same question. Let's wait to see if we get an answer from there...
From http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile...ustomizing-the-sliding-panel-homescreen.aspx:
"Jorgeba, thanks for taking the time to educate your user. I have some questions.
How do you change the text in the condense clock? The .cpr file has Text ID="Text 1". How is "Text 1" define? I would love to add the date to the condense layout.
The ActionURL and Softkey2 URL in the Appointments plug-in always open calendar in the today view. Is there a way to make one of the button opens calendar in the month view? Setting the default view for calendar does not help."
Easy as pie......
If you know what you are doing.
If you have any xml experience,then you'll know how to adjust x and y values to position things in different places. Yes, you can do that. Just change x=whatever and y=whatever to where you would like them to be. Just know this means that it will start on the left and move x pixels over and y pixels down. If you put in negative values, it will shift them in the opposite direction.
Eg. x=-whatever will move it to the left vs a + value which will move it to the right. Same for y=
Also, you can adjust the valignment and halignment to center, left, or right.
Have fun with these. They apply to everything in your cpr (That's the layout for your homescreen.It's in your \Windows directory on your phone).I mean everything, from where your network displays, right down to your pictures.
That's it. Have fun!
jaymit said:
Hi,
Sorry Im kind of a newbie :s, is it possible to edit home screen panels? I wanted to change the layout and look of the clock plugin.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anybody know how to change font color for certain panels or certain lines of text in the panel? Is it only possible for the whole homescreen?
As far as I know even as far as old xml coding works, you can only change a font color for a selected word or unselected word. Meaning, if you have the old 6.0 your plugins that are selected could have a different color, but unselected could be another color. This applied to the entire homescreen. I have not seen different colors for different plugins, since each panel style is basically its own plugin (each has its own unique GUID), then I doubt you can change font color for each plugin. You can more than likely only change the active selected panel and inactive panel fonts. I am not sure what their titles are in the cpr, but I know that in the old 6.0, the homecolor was one of the fonts colors and the other was called something else.
Eventhough this is 6.1, it doesn't look like much has changed as far as the fonts color goes. You could, however, always try adding a "fontcolor=" command in the cpr and a hex code and try it, to see if it works.
Hope this helps.
Edit your registry or get CHome Config
Both do the same thing. You want to change the plugin order for CHome. It's located in HKLM\Security\CHome\Default Settings and in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\CHome. Edit the order you want your plugins to go. Reboot your phone and the new edits should be reflected in your homescreen layout. If you are having trouble cause this is new. Just search this thread for CHome Configurator. It's stickied at the top of this forum. Download it and it will let you select the order in a much easier way. Make sure you reboot, though, or else your changes won't show. Hope this fixes your problem. Later.
tae-xda said:
How to change the default location for where the CMyPhotos plugin
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Click to collapse
rollingondubs1 said:
I have that already, All my games are under a folder which i cant make it as a action url
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
try this
"ACTIONURL" = "\Windows\Start Menu\Games\xxxxx xxxx.lnk
or this
"ACTIONURL" = "\windows\fexplore.exe; \windows\start menu\games"
Yes you can
One last time, I think I've figured out how to help you.
1. Open Chome Config.
2. Scroll to MyApplication and select it with your center button.
3. Scroll to any page you want to edit. Then scroll down to where it says ActionURL. Press menu.
4. Once in the menu select the "1 Change URL" item.
5. Once you have selected that it will take you to a file explorer. Go to \Windows\Start Menu\Games. This is where your games should be. If not, then wherever you store, your games, navigate yourself to that folder and select the file you want.
I think this should cover it. Hope this solved your problem. HOLLA!!!!
rollingondubs1 said:
I have that already, All my games are under a folder which i cant make it as a action url
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How to change the location of CMyPhoto to \Storage Card\My Documents\My Picturs
Hello,
i have an application, programmed in C#. I wanna that the size of the gui will automatically adapt to the size of the phone on which the application get used.
How can I do this?
In the Paint() event of the form examine its ClientSize property. This is the size of the client (White) area of the screen. It is itself a Size object with Height and Width integer properties, this.ClientSize.Width and this.ClientSize.Height
Use these values to position/resize your objects on the screen, by changing their Size and Location (Left and Top) properties, so that they fit in this area.
This event occurs before the Paint() event of the child objects, so they will be repositioned/resized before they themselves are drawn.
To be clever, reposition and resize screen objects, scaled to the screen size at run time, not values hardcoded at development time.
This technique can also detect a change of orientation, the values of Height and Width change over! If you want to be smart, handle this as well, and your app should be starting look pretty damned professional. A bit of work and it should look good on all screen sizes. Test them out against the SDK's emulator images for a range of device screen sizes.
The following code example positions the label in the correct place. Hey Diddle Diddle, slap bang in the middle!
Code:
private void Form1_Paint(object sender, PaintEventArgs e)
{
label1.Left = (this.ClientSize.Width - label1.Size.Width) / 2;
label1.Top = (this.ClientSize.Height - label1.Size.Height) / 2;
label1.Text = this.ClientSize.Width.ToString() + " x " + this.ClientSize.Height.ToString();
}
do you have to do this with every object you put on it? Seems like a lot of code. (also im doing this in VB so far..)
I'm afraid so. But it's worth the effort. Also it will run on all screen sizes, see image, and also the oddball ones they haven't thought of yet!
Change 'this.' to 'me.' and omit the C# end of line character ';' and it's now in VB.
Does your form property AutoScaleMode is set to AutoScaleMode.Dpi?
For controls set the anchor property (default is top|left) also to right (and/or bottom if needed). That will automatically 'stretch' the controls.
Advanced:
Now, if you really want to support different resolutions it will take much more work:
As already mentioned you have to rearrange the controls on orientation changes. Take a look at Developing Orientation and dpi Aware Applications for the .NET Compact Framework!
And finally you have to provide images in different resolutions.
Adapt to New Screen Orientations and Resolutions
Of course you have to decide if this is really needed for your app as this will take much more time.
This is exactly what I like to have:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202916(v=vs.92).aspx
Since there exists no standard control I have written one by myself but I didn't get DataBinding to work (even when using correct implementation of DependencyProperty)
Got 25 votes for:
http://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/1...474043-add-header-property-to-textbox-control
Simple
I think for that screenshot on the MSDN page you give they did what I also did without thinking twice in my own apps: Place TextBlock controls immediately before the TextBox controls.
Indeed, I found the approach of some controls with built-in header text property annoying because they waste a line of space even if you don't need a text.
And where would you stop with your new header property because sometimes you need text in front of a text box, but sometimes below, or in front and in the back at the same time, etc. (Yes, that does not happen with trivial, 3 textbox screens, but drive up the number of features in your program and it will probably happen.)
Don't agree. A HeaderMode enum should do the trick. I don't want do reinvent the wheel each time I need a simple TextBox After a year implementing WP apps I still see advantages of a TextBoxWithHeader control.
Sent from my RM-821_eu_euro2_530 using XDA Windows Phone App
I am making a spin-off of infobar, and I have it mostly working the want I want with two exceptions:
1) The weather string is usually fine, but in some cases it gets too large. Is there any way to get it to wrap to a specific bounding rectangle, or to shrink it if it gets past a certain length? Is there some way to test how long the string is? I don't want to use [tr], because I want to see the whole string.
2) Right now I am using [tr=0,25] to make sure the appointments don't overrun the box. I use [tr=0,25] instead of [tr=25] because I don't want the "..." for shorter strings. Is there some way to test the length of the string so I can only use the [tr] when I need to? That way I can get the "..." when it is appropriate. I tried using
$[tr=0,22]#C0TITLE#[tr]=#C0TITLE#?#C0TITLE#: [tr=22]#C0TITLE#[/tr]$
but the [tr=0,22]#C0TITLE#[tr]=#C0TITLE# always comes back as not equal.
Thanks.
mlkaufman said:
I am making a spin-off of infobar, and I have it mostly working the want I want with two exceptions:
1) The weather string is usually fine, but in some cases it gets too large. Is there any way to get it to wrap to a specific bounding rectangle, or to shrink it if it gets past a certain length? Is there some way to test how long the string is? I don't want to use [tr], because I want to see the whole string.
2) Right now I am using [tr=0,25] to make sure the appointments don't overrun the box. I use [tr=0,25] instead of [tr=25] because I don't want the "..." for shorter strings. Is there some way to test the length of the string so I can only use the [tr] when I need to? That way I can get the "..." when it is appropriate. I tried using
$[tr=0,22]#C0TITLE#[tr]=#C0TITLE#?#C0TITLE#: [tr=22]#C0TITLE#[/tr]$
but the [tr=0,22]#C0TITLE#[tr]=#C0TITLE# always comes back as not equal.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is currently no way to test the length of a string in Zooper, sorry. As to the "wrap to a specific bounding rectangle", check out the X margin and Lines on a Rich Text Module The first defines the distance in pixels from the screen side when the text will break into additional lines. The second option sets into how many lines the text will break at maximum. Anything above that will be cut-off without an indicator like you get with the trim option. It's not exactly what you are looking for but I thought you might want another option to work with
There java class UserDictionaryAddWordActivity.java
In the method onCreate:
setContentView (R.layout.user_dictionary_add_word); // Starts a layout
This layout has two buttons cancel and save. // OnClick Cancel and onClickConfirm (android: onClick)
I want to make to the selected word remained immediately without starting the layout.
That is, you need to add in the method onCreate immediately onClickConfirm() and remove setContentView(R.layout.user_dictionary_add_word).
How can I do it?
you mean to have onClickConfirm to not call finish()? it doesn't seem to call it in another thread, so when onClickConfirm executes, you can hook finish(), ignore it when it's called, and unhook it after onClickConfirm
you might need to add the word manually into the layout
Edit: or replace onClickConfirm with your own, where you do the same as the original method does, but without the finish()
gitfib said:
you mean to have onClickConfirm to not call finish()? it doesn't seem to call it in another thread, so when onClickConfirm executes, you can hook finish(), ignore it when it's called, and unhook it after onClickConfirm
you might need to add the word manually into the layout
Edit: or replace onClickConfirm with your own, where you do the same as the original method does, but without the finish()
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I plan to do so when you click to add a word to the dictionary (if you click on a word not known> Add to Dictionary) without additional clicks. Now onCreate open xml (window with a text field changes the new word and two buttons: Save - onClickConfirm and cancel). And to add an algorithm that if a word has been written with a capital to create a window where we can choose to save a small letter word or a big. It is necessary that when you enter a new proposal, if the word is not a person's name or the name of the city and so on, then you need to save in small letters. ! It is necessary to change the method onCreate or write at all it knitted.
I see. how about replacing R.layout.user_dictionary_add_word resource with your own, which would be invisible by default? until you change visibility of one of its layouts
Yes, it's like this. A visibility layouts unless somehow it is possible to set up?
android:visibility="visible / gone"
and
object.setVisibility(View.GONE);
visible/gone should be fine. do you see how to replace, or should i try myself?
gitfib said:
visible/gone should be fine. do you see how to replace, or should i try myself?
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Click to collapse
I think that if you change the appearance of it will not work.
In the layout we have onClickConfirm, which is to be stored. And if you remove the layout (for a word in small letters), then-layout window is not necessary to call and respectively, we can not perform onClickConfirm.
I understand that it is necessary to onCreate remodel. A change in visibility is not necessary.
If you have any ideas how to do it, you can demonstrate this. This is a good lesson.
Once again, a reference to the Activity https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_packages_apps_Settings/blob/2703eb717e542ff225611cb9e0217815ee14661c/src/com/android/settings/inputmethod/UserDictionaryAddWordActivity.java
Now I do not know whether it is possible to re-write method onCreate?
at very basic, you can clone the layout, make visibility gone, replace the layout by the clone, and after the layout having being loaded or after onCreate been called - call onClickConfirm
I wouldn't remove the layout because you want to have your own layout on certain cases, and because it would be less messing with the system since UserDictionaryAddWordContents assumes there's a layout