[Windows Mobile] Z80-Man:
My 4x5 / 6x3 squared grid Startmenu layout (UPDATE)

Hi, Poyensa ! :)

Just finished the perfect fitting 6x3 (with 2 lines 6 size font titles) for landscape, now trying to cram 5 rows in 4 columns portrait mode... :P

When I say "perfect", it's just perfect : no icon top showing from the next row at the bottom of the screen, no text cut by the softkeys bar... ;)

I finally decided to keep using 80x80 only icons in both orientations, as 90x90 icons look too big. Especially as compared with CHT quicklinks in 4-in-a-row setup. So they now all look and feel the same ! ;)

Edit :

OK, Finished the job.

I finally found out how to get rid of the offset between icon position and shortcut launching trigger area : don't use a wider value than actual screen value with a negative "Left" value for "Start Menu Items List" tag, or you'll come into trouble ! :D

I think these settings were originally made to extend the active area left and right from the icons in honeycomb mode, but they now do nothing else than triggering the wrong icon, so have have to be completely removed. The "GridView ID" tag actually divides the active area into "Columns" equal parts, and they have to match the icons grid.

All fixed by setting "Left" values to "0" and using real 480 and 800 width. I had to slightly adjust the selector position to center it correctly after that.

The link to the CAB has been updated, as long as the CPRs text in the "code" below. :)

What's in the CAB :

- CPRs for portrait and landscape WVGA only

- All icons are shrinked to 80x80 pixels

- All titles are 6-size Tahoma fonts, beginning 4 pixels under the icon

- 4 columns x 5 rows portrait setup, icons titles on 3 lines, 120 pixels wide.

3rd lines of title are very close from the next icon, but they still don't overlap. Maybe you could try putting "Top" value to "83" instead of 84 and compare the results : maybe it will be centered. I just didn't go further, as 3 lines titles are still rare enough, and 1 and 2 lines titles just look good like this. :)

Title width has been enlarged to the maximum accpetable width IMO (but you can still change that, or use a different font size - it was originally different between portrait and landscape, but I wanted all the stuff to look the same, including CHT quicklinks - in 4-in-a row mode, of course).

However, when 5 rows of icons are showing, the last 3rd line of long titles is hidden under the softkeys bar ; when scrolling to the bottom, the full titles are visible, but the top row icons will be right under the bottom border of the (top) taskbar.

I think it's hard to get better without shrinking the icons even more... :P

- 6 columns x 3 rows landscape setup, icons titles on 2 lines, 154 pixels wide.

I tried to get 6 x 4 icons setup and ended up with no titles at all showing... LMAO :D

This setup is neat and clean, as each icon and text is declared to exactly 1/3 of the available screen height between the taskbar and the softkeys bar.

As a result, any full scroll always stops showing exactly 3 rows of full icons and their titles, what I couldn't really achieve in portrait mode without sacrificing something. :)

I kow some people will argue they'd rather have less larger icons, so they'll pefer using 3x3 or maybe 3x4 layout. Well, it's up to them. I have almost a hundred utilities and applications installed, so some of my folders, even though I'm extensively using subfolders and order all of them, really contain LOTS of shortcuts. ;)

Plus I'm finishing my project for direct access to usual data and documents folder. A friend of mine worked hard on dozens of folder icons I still have to finish making the multi-sizes .ICO versions to put in a DLL. I found a way to open any subfolder located in the Start menu (and actually using WM Startmenu !) from a MortScript I can call from a quicklink ; I may even conclude by adding an additional choice to the HTC Documents tab "Menu" button, as I did already for the ebooks database management ! It's just a matter of modifying an XML and a LUA file. :)

You'll find some screenshots at the end of this post.

CPR files contents :

StartMenu_GridScene_480x800.cpr :

<Form Width="480" Height="800">

<StartMenu_GridScene ID="Scene">

<GridView ID="Start Menu Items List" Top="0" Left="0" Width="480" Height="696" Columns="4" Scrollable="TRUE" HexagonGrid="TRUE" HorizontalWrapAround="TRUE" PaginatedScrolling="TRUE">

<Image ID="Selection" Left="-20" Top="-15" Width="200" Height="175" Source=".\StartMenu_Selection.png" />

<Layer ID="GridItem" Width="160" Height="140" OnAction ="GridItemAction">
<Layer ID="Normal">
<Image ID="Image" Left="40" Top="2" Width="80" Height="80" ScaleStyle="Fit" />
<Text ID="Text" Left="20" Top="84" Width="120" Height="68" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="6" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Top" Wrap="True" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter" ForeColor="#00FFFFFF" BackColor="#00000000">
<TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="2" BlurFactor="5" Alpha="1.0" />
<TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF" />
</Text>
</Layer>
</Layer>

<Layer ID="NoItems">
<Text ID="Text" Left="25" Top="40" Width="480" Height="40" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="9" ForeColor="#00FFFFFF" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Trimming="Character" InnerTextType="Resource">shellres.dll,22596</Text>
</Layer>

</GridView>

</StartMenu_GridScene>

</Form>

StartMenu_GridScene_800x480.cpr :

<Form Width="800" Height="480">

<StartMenu_GridScene ID="Scene">

<GridView ID="Start Menu Items List" Top="0" Left="0" Width="800" Height="376" Columns="6" Scrollable="TRUE" HexagonGrid="TRUE" HorizontalWrapAround="TRUE" PaginatedScrolling="TRUE">

<Image ID="Selection" Left="-17" Top="-15" Width="200" Height="175" Source=".\StartMenu_Selection.png" />

<Layer ID="GridItem" Width="170" Height="124" OnAction ="GridItemAction">
<Layer ID="Normal">
<Image ID="Image" Left="45" Top="2" Width="80" Height="80" ScaleStyle="Fit" />
<Text ID="Text" Left="7" Top="84" Width="154" Height="68" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="6" HorizontalAlignment="Center" VerticalAlignment="Top" Wrap="True" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter" ForeColor="#00FFFFFF" BackColor="#00000000" >
<TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="2" BlurFactor="5" Alpha="1.0" />
<TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF" />
</Text>
</Layer>
</Layer>

<Layer ID="NoItems">
<Text ID="Text" Left="20" Top="20" Width="800" Height="40" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="9" ForeColor="#00FFFFFF" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Trimming="Character" InnerTextType="Resource">shellres.dll,22596</Text>
</Layer>

</GridView>

</StartMenu_GridScene>

</Form>

How to install the 4x5 / 6x3 square Start menu :

1) Copy the modified shell32.exe matching your Windows Mobile build from Ultrashot's RAR archive ;

2) Install the CAB from the link at the bottom of this post. Destination doesn't matter, as target folder is hardcoded.

Cheers, and many thanks to Ultrashot. :)