[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] vijay555:
Guys - this has been updated here

Guys -

Before installation:

After Install:

In use:

Dual functionality:

Ok, this is still beta, but works fine on my system.

it's an extension of the ToggleToday idea, so before getting excited, go and have a read of that (although, look at the pictures first to see if you like what you see). They are not the same program, although they work nicely, and indeed best with each other.

Theory: I don't like all the junk on my today screen, so ToggleToday, my previous program, removed the menu bar from the bottom of the screen.

The new program, ToggleStart, carries this theme futher.

The start bar, ie the bar at the top of the screen on your PPC, carries a number of functions that are useful in phoneedition, ie Signal strength, GPRS status (the G we all hate) and clock and volume.

However, after ToggleToday, there was some discussion about extending the Today screen to be even more useful; hence, ToggleStart, which does just that: it toggles display of the bar at the top of the screen.

Now, this would usually be useless, and is certainly not necessary if you use somethink like WISBar. But read on:

What if we hide the Startbar, but show something more useful instead - we're going to show the Today screen. So, clicking on ToggleStart will hide the bar and show through your Today screen at the top of every window. This, again, would normally be useless.

But, look at the example PhoneAlarm skin I've used and supplied.

This is configured to mimic much of the normal Start Bar functionality, but to be more useful. You aren't restricted to using my phone alarm skin, and if you've got a more important Today screen plugin to show, stick it at the top of your Today Plugins and it'll show through. But Phonealarm for me:

So, what happens:

Your StartBar actually shrinks to 2 pixels high. So the very top 2 pixels of your screen are the start bar, and work in the same way as normal. this is important, because you won't be able to see the OK/Close button and the volume buttons etc any more. But, if you know where they are, click just above them, at the top of the screen, and you'll click them.

This is IMPORTANT - remember, to click ok/close, click just above the Signal strength indicator (ie, where the normal OK button would be, but just above it, right at the top of the screen).

This is true for all of the normal start bar functionality. It's all there, but right at the top of the screen. This takes a bit of getting used to, but works. Also, this means that you've got twice the functionality - clicking on volume on my phonealarm skin will set phonealarm profiles, but just above it will set volume etc.

This is a toggle. Click once, the magic happens. Click once again, it unhappens and everything's back to normal. It won't eat your machine or anything, but worst case, SOFT reset. Don't put it in your startup folder unless you can rescue yourself. I don't use it like this, but you might want to.

Anyway, I recommend this:

-Install phonealarm and put it at the top of your today plugins. Ensure it works.

-Unzip my PhoneAlarm skin to your \Programfiles\phonealarm directory.

-Go to phone alarm and enable my skin VJTinyToday_min.skn

Ensure it works (note - clicking on the left few pixels on my skin will enable configuration. Clicking on the OS X icon will toggle to message display (this has some bugs due to phonealarm, not me). NOTE the phone alarm skin is beta - I'm not sure if the battery and signal strength are perfect yet, I did it at 4am, but I think it works. Feedback welcome.

-Optionally (and recommended) use ToggleToday. Use this BEFORE ToggleStart if you're going to use it, otherwise your screen will go funny.

-Click on ToggleStart. Hopefully now, you should be able to use my phonealarm skin all the time. Hope it's useful.

-You may need to refresh your screen - go to another app, and then back to Today Screen to see the finished product.

It's easy to recolour the skin. I'm enclosing my CETuner color theme, but basically the blue colour is RGB 207,147,247. Recolour in paint or anything!

It's a beta version - I'm going to join this to ToggleToday to do both in one, or either/or, as desired.

I don't know if anyone finds this useful. i don't know if I do yet! But give it a go and feedback! SCREENSHOTS please.

V

CAB

EXE

PhoneAlarm Skin (note, this only has icons for Home, Work, Meeting (rename it to silent in phonealarm profiles) and Flight. Feel free to make more if you need them) Clicking on the very left edge of phonealarm will bring up the config dialog. Clicking on the OSX icon will switch to message info view (if you've received text message, it'll show you the text of it etc).

CETuner Scheme

:!: Note: read the warnings on ToggleToday on the other thread if you haven't already. Basically, don't put it in your startup folder - wait for your PDA to load up and finish, go to the Today screen, and then run it.

:!: Note 2: ToggleToday doesn't work with WinMobile 2005, and neither program works in VGA. Don't say I didn't warn you. I'll work on this at some point.

- remember, ToggleToday BEFORE ToggleStart, and OK button is still in the normal place, just right at the top of the screen (above signal strength).

V