[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] carolos:
How to make Launch Manager Skins

Creating a skin for Launch Manager is not difficult:

Inside the "\Program Files\Launch Manager\Skins\" folder, there is a folder for each skin.

The folder name of the skin is the name Launch Manager will use when selecting skins in Appearance->Settings.

Inside each of these folders there is a "skin.xml" file, if you are familiar with HTML or XML you should find editing this file fairly easy.

If you edit the "skin.xml" file you will see:

"<SkinSize Value="480x800" />" -- This tells Launch Manager what resolution the skin is intended for.

Always put the smaller number first, 480 is less than 800.

"<ShortcutFontColor Value="FFFFFF" Selected="FFFFFF" />" -- This tells Launch Manager the colour of the font used for the Title of the Shortcut when not selected and when selected.

Any colour can be used FF0000 represents Red, 00FF00 represents Green, 0000FF represents Blue.

This is similar for selecting colours for HTML elements.

"<OSDFontColor Value="FF0000" Shadow="000000" />" -- This is for setting the On Screen Display Foreground Colour and Shadow.

(OSD is the text that appears when you go from one page to another)

"<SelectionImage Value="seltile.bmp" Landscape="seltilel.bmp" Color="C000000D" />" -- This tells Launch Manager which image to use when a shortcut is selected, Value is for when the phone is in Portrait mode, Landscape is the image to use when the Phone Screen has been rotated to Landscape mode, if the Image is not found Launch Manager will use the value in Color.

Color="C000000D" is a special code for the default selection colour in Windows Mobile.

"<TileImage Value="tile.bmp" Landscape="tilel.bmp" />" -- This tells Launch Manager the image to use for each shortcut tile in Portrait and Landscape mode.

"<Icon Name="SoftReset" Value="..\IconsVGA\Reset.ico" />" -- This tells Launch Manager which icon to use by default for the SoftReset shortcut.

"<Tile Left="0" Top="0" Width="160" Height="116" LLeft="0" LTop="0" LWidth="134" LHeight="126" />" -- This tells Launch Manager where to position the shortcut tiles.

I recommend ordering them in the xml file from top left to bottom right so that when you use the Direction buttons on your device they go from one tile to the next in order.

"Left", "Top", "Width" and "Height" specify the positions of the shortcuts in Portrait mode in pixels.

"LLeft", "LTop", "LWidth" and "LHeight" specify the positions of the shortcuts in Landscape mode in pixels.

The images can be edited in any image editor, and can be saved in any BMP and JPEG formats.

I recommend a 256 Indexed Mode BMP to keep the images as clear as possible and as small as possible.

It is also possible to use a background image so the design of the skin is quite unlimited:

To use a background image:

"<BackgroundImage Value="todayback.bmp" Landscape="TodayWallpaper.jpg" />" --Add something like this between the "<Settings>" "</Settings>" elements.

When using a background image you shouldn't use "TileImage" or the background image will be covered.

So remove "<TileImage Value="tile.bmp" Landscape="tilel.bmp" />" when using a background image.

If you would like to distribute the file as an ".lmskin" file, for easy installation on other devices.

(If you tap on an .lmskin file in file explorer it automatically gets installed by Launch Manager)

Download the makelmskin command line tool from: http://www.fantasticbytes.com/downloads/getfile/name/makelmskin

The usage is as follows:

makelmskin.exe NameOfSkin PathTo_Skin.xml Outputfile.lmskin

example:

makelmskin.exe Black240x400 Black240x400\skin.xml Black240x400.lmskin

"Black240x400" is the folder Launch Manager will create when installing this skin.

"Black240x400\skin.xml" is where makelmskin.exe can find the skin.xml file you made.

"Black240x400.lmskin" is the output ".lmskin" file.

P.S. Setting Names e.g. BackgroundImage are case sensitive, so BackgroundImage is not the same as backgroundimage.