[Touch HD Windows Mobile ROM Development] Buddy Count:
Status

@all: Time for some feedback on my work:

I'm running 23037 (newest available build) in german since its release day, it works really fine, smooth and stable, even backlight dimming works fine. (Without AutoLock and lightsensor polling, I need an updated driver, a link to a complete LEO ROM, I can dump. (I already got all Extensions, but not the OEM driver folder), so if someone has one, plz PM me a link.).

The bad thing on 23007 are the new buttons on the bottom taskbar. They make the available screen area for applications smaller, which is not really too bad, but in many applications not written for dynamic display sizes scrollbars are drawn. Thats were the problem begins: In Topaz dialer for example, you cannot use the curtain, cauz the device scrolls, when you try to unlock the curtain. Another thing is HTC Taskmanager will not display correct with all elements, so another one mapped to a hard button will be fine (I'm working on that). Due to the bigger sized bottom (task)bar, apps like TotalCommander, which use the whole screen and are not written correctly for dynamically sized display areas (form sizes, button coordinates, etc.) will have a smaller area for the second bar of the programm (like tcmd symbols for search, create folder, refresh, edit, etc.). And there are still many things not translated in german 23037 mui files and some elments (e.g. dropdowns) are not at their right place.

Enough of the bad thing, lets come to the good: I found a way to make files out of the mui moduls, unsign them, editing them, signign them again and make modules of them. So I can do MS's job and translate all left errors and button/ elements positions, etc. (Working on that :D) But this is really a hard work and many many many dialogues and strings. (I'll get the translation strings out of older versions, so that nearly everything will be translated as it will be in the final version, except new strings I translated on my own, cauz there are no official translations yet). This also lead me to create german mui files for the leo applications like the keyboard (where you will find no german version anywhere in the net right now), also with HTCs translations of older versions (string by string translation in a resource editor, like the WM65 muis).

I got the leo keyboard working in german, including T9 and QWERTZ layout and all "umlauts". But you cannot switch between different layouts right now (will crash keyboard and you will have to softreset) and there is no shortcut in personal settings right now. I'm working on these issues...

23037 is really fingerfriendly, you can switch between different tabs in a application (e.g. today settings, bluetooth, etc. no more tabs) and there are more fingerfriendly checkboxes and dropdowns. All in all the whole interface is more fingerfriendly (including scrollboxes, calender grid day selection, etc.).

I think I found the correct names for the new window classes to also make these new tabs available in other applications (e.g. HTC power manager), but I didnt test it yet. Due to low space on my harddisk and not owning a Visual basic mobile development environment, I have to to all this tasks with partly command line based tools and unstable beta soft, so this takes some time. (But works fine :D).

Another new thing is a fingerfriendly taskbar in 23037: No more need for HTC Notfication enhancement. When you Tab the taskbar, a bigger one will be shown below (transparent, really nice) with nice icons for the opened applications and notifications. You can even cycle through the icons, by sliding with the finger to the left or the right, when there are more icons, than can be displayed at once. REALLY NICE MS! *thumbsup*

The new buttons at the bottom taskbar (even OK and close moved there) are skinable, I think. At least the font color changes with the skin. I'm still looking for all responsible filenames (or the dlls), to proof they are fully skinable.

So as you see, I got a lot of things on my todo list right now. By the way: I updated the manilaTV channel list, made a cab of it and move the third party apps to SASHIMI, this willl be all included in the next release. But as I said before: I want to raise stabilty, usability and experience with every release, so I wont release any part of these standalone. Please wait for the new kitchen release...

So long for now, I will add some screenies these days. But now I'm back to mui translating and correcting button issues :D