[Touch HD Themes and Apps] scarecrow420:
Hi maxycy,

Just wanted to say how cool MaxManila is - we really appreciate your time and efforts! It's great that you are going to tweak it more for us VGA users as well! I think when 2.7 is released you should start a new thread and move it out of the BlackStone forum since it really will be applicable to many more devices

Even in it's current state v2.6 beta is totally usable on my VGA TouchPro/Raphael - there are a few minor quirks but it is awesome! However, as requested Ill provide some VGA feedback for contemplation

Phone: Touch Pro (Raphael) VGA

ROM: EnergyROM Leo 28008 Dec 4th

MY CURRENT MaxManila CONFIG

See screenshot #1 (tab slider retracted) and #2 (tabs shown)

Smaller size flipclock on left with analog clock on right. Then weather/alarm section, 1 calendar appointment and the Call History section. Alert setting off so no Notify or shortcut Icons on home screen - and the tab slider retracted. This leaves a nice little bit of space at the bottom which helps the screen not look too cluttered. I then swipe down for the quicklinks, which I have configured for 16 (4 across, 4 down).

See screenshot #3 for MaxManila settings page to achieve the above

GENERAL FEEDBACK:

I kept having my clock display change from what i set it to. Eventually i figured out this was because I was "pressing" in the top middle, when I am on quicklinks page and "swipe" to get back to home page. On VGA there isnt much space and not much place to swipe without clicking on a quicklink, so it feels natural to me to use the top of the screen above the quicklinks. I have since realised that even if you swipe on a quicklink it wont actually activate that quicklink, although perhaps you would consider if when on the quicklinks page, pressing in top middle doesnt toggle the clock displays (since you cant actually see them anyway, you cant see what you're toggling).

ALERT SETTING:

With the Alert setting - I think it is supposed to work where N (notify icons on home screen), S (shortcuts on home screen) or NS (notify icon and shortcut on homescreen) are shown.

On VGA it obviously doesnt work as there is not enough space:

When set to either N or S you see nothing on the home screen. I suspect though that the notifications or top row of shortcuts is actually there, just in the WVGA position which is off the bottom of the screen for VGA

When set to N+S the notify icons show on the home screen right at the bottom and the shortcuts are all on the shortcut screen. No doubt this would be because on WVGA when you have both, it puts the Notify icons higher and the shortcuts below them, so in the previous example the notify was off the screen, now the shortcuts are off the screen and notify pushed up enough to be on the screen but still a bit too low as the bottom edge of the icons conflicts with the bottom taskbar (on WM6.5.3 anyway).

Now personally, I like having the shortcuts on the separate screen only, so I am happy to swipe down to get to them. I dont really use the notify icons because they sit too low on VGA currently, and even if they were a bit higher, they would still make things too cluttered for my taste. However some people do want them for missed calls and SMS etc, so if they are to be used on VGA, they need to be moved a tad higher so they dont clash with the bottom taskbar.

One weird thing i noticed is that when set to S, and no shortcuts are on the home screen because of VGA res - but when you bring the tab slider up, you can actually see the very top of the top line of quicklink icons in transparency underneath the slider tabs. However if the slider is retracted you dont see anything in that same space. It's barely noticable but just mention it since it's a weird thing I noticed

Screenshots - First one shows NS Alert setting with my preferred 1 calendar and call history (1C) - you can see the notify icons are just visible but a little too low and interfere with bottom bar and the shortcuts are below that totally off the screen. Next shows this same but with the tabs popped up. Obviously this is well past the limit of what VGA can actually display

Next 2 show tabs down and tabs up with just 1 calendar entry and notify icons (using NS to get them to show, though obviously would use just N or just S if they worked)

Last 2 show tabs down and tabs up with no calendar entry or call history and notify icons.

Have a look at the 2nd 4th and 6th ones (with tab slider extended) and you can sort of make out the Camera and Solitaire quicklink icons behind the semi transparent tab slider bar background. You can barely see it in the screencap, though it is more noticable in real life. Still not a major drama though

2 Cal or 1Cal + CallHistory take up the same space so i wont post the screenshots of that

SHORTCUT SCREEN:

The bottom row of shortcuts are half cut off on VGA. They are still clickable but you can only see half of them.

I guess one option here is to shrink the size of the shortcuts so all are usable (this would make them look weird though i think). The other option would be to have the VGA get rid of the last row of shortcuts - eg only have 3 rows rather than the 4 on WVGA (this would give 9 12 or 15 shortcuts, rather than 12 16 or 20). You could change the settings screen to specify "shortcuts per row" with options of 3, 4 and 5 and the number of rows would be harcoded to 3 rows for VGA and 4 rows for WVGA. If this is too convolted, perhaps the VGA can just not show the last row of icons, eventhough the registry would still have settings for them, and the MaxManila settings page would still say 12/16/20 - i dont think us VGA users would mind.

Note: in fullscreen mode, all shortcuts are visible

CALL HISTORY:

Brilliant!

I LOVE having the Call History button there as it is one thing I missed when going from 2.1 -> 2.5.

No feedback on this except to say please dont make any change to VGA that means we cant have call history showing if we want it!

CONTINUED next post...