[Windows Mobile Apps and Games] ramdroid77:
DEVELOPMENT STOPPED!

In case anyone still bothered - sorry! But I'm personally not even using TBL anymore because in the meanwhile Cookie's Sense mod does everything I need. Due to Windows mobile platform dying I also see no reason to continue anyway!

This is my first contribution to this board! It's a little tool that shows a customizeable launch pad when you hit the taskbar. If you don't like this launch pad you can also launch something else instead. You can also say to launch nothing at all --> this also disables HTC Notification, Samsung notification if you're on OMNIA, or the annoying taskbar from newer 6.5.x builds.

Attention: Current version is designed for newer 6.5.x builds of Windows Mobile with the start menu on bottom. Taskbar Launcher is blocking all other applications from the taskbar, so it might be a bad idea to use it when your Start menu is still on top.

Release history

0.6 BETA [02/28/2010]

support alpha PNGs

PNGs from custom commands are automatically detected from entry in Start menu etc.

internal commands can be launched using command line parameters

Yellow indication when Wifi connection is open

temporarily disabled highlighted icons when hitting them

Manila, Phone, Start menu, Home screen and Active Sync is excluded in task manager

Still possible to switch to home screen/start menu when using prev/next gestures

immediately update taskbar when status of battery/connection has changed or when waking up from sleep

removed $HTCVOLUME control because it wasn't reliable. Use seperate exe I had posted if you still need it

added autoclose feature

new icon set + application icon for TBL ;)

0.5.1 BETA [02/22/2010]

tried to fix crash on Close introduced with 0.5 [maybe]

Added command $HTCVOLUME (but probably not working on newer 6.5.x builds)

0.5 BETA [02/19/2010]

Added Task manager

Added new gestures: switch to next/previous application

Fully replace the default Windows taskbar

0.4 BETA [02/08/2010] (1031 downloads)

Fixed bug: Taskbar launcher showed instead of HTC Volume Control (tested on Touch Diamond)

Fixed bug: Selected icons stayed selected when moving out of the icon

Taskbar is split up into 3 areas, each of them can launch something (see INI file)

Supported commands: switch to Start menu, switch to Manila

Added $ROTATELEFTBACK and $ROTATERIGHTBACK

Added switch to deactive Taskbar launcher (workaround if "Stop Taskbar launcher" leads to problems....)

Finally there's link in Startmenu to Taskbar launcher (configuration tool automatically starts Taskbar launcher when finished)

More options in popup menu (see screenshot)

Added first-stage configuration GUI (see other screenshot)

0.3 BETA [02/03/2010] (366 downloads)

Improved performance of launcher dropdown

Improved gesture recognition

Launcher window position was messed up on some resolutions --> Fixed!

Gestures can be turned on/off and it's possible to launch custom cmds

Rotate screen can also be called from launcher

Possible to launch htc notification through gesture or from launcher

When hitting icons in the launcher they become highlighted

0.2 BETA [01/27/2010] (243 downloads)

Added support for all resolutions

Added support for landscape mode

With a finger gesture over the taskbar the device rotates in the specified direction (you can slide left to right, or right to left)

The ugly "Close" button is gone. The launcher can be closed by just hitting the taskbar again

A parameter can be setup for each command

Added few more commands because I thought they're fun

0.1 BETA [01/22/2010] (518 downloads)

Initial release

Installation

Run the CAB file on your phone. All files are copied into program files directory. There's also a shortcut installed in \Windows\Startup to automatically launch it after reboot. After installation the Taskbar Launcher is not yet running. But since BETA 0.4 there's now also a shortcut in Startmenu/Programs to launch the configuration tool. When finished then it will automatically run Taskbar Launcher.

Usage

Hit the taskbar and then the icon of the program you want to launch. Hit the taskbar again or tap anywhere out of the launcher window to close it. You can also tap and hold anywhere in the window and a little popup menu appears. Here you can stop Taskbar launcher.

Since BETA 0.4 the taskbar is divided into three parts. By default settings hitting in the middle of taskbar shows the Taskbar launcher like previously known. Hitting on the left runs HTC Notification. Hitting on the right runs Taskbar launcher's internal Task Manager.

If enabled, then with a gesture the screen can be rotated. Slide from left to right to rotate counter-wise, slide from right to left to rotate in the other direction. Of course this works also when the launcher popup is still hidden.

Since beta 0.5 the gestures to switch application are used by default. Slide from right to left to switch to next application, slide from left to right to switch to previous application.

In beta 0.5 I have also fully replaced the standard taskbar. In the middle you see the time. Left is indication about signal strength, right is indication about battery level. If a GRPS connection is open then the icon in the very left changes to a RED circle. If a WIFI connection is open then the icon changes to YELLOW. The battery icon in the very right changes, depending whether you have connected your phone to power supply or not.

Customization

In [General] section you can active/deactive Taskbar launcher. When deactivated then the program is still running in the background, but taskbar remains as usual. There's also a value to edit the timeout after which the taskbar launcher window automatically closes if user doesn't do anything. Default = 5 = 5 seconds.

Next comes section for taskbar replacement. By default this is enabled, the ini file key is Style = 1. To disable it and use the default Windows taskbar simply set Style = 0. There's few more keys which point to images which indicate current battery/connection state.

Then there are three sections for each part of the taskbar: Area1, Area2, Area3. For each area you can setup the following:

Launch mode. There are 4 modes:

0 --> nothing happens when you hit the task bar

1 --> enable the customizeable launch pad

2 --> when hitting the taskbar then launch something else

3 --> show the taskbar's launcher internal task manager

LaunchExe and LaunchParam is executed if LaunchMode is 2.

Since beta 0.6 searches the icon for the exe automatically. usually the icon seen in Start menu should be shown. If you want to have another icon (or have some custom things like HTC Notification) then you still can specify a PNG file.

In [CustomLauncher] section you can change the image used for background picture. The file is supposed to be the relative path to the program file directory. Don't add absolute paths. Currently you can't add path to a file in \Windows directory.

In [CustomTaskman] you can set a background image. There's also a key "NoIcon=..." which points to an image that is shown if Task manager was unable to retrieve the icon for an application. Usually this shouldn't happen. If you see this icon, please report!!!

In [CustomCmds] you add the list of tools you need. Always increment the ID by 1. In the section for each tool you add a PNG file used as icon (relative paths again), executable file (absolute path) and an optional parameter. You can also leave out the PNG file then the default (also shown in Windows Start menu) will be used.

Some of the INI file settings are immediately applied by Taskbar launcher, for example when changing Active setting or any of the run modes. However when changing shortcuts in the launcher window or when modifying any of the PNG files then you have to restart Taskbar Launcher.

Internal commands

Some people might already have noticed, instead of exe files you can also add some commands which are internally processed by TBL. The following commands are available:

$ROTATELEFT --> rotate screen left for 90 degrees

$ROTATERIGHT --> rotate screen right for 90 degrees

$ROTATELEFTBACK --> rotate screen left into landscape, by next call return to previous portrait mode

$ROTATERIGHTBACK --> rotate screen right into landscape, by next call return to previous portrait mode

$HTCNOTIFICATION --> launch HTC notification window

$HOME --> switch to home screen (i.e. Titanium or Manila)

$MANILA --> switch to Manila and select "Home" page

$STARTMENU --> show Window's start menu

$SWITCHTONEXTAPP --> switch to next app

$SWITCHTOPREVAPP --> switch to previous app

Since beta 0.6 it's also possible to use any of these commands as command line parameters. i.e.:

tbl.exe $HTCNOTIFICATION

This can be launched any time, no matter if tbl.exe is already running.

Future plans

Add/remove/edit the programs in the launch pad directly from the application.

Add more functionality into configuration GUI

Add possibility to close apps from Task manager