[Touch Cruise ROM Development] cruiserrr:
As reg66 said the other day we are a few people cooking ROMs for the Polaris but there is not such a chef corner in the polaris forum. So I propose this thread to exchange techniques, tools, etc.

Anyway I will use this thread as my own cooking repository and share as I learn myself. Feel free to contribute but please keep the posts ontopic. Most of it will be about cooking with 6.1 kernel for QVGA devices.

this 1st post is updated with the relevant information up to post 39 (take me there)

the 2nd post is about non solved specific questions in case one cooker can help another 5 (take me there)

Radios:

Please feel free to report radios tested to run on the Polaris (or links to compendiums)

Which radio to use? depends on the drivers you use...

Kitchens:

Please feel free to report kitchens and sys tested to run on the Polaris (or links to compendiums). Kitchens available are basically three: Ervius Visual Kitchen, Ondraster kitchen (two versions: old and new UI) and traditional kitchens (simply cmd scripts and exe tools, maybe someone wants to share a polaris non visual kitchen). Most of the kitchens come with mega packages, some others come naked or with leo packages. Choose the one that best suits you.

Gullum EVK's Kitchen wm6.5 23016. My first kitchen, I love it. Mega based

Amenatis EVK's Kitchen wm6.5 21891/28008 040C and almost 0409 Very refined kitchen, not only cabs and packages but a very well implemented OEM and Registry. Leo Based

osKitchen NEW UI v1.25 - Easy Visual Kitchen I tested and has easy startup tweaks and splash integration and very good description of packates.

TranMinhMan EVK's Kitchen WM6.5 with MANILA 2.0 at PDAVIET Requires registration. File password: TranMinhMan. See post 7 for direct links to the 3 parts of the file

TomAngel Ondraster's Kitchen wm6.5 builds 23088, 23518, 28008 and 28205 Includes both 6.1 and 6.5 kernel and is Multilanguage (check the thread also to learn how to use the wm6.5 kernel and seems to be working. It works nicely in my ROMs that seem to work better (as if it had a higher PP). There is not consensus on the performance improvement however. The main advantage is to avoid recmoding, since performance it is not so much affected and depends more on drivers. I personally believe recmodded apps open slower but there is no big science behind this thought. Check TomAngel's post for details).

niax kitchen wm6.5.X (by Nikkito) Spanish kitchen at htcmania.com forum - the forum is in spanish, look for a mediafire link in the first post - does not require registration to access the kitchen.

vistang's kitchen (did not manage myself)

Cooking takes lots of time. Be sure you backup your kitchen whenever you have consolidated a bunch of improvements. Sometimes files may get corrupted or if you change many things at a time, it may be difficult to go back to previous situation and also to fix the errors. Therefore, even if it is a pain, I recommned to zip the whole kitchen from time to time.

Another good practice is to keep a second folder with your kitchen tools, in case you have to restore the whole kitchen from scratch.

Kitchen Tools and Scripts:

I have the pleasure to introduce my collection of tools, ready to use with Ervius Visual Kitchen (and I guess, easy to adapt for other kitchens). Please check this post

Batch Recmoding (please donate to xtep): With this tool you can recmod automatically only the modules you want to, since recmodding everything will deliver a slower/bigger ROM (working on windows vista, includes instructions on how to use)

Tools for importing SYS into VK and auto recmod (please donate to xtep)

Dump sorter for the rollup´s of eg Da_G new releases thread

Create a custom splashscreen (steps 1 to 4) and add it manually (rest of steps)...or...automatically when generating the ROM

Pagepool changer (external, do not know if it is the one used in EVK)

Edit hv files

NBHextract (by pof): Extract contents from NBH files

Itsme amazing tools There is a wiki explaining it. Here in this post you will find some hints on how to use

Kitchen tools collection at mobileunderground (requires registration) Apps that can be downloaded (I will delete the reference of those taken from xda as I replace by links):

Sqeezer (Compress .exe files to save space and speed up programs) / rgu-2-xml (Converts .rgu to .xml to create provxml files) / reshack (open .dll and .exe files to replace icons) / OEM version checker (check the version of your oems in kitchen on in device) / SYS version (find the sys version of your sys packages) / ThemeGenCE (use to create 6.1 themes, may work for 6.5 too -- not sure) / Manila Editor (Edit Manila Files) / CFC - (Chainfire's Manila tool to compress, decompress, and edit manila files) / MakeCAB (Window's free tool to make cab files) / NBH Tool - Dutty's tool for convertint to,from .nb,.nbh /

Dump Sorter - tehpenguin's tool for sorting and cleaning packages / Msigner - For signing your modified .dlls / ROM Editor - For dumping ROMs

SuperRecMod - JooJooBee666's tool for converting modules to files / Bepe's xidump attached -- info here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=572673 / Alexx~'s tools to extract dio file attached / WinDiff - Compare 2 files or directories to find the differences (great for comparing reg files) / WinMerge - Compare 2 files or directories to find the differences (great for comparing reg files) / cab converter / createloc - It create the local language tree when you using the VisualKitchen.

Reviews of several kitchen tools (hilarieg's sticky at chef central) For each app you'll find download link, explanation and reference links. Apps reviewed so far (4 april 2010):

Device Side Manifest (.DSM) Editors (BuildDSM / DSM Analyzer / DSM Builder / DSM Dependency Dumper / DSM Editor)

Some Da_G reading about dependencies, certificates and shadow packages

Editors (EditPad / XML Notepad)

Graphics (.BMP, .JPG, .PNG, etc.) (IcoFX)

Process, Registry (FDC Task Manager / Registry Workshop)

Resource (.DLL, .EXE, etc.) ( Dependency Walker / Resource Hacker)

Search/Comparison/File Managers (Beyond Compare / Compare It / Directory Opus)

WM6.5 ROMs:

1. Flash SPL: This great tool basically makes safe to flash Custom Roms. Additionally, procedures are well known and available to restore original SPL and ROM in case you need to send your device to a technical service without loosing guaranty.

2. Flash Original ROM (recommended by most chefs, mandatory if you observe inestability issues when flashing a custom ROM

3. Install your favourite custom ROM (most chefs recommend hard reset after flashing)- Some people recommend to removed sd card. I have long been doing the opposite flashing from the SD Card.

Please feel free to report ROM's links or compendium of ROM Links. The only requirement is to add a description of the basic attributes (preferably by the author of the ROM). ROMs do not include radio unless specified, follow the link to see the author's original thread.

[WWE] pcarvalho eXtreme ROM 3.19 WM6.5 OS 5.2.21882/23547/28014/24001 and many others R0 Standard driver and 3d drivers versions

[WWE] Kostas244-Rom-23016 A1-B4/23414 C2/23541 D1

[WWE] Alex-V 23529+LITE Rom Manila2d with or without flipp clock

[WWE] cruiserrr 23016 Lite, XDA and Full releases (based on gullum's kitchen)

[WWE] cruiserrr 23569/28008 Lite (based on amenatis kitchen)

[WWE] eXXon ROM's - Naked|Clean|Lite - 23016

[ITA][WWE] Megan & MeganLite SERIES WM6.5

[ITA] ilSalgo_V0_WM6.5 Build 23504

[SPA] NiAx Pola 6.5 MultiROM - 21854/28008/23544

[GER] Alex-V 23529/23016 Rom + LITE->with Manila2d

[GER] TomSte V1 WM6.5 Build 23016 GERMAN MEMORY FIX

[FRE] Polaris AmenatiS-6.5 M2D 21232 Blue 3G V2 Great ROMs with amazing customizations optimized for the different french operators.

Please, post your reference wm6.5 ROM in other languages

You are an end user? Which rom is the best? This depends on your needs. There is some posts about user experiences in this thread and of course on the ROM threads themselves. My advice is to try a few ones, several days each. Then you will have no doubt and that won't kill your device (I did not dare at the beginning but I have flashed my device ... quite a few times...)

You are a cooker and want to be? Do not invent the wheel. Liason with the cooker that is working in the line you like and ask him what you want to do and what is the best starting point. You will be surprised how helpful people can be.

Dammit ! I bricked my cruise... Stay calmed and take some lecture

SYS Sources (thanks alexander for both links)

Recmodded sys files + tips and tricks (only english) (by Duron23)

Htcpedia WM6.5.x Build Release for Chefs Complete releases (all dpi/all languages). Requires registration

Da_G WM6.5.x latest releases: Complete releases (all dpi/all languages) and tips&tricks (check initial posts to find all sys packages description)

XBeta...

DarkForcesteam...

PPCKitchen sources can not be used directly. A script is needed to change fileattributes automatically, since ppckitchen handles files in a different way.

Do not overload your kitchen with lots of releases since the cooking time grows a lot.

SYS Fixes (sticky in chef central)

We use wm6.1 kernel which means it has a limit on the number of modules it can cope with. If you do not get a bootable Rom then recmod some more modules. No consensus on which ones, how many or in which slot. As pcarvalho says, it does not matter if it does the job.

How to update your kitchen to the latest builds?

Does your kitchen suffer S.O.D.? My experience is that is not a kitchen or sys problem, it has to do with oem/ext htc packages (specially htc notifications and volume control) or start menu cooking. However, other people are reporting other reasons such as the tools used to cook or corrupted modules.

Sys description

EXT QVGA packages repository:

Profile Selector (by cruiserrr).

Quick GPS WM7-ish (white letters, dark background, thanks pcarvalho)

BTBPP, BTSAP and BTFTP modules

OEM QVGA packages repository:

Cab QVGA packages repository:

Tweaked cab QVGA packages repository:

Here I reserve a space to post apps that are optimized for SD install.

There are three ways of doing it:

1. Use mortscript to install on the SD Card. Sashimi great tool does so. In the mortscript source compendium you can also find a script that does it more manually (may fail on some devices/cabs). I never have time to "steal" the code from sashimi's. It is as simple as leaving the cab file in a certain folder. the drawback is sashimi's is kinda slow to launch because it does a LOT of things. btw, great tool to backup emails, wifi and so on.

2. Use sktools: it lets you move files (including dll) to the sd card and is able to create a cab version that saves the installation configuration (sd installation, registry changes, dll moved, etc). Very easy but cabs created can not be opened by all other cab editing apps.

3. Use Wince cab manager. It is more tedious.

At the end I will post here some of these files/links for everybody to enjoy

Esmertec Jbed Install on SD (by K0mmaT1A)

Office 2007 Install on SD

Command line tools

Howdykeith's list in his great mortscript compendium thread Quite a few toos that accept command line options so can be launched by a link, a script (mort or not) or whatever...

Tools to Sync Time (requiere internet connection):

SKTSync has command line options

TimeSyncTZ: has command line options

Splash Screens:

ROM enhancements:

Please feel free to report those scripts, tweaks or whatever making your ROM or User customization better and different from other proposals.

Customize security policies,... and for a complete reference this great itsme post

Customize Splash Screen Yet another method

Customize welcome screen

Remove Beta Expiry Date from Today Screen

Change ROM Info in settings/Device info (provxml) and Change the name in the bootscreen and build date of the rom (EVK)

Change calendar working hours

Change calendar working days

Wiki BT profiles

Mr Makk post (60 guides): Brief and clear guides for most common things.

Provxml, Reg files and Parameters backup:

Please feel free to report how you backup email, wifi, bt, owner, etc. as provxml / xml / reg files ready to load while flashing or customizing.

How to delete reg keys with a provxml/xml file

How to delete reg keys with a reg file

Rapiconfig: use this small app to download settings you want to backup as provxml

Backup Owner, Wifi, mail as provxml using rapiconfig

Love .PROVXML's? Hate Not Knowing If It Worked? [URL="http://xdaforums.com/member.php?u=1505670"](by hilaireg)[/URL]

Keep media player running when the screen goes off

Fix Igo keyboard problem with ezinput Has nothing to do with the topic but I wanted it to be handy...

Ervius rgu/reg to xml/provxml conversion

Customization:

Notepad++

Gimp (GNU Image manipulation software, "like" photoshop but freeware)

Creating Shortcuts

Icon dll creation: tutorial with links to iconfx and reshacker

XmlGui 0.0.5.1 - Tool for editing HTC Xml layout file: useful for customizing HTC XML skinned apps.

Using mortscript to cook provxml files with shortcuts and icons

There are several ways to customize the ROM:

1- RunCC: nice looking, can not be interrupted (if so is like a hard reset). Sometimes is tricky while cooking.

2- XDA_UC: mortscript based, has full support for tradicional UC config files (no need to install SDconfig). Can run in combination with RunCC or standalone. Has lots of functionalities for the cooker to create shortcuts, load regkeys, etc. but also for the ROM user (install cabs, xml or reg files, etc while you are using the ppc).

3- SDConfig: You can change bmp displayed as the customization takes place. Can be aborted.

I use 1+2 combined. I basically use XDA_UC to do the customization and control the Radio after first boot and I use RunCC to ensure the customization is not aborted.

Android:

Pending

As always thanks to pcarvalho for showing all our polaris can work with the latest builds and to gullum, the first one to share a stable and easy wm6.5 kitchen (and of course to all the people who developed and shared hardspl, customruu, cooking tools etc, releases, etc. but that would be endless)