yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
I don't see it being profitable for them to release a MS5 for 6.5 devices. Look at everything we've talked about above... how MS, in it's current form, is too limited for the power user. It's marketed primarily to the more average user... someone who wants to have eye candy and some customization, but isn't looking to do a lot of work themselves... someone who'll be happy with a stock package that they can tweak a bit.

Okay, so what phones are those users going to be buying 6 months from now? You can be sure they won't be Windows Mobile 6.5.x devices. They'll go Android, iPhone, or WP7. The people who'll be hanging onto the 6.5.x devices are those like us who want to really tweak, customize, and tinker with their phones to get the most out of them. This is a smaller subset of a subset of smartphone users that is dwindling and dying out.

Furthermore, do we really expect 5.0 to have all the abilities we want it have? They may add a few minor things, but realistically spb seems much more interested in the eye candy aspect, no? You can't blame them really... More and more smart phone users here in the US are teens and early 20s people who want the eye candy. They want cool looking devices and cool looking apps. Functionality is great and all... but if it doesn't look cool, well then it's only half done.

All this adds up to the this:

Mobile Shell is going to be marketed to the people who want an easy to use, cool looking program. What platform of phone do those potential customer have? In the US I'd guess it's along the lines of 30% Android, 50% iPhone, 20% WM 6.5 Mobile. 6 Months from now, again in the US, I'd guess it'd be closer to 40% Android, 50% iPhone, and 10% WM 6.5... and I'm probably being generous to WM. (Please note... these are not my guess of what people are using, rather percentage of those people who would use the stock Mobile Shell program.) I just don't see a market for Windows Mobile for the Mobile Shell product.
[Windows Mobile Themes] jotha:
In principle you are right. But you forget 2 things:

MS for Win Mobile is already here, so the development is much easier and cheaper as for all the other platforms, so why do it away?

And WinMobile 6.x will be around for a long time, as a lot of apps for it will be used for a long time, at least as long as WM7 does not provide similrar functionality.

I think they will milk the cow as long as possible. But I do not think that a lot of brain-power will go into really "develop" things for MS anymore. In this part you are right. Most ppl who use smartphones today are Kids that only look for eye-candy. So expect more glitter and blink and less new functionality.

But we are getting very much OT now :o.
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
You've got a point here... as long as it isn't too much harder to get 5.0 working for WM, they might as well do it too...

I agree... but I don't know how long developers are really going to support the platform... I mean besides the fine folks here.
[Windows Mobile Themes] mskip:
I think Mobile Shell know they will still have a Windows Mobile user base for at least another 18months. You forget that ALOT of people still have phones with WM6 or WM6.1 running on them because that was the standard when they first bought their phones on contract. Add to that all the people who have bought Windows based phones upto the present day and are going to be locked into their contract for the next 12-24 months (I still have 18months left on mine as I got it in December on a 2year contract). Now none of those phones will be upgradable to WP7 because of the hardware spec. Not even my HD2 will be upgradable (without a fight) because it has 1 too many buttons on the front and doesnt have a search button. Pretty much of a joke in my opinion but there you go..

Now ALL those phones will still be around for quite a while before people who are on contract can upgrade to a new handset so with all those factors I think its pretty safe to assume there is still a mass market for Mobile Shell on a Windows Mobile platform.

Unfortunately as Jotha said already I think 5 is going to be more bling (3D widgets) than extra advanced functionality.

Mark.
[Windows Mobile Themes] jotha:
As is my HD2, but reading the specs of WM7 I'm not totally sure that I'm sorry for that.

I really think that WM7 is the right decision for MS from the viewpoint of market-standing against Apple.

But from OUR Viewpoint WM7 is less customization and usability. So maybe it's a blessing that we MUST stay with WM 6.5 until the tweaking possibilties of WM7 have either improved or are explored by the XDA-Community.
[Windows Mobile Themes] casci:
I've downloaded the full library, but I don't find any widget in "Calendar/Tasks" set. If I look into the related folder in \Vostradamus\Widget\Calendar-Tasks\xxxxx I only see the file .dat, but no .jpg file like in the other Widget.

What about ?
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Calendar/Tasks widget does not have preview images (yet).... I keep forgetting to add them to the library, but the widgets are there and can be used the same :p

Just take a look at the picasa gallery (link in the first post) to see previews ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] citizenb:
LOL! After 15+ years working in and around user support environments all I can respond with is - you're completely right - I don't know what I was thinking:D I rest your case:p
[Windows Mobile Themes] Ummagumma:
Well, I guess I should've posted my question here and not on SPB Club.

What's the $30 advantage of SPB Shell over TF3D ? Once I install MobileSense on Shell and Co0kie Home Tab on TF3D they look and behave similarily, with each having its own advantages and disadvantages which are mainly feature related. Both are similarily responsive (even tho TF3D eats up 20mb more RAM, there's no noticeable performance hit . OTOH MS eats up storage). So, what am I missing ? I don't try to bash MS, I am really trying to see if there's any functionality that I miss that would make it a clear winner over TF.
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Well, I can only speak about my personal taste, 'cause in end that's what it really matters: what you prefer :)

I don't like TF too much for a couple reasons:

1) I think it can slow down a device really too much. Maybe not every device would suffer from it, but you yourself noticed the higher (MUCH higher actually) ram usage... on some devices it can really be devastating.

2) I just find it much less customizable

Sure, there are trillions of themes for TF out there... some are VERY nice, I'll give you that, but yet.... in the end, graphics details apart, they all look similar... all of them always follow the same scheme.... it can be nice at first, for a while... but I like to be able to 100% change my UI appearence and organization, not just the graphic theme, and that just does not seem possible with TF (wouldn't understand why no one seem to have done that so far otherwise)

Mind, MS itself, without "non official" tweaks, is different but not really too customizable... BUT... but there are ways to really tweak it to the core and make it look & feel much better.

I'll give spb guys this: the app HAS a great potential and is very improvable... no matter the almost total lack of support on their side :p

Plus: again ram usage. I'm not that much of a heavy multitasker or anything, but I don't see the point in wasting a huge amount of ram more if I can avoid it :p

About speed, on high end devices they can result similar... but on a less powerful cpu there REALLY is a difference. My wife has a touch diamond, which came with TF as the default shell. She's been using it for a while 'cause she liked the looks, but when she started feeling bored about it I disabled it and put MS on the device. Result: it seemed (meaning worked) like a 100% different phone... taking maybe a bit more time to boot, but undeniably faster once up and running.

Then again, all the above is my personal opinion, and of course I know, understand and accept that there are a lot of people preferring TF over MS... any choice is good as long as it suit the user taste ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] claus1953:
Hello Vostradamus

Doc3000 has given his permission to extract and use the GTX clock we were talking.
[Windows Mobile Themes] citizenb:
On the flipside its also better on a high end device - when I got my HD2 unboxed and discovered that HTC had taken this uber powerful device and wrapped in their stinky manilla sense interface I wanted to cry a little and I knew I was going to have to go with a custom interface to get full use of the device.

I now run a custom rom with MS tweaked to exactly how I like and it's really a completely different experience from the phone I unboxed - I have shown MS to 2 colleagues who also went the HD2 route and they are now also running it :)
[Windows Mobile Themes] jotha:
Hey Guys, don't wanna be a party crasher, but I think the postings are getting very much Off-Topic now.

Couldn't we keep this a Vostradamus Mobile Shell Manager-Thread?

I have no prob with an OT discussion here and there, but I get an email-ping on my phone for every post here and when i rush to read the post I find another SPB-Bashing or Mobile-Shell- or phone-related question/answer.

It's not my thread though, and Vostradamus in his never ending friendliness and will to help everybody will surely answer every possible question, but I think it must be in every followers interest to keep the thread readable, don't you think?

If you want to flame me for this, pls use PM and NOT the thread ;).
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
Stock Mobile Shell? There's a lot more customization you can do with Mobile Shell. With TF you're pretty locked into what see is what you get. Sure, you can tweak a few things, but that's about it. No major changes. MS allows you to rework a lot of things.

Now of course TF has some other advantages (better graphics in my opinion, weather based on GPS location, etc.), but I think I'd still lean towards stock MS over stock TF.

However, the power of MS comes when you go beyond stock. Using the get program that Vostradamus created I've gone quite "off stock" with my Mobile Shell. See the attached picture.

Here's a few important things to note: I've using a number of custom skins that Vostradamus has created for things like the Battery. I've also got a few of the normal things linked to different applications. For instance, previously I was using a weather widget that is directed to the Mobile Shell weather tab, but I wanted to link right to SPB Weather. So I used an "invisible link" over top of it to point to spb weather. I've also done that for a number of my links. For example, the heart in the Internet Panel is just a picture that's put on there with the picture frame widget. Tapping on this would normal bring up that picture in the image viewer. But I've put an invisible link to the favorite panel over top of it. This is how I handled the Playlist link as well as the GPS and Games links.

A few other quick things... the white lines on the home screen are a panel widget item from Vostradamus. Notice that I have TWO email notification icons. One is for my work account, one is for my personal account. I don't think TF can do this.
[Windows Mobile Themes] jjdavola:
This seems like a great tool, but I can't figure out how to add panels to where I can actually see and use the panel. For example, I created a panel called utilities seemingly without a problem, but it doesn't show up for some reason, even after a restart.

Is there a special trick or step that I'm missing?:confused:
[Windows Mobile Themes] jotha:
What do you mean, it does not show up? Where do you expect it to show up? :confused:

As already described in the FAQ (second post of this thread) in the launcher under "Extras-MS Panels" (could be also "Tools-MS Panels", depending on language version of MS) you have a link that opens the panel. Also when you open the carousel you should be able to get to the panel. You see it as an empty panel with the name you gave it. ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Oooooook, added to my to-do list for the next update ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] jjdavola:
Thanks. Oh. I guess I wrongly assumed that by extra panels, I would then be able to have 7, 9 or more panels for Lifestyle and not a lonely panel that I just created.

I assume if I want to uninstall this I will have to reinstall SPBMS and Sense 3.5 and then add the links and changes over again. Is that right?

Thanks again.
[Windows Mobile Themes] jotha:
You can make your newly created panel have 1, 3 or 5 pages. I think this is much more powerful than making more than 5 panels on lifestyle, because the way to reach them is much shorter.

Lets say you make 25 pages on your lifestyle home, you would have to sweep 12 times to the right to reach the last one (I know its hypothetical but it's an example).

But if you create lets say 5 lifestyle panels with 5 pages each you have the same amount of pages to work with but need never more than one click and 2 sweeps to reach every page.

If you still insist to deinstall MSM :p you just have to deactivate all activated MSM-Widgets, delete the created panels and deinstall MSM (if you installed it after Sense). Then you can delete the Vostradamus folder on your storage card.

There should be no need to reinstall MS. But you have to place yours sense widgets again of course if you replaced them with MSM-Widgets.
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
It's a lonely panel, yes, but it is still usable, you can put a link to on any of you existing panels. That's how I have my whole setup done.
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
That's the pagecount change function, but it's currently limited to panels created with MsM (that "lonely panel" can have a number of pages....) 'cause lifestyle and professional home can be set via standard mobile shell menu.

I could actually consider making them customizable via MsM too though, to give the chance to set a number of pages higher than 5 :p

I can't say what would happen installing a theme on a non-clean version of mobile shell, you should rely on the theme's creator instructions for it.

I can say, though, what would happen on MsM side

- Activated widgets would remain active, but you would need to run the "restore xml" function after installing the other theme to make them work again (they would be visible in the change skin menu but would not work until the restore xml function has been run)

- Additional panels, customized menubars and so on would most probably be destroyed by the other theme's installation, so they would have to be recreated.
[Windows Mobile Themes] jotha:
Gian, I think you got him wrong. He wants to uninstall MSM and fears he has to reinst Mobile Shell then, like when he deinstalls MSkips old themes or Sense.

I already answered him on that, but our postings crossed :cool:
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
Vostradamus...

If you could, please, could to add the bottom of your "Low Priority" to do list:

I'd like to see the Big Box colored links (http://picasaweb.google.com/109595240430741653050/Links#5473655469494845522) WITHOUT the hard boarder around them. Just the background color as it is fading out at the top and bottom.

Possible?
[Windows Mobile Themes] jjdavola:
Good point, but I'm simple and like everything right there.:p Since I'm new to MSM, I activated a couple widgets, but didn't use them yet, so I should be OK.

I didn't say it wasn't usable. It's just not what I was expecting,

That would be great since I could really use 7 or 9 non-lonely Lifestyle panels. :)

As mentioned, I'm still new to MSM and still haven't figured out how to implement the menubars :o, so not much would be lost on the MSM side. I just don't want to recreate Sense 3.5 for the third time this week. :(

Thanks for being so responsive!!!
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
lol my bad, it always takes me a lifetime to write a post :p
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Uhm... possible, but I'm afraid it would look sort of "cut"...
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Will see to it for the next version :)

In the meantime maybe you could try setting that panel you created to have 7 pages (currenly it's the max possible number of pages configurable with MsM... but I was thinking of raising it to 9 maybe) :p

urgh... 3rd time... lol no wonder you're sick of reinstalling it :p

You're welcome! ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
Yeah... you're probably right. Just skip it.
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
I'll give it a try all the same, will see what it looks like and how large a thing it should be to look decent :) If it will result acceptable I'll publish it ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] kenziesgrandma:
Good morning Vostradamus. I was wondering if it was possible for you to make the Status icon turn Cyan colour when there's a message or whatever waiting, instead of red (I'm talking about the Glass Square one). I would like it to match the Black Cyan vhub links I'm using. I already discovered that the medium reflection digital clock comes in Cyan, also the Battery text, I just think it would tie in really nice with everything else on my Lifestyle Home page (which I love) the way it looks now.

Also I was wondering if you can change the colour of the little green alarm clock icon (under Clock in Programs)? If possible I would love to have it in Cyan also, the bright green just isn't the greatest colour, I could use an invisible link but I like to have the littlest size icon in the bottom right corner of my panel to balance the Battery text (in Cyan) I have down in the left corner. I have to tell you, the more I get to play with this Program and find all the things it can do the more I love it.

thanks

Kathy :)

If it's not possible to change the colour of the alarm clock could you make a little text link (with text the same size as the Battery one) in Cyan, just "Clock" or "Alarm" would also fit.
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Will add it to my usual to-do list ;)

If I got you right, you mean the actual icon for the samsung clock/alarm app, right? The icon itself is not handled by mobile shell... I'm attaching to this post a cyan alarm clock icon, see if you like it and if you do just look for some app to replace the icon on the clock program ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] citizenb:
Modular Clocks Update v5.1

Modular Clocks Update v5.1

CHANGELOG 03 JULY 2010

----------------------

Fixes/Changes

-------------

First release with QVGA support.

**Note** I do not own a qvga device and these skins were developed with my HD2 in mind.

QVGA downscaling was tested on an emulator, however for anyone using the QVGA version please let me know if anything sucks and I'll try and fix it next time :P

Names of some skins still indicate vga pixel sizes - the qvga versions are sized correctly.

I've left this as changing the names as well would make the conversion take much longer.

The full set now consists of:

----------------------------

Clean Digital Clocks 10 Colors 2 Sizes

Clean Text Dates 10 Colors 2 Sizes

Clean Text City/Temp 10 Colors 2 Sizes

Dark Trans Backing Panels 10 Colors 2 Sizes

Brushed Metal Panels 14 colors 2 Sizes

Tinted Glass Panels 10 Colors 2 Sizes

Tinted Glass Circular Panels 10 colors 2 Sizes

Package has been split up into separate files again as there are now 2 versions - download the XML and themes file and the widgets package for your preferred screen resolution.

To Do List:

-----------

Text Aligned variants of the weather widgets

Additional panel types in all variants (larger panels, rounded corner squares, etc)

Matching link sets (e.g tinted glass shortcut overlays) for additional theming

Matching Clean Square Dates using date widget for additional variety

Matching Alarm Widgets

More Panel variants, (solid colors, gradients, textured etc)

More Clock Variants, (additional colors,textures etc)

Cheers

Citizenb
[Windows Mobile Themes] kenziesgrandma:
Thanks for the suggestions and the icon, Vostradamus. I found an app called Restart that worked perfectly. I was able to change the clock icon very easily. Looking forward to the Cyan Status icons.

thanks again

Kathy
[Windows Mobile Themes] kadawer:
Hello, Great job.
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
Hey Vostradamus,

Is it possible to re-skin the "on/off" switches for WiFi and Bluetooth?

I don't see that you have any of them in your Picasa album, so I'm guessing it isn't an easy thing to do. But, if it is possible, I'd love to see some "pro-style" switches... In my head I'm imaging a that the box would be black with a '0' in it when it's off and then blue (for BT) or red (for WiFi) with a vertical line in it for on.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Due to a bug in mobile shell (which I reported on spbclub quite a long time ago of course without getting even a single reply, not even a "get lost you moron" :D) the only way to skin them seems to be replacing the original graphics 'cause adding skins like every other widget does not work (the new skins show up in the change skin menu, but nothing changes when they are selected).

To be honest, I didn't try it on 3.5.4 or 3.5.5 yet.... maybe I'll try it but I'm not too positive about it :p

Only way around this would be scripting the file switch... having a script which replaces the graphics inside the required dat file (it does not contain only those graphics, but other stuff too).

This is possible, but with a couple drawbacks:

1) the new graphics

must

be the same size as the old ones for they will be using the same widget definition in the xml file

2) I can't assure they'll be working every time 'cause if someone is using a custom theme the theme could have changed the widget definition/size and MsM would not know it
[Windows Mobile Themes] RedRamage:
Gotcha... so basically it's not something that you would want to do with MSM because of the potential of "breaking" something... which I completely understand. One of the nice things about MSM is that it doesn't overwrite or destroy the normal functionality of Mobile Shell.

Can you tell me which file has the images? I might play around with it myself a bit. I'm an amateur at best with graphics, but every once in a while I get something right. :) One of these days I really need to learn PhotoShop... I've tried a couple of times but its just such a complex program I keep feeling lost in no time. I wish Microsoft was still making PhotoDraw. :(
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Sure, the file on vga devices is va_misc_now.dat, the image you need to look for is widget_wireless.bmp (and its mask widget_wireless_m.bmp of course)

About the graphics app to use, I'd suggest to take a look at gimp, it's not too difficult to learn (at least for the basics needed in a case like this), it's quite powerful and what's more it's free ;)
[Windows Mobile Themes] kenziesgrandma:
Hi Vostradamus, I have another request for if you don't mind. Would it be possible to do the small VHub links in black and white instead of with the Cyan? It wouldn't even have to be all of them, I really need just PEOPLE, PEOPLE 2, APPS and GRANDKIDS. That way I can change the colour of my status icons and stuff without worrying about how it looks with the VHub links (picky I know, lol). If it's possible I would really appreciate it.

thanks

Kathy
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Not sure if it will be in the next release already, but I'll see to it ;)

EDIT: just to be sure... you mean black & white together like white & cyan or black & cyan, right?
[Windows Mobile Themes] kenziesgrandma:
Yup, that's exactly what I mean, it would be awesome if you could do this for me,

thanks so much

Kathy :)

ps. you know, a person should never start customizing a phone like this, it's addictive, and I have a problem being able to make up my mind which layout I like the best so it's constantly changing, lol. One of these days maybe I'll find a final layout, do you think?
[Windows Mobile Themes] Vostradamus:
Sure you will! :)

You'll find the perfect layout, you'll feel completely satisfied with it and........... you will start thinking of a new one right away :D That's how it usually goes :p