[Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General] meltwater:
Hi DJShadesUK,

Excellent start to a thread, some excellent ideas and thoughts.

I thought I'd keep the discussion on here for now, as it's more likely (hopefully) to continue.

These are just general thoughts, I hope will form into a balanced response by the time I've finished..:p

1st off, has HTC ever open-sourced anything before?

My impression of the mobile phone industry is that things are closed down due its competitiveness. The exception here of course is Google...but that is because their business model in this industry is totally different.

My thought is although the Sense legacy appears to be closing to an end from HTCs point of view, chances are they won't want to part with it, just in case.

What is in it for them?

As much as I would love to get my hands on the HTC tools used to create and modify things like the mode9 files, it all represents an investment made by HTC which however unlikely could be used by them in the future.

I've been impressed with HTCs handling of Sense being modded though, they could have stirred up a whole heap of trouble for people and locked things down, (I've even heard that a youtube video of CHT on an Energy ROM was going around HTC). Needless to say, they have supported us by not shutting it down and I hope they have gained in return from observing what we do.

There is a whole rats-nest of issues if HTC did decide, ok lets give them out tools and see what happens. Clearly the HTC branding would gain tremendously, I can see Sense being put on TVs, Set Top Boxes and all sorts. It would also show that not only can HTC make brilliant hardware, but they can do the same with the software.

We can only guess what HTCs roadmap involves, but clearly tablets will be there somewhere. It wouldn't surprise me though if they try something which is entirely Sense based (sitting on a basic os), perhaps a media player or tv gadget. Whatever it is, they clearly pride themselves on coming up with clever ideas (if the adverts are to be believed) and that means they will be careful about sharing too much.

Obviously HTC already knew that Sense was not much use for the future (at least in its current form) or they would have completed the Facebook tab they started and they would have been the ones writing the RSS tab. I see that as the point when someone pulled the plug on pushing sense further and let it wind-down (I still feel sorry for the person who did all the facebook stuff - hopefully the tab makes up for it by not wasting their effort).

Why sense?

What is it about sense which makes us want to mod it? Is it just because it is there and it works as it should. Is it the design and concept of it, that makes it easy to use and we want to build more on to it? Is it because .net simply sucks at graphics (as well as other things...)?

Personally I find it a pig to work with, it probably isn't with the right tools though. Similar things are possible with other methods, so why not use them, the tabs which are already there can be replicated. Does the possibility of Silverlight on WM open up other options?

However, CHT shows perfectly why sense is worth using, but is that down to how sense works or just how Cookie designed CHT?

I'm interested to know peoples thoughts on this question, what is it about sense in particular that we want?

Windows based Sense...possible?

This is an interesting proposal...I can see this in one of two ways.

1. Native:

Attempt to use lua scripts and mode9 files as they are intended, compiled and in binary format. Obviously the smoothest and most efficient method. Lua is an open standard, so information is available on it's use and methods (although not sure about the compiled form). Mode9 files I guess can be used directly, but such things are beyond my knowledge. Clearly there are issues with tie in to the system (i.e. registry access, hardware etc will need to be different), but that could be compiled into the files.

2. Interpreted:

By leaving the lua scripts and mode9 files decompiled, the files can easily be parsed and interpreted by another program. This would also allow an abstraction layer to be added which interprets calls to the registry, hardware etc and makes the suitable calls. Ok, slower to do on the pc, but the CPU power should be able to manage with it.

The mode9 side probably won't be too bad, since it's format is quite basic and everything is static. Lua script interpreting will be much harder, but that could be something which can be developed over time (by supporting the basics at first and adding more over time). Tie into to dlls could pose the biggest problem, but they would never have worked on other environments anyway.

If we had some kind of interpreter this would also form the basis of a designer too, allowing easy design of components and pages [at first a display, then perhaps a way to edit directly].

Note: This concept is not new but has been discussed as part of the manila visual kitchen.

Both are huge jobs, but there is the skill and knowledge to do at least the 2nd right here on Xda.

What is the origins of the mode9 files, could there already be something which reads them?

Are there other groups which have gone further?

Other than Cookie, there are very few which have totally re-built things from scratch [I must add my apologies if I've missed something]. For example one is Moonar's GPS tab, which is from Russian site which appears to do sense stuff too.

Are they using the same tools as us, do they have better ones, can we work together to produce new ones? I've noticed that a lot of the sense stuff show up on Chinese sites too, are we missing things here too?

Also I must add, the CMD line kitchen is a piece of art, each component is excellent and huge thanks to the whole group for the work done on it!

Something else of note:

HTC Home for windows...

http://www.htchome.org/en/