/bin/tim: August 2007

Doing something useful with the T-Zone button

The pink T-Zone button on the T-Mobile Dash/Mail has its function defined in the \Windows\Sort_IE.lnk file which by default contains the line:

36#"\windows\winwap.exe"

I can think of a far more useful way of re-assigning the key to CommManager so I can switch bluetooth on and off for use in my car. So, a simple edit to the file deleting the old line and replacing it with this;

36#"\windows\CommManager.exe"

Now I can launch CommManager with the T-Zoes key.

FN key too fiddly on Excalibur/Dash/Mail ?

If you find holding the FN key on the Excalibur fiddly there is a simple solution ... just press and hold the appropriate key down until the key legend symbol appears. So, on my UK T-Mobile Mail the H key also shows the ? symbol, so holding the H key down produces a ? symbol automatically after about a second. Keeping the key depressed causes the symbol to repeat like ????

Turning XT9 off on Excalibur/S620/Dash/Mail/Cosmo

Resetting the Excalibur turns it back into XT9 predictive text mode and you will find that a and z keys no longer display characters. Holding the FN key just temporarily switches between XT9 and 123# mode, so not much help. To change to abc mode so that a and z work as designed you need to hold FN and SPACE which will pull up the text entry selection menu where you can select the abc mode

My Home Screen

This is my edited simple home screen for the WM6 based T-Mobile Mail (Excalibur). One of the big changes to my taste is to change the font form 16 point bold to 18 point normal as I think this looks more elegant.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<home>
<author>Tim Carmichael</author>
<contacturl>http:/blog.timcarmichael.com</contacturl>
<title>Tims Simple Home Screen</title>
<version>1.0</version>




<default target-width="320" target-height="320" font-face="Segoe Condensed" font-size="18" font-weight="normal" padding-left="5" padding-right="5" bgcolor="transparent" fgcolor="COLOR_HOMETEXT" padding-top="3" b-border-color="COLOR_HOMERULE" b-border-width="1">
<format state="unselected" fgcolor="#FFFFFF" bgcolor="transparent" font-weight="normal"/>
<format state="selected" fgcolor="#FFFFFF" bgcolor="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHT" font-weight="normal"/>
</default>


<background bgimage-rotated="TMobile.jpg" valign="top" />


<scheme>
  <color name="COLOR_WINDOW" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_WINDOWTEXT" value="#000000" />
  <color name="COLOR_STATIC" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_STATICTEXT" value="#000000" />
  <color name="COLOR_HIGHLIGHT" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_HIGHLIGHTTEXT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_TEXTSELECT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_MENU" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_MENUTEXT" value="#000000" />
  <color name="COLOR_GRAYTEXT" value="#CCCCCC" />
  <color name="COLOR_GRADLEFT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_GRADRIGHT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_INTGRADLEFT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_INTGRADRIGHT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_TRAYGRADLEFT" value="#0a4476" />
  <color name="COLOR_TRAYGRADRIGHT" value="#155D9C" />
  <color name="COLOR_HIGHGRADLEFT" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_HIGHGRADRIGHT" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_TRAYTEXT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_WINDOWFRAME" value="#000000" />
  <color name="COLOR_BTNFACE" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_BTNTEXT" value="#000000" />
  <color name="COLOR_SCROLLBAR" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_HOMETEXT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHT" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHTTEXT" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_HOMERULE" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_ALERTWINDOW" value="#FFFFFF" />
  <color name="COLOR_ALERTTITLE" value="#444444" />
  <color name="COLOR_ALERTRULE" value="#000000" />
  <color name="COLOR_TITLEFLATCENTER" value="#3485ce" />
  <color name="COLOR_SOFTKEYFLATCENTER" value="#3485ce" />
</scheme>


<plugin clsid="{837FC251-FE69-43ad-84E0-EBCEDEBA0884}" name="iconbar" height="25">
  <iconbar y="5" fgcolor="#ffffff"/>
                 <background gradient="title" bgcolor="#114676" b-border-color="COLOR_HOMERULE" />
</plugin>


<plugin clsid="{79EFB752-CB70-446d-B317-499723482B3D}" name="startmru" height="35">
<background>
</background>
  <mru icon-size="16" max-buttons="6" x="2" y="6" valign="center" button-transparent-color="COLOR_HOMERULE" highlight="COLOR_TRAYGRADLEFT"/>
  <appname halign="right" x="0" y="8" w="320" font-size="18" />
</plugin>


<plugin clsid="{E09043DF-510E-4841-B652-388316977A7A}" name="carrier" height="24">
  <allowselection/>
         <background>
         <format state="selected" bgimage="" />
</background>

  <label bgcolor="transparent" halign="left" h="20" font-weight="normal" y="0" x="0" w="81" font-size="18">
  <text><carrier/></text>
</label>
  <label bgcolor="transparent" halign="left" font-weight="normal" y="0" x="0" textwidth="115" font-size="18">
  <text><wifi/></text>
  </label>
<clock>
  <time font-weight="normal" font-size="18" valign="top" halign="right" y="0" x="0" w="320"/>
  
  <date font-weight="normal" font-size="18" valign="top" halign="center" mode="long" y="0" x="58" w="320" />
</clock>
</plugin>


<plugin clsid="{0BA8ABB8-1F1D-417f-88C6-DA8530E2E7A6}" name="missedcalls" height="22" width="320">
<background>
</background>

<format state="nocall" visible="false"/>
  <label font-weight="normal" fgcolor="#FFFFFF" font-size="18" x="0" halign="left" y="0" >
   <text>Missed Calls : <calls/></text>
  </label>
</plugin>


<plugin clsid="{2F930BF0-6FE9-4a53-9E17-88E9247BAB48}" name="SMScount" height="22">
<background>
</background>
  <label halign="left" h="23" x="0" y="0" w="290" font-size="18" padding-right="0" >
   <text>SMS : <unreadSMS />      Email : <unreadEmail /></text>
  </label>
</plugin>


<plugin clsid="{865A354A-4A96-4687-B001-C155DC0DBE76}" name="Calendar" height="41">
<background>
</background>
  <label halign="left" h="22" x="0" y="17" w="285" font-size="18" padding-right="0" >
   <text><time/> <location/></text>
  </label>
  <label halign="left" h="22" x="0" y="0" w="285" font-size="18" padding-right="0" >
   <text><subject/></text>
  </label>
</plugin>


<plugin clsid="{2FFD93B3-0FF0-4228-A6D6-D2DF177D7D92}" name="alldayevent" height="24">
<background>
</background>
<format state="noevent" visible="false"/>
  <label halign="left" h="20" x="0" y="1" w="280" font-size="18" padding-right="0" >
   <text>All Day Event: <subject/></text>
  </label>
</plugin>
</home>

UK Keyboard mapping for T-Mobile Mail or HTC Excalibur S620

The devices I just bought on ebay were already flashed with the US version of WM6 for the T-Mobile Dash, however the UK T-Mobile Mail has butle differences with the euro symbol being the only really obvious one to me. But to make sure nothing in life is easy they moved around a couple of symbols on keys for no really obvious reason. This means that the Q key on my keyboard which has a ! symbol on produces a % instead. Nothing major, just a bit irritating.

There is a solution however. With the UK region set the device looks for a file called \Windows\eT9.Excalibur.0409.kmap.txt containg keyboard remappings. This is a standard file and you can replace the excalibur part of the filename with your devicetype name and the 0409 with your region code.

Anyway, you can edit this file using notepad to overide particular keyboard responses. You must save it as UNICODE however when you finished editing. Here is the correct uk version of the file, just copy it to \Windows directory on your device.

//
// eT9.Excalibur.0409.kmap.txt
// N O T E: This file must be saved as Unicode

//
// This file contains the virtual keys mapping table for the
// Excalibur device. The mapping table is define as follow
//
// VK_TPOUND = 0x78
// VK_TSTAR = 0x77
// VK_TAB = 0x09
//
// We do not support escape value yet. So the key/char values should be
// entered explicitly or by encoding start with 0x
//
// Format:
// {VK VK' CH1 CH2}
// VK -> value from keyboard driver
// VK' -> printed on keys
// CH1 -> symbols produced by Fn + key
// CH2 -> symbols in 123 mode
{Q Q ! !}
{1 W 1 1}
{2 E 2 2}
{3 R 3 3}
{T T + +}
{Y Y ( (}
{U U ) )}
{I I - -}
{O O _ _}
{P P " "}
{0x78 A # #} // VK_TPOUND maps to Device Button A
{4 S 4 4}
{5 D 5 5}
{6 F 6 6}
{G G / /}
{H H ? ?}
{J J £ £}
{K K $ $}
{L L € €}
{0x77 Z * * } // VK_TSTAR maps to Z
{7 X 7 7}
{8 C 8 8}
{9 V 9 9}
{B B ' '}
{N N @ @}
{M M = =}
{0xBC , ; ;} // 0xBC = VK_COMMA
{0xBE . : :} // 0xBE = VK_PERIOD
{0 0x09 0 0} // 0x00 = VK_TAB

Hard (cold) resetting a T-Mobile Dash Mail or HTC Excalibur S620

Just in case I ever forget, the hard reset key combination for Excalibur is holding down both soft keys whilst powering on the device. I think they should make this a standard procedure for all smartphones rather than the range of weird and wacky combinations you have to do on each different model.

WMDC 6.1

In case anyone didn't see this yet, Microsoft released Windows Mobile Device Center for Vista 6.1. You can read about the changes here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/devicecenter.mspx and download the 32-bit version here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=46F72DF1-E46A-4A5F-A791-09F07AAA1914&displaylang=en and the 64 bit driver here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4f68eb56-7825-43b2-ac89-2030ed98ed95&displaylang=en.

T-Mobile Mails on Ebay

Just recently purchased a couple of used T-Mobile Mails on ebay since T-Mobile wont sell me the handsets offline. Both are already unlocked and both have had the US WM6 update for Dash already installed before I got them. Both appear fine and not blocked from T-Mobile network (phew) now I just need to reconfigure them over the next few days. I'll post the steps I perform to get them to my spec.

Can software be obese ?

The answer has to be yes. Anyone who knows me will be aware of my obsession with making my apps smaller and more optimized, its a legacy of memory constrained systems I grew up with computers like the 1K ZX80 and Apple ][ and CP/M systems with 64K RAM. I can't stand software bloat, and it shows in altaVENTE apps with our players and viewers are generally about ~300KB in size even though they do amazing things.

So, imagine my disbelief today when I was told that adding a Vista compatible set of icons would double the average size of our players! That is software bloat gone mad!

Of course the reason for this is the support for all sizes of gorgeous Vista icons right up to 256 x 256. I love these icons but because we need to place them as resources in our apps they just bloat them completely. I wouldn't mind if we could ship the icons as a separate file if the user wanted them, and keep them out of the EXE, but we can't, as Explorer relies on being able to enumerate the icon from the EXE...

So, the solution ? Well, my plan is to go to an 8-bit grayscale icon, which can still look gorgeous, but is svelte as well. Less is more if you know what I mean. We'll do some prototype and post them for feedback soon.