Database Develop

Someone? Anyone? A good task manager that looks good too?

V bar--- Awsome app, great menu, very fast
downfall ---- The right side is the wrong color unless you use the original windows mobile 5 home screen! We all know that most of use are running windows mobile 6 or dont use the simple blue homescreen
(ive already tried to make a new .bmp image, it doesnt work good at all.)
Magic Button --- I love the top bar icons. Great app
downfall -- The whole top of the screen is a different color! Thats ridiculous.
Pbar --- Easily the best menu.
downfall --- you have to start the program to use the app! Its not like vbar and magic button where you can access the menu from the top right of the screen
help me guys, i want a good task manager

I use Magic button as I love the simplicity of it. I do find the odd colors in WM6 weird, but have gotten used to it.
A lot of people swear by Wisbar. I put it on and it does look very cool, but its VERY different' than magic button and I didn't have time to try to figure it out. I'll probably give it a try again soon. But I'm not sure it does the active icons in the top bar like Magic Button (and I love that feature).

Have you tried InClose Mobile??
http://insoftwarehouse.com/

newbie2 said:
Have you tried InClose Mobile??
http://insoftwarehouse.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats not good till tommorow, is it free? even the new one?

little bump

mfrazzz said:
But I'm not sure it does the active icons in the top bar like Magic Button (and I love that feature).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you mean running program icons, it does.

I had no problem making vbar use bmps. I configured it to look like my WM6 theme. Maybe you could try it again?

BBowermaster said:
I had no problem making vbar use bmps. I configured it to look like my WM6 theme. Maybe you should try it again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh no, it worked, it just looked horrible. Apparently im not that good with the paint program lol

jawnsixteen said:
oh no, it worked, it just looked horrible. Apparently im not that good with the paint program lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What theme are you using? I can try to make it for you. I made mine by taking screenshots of the screen before installing vbar. I took one with no button, one with the "X" and one with the "OK". Use the blank for the background, then draw a small triangle on it for the context menu. The other two are self explanatory.
See the attached screenshots.

oh ok i see what you're saying. i didnt take any screen shots so i was just making a picture myself. I was using the green homescreen that comes with windows mobile 6. It even looked bad with the blue one.

vBar background image
jawnsixteen said:
V bar--- Awsome app, great menu, very fast
downfall ---- The right side is the wrong color unless you use the original windows mobile 5 home screen! We all know that most of use are running windows mobile 6 or dont use the simple blue homescreen
(ive already tried to make a new .bmp image, it doesnt work good at all.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I love vBar! And you can make it match whatever theme you are using:
Go to vBar Setup, click on "Show background image" and use the appropriate little menu bar piece - try this file, vbar Crossbow Turguoise.bmp, provided below - place it in \Windows.
If you are using a different Crossbow version, (for instance true WM6, that has the two-tone menu-bars), do a screen capture of your Today screen while vBar is disabled, then edit it in your favorite photo editor, cropping out just the upper right section of the screen, from the date over (be sure to get the whole bottom line of the menu bar). Name that little .bmp appropriately, copy it to \Windows, and then set it as the vBar background image, as above.
Try the file below before you go to a lot of trouble, and make sure that it works for you. Works for me! I like the "Cyclic Black Bars" theme, so I created a little .bmp so vBar will have the right background for that (also attached below).

vBar appearance tweak
BBowermaster said:
What theme are you using? I can try to make it for you. I made mine by taking screenshots of the screen before installing vbar. I took one with no button, one with the "X" and one with the "OK". Use the blank for the background, then draw a small triangle on it for the context menu. The other two are self explanatory.
See the attached screenshots.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like you beat me to the reply by about half an hour, while I was composing my reply! I use Adobe Photoshop Elements to crop the little bits of my screen shot - what do you use?

Photoshop.

at&t splash screen deathstar

weeks ago someone post a splash screen that was a at&t logo looking like star wars death star. I search but found nothing if somebody can help me will be appreciated

I couldn't find one either, so I just slapped this one together...

thanks great splash screen

That would be a cool startup screen - if you make it I sure would like to have it.

Right on, thanks. Glad you guys like it.
Yeah, I'd like to make that my startup screen too... =P
I made it and then realized I didn't know how to change the splash screen. Ahh well. I'm sure the instructions are on the board somewhere!
In the mean time, I decided to make a background based on this graphic...
It actually works out pretty well with the black theme and HTC Home.

Nice Graphic, Here's it converted into a usable splash screen. It needs to be 320x320 24bit PNG file. Unzip it and copy it into your phone's windows folder.
You may need to use something like resco file explorer to change the original splash graphic (welcomehead96.png) to remove the read-only attribute so you can copy the new one in.
Have fun.
P.S. This is the "2nd" splash screen and comes up after the ROM splash.

Here's an updated version with the starfield background...

RemE said:
...It needs to be 320x320 24bit PNG file...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oops... Just saw your post.
Hmmm.. Not sure I can do that with paint.NET, which is all I have installed on this box at the moment. It looks like it can save PNG files, but I have no idea if that's 24bit or what.

Here you go..

could you be talking about this one???

RemE said:
Here you go..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, that looks freaking great! Thank you for your file!

AT&T Boot Splash Screen
If you want this image as the very first start screen as you power your kaiser up (boot splash screen) then I have created the relevant file for you to flash on your phone.
Click Here and follow instructions The deathstar splash file is a little way down.
Russ

[Request] .9.png video tutorial

Like many other's i have tried to hop onto the skinning boat after the release of metamorph.
and i think like many others i have problems with those .9.png files. i read stericsons write up on them but i cant make any sense out of it.
therefore i would like to ask from any of you that do understand them: could you make a short video describing the editing of 1 file?
since i'm a visual kind of guy this would 99% sure make me understand it and make me able to continue with my theme.
i would really really apreciate this guys..

you can power up draw9patch and play with it and you will understand it..
few thing you should know
when you load a regular png file(not .9.png) the tool automatically expend the size by 1 pixel each side(up down left right)
then you can edit
the left and top sides represents stretchable area.. you should put there one or two black pixels.. no more!(for each side)
the right and bottom sides are represents the content area.. you can fill it how you like.. but keep it one line for each side
then you need to save it.. when you save it the tool adds a .9 to the end of the file name
the next move is to compile the file with eclipse........

i dont have time to make a vid right this second, but im willing to help you out...first tell me, have you checked out the source code? It has all the .9.png's UNCOMPILED, which means that they still have the guides drawn and you can take a look at certain images to get an idea of how the guies SHOULD be drawn for a certain image.
Brief explanation...The TOP and LEFT sides of the 1px border are where you will draw a single (or double is allowed) guide marker to mark where the image will be stretched. You are allowed up to 2 guides on the top and 2 on the left, but no more.
On the BOTTOM and RIGHT sides of your 1px border you will draw guide markers for the "Content area" of the image. That is to say, if you have a button that will contain text, image, or other content, you draw a line across the bottom edge from one side of the button to the other to center the content in the center of the button. Then the same for the right side to make it centered vertically.
You should check out the source and look at those images in there, that'll help you see what draw9patch does and how certain images should look when they're done.
Then you have to compile the images in eclipse to get them to work right. just start a new Android project and choose "From existing Source", then choose one of the samples that comes with the SDK...i use home.apk. then after you edit the .9.png's with draw9patch, you dump them into a folder (i.e. res/drawable or res/drawable-land) in the project, overwrite whatever images may already be there, and then right click the root of the project in the tree view and go down to "Android Tools" and pick "Export Unsigned package". (it doesnt matter if its signed cuz your just gonna extract it for the images)
This will save an .apk file to your eclipse workspace directory. just copy it to your desktop and extract it to get the freshly compiled .9.png's and inject them into your .apk or update.zip...then sign and flash!
Hope this helps...
-BMFC

ok so the problem for me seems to lie with eclipse, atm i'm stuck on the fact that when i try to open an existing project, i dont have the AndroidManifest.xml and when i extract it from some other theme, it says it cant be parsed. so eehm where exactly should i find a unparsed AndroidManifest.xml or what should be in it?
you already got me a lot further! thanx!

did you try using a different sample application? there are some that throw some errors when i first try to open them as projects but home.apk seems to work fine for me. i tried to figure out why youd be getting that error but i dont seem to get it for any of my samples so maybe its a problem with your SDK? im not sure but here is my AndroidManifest.xml from the home.apk sample, it works for me so it SHOULD work for you. if not you may have a deeper issue going on. anyways just drop the ".txt" from the end of the filename and drop it in [YourSDKdirectory]/platform/Android 1.6/samples/Home/ and then try to open as existing project again. Lemme know if it works...
-BMFC
View attachment AndroidManifest.xml.txt

Is there a way that you can make .9 images on photoshop? Or someway to get around using the 9 tool found in the sdk?

AndroidFiend said:
Is there a way that you can make .9 images on photoshop? Or someway to get around using the 9 tool found in the sdk?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, you just give the image a 1px border on all sides and then draw the guides on the border and then save it and compile with eclipse...its the same basic thing, the draw9patch tool just automates most of it for you.
-BMFC

Hey, I'm also one of the people who jumped in the Metamorph bandwagon(not that it's bad), and I'm also having trouble with .9.png's.
In my case, I downloaded an existing Metamorph theme, and I'm basically recoloring some .9's here and there. So, is it possible to just open the .9's in Photoshop, recolor them, then save it as normal? or do I still have to recompile it in Eclipse?
Thanks in advance.

bmfc187 said:
i dont have time to make a vid right this second, but im willing to help you out...first tell me, have you checked out the source code? It has all the .9.png's UNCOMPILED, which means that they still have the guides drawn and you can take a look at certain images to get an idea of how the guies SHOULD be drawn for a certain image.
Brief explanation...The TOP and LEFT sides of the 1px border are where you will draw a single (or double is allowed) guide marker to mark where the image will be stretched. You are allowed up to 2 guides on the top and 2 on the left, but no more.
On the BOTTOM and RIGHT sides of your 1px border you will draw guide markers for the "Content area" of the image. That is to say, if you have a button that will contain text, image, or other content, you draw a line across the bottom edge from one side of the button to the other to center the content in the center of the button. Then the same for the right side to make it centered vertically.
You should check out the source and look at those images in there, that'll help you see what draw9patch does and how certain images should look when they're done.
Then you have to compile the images in eclipse to get them to work right. just start a new Android project and choose "From existing Source", then choose one of the samples that comes with the SDK...i use home.apk. then after you edit the .9.png's with draw9patch, you dump them into a folder (i.e. res/drawable or res/drawable-land) in the project, overwrite whatever images may already be there, and then right click the root of the project in the tree view and go down to "Android Tools" and pick "Export Unsigned package". (it doesnt matter if its signed cuz your just gonna extract it for the images)
This will save an .apk file to your eclipse workspace directory. just copy it to your desktop and extract it to get the freshly compiled .9.png's and inject them into your .apk or update.zip...then sign and flash!
Hope this helps...
-BMFC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey brotherin ..
i didnt have to do that at all. just make sure you have a fresh .png to work with.
)i.e - ballsack.png - wanna stretch it so the sack is in the middle of png.
)do the lines up top and left like stated .. but the guides really arent that important at the bottom.
)next you will than get it to your liking - watch the right side of screen in the example pane, you can see the image shifting - hence you can shift gradients and such with more guide lines behind the first pixel that you mark for guide line. get it?
)than you save the file from the "File" option as a .9.png file.
)and walla its a .9 that can be shfted with the existing metadata that is there.
just dont get too advanced or imsure it wont work to well.i have edited all kinds of them in PSCS4 and than the .9 editor from HTC. Its hard as **** to do. but it pays off. hope this helps.

like bmfc said, get the uncompiled .9.png from the source. makes it so much easier.
then what I do is
open the source .9.png in cs4
marquee tool, and select all content except the guidelines, make it invisible
save that image as ex. guide.png.
take all the images that look the same i.e pressed/selected/default of the same images
open them and the guide.png in photoshop, copy and paste the modified .9.png onto the guide.png, then I save as the original image, repeat as many times as needed,
then when done with that before I compile, I move all of the images with guidelines to a folder ex. guidelines, so that I will have them for future use.
then follow what bmfc said to compile them in eclipse.

check out this video walthrough for working with the .9.png files.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf1l9JV9JBw

thanks for the info
the youtube link was a great help
less frustrated....and need improvement but at least getting better and getting the hang of it
the attachment was just for kicks and practice

takumi2k4 said:
Hey, I'm also one of the people who jumped in the Metamorph bandwagon(not that it's bad), and I'm also having trouble with .9.png's.
In my case, I downloaded an existing Metamorph theme, and I'm basically recoloring some .9's here and there. So, is it possible to just open the .9's in Photoshop, recolor them, then save it as normal? or do I still have to recompile it in Eclipse?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
completely legit. ive been doing it now for a while, works fine. after editing in photoshop, just close the image and click ok when it asks if you want to save the changes.

custom bootscreen help

I have made gifs for a custom boot screen and have been playing around with getting it them to work.
I flash over the previous bootscreen it reboots, my images show but then when they are meant to be animated the image gets scrambled and makes no sense, i did rather cheekily just replace the .gifs from someone elses custom boot screen and signed the zip file.
does anyone know whats going wrong or can anyone point me in the direction of creating the files to go with the gifs so i can get this working.
Cheers
John

They need to be in indexed 255 colors. And they mustn't have any transparent layers. Then they should work just fine.

ahh tristan...you've learnt well... ;D

cheers for the help gents, will try it in the morning.

hmm this is annoying, i have my gif files all built nicely but not using indexed 255 .... does anyone know of a tutorial for converting it without loosing all animations? im searching the net at the moment but no luck

gimp -> image -> mode -> indexed

Will it change a current gif or do i have to make the frames again in gimp?

It works through all the frames.

just used gimp under ubuntu, opened the animations selected image >> mode >> indexed flashed my boot files and they are still not displaying right, beter as you can see part of the animation playing but its far from perfect.
shal i just try creating the images again? or has anyone got any other suggestions?
thanks for everyones help so far though
John

Hello, first post here. I am having the same problems as jonny in creating a custom bootscreen. The first frame of my animation will show before it scrambles. Iam using photoshop. I created my animation in imageready, imported to photoshop, made an indexed 255 color palate and went back to imageready and loaded the palate. I feel like I'm missing something obvious.
BTW, I love this forum. You are all great. I am learning so much. Recently created my own lockscreen, and after I can get the bootscreen down I want to try my hand at the taskbar icons

I swapped to GIMP image editor (which is 100% free) to actualy animate my gifs in indexed 255, i did it in photoshop but it didnt work for some reason even when using indexed 255 colour.

Okay, after much fooling around, I finally got it to work properly . In case anyone cares, here's what I did:
Created the animation in PS (didn't realize you could do animation in PS and didn't need IR) to how I want it to run. Once it looks exactly how you want it, click "Flatten frames into layers". Now delete your original layers so all you have left is the animation frames. Save PSD and open it in GIMP. Go to file, save as, and save as a gif. Click the "save as animation" and "convert to indexed" (that is the key right there) bubbles, and click "export" then save.
Viola! now more problems. I can't figure out how to post it as a gif, but it is the boot process from windows xp.

New splash screen - Need help making .nbh

I grabbed a .png from here and need to create a kaisimg.nbh for it.
Anyone know how? I tried loading it into NBH tool but it looks for an .nb file.
Attached is the modded .png image for the Kaiser, I can do others if needed.
Thanx in advance for any help....

here is where I found how to make .nbh from an image
Flashing Custom Splash Screens on Kaiser
good luck ^^

Post it when you're done!
Also, black would be nice

I was thinking black as well but if I invert the colors the text and android robot goes purple, all except "quietly brilliant", which turns white.
I might mess with it in paint tonight... Thanks for the link!

On black as requested.
Also in BMP format.
https://sites.google.com/site/speedysurferuk/SplashScreen.bmp?attredirects=0

Ok, after much deliberation and fidgiting with .ocx/.dll files, I finally decied that Win 7 sux for using the nb splash tools... I reverted to "old faithful" toshiba WinXP lappy.
It was a PITA to get the pic to invert AND keep the aspect correct, and I will admit the lower phrase is skewed left, but only slightly.
Anyway,...
Here's my very first contribution for a splash screen!
240 x 320 24bpp, for Kaiser only.
Unzip, put on an SD card, enter bootloader, install and enjoy!

PS:
I'll post one of the black one supplied by SpeedySurfer sometime tomorrow.

oooo man its great now fist boot is more androided thanks