Database Info

Today 'TSK' files can they be manipulated?

Today screen files appear to have the extension .TSK can you please tell me which folder/file these are stored in and can any file be made into a TSK type file? If so how does one go about it? Also I am not sure how you find these files and/or how can you change the extension of them.
Also what is the difference between the today screen and wallpaper
Also the explorer option only appears to search the 'My Documents' folder does anyone know of a good equivalent tool either as freeware or for purchase.
Thanks in advance John.

Hi
The "theme" files (*.tsk) are stored in \windows\ directory.
TSK consists of such things as:
color scheme for Start menu, bottom bar and application windows.
background picture (today screen background)
start menu style / picture etc
TSK files can be created by various tools (including some outdated one from microsoft)
The option "use this picture as background" lets you override default background (by TSK) with the one you provide.

Thanks but I think its because you can't see the extension, plus as I mentioned the search facilities are crap. You can't search on '*.TSK' for example. I think that is why i asked for an example of a good replacement.
What is the difference between the today screen and Wallpaper. Also are you aware of what tools can create them?
Thanks again John.

Hi again.
You should use your PC to access system files on your PDA.
That gives you faster browsing, file extension view and many more.
Mobile file explorer and PDA functionality in general are designed to be simple for task-oriented working.
Enough of romantic crap
Don't mix "today screen" with "theme" and "wallpaper".
Today screen is a PDA equivalent of PC Windows's desktop.
Theme (in TSK files) is a... well... graphical theme for today screen.
Wallpaper is a picture that's behind anything else on today screen.
Most themes have wallpapers in them. But you can change wallpapers manually (choose bitmap files from memory or use the theme's default wallpaper)
Isn't that simple ?
I don't know any good software to create themes.
In case of making wallpaper...
Just make a bitmap in some standard format (BMP JPG GIF) with resolution that matches your device's display (320x240 in most cases).
You can do that even with windows paintbrush
Have fun.

cetuner is a good way to make themes actually on the pocket pc, which is relatively rare. Most is pc based. But it's not quite as complete as some pc based softare, mainly in manipulating the wallpaper. But i don't use wallpaper, so no issue to me.
Microsoft's free theme maker is a perfectly good place to start. Move on when you reach its limitations.
V

Today background image problem

Hello,
Whenever I set an image to my Today Screen, It is very feint, the colours are very dull and not like the original, is there any way to fix this?
I have tried theme makers to try make my own theme using the image that I want but it just does not want to install.
Is there anyway to fix the problem when i set an image to my today screen it is so feint.
I use Windows Mobile 2003.

It's been answered before and it is very easy to solve. Go to the default Pictures & Video program, select the picture you want for background and you will get a level of transparency. If you vary the transparency you will get different effects. What is making it faint is the default transparency set.

Thanks for your help.
I tried that but noticed the defualt pictures program would only load up JPEG pictures. The picture I had was a gif.
http://img48.imageshack.us/img48/1969/boot1qc6.gif
Changing this to a JPEG in Photoshop, even using the highest Quality setting resulted in discoloration. This image that I got was from here, and by the looks of it it is made using 16 bit colour, so it would look the same on the Pocket PC as it would on the computer. But once I converted it to a JPEG, It looked very bad on the pocket pc as a background.
Any Ideas?
Thanks

I can see and set a gif as background using my default Pictures&Video software. Maybe mine is a special tweaked version put in my ROM by the cooks, but if you search here I believe I've seen something about it before and you may be able to download a version that would see files other than jpegs. You may need to point to the folder where your image is. It does not search all folders automatically.

tomtom question - no color on my maps

hi.
yes downloaded and installed a tomtom torrent, tomtom 7 - v7.910.9185 with western europe 1gb 815.2024 maps.
i dont know if anyone has used this torrent but it gives you the option to use 3 zip files for your navigator, so i chose the vga blue, and it all works, got the maps to be recognized, its fine, but there is no color on the map itself. actually no matter what one i use, qvga black or even vga black still the map itself is in black and white. there is colour surrounding the map and in the menu of tomtom too, where you change and chose all the setting you want, colors there but none on the maps.
ive searched but no one else seems to be having this problem.
anyone have any ideas what this could be? there is nothing in the preferences that give me any options to change it that i can see either.
thanks,
john.

TomTom POI icon too small problem solved

Who used TomTom (VGA version) on Topaz might have noticed that the map is beautiful but the POI icons are more or less invisible (22 pixels on the Topaz WVGA are less the 2 mm) and overlook some kind of POI can be, well, dangerous (speed cameras).
After some research I found the solution: provide the _X2.bmp files.
Longer explanation for people who do not know about POI format.
1 - A POI category data is normally provided as 2 files: a <category name>.ov2 file with the coordinate of the locations and a <category name>.bmp file with the image to be shown on the map at the POI locations.
2 - <category name>.bmp is normally a 22 x 22 pixels 16 or 256 colors BMP file.
3 - Optionally a 44 x 44 pixels 16 or 256 colors BMP file named <category name>_X2.bmp can be added, but this is quite uncommon.
4 - QVGA version of TomTom uses the .bmp file to show POI locations on the map and the _X2.bmp file to show the top left warning when nearing a POI location. If the _X2.bmp file is missing it uses an elarged version of the .bmp file.
5 - When the _X2.bmp file is missing the VGA version of TomTom does enlarge the .bmp file to show the warning but not to show the POI locations. On the other hand if present it uses the _X2.bmp file also to show the POI locations on the map.
Therefore, to get larger POI icons on the map
1 - Make a copy of yours <category name>.bmp files
2 - Rename the copies <category name>_X2.bmp
3 - Using whatever graphical editor resize the _X2.bmp files to 44 x 44 pixels.

I don't have TomTom and I am not planning to get it, but if you already renamed all of them. How about uploading those files so other users don't need to do a lot to get it good?
Just a suggestion (if it varies on the version of TomTom, then I didn't say anything )!

But when I switch to landscape mode, they are small again. Is there a solution too for this.
HTC TD2 480x800

Hi,
I had a look at your solution but my Tomtom 7 already has the X2 icons in 44x44 and they still coming up small. I'm using the HTC touch diamond 2.
Thanks

Yeah uploading would be a good idea

fraser_arms said:
I had a look at your solution but my Tomtom 7 already has the X2 icons in 44x44 and they still coming up small. I'm using the HTC touch diamond 2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Diamond2 too and my X2 icons works.
I suppose you already checked the exact matching of names between ov2, bmp and _X2.bmp files (e.g. Semafori.ov2, Semafori.bmp and Semafori_X2.bmp).
I can only specify that I have TomTom 7.915.9196 for VGA (note that there are a QVGA and a VGA version and they are different).

Thanks.
Do you find the keyboard is also too small/compressed down ?

obsydian said:
Do you find the keyboard is also too small/compressed down?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not think so but it might be subjective and also version (QVGA or VGA) dependent.
At any rate these are version information, POI icon and keyboard appearance on my screen.

Stupid question perhaps, but where can I find the .ov2 and .bmp files to edit..??

gyedema said:
Stupid question perhaps, but where can I find the .ov2 and .bmp files to edit..??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are many sites providing pois for different nations. For examples look at http://www.poiedit.com/sites.htm

oruam57 said:
There are many sites providing pois for different nations. For examples look at http://www.poiedit.com/sites.htm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK; found that site too, but my point is: I was able to find the .bmp files for TomTom (although editing them to 44x44 resulted in a red square on the ttmap). In TomTom itself there are a lot of other poi's like gasstations, cashmachines etcetera. I can't find these poi's in my phone..

I have the same problem, on my Touch HD POI are too smalls!

Here's the speed camera icons resized, just sorted them out on my phone
EDIT: scratch that, just show as red squares now

Re: [MILESTONE 3] SuperJELLY & Bareback [3.16][FAPPLE][Musicbox][SEQS][3/15]
..

Backlight / brightness app control

Hi guys,
Sense UI won't let me add a brightness control to the main screen. Can anyone suggest a decent and simple app to manually control screen brightness please?
I would have loved to have used the LUMOS auto back light app but that needs HTC drivers I believe :-( D'oh.

Try MVBklight 1.4.3
It's quite old but I've never found something better. I just use it also on my HD2 when I want to override the sensor. For the TG01 I think it's perfect.

I'll check it out. Thanks for that EDIT: Could only find 1.4.2 on XDA.. so googled it and got 1.4.3.
UPDATE: Can't get it to work. Maybe I need to edit the english config file to add in the TG01 or something?

ok, I'll give you all settings for TG01. But please hold on. I got to retrieve from my archive. My TG01 is under repair and I don't have settings close at hand. Please come back later.

Fab, really appreciate that

Here you are.
Attached you find screenshots of configuration for TG01.
As you can see minimum brightness value is 57, maximum is 255. You got to take it in account if you want also to use links to control brightness via command parameters.
I remember I had problem with links (I dont remember exactly what). So I also attached (syntactically) corrected links. But you have to localize the name of your program folder inside them.
MVBklight provides even a today plug-in. I am afraid it doesn't work. But I think it would not be so usefull, especially if you use Sense.
In the configuration you can see the use of a vga skin. Be sure to provide it (one is included in the package you downloaded). I tried to custominze the skin with other images but I didn't success, probably due to a wrong image format. I accualty spent few minutes on this, so if you get it right and achieve a nicer skin, let me know!
So, add a link to Popup.exe in your Sense UI and enjoy your brightness slider.
Please, ask if you need more.
P.S.
Ehi, remember that with MVBklight you get a torch too.

Thanks for that I'll download and try these tomorrow Odd that minimum is 57! (or is that the minimum YOU want it to ever be?)

It's not me.
On TG01 values below 57 have no effect. As for values over 255. It depends on device.
On HD2 minimum is 1 and maximum is 10. So on HD2 you can just change brightness by steps of 10% while on TG01 variation is much more smooth.
Again, it depends on hardware of device.

Fantastic. Finally got it working with those settings I will have a go at some other skins perhaps Now have brightness control on the screen.
The big mistake was me not swapping to 'manual', so it never saved my changes.
UPDATE: just playing around with the icon/images for better one's. Strangely, not every icon seems to work even if it's in the same size and format, it's really odd. Trying to change the bar's.. let's see what happens.
UPDATE2: Really struggling with these images. Even if I only edit them and save as the original type.. they won't show up. Bizarre. It's a little bit annoying actually. I'll have to keep trying as I want it to fit more into the them of black/white Sense UI.

I played right now with Resco Photo Manager.
Just doodled on left.bmp and saved.
It works.
Can't do more tests. I am at work...
Let's keep on trying. It's a long time I'd like to change the skin!

Lyrus said:
I played right now with Resco Photo Manager.
Just doodled on left.bmp and saved.
It works.
Can't do more tests. I am at work...
Let's keep on trying. It's a long time I'd like to change the skin!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you share some pictures or a video? It sounds interesting! I'm using an free program called Metrix from http://www.apoxsoft.com/products/metrix/ and it works perfectly. But it's a Today plug-in, so it doesn't work on Sense.
Although it seems a little dated, it can be fully configurated. If any interested I can give you the TG01 parameters for brightness control
Best Regards

I am trying the following files. (THe 'RIGHTOLD.BMP' should be right.bmp btw) The only one that actually displays is the SLDR one :-( Annoying.
Trying to mess with them some more to see if I can make them work.

@Pere
Here you are a screenshot.
It's the easiest way to control brightness. I have the link in the bulb on the left of the screen but on TG01 also double tapping the zoom bar so the slider will pop up on whatever application is running in that moment.
Metrix is nice. But it's only a plugin for the today. I really need a popup instead.
@Scougar
Yes, your sldr.bmp works. Not the others. I tried to resave them from Resco Photo Manager but with no success.
The strange thing is that the left.bmp attached is the original with some doodling and saved from RPM. It works but the doodling results in a trasparency as you can see in attached screenshot where I changed the color of the background to make it clear.
I think that there is something to understand regarding how trasparency is handled. Could be that our images are treated for some reason as totally trasparent?