Database Info

TUTORIAL: Create links to the programs in your Settings menu

TUTORIAL: Create links to the programs in your Settings menu! A full explanation & never-before-published, full comparison list
An often-asked question concerns how you can set up direct links to the control panel applets (CPL's for short) in Start/Settings.
What's the point in all this, you may ask. Why not simply tap Start and, then, Settings and, finally, the icon you want to execute?
Yes, for a casual user, there's not much need in creating self-standing links to these files. There're, however, cases when this can prove really useful – for example, the case of including them in Today launcher plug-ins that, otherwise, don't let access to any of these applets otherwise. A well-known example of plug-ins like those is Resco File Explorer's excellent Today plug-in or in the free cLaunch. (Please see this (alternatives: iPAQ HQ, AximSite, PPC Magazine, FirstLoox, BrightHand) for more info on these excellent applications and the alternatives.)
Most of these settings are invoked from a central dialog file, \Windows\cplmain.cpl. Some additional, custom settings may have been put in a separate file, \Windows\mycpl.cpl. Finally, third-party applications that install their own settings dialogs create their own .cpl files inside the \Windows directory. For example, SOTi Pocket Controller (see this article on it) creates a file DeviceConfig.cpl, Mad Programmer's FileDialogChanger (see this article on it) uses a file named filedlgchg.cpl to offer the user the File Dialog Changer settings, Mad Programmer's Force Hi-resolution tool (see this article on it) puts a ForceHires.cpl file in there etc. The same stands for Spb Pocket Plus, MS Voice Command (please see this article for a full roundup of all voice controller apps) and XCPUScalar.
What should I do?
It's simple: create a .lnk file with the following contents:
33#ctlpnl.exe cplmain.cpl,X
OR
33#ctlpnl.exe mycpl.cpl,X
where X is a number that I'll promptly elaborate on.
As has already been pointed out, only one file, cplmain.cpl (or, with some device, mycpl.cpl in addition) contains most of the settings accessible in Start/Settings. One file containing many small applets also means that you need to choose a particular one in some way. That's why you must index the file; this numeric index (1, 2 etc.) tells cplmain.cpl which particular applet you'd like to access.
As far as the possible values of this are concerned, there're standardized ones. If you check out the "iPAQ 3660" column in the comparison chart available here (and disregard the 3 - Power record and everything starting with "MyCpl – 0"), you'll see what you can expect from any Pocket PC 2002+ Pocket PC.
Note that WM2003 added the standard 22-Manage Certificates and WM5 the standard 24-Error reporting and, with most WM5 Pocket PC devices, 25-GPS. Also, Pocket PC Phone Edition devices, regardless of their operating system version, also use the 20 - Phone Settings index. Finally, all Pocket PC's with the Microsoft BT stack use 23 – MS Bluetooth too. (Devices with the Widcomm BT stack use the separate \Windows\BTConfigCE.cpl CPL.)
It's also very important to point out that 3 – Power and 6 – Backlight is not necessarily available in all devices. For example, the iPAQ 2210 lacks both, the iPAQ 3660 lacks 6 – Backlight , while all the other listed devices have them all.
Also note the records starting with MyCpl are, as you may have already guessed, non-standard ones. It's there that the two iPAQ's have some essential applets (Backlight and, with the 2210, also Power) and some additional goodies.
Please note that lists compiled by others (for example the XDA-Developers one) are not generic enough and may contain several mistakes. Therefore, it's best not to rely on them at all. Also remember that you can freely test any indexes – you won't crash your Pocket PC if a particular index is unused.
You don't want to manually create .lnk files?
No problem, I've already done it for you! Just download this file and extract the link file(s) you'll need.
Note that the root directry of the ZIP file only contains CPL links that are guaranteed to work on all PPC2k2+ devices. I've put the additional ones in subdirectories – for example, links belonging to later operating systems (directories FromWM2003 and FromWM5), the 3 – Power and 6 – Backlight PCL's, the MS BT stack link and the PPC Phone Edition Phone Settings link.
Also, there's a separate subdirectory 'mycpl' for (unnamed – as you can also see in the comparison chart, indexes are wildly different between different devices) MyCpl link files.
Hope you'll find this information / my files useful. I really hope you'll like the new ability to include all this functionality in the Resco Today plug-in and/or cLaunch – or, for that matter, your operating system-level scripts!

Also a little bit more info on this subject + an icon extractor:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=223602#223602
V

When I put the link in my /windows/startmenu folder it's deleted after soft-reset of opening my start menu. What can I do about this and why is it happening?

What icon are you putting in there?
V

vijay555 said:
What icon are you putting in there?
V
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a file I called Running.lnk with the following line:
Code:
22#ctlpnl cplmain.cpl,4,0?shellres.dll,-13900
I noticed that after soft reset or clicking the start menu this file is moved to the /windows/startmenu/programs folder. And thus appears in my programs list. But what I want is this link in my Start Menu.

Very odd.
Try making the shortcut as you've done, put it in your normal start menu, and then make a lnk to the lnk. Put the lnk to the lnk in your startup, and see if that makes any difference.
You could try my program VJBrisk as well. I can't even think what it does now, but it might help.
V

I tryed making another link to the first one and putting it in the startup but it didn't make any difference.
After this i tryed putting the lnk in the startmenu folder and at the same time removing another lnk file. And voila , it workt. Seems that wm5 keeps track of the amount of lnk files that should be in the startmenu folder. Makes sense because there is a limit to how long your startmenu can be.
Thanks for your help
ps. I changed the line in the link file to the following. This way it has the memory icon.
Code:
22#ctlpnl cplmain.cpl,4,0?shellres.dll,-13900

TUTORIAL: Periodically & automatically backing up an important file to a memcard

I’ve received the following question in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine forums:
“I have a HX4700 with a Garmin CF620 Compact Flash GPSr unit.
This unit uses the Garmin QUE software for navigational purposes.
The active track-log is saved in a single file in the installation directory (program files) and on two occasions I've lost the tracklog and almost got myself in an emergancy situation due to either a battery issue or the necessity to do a hard reset.
My question is if you perhaps know of a 3rd party software that I can use to either in real-time or given time intervals mirror / sync the file to the Ipaq file store or external memory .
I'll even be happy if its a program that I have to run to copy the file to another location, then I can at least assign it to a button, and press it every so often.”
The answer to this question is a big YES, you can do this, without having to use a full system backup. What is more, you can do this with a free (!) and fully automatic tool – I’ve custom-written an nScriptm script which does exactly what you want.
I’ve already elaborated a lot on the possible usages of the excellent nScriptm; please see for example this and this article, along with the links. (Search for “nScriptm” with Ctrl-F if you don’t want to read the entire article. I, however, as usual, recommend reading these articles in their entirety if you want to know how Pocket PC screenshots can be taken and how calls can be (automatically) recorded.)
To solve the problem asked by my reader, as I've already stated, I’ve written an nScriptm script. It’s available here for download. After you edit it to point to the source and the target files (they are \Program Files\source.txt and \SD-MMCard\backup.txt by default; you can, in general, leave the latter filename intact and only change the storage card path), you MUST put it in the \Program Files\ns\ directory (you must create it at first) so that the executable link file, which is available here, can find it. You must do the same with the executable file (ns.exe) of nScriptm available here – that is, put it in \Program Files\ns\.
Note that, along with the source and, possibly, the target filenames, you can also modify the interval of the backup. It’s 120 seconds by default. If you want to set it to another value, just modify the parameter in sleep(120).
You can, of course, put the executable link file, PeriodicallyBackupAFile.lnk, to \Windows\Start Menu\Programs for easy access.
Now, just start the backup tool by executing the latter executable link file and minimize nScriptm. It’ll continue running in the background and backing up your file.
Other alternatives
Note that you can also do the same with the excellent SKScheMa, which is another product of the excellent S-K people also written (more precisely, ported) nScriptm and a lot of other, high-quality tools like SKTools. With it, you can for example backup your stuff every, say, hour. The advantage of the SKScheMa-based solution that it doesn’t need to be always run in the background. That way, you can lower the CPU / memory usage.
Also, if you know how you can manually add timed, recurring events with, say, SKTools, you can manually execute a simple filecopy (without periodicity – that is, modify script to the following:
function main() {CopyFile("\\Program Files\\source.txt","\\SD-MMCard\\backup.txt");}
and just configure your event queue to execute the link file it, say, every hour.)
For geeks
For programmers or anyone that would like to know how it works and how easy nScriptm is to use, the script is as follows:
function main()
{
while(1<2)
{CopyFile("\\Program Files\\source.txt","\\SD-MMCard\\backup.txt");
sleep(120);}
}
(Note that there is no “true” symbolic constant in nScriptm and, therefore, I couldn’t use while(true) and you must escape backslash characters as with all C-like languages / regexps; this is why there are "doubled" backslash characters.)

Word Mobile 6 opening / closing file very slow!

Usually when I create a document under Word mobile 5 containing 10,000 words, 100k size, opening and closing the file was a breeze within 2 seconds.
Ever since I created document under Word Mobile 6 with the same amount of words, opening and closing the file took ages, over 10 seconds which was very disturbing. The problem excarbates for the worse when I use Format like Bold, Italized, Underline, bulletings.
Word documents created under Word Mobile 5 were still fast when you tried to open/close them under Word Mobile 6. It seems the delay problem occurs only when you create a new word document using Word Mobile 6.
Is this the problem with every WM6 or it is just Jwright version of Crossbow?
Would this be rectified in the final version of WM6?
Any Solutions?
At the moment I am using note whenever I am in the meeting where speed for opening and closing different files in getting different data is imperative. Once the meeting is over, I just copy the words inside the notes and paste it into Word Mobile document.
Thank you.

Sorry I forgot to mention
Jwright ROM Version: 2.02.00WWE
Rom date:03/10/07
radio: 1.13.00
Protocol ver: 42.47.P8
ExtROM version: 2.03.05 WWE

Ok I also have tried DarkForce ROM as well today. and resulted with similar delay.
The problem got worse if you have documents full of numbers, multiplications, symbols.
Try to copy and paste the following calculation onto Word Mobile 6.
and then try to open them, it's going to take few seconds. And try to paste them multiple times until the file itself is over 50k. It will take you LONG time before the file opens up.
It took 1sec under Word Mobile 5, and instantenously under Word PPC2003.
"RP40,000.-
$4.50
$10.8
27500
<Clear>
<Clear>
4.5
/ 7
= 0.642857142857143
<Clear>
7
/ 4.5
= 1.55555555555556
x 27,500
= 42,777.7777777778
42,777.7777777778
/ 9,000
= 4.75
4.75
"

jlingo said:
Is this the problem with every WM6 or it is just Jwright version of Crossbow?
Would this be rectified in the final version of WM6?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to be a feature of WM6 rather than a particular ROM, I've no idea if it will be rectified in a final version.

Ok I found a solution to the delay.
I just have to copy a word document created from PocketPC 2003. Beam it to Windows Mobile 6 PPC.
and then treat that document as template to create copy. and then use that copy to write new documents which resulting in smaller file size and a much more responsive speed!!! It's really a dramatic difference. you should try it.

jlingo said:
Ok I found a solution to the delay.
I just have to copy a word document created from PocketPC 2003. Beam it to Windows Mobile 6 PPC.
and then treat that document as template to create copy. and then use that copy to write new documents which resulting in smaller file size and a much more responsive speed!!! It's really a dramatic difference. you should try it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can the WM2003 word document create tables then?

Yes, entirely, and it's a lot faster as well!!
I made a table using Word Document on my laptop. Transferred the file onto Dopod 900 WM6.
The file was 26k and it took: 3sec to open up under WM6.
I then created a copy document from the existing WM2003 template, and I pasted the table onto it from WM6 document file. It resulted in only 2k file size and instanteneous opened up. UNBELIEVABLE RESULTS!!

Possible to use "Save" method in a local .htm file to save XML updates?

I am researching the possibility of using MSXML to update XML records on Windows CE devices using only pocket internet explorer. I was able to open and edit XML files using a local web page, but could not successfully save the results of an update. I tried the "save" method of a ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDom") object. This works fine on a PC as long as I save the webpage with the .hta extension, but results in a Permission Denied error when I save the web page with the .htm/.html extension. Win CE doesn't seem to support the .hta extension.
The two biggest restrictions for my project are:
1) Cannot "install" software (.cab,.exe) on the devices due to security policy and
2) There is no data connectivity on the devices.
So my questions are, "Is it possible to save a file using javascript inside a local web page on a Win CE/Windows Mobile device? If so, how?" The file happens to be XML, but the solution need not involve only XML objects as I can readily access the content as plain text.
My best guess is that it is not possible without some sort of windows CE equivalent of the pc .hta file. Anyone? I appreciate any hints/comments that can help.
Thanks,
Dan

[Q] How to make .exe with simple command in it?

What I need: An .exe that is executible on my phone (TmoUS HD2 with Energy Rom for what it is worth) that simply points my phone to load a pdf, html file (tiddlywiki), .xlsx files.
Why: I am making my own action screen with medical programs. However, this action screen can only load exes. I have tried (along with pming other members with much experience) many different times but only exes load.
Goal: Simply an exe that when clicked loads a specific program (basically a mask for a link to a file.)
I have been searching and reading and am not adverse to reading more, however, am not sure what I should be reading. Can this be done? If so, how?
Thanks in advance!