Database Info

Help with Today screen customization

Attached is a current picture of my today screen. Im trying to do a number of things and havent been able to come across much concrete info when searching the forums.
Anyways here is what Im trying to do:
1. Remove ALL icons from the bottom of the screen (battery and active sync in this case)
2. Remove the black horizontal line just above the icons on the bottom
3. Remove the bar with Calendar and Contacts but only from the today screen
4. THe top icon for the battery, Ive seen it where people have percentages rather than a few bars, how can I change that?
Thanks guys.. trying to clear some room for my calendar stuff and the HTC plugin takes up over half the screen by itself. Thanks

Sad day for human intelligence
1. The second icon is not activesync icon. It is for the comm manager
To remove it, you'll need a registry editor. Then, go to HKLM>>services>>wirelessMgr>>keep=0
Regarding battery icon, I need to know whether the exe responsible for the battery icon is being used as a service or as a normal app.
Most probably, you can remove by going to File explorer>>windows>>startup>> here, you'll find a init(something).lnk file(i cannot remember the exact file name). Delete that file and soft reset
Second scenario(where it is used as a service): using registry editor>>HKLM>>services>>power>>ShowIcon=0
2. This line will be automatically removed once the icons from the bottom-bar are removed
3. For this, the max you can do is to match the line's bgcolor with the today bgcolor. Use an app like UItweaker to do that. Do a search on the forum and you'll find it
4. That can achived by either using batterypack pro/wisbar advance(differs from theme to theme)

Sorry that I brought down all of human intelligence..................
Anyways regarding number 3, I was hoping to remove the words Calendar and Contact as well as the bg behind it. Im trying to get as much real estate here as I can.
Thank you for all the info tho, about to try it all.

Use dcinobar - it will remove the lower bar, so calendar and contacts button will go. Use the cab i put together - sorry cant give you the link because i am on my device - put 'dcinobar' into search and its the 5th thread down. Yep the clock on the htc home plugin is way too big! Another htc design bungle! lol

Awesome. Before putting this on one quick one. Will this remove those buttons and lower bar JUST on the today screen? FOr apps and stuff Id like it to still be there. Not sure if I can have my cake and eat it too but would love to try =P
Thanks guys!

Just the today screen - there is also vjtoggle that does the same thing but i found that it kept causing the screen to mis-allign

FYI, if you don't know how to mess with the reg, I suggest using this..
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=307873

Skinning the Today Screen or replacing it?

I have spent the last several days searching googling etc.. to no avail It boggles my mind I can not find this I must just be using the wrong keywords in my searches.
I want to skin the today screen or replace it I do not care. I have a PPC 6700 on sprint. I want the background image to be FULL screen either by getting rid of the top and bottom status bars or Skinning them. However it needs to be done.
here is a link so you can get an idea of what I am after LEFT is how my screen looks now RIGHT is how I "desire" my screen to look.
http://www.nerys.com/stuff/ppc Its the Today.jpg
Any suggestions? How would I accomplish this?
Thanks!

This is "one" of the many ways to remove the topbar:
http://oldsap.blogspot.com/2006/08/themegence-tips-from-newbie2.html

WOW thanks SO much that looks to be exactly what I want. Only problem is it SHOWS the top and bottom removed but gives NO indication at all as to how to actually do it :-( moaning SOO close. I got the theme program. Help file is useless. Website contains no clues no forums etc..
Any Ideas ? I am playing with the program right now but I see NO "obvious" means with which to accomplish this.
AHH now I understand (found another thread) this is in combination with a program VJToggle that gets rid of the start and new bars. Alas I do not want to get rid of them I just want to add transparency or skin them :-(

i found a feature of ultimate launch 1.2, find and install... then find its directory, there are two files in the folder "smart tools" dcinobar.exe (removes bottom soft keys) and toggle.exe (toggles top bar on/off)
a nice thing is the actual buttons still bring up the menus and soft keys still work, the visual element is just removed from the today screen.
i copied dcinobar to the windows directory and placed a shortcut in the start up folder.
i have since uninstalled ultimatelaunch but i have a great today screen without soft keys!

skinning today screen
hello all,
i have a similar problem, i am running a MIps pocketpc2000 device, i run pocket blinds to give the toolbars additional features that the stock toolbars dont give, my question is this on many of the demo pictures of the device the screen shows the top and bottom toolbars with the today screen overlayed with a picture in the background, i have found various today plugin's that allow a picture to be displayed but not behind, it inserts it below under the appointments and tasks, thus showing part of the picture. any suggestions as i assume it is registry related as the image (white background) must get pulled from somewhere??

Remove the start bar at top

hey guys,
wonder if this possible, i love the the new SPB3 but is there anyway to take out the start and bar at the top of the page, the standard WM6, cause looks really nice then you have the standard ugly bar at the top
If it is possible can you explain in detail, cause not a great 'Hacker' as such
thanks in advanced
Shane

The answer that I got from SPB regarding the very same question:
SPB said:
Unfortunately it is not technically possible to skin the taskbar in
Windows Mobile 6.1 (might be changed in 6.5) and we don't want to hide
it. So the only way now is to choose color theme (or Today theme) that
looks good with the background.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Even if there is away to disable the start button and take it out, leave the bar with the sound, and signal etc just want to take the start button and wording away??
i just want someway of getting rid of it, as it really spoils it

There might be a Custom Firmware, but i dont think you want to go Through all of that.
But other than that... You can download a Registry editor and:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shell]
"DisableCtrlEsc"=dword:00000001

Strange
I installed PointUI Home2 on my xperia and it has a option to remove the top bar!! it really makes it look alot better... SPB should just make the same option available... shouldnt be to hard...

if the start bar is removed... wouldn't there just be a visibly blank area in its place?
isn't MS3 built to fit a specific dimension?

Porting Bottom Start button from WM6.5 to WM 6.1

Hello, guys!
You all are professionals and know almost everything about different versions of WM. I have one very important question: is there at least minimal possibility to port somehow this WM 6.5.5 feature - bottom start button to the old WM 6.1 firmwares?
Thank you very much in advance and sorry if this question is a foolish one

It's sort-of possible but would take a little work. Why not just use a 6.5 rom instead?
I think the greater challenge would be resizing the top bar (smaller) and the bottom bar (larger).

Thanks for the answer!
littld said:
It's sort-of possible but would take a little work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I even can't imagine how it could be implemented... Don't you know if there already was some work for achieving it?
littld said:
Why not just use a 6.5 rom instead?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because it seems more slow to me. Official WM6.1 is very fast and simple as I see, faster than 6.5. I've tried a lot of 6.5 builds. But what I really miss in WM6.1 - is this bottom start button. If it be there - it would be the best firmware for all people like me, who like simplicity and usability instead of these huge slow animations and pictures.
littld said:
I think the greater challenge would be resizing the top bar (smaller) and the bottom bar (larger).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, it's useful too. Would be nice if somebody experienced considered this interesting and made some investigation...

it's easy to erase the Start menu link from the top bar. you can just overwrite the WindowProc and replace/enhance the WM_PAINT method and here you go.
It's no problem to launch the start menu. But changing the bottom bar is a *****! You could just overwrite the paint method as well. But this is not the full truth. The problem here is that every window got it's own bottom bar. So first you'd have to go through list of all windows/processes, retrieve it's menu bar and from there finally replace the window proc. Then you need to watch out and terminate your window proc if the application closes. And of course you also need to know if a new program is starting up. A nice-to-have feature of this solution would be that you can explicitely tell what happens when you hit the X button (hide or close) and don't need another hack for it.

Thanks a lot for your explanation, RAMMANN. It's very clear.
I can't do it by myself due to lack of experience. Well, the thing left is to wait if somebody experienced wants the same

Well it's a project that probably involves A LOT OF soft resets during development. I was originally planning to make the WM 6.5.x bottom bar look like PHOTON (the WM 7 that got abandoned) but when I figured out it's not THAT easy I postponed the idea for the time being, and will rather start with a smaller project (enhancing bottom bar of WM 6.5 start menu). But I reckon this might still be a very interesting project! hmmmm

RAMMANN said:
Well it's a project that probably involves A LOT OF soft resets during development. I was originally planning to make the WM 6.5.x bottom bar look like PHOTON (the WM 7 that got abandoned) but when I figured out it's not THAT easy I postponed the idea for the time being, and will rather start with a smaller project (enhancing bottom bar of WM 6.5 start menu). But I reckon this might still be a very interesting project! hmmmm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha - that's exactly what I'd been doing years ago. I abandoned it as well, probably for the same reasons.
I think a decent compromise would be to set the Start menu in your left bottom bar on the Today screen (pretty easy to do, just registry change) and use a button assignment for other programs. If you install one of the start menu replacements (Green software) you can overwrite the start icon with something blank.
RAMMANN is right - a lot of work to repaint all those application windows!

littld, thanks for your answer too.
littld said:
set the Start menu in your left bottom bar on the Today screen (pretty easy to do, just registry change) and use a button assignment for other programs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you please give some links to these tweaks? Thanks in advance!

littld said:
Haha - that's exactly what I'd been doing years ago. I abandoned it as well, probably for the same reasons.
RAMMANN is right - a lot of work to repaint all those application windows!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I didn't give up yet. I didn't even start dev for it. I just coded few lines to print something like "Hey your bottom bar is hacked!" in the Manila and start menu bottom bars. This is a very interesting project and has potential to allow a lot of things like Photon style or even an Android style bottom bar and I mean not only a standalone app like Androkkid but a full system replacement. I'm still looking around for an efficient way to realize this project and first things first so I'll be doing a start menu enhancement to warm up

J-Pro said:
littld, thanks for your answer too.
Could you please give some links to these tweaks? Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have the links but you can search. You want an app called VJKeypress - one of the keypresses will launch the start menu for you. Make a shortcut (.lnk file) for it. Search for how to change the left softkey text and program (somewhere in registry) to the new VJ link.

Thanks for your answers, guys.
RAMMANN, when you have some progress on this project, please, update this thread. I think people would appreciate it.
Thanks again!

RAMMANN said:
it's easy to erase the Start menu link from the top bar. you can just overwrite the WindowProc and replace/enhance the WM_PAINT method and here you go.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know this is an old post i dug up here, but i was wondering how i would go about earasing the start menu link from the top? i'm using 6.5 and i want to totaly dissable the top start soft key. thank you

Start Text & Icon ***No Start***

HI,
Is there a possibility to remove the "start" text from the hd2 top bar. Or change the icon.?

yahya.hamid said:
HI,
Is there a possibility to remove the "start" text from the hd2 top bar. Or change the icon.?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a way, but I can't for the life of me find the thread for it. They are just simple .cabs, I had looooads but I deleted them after installing Windows 6.5.x as I didn't need to use them. I'll keep searching and hopefully someone will link you to a thread in the meanwhile!

Okay here is one... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=584531
*Edit* This one is just a taskbar, but check it out regardless. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=642832
I've been searching for about 40 mins or so and I still can't find the ones I had on my hard drive, God knows where they are hiding. 0_o

Hello Everyone!
Hi guys 'n' girls.
Thanks Kalavere for pointing me to this thread
Was getting a little frosty in my other thread..
I'm looking for a few things for 6.5...
1) A collection of start icon's (only the icon, no text). Also a separate remove text cab would be nice as I've seen a few others that would give a limb for one...
2) I've not yet seen any of these yet but I'm after a collection of animated load icons (you know, the win icon that spins)
3)A collection of stand alone volume skins. Have seen a couple of these but they always seem to incorporate something else (not that I'm picky lol)
I'm mainly looking for Dusk and Anastasia themed items but i would love to see what else is out there!
Thank you in advance for any help!
Any hints to threads would be greatly appreciated!
Ps. @ Kalavere, I love your profile pic! I'm big in to Gas masks my self, had to mention!

Kalavere said:
Okay here is one... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=584531
*Edit* This one is just a taskbar, but check it out regardless. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=642832
I've been searching for about 40 mins or so and I still can't find the ones I had on my hard drive, God knows where they are hiding. 0_o
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks a lot. Tried but no help. The taskbar I use is from anastasia. However the Start icon change in itself is not possible.
Also the "Start" text written on the top cannot be removed. Is there a way for it really.
It will eb a very nice idea to make a collection of
Volume icons
SMS icons
Battery icons
Start icons
and customization of start text.
Anyone upto it?

yahya.hamid said:
However the Start icon change in itself is not possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can definitely, definitely change just the icon alone. I just can't find the damned things!
*Edit* This is how to do it manually, there are some cabs floating about though...

snowblind2142 said:
2) I've not yet seen any of these yet but I'm after a collection of animated load icons (you know, the win icon that spins)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've found an answer to that, thanks to dafunk2.
TO ALL OF YOU THAT WANT ONLY THE CUSTOM WAIT CURSOR:
No guys, there is no way to make a cab for only the custom wait cursor.
This is because the custom wait cursor graphics are into the file shellres.192.dll. Into this file reside also many of the taskbar icons and other miscellaneous graphics. If I make a cab with only the file shellres.192.dll and you install it, you will have my wait cursor, but you will have many of my taskbar icons as well. It's good if you use my taskbar (but if you use my taskbar you already have my cursor ), but if you use another taskbar....you can easily understand what can happen.
So this is why there's no way to make a cab that installs only the cursor.
I'm thinking about to make some colors variations of the cursor, but I think that I will make them for cookers (and who knows how to edit dlls) and I will post the 32bit bitmaps in the Windows Mobile Themes section.
I'm sorry.....but I'm explaining why this is impossible
Anyway, many thanks for the great interest for my custom wait cursor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Shame
Shame but thanks for letting us know Kalavere

Cab to remove 'Start' Txt
yahya.hamid said:
Thanks a lot. Tried but no help. The taskbar I use is from anastasia. However the Start icon change in itself is not possible.
Also the "Start" text written on the top cannot be removed. Is there a way for it really.
This removed the 'Start' Txt from the upper left Start Button. I'm using T-Mobile US.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

it works - thx for it