Windows CE Programming

Here is a very short tip based on a finding at xda-developers.com

See also here for how to hide the Start and Done button temporary.

For kiosk mode applications you dont want the user access the device settings or the start menu and all the programs and games accessible from there. One step to this kiosk mode is disabling the Start Button, the button that opens a menu to access programs and settings.

In versions of windows mobile before 6.5.3, you could disable access to the start button by subclassing HHTaskbar and discard clicks in the Start button area or simply disable the whole HHTaskbar window.

Now, with windows mobile 6.5.3 the start button is part of the menu bar and no longer part of the taskbar (which is now called MenuBar). To hide the start button on a windows Mobile 6.5.x device you can use following registry change:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shell\BubbleTiles]
"TextModeEnabled"=dword:00000001
"HardwareStartKeyEnabled"=dword:00000001
"HardwareDoneKeyEnabled"=dword:00000001

With this change the “MenuBar” will no longer show the Start Button graphic nor the Done button, Windows Mobile will no longer decorate the menu texts . Only two menu entries will now show on bottom of the today screen.

TextModeEnabled switches the display of soft menu entries from the default graphic tiles display to a text only display as it was and is in windows mobile 6.1.

HardwareStartKeyEnabled controls the display of the Start button (the big windows start symbol on the left of the soft menu). If you change to enabled (0x01) you dont get a start button and have to use a key on your keypad to launch the start screen!

HardwareDoneButton controls the display of the Done button at the right of the menu bar (the big (X)). When enabled, you have no chance to close apps that do not have an exit option in there menu, except you have a key on on your keyboard assigned to the Done function! Done now not only hides an app, with winmo 6.5 the app is closed and removed from memory now.

The Start entry at top left corner remains there but is only an indicator.

NO more Start Button, No more Done (X) Button

Continue reading ‘Windows Mobile: Hide StartButton in WinMo 6.5.x’ »

Wow, as I first saw this issue, I thought I was facing Einstein’s Relativity Theory.

The issue is simple to explain:
1) The WinMo device has a local time and date within DST
2) You use SetSystemTime to set a new system time and date outside the DST frame
3) The local time changes but DST is still applied!

Continue reading ‘Windows Mobile: SetSystemTime and DST, Einstein’s Relativity Theory?’ »

Hi there

I would like to bring back to mind the advantages of using a layout manager (LM) for your smart device .Net projects.

None of the layout Managers mentioned here are developed by me, I dont have the time to do so, especially, when there are great free solutions on the net.

On full .net framework you have the tablelayout panel where you can place your GUI elements and the elements will be arranged automatically, when the main form is resized.
OK, on smart devices, there will be less form resizing as mostly the forms are full screen by design (QVGA:240×320 or VGA:480×640) . But what happens to your form design, when the user rotates the screen from portrait to landscape orientation?

Continue reading ‘Mobile Development-Using Layout Managers’ »

Privately I am running an Acer Aspire One D150 (AAO). Although it has Windows XP installed, I did not hesitate to break the partitions and installed first Ubuntu Netbook edition (8.04) and actually updated up to 9.04.

I am always impressed about the great tools available freely for all kinds of usage.

Now Maverick (10.10) Netbook edition will come and I like to test it from time to time but without burning CDs, creating bootable USB sticks. So I stumbled about testdrive. Although this a great tool, it was not able to run the daily build iso inside virtualbox on the AAO.

I remembered that grub should be able to mount iso and start the AAO from that iso. Now I able to test maverick daily builds without touching my well running ubuntu. I can do updates to the iso using zsync and can start, run and test maverick with acceptable performance.

Continue reading ‘Ubuntu testing maverick netbook daily builds’ »