Windows CE Programming

Hello

do you also like the binary watches from IO?

OK, I like them and was inspired to make some binary clock for the Windows Mobile taskbar.

The time shown here is 14:23 displayed as binary dots. The top row (red) shows the hours in 24h format. The second row shows the minutes and the bottom row shows the seconds.

What you see here is encoded in binary:

01110   is equal to 0*16 1*8 1*4 1*2 0*1 = 8 + 4 + 2 = 14
10111   is equal to 1*16 0*8 1*4 1*2 1*1 = 16 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 23
00100   is equal to 0*16 0*8 1*4 0*2 0*1 = 4 = 4

So you see, it shows the time is 14:23:04

Continue reading ‘Mobile Development: A binary clock for the taskbar’ »

Here is one more windows mobile taskbar addon. I have seen many people are interested in these small widgets. This one shows the signal strength of the current associated access point in your taskbar.

The code is the same as with the other taskbaraddons you find here, only the code for wireless signal strength has been added. Oh, yes, and this addon uses small bitmaps to show the signal strength.

To get the signal strength I use part of PeekPocket code submission at CodeProject. I only need the name of the first wireless adapter.

Continue reading ‘Mobile development – a WiFi signal strength indicator’ »

Hello

here is another kiosk mode library. It supports disabling clicks/taps on start menu icon and opening the Windows Mobile start menu using the win key (VKLWIN). Additionally there is a function to disable the whole StartMenu bar and one to make a window fullscreen without Done and Close button (uses SHFullScreen).

The functions are implemented in a DLL, so you can easily use them from C/C++, the dot net compact framework (CSharp or VB.NET), Java and so on.

Here is a list of the functions exported by the DLL:

void __stdcall LockStartMenu(); // this will install the hook (subclass the taskbar window)
void __stdcall UnlockStartMenu();   // this will unhook TaskbarWindowProc from taskbar
void __stdcall LockStartBar();  // this disables the whole taskbar
void __stdcall UnlockStartBar();    // this enables the taskbar window
bool __stdcall Lockdown(TCHAR*);    // this will make the application with the window title fullscreen etc
bool __stdcall Unlockdown();    // this will 'normalize' the fullscreen window

I have included a deno application in C and .NET

The left shows normal window ce window and the right the same window after pressing the [Lockdown window].

Continue reading ‘Mobile Development: Yet another kiosk mode library’ »

In commercial environments, we are often asked about KioskMode support for Windows Mobile device. Unfortunately the consumer OS Windows Mobile does not support a Kiosk Mode.
To workaround this, a programmer has to use several techniques to prevent the user from changing settings or playing games on a Windows Mobile device that is running for example a Direct Delivery Store application. But this blog entry is not about what the programmer can do to lock the user in his/her application.

The iLock tool is a fast starting locking application that will lock the user from changing settings or starting unwanted applications until the productive application has been started. Why do you possibly need such a tool? It is because your application may need some more time to startup than this simple and native iLock Windows C application.

Continue reading ‘iLock: a tool to lock the startup process of a windows mobile device’ »