Home Screen Tasks Plugin for Windows Mobile 5.0?

[acharn]

One of the minor frustrations of a Smartphone is not having a list of upcoming tasks on the homescreen. I have used Oxios plugin and Facade with lukewarm feelings about both (Oxios only lists one task at a time and Facade has a complicated look to it in conjunction with the appointments). However, they worked on my SMT5600. Now that I've upgraded to the 2125 with WM 5.0, I can't find ANY plugin that works. Does anyone know a plugin for WM5.0 that will allow me to see my tasks on the home screen?

[Mike Temporale]

Facade should work on WinMo 5 devices. I don't know of any others, but I don't use the feature myself.

[acharn]

Facade did work, but on the QVGA screen everything is too tiny to read.

I'm sure Microsoft left it out of the Smartphone home screen because of screen real estate. But with the higher resolutions now, it can support more on there. I hope someone has a solution for me.

[dh]

I'm going to be having the same problem when I install facade since I have problems with tiny text.

Sven mentioned doing a bit of XML editing to fix it, so I popped over the the Facade forum to see what it's all about. Sure enough, I found this thread: http://www.sbsh.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8662

Check it out and see if it works. If it does, you'll have to let me know how to find those files to edit :D

David

[Sven Johannsen]

OK. Far from being an XML Guru...I barely make apprentice...I thought I'd provide this simple change because I feel for people with eyes like mine, but I like Facade. This is on my SP5 BTW. The same changes work on my SMT5600, and MPX220, but the allready decent fonts just get bigger there two.

The Home screen XML files are in \Application Data\Home. Use AS to get there. After you load Facade you get a new item in there called Facade.home.xml. Stick it on your desktop and open it with notepad.

Near the top I changed

<title lang="0x0409">Facade Default</title>
to
<title lang="0x0409">Facade Large</title>

This is what shows up in the selection list on the home screen selection list in settings, so if you don't change this you will have two Facade Default entries and picking will be hard.

The next change is just one thing too, but I include more to make it easier to find.

<!-- Global/default settings for all instances of the Facade Plugin -->
<facade ClearType="0" BlendColor="COLOR_HOMERULE" BlendPercent="70"
SelectionColor="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHT" SelectionBorderColor="COLOR_HOMERULE" ShowSelectionBorder="1"
font-size="normal" font-weight="medium"


to
<!-- Global/default settings for all instances of the Facade Plugin -->
<facade ClearType="0" BlendColor="COLOR_HOMERULE" BlendPercent="70"
SelectionColor="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHT" SelectionBorderColor="COLOR_HOMERULE" ShowSelectionBorder="1"
font-size="large" font-weight="medium"

There are some indentations in the actual XML that is lost here, but you should be able to find this section.

I then saved that file back with the new name Facade.Large.home.xml so I didn't loose the regular Facade home screen. and copied it back into \Application Data\Home. Remember this is the file name, not what shows up in the Home Screen selection. So now just select the new Facade Large in Home Screen settings.

Good luck. I think you can go bigger, but this works for me. The fonts are still small, but with the higher resolution they are very readable.

[acharn]

Thank you for the steps. Maybe if I am feeling very lucky one Saturday I will attempt to make system changes.

[dh]

Thanks Sven - you are the man!!
Took all of five minutes and my eyes are much happier.
David

[Sven Johannsen]

Thanks Sven - you are the man!!
Took all of five minutes and my eyes are much happier.
David

Well, great. There's a case of the blind leading the blind ;)

I did note that the latest version of Papyrus has much better size control, specifically targetted at WM5 and QVGA users. Maybe that will migrate over to Facade. Bit tougher to accomplish though I'll bet since Facade doesn't have any settings app as yet.