Reducing the MRU Icon Size on the Home Screen

[Mike Temporale]

This is how to reclaim some space on your home screen by reducing the recent program icon size. This information on how to change the icon size for the home page was taken from a discussion here (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4999&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0).

First how to find and edit your home screen XML file:
Search for files by the following name xxxxx.home.xml.

eg. Full.Home.XML

If you never tweaked the Home Screens. Look for the files under \Windows folder.


If you are using a custom Home Screen, they can be found here
\IPSM\Application Data\Home\

To modify the Screen. Make a copy the HomeScreen you like to your desktop. Lets say you copied Full.Home.XML to your PC. Then rename it to MyFull.Home.XML.

NExt open the XML in a notepad. Before you look for the MRU. Change the <title lang="nnnn"> Full Layout</title> to <title lang="nnnn">My Full Layout</title> for each Lang entry.

Then modify the MRU icon size.

Next Copy the MyFull.Home.XML to \IPSM\Application Data\Home.

Now launch the Program->Settings->Home Screen. And Select "My Full Layout" from the List.

Kris

And this is the settings you want to use for the reduced icon size:
- <plugin clsid="{79EFB752-CB70-446d-B317-499723482B3D}" name="startmru" height="20">
<mru y="1" icon-size="16" halign="left" valign="centre" />
<format state="selected" bgcolor="COLOR_HOMEHIGHLIGHTTEXT" />
</plugin>

[pete]

Woohoo! I'm famous Ma!

Ahem. Happy tinkering! You can spend ages altering that xml. Here's a tip for you: if your Home Screen doesn't work (ie you know you put it into IPSM\Application Data\Home but it doesn't appear in settings) then a quick way to find where the error is is by trying to open it using File Manager (or similar, probably). You get an error message telling you where the fault lies. :)

[Kris Kumar]

Good Thinking Mike,

And for those who want to venture beyond MRU icon size...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsmtphn/html/sp02homescreen.asp

njoy
Kris

[xelar]

This code doesn't seem to be the right one for the SVP C500. Does anyone know what to alter in order to reduce the icon size on the C500 home screen? Thanks.

[Mike Temporale]

This code doesn't seem to be the right one for the SVP C500. Does anyone know what to alter in order to reduce the icon size on the C500 home screen? Thanks.

Really?? I'm surprised that there would be any difference in this. I haven't tested it on my Audiovox, but I can't see why it would be any different. Are you sure there isn't a typo in your XML or something? HAve you tried Pete's suggestions for those having problems?

[Kris Kumar]

This code doesn't seem to be the right one for the SVP C500. Does anyone know what to alter in order to reduce the icon size on the C500 home screen? Thanks.

The tweak should work. :?

Did you modify the currently active home screen? If you did, you will have to power off and power on the phone. Or if you do not want to do a power cycle. Then you must swtich the home screen to a different layout temporarily and then back to the one you edited or were using. This is required to refresh the home screen, because Smartphone caches the old layout.

[xelar]

Apologies, so it must be my very mediocre coding skills. I thought I'd need to only change the icon size in the code (from 32 to 16)? Is that not so? Do I need to copy/paste the entire code? To where exactly? Thanks again.

[xelar]

Apologies, so it must be my very mediocre coding skills. I thought I'd need to only change the icon size in the code (from 32 to 16)? Is that not so? Do I need to copy/paste the entire code? To where exactly? Thanks again.

And just to clarify, the full.home.xml code doesn't contain any icon-size commands. The closest to the tweak is

<plugin clsid="{79EFB752-CB70-446d-B317-499723482B3D}" name="startmru" height="38">
<mru y="2"/>

So do I need to replace this? Change it? Thanks, much!

[Mike Temporale]

xelar,

If you really aren't comfortable editing these files, I would strongly suggest Homescreen Designer (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6381) :)

If you really want to play around with this, you need to modify the code you found to look like the code above. Each value changes something different, so you'll have to play with it a little and try to figure out exactly what each of the other values do. The important one is the icon-size value in the MRU element.

[xelar]

xelar,

If you really aren't comfortable editing these files, I would strongly suggest Homescreen Designer (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6381) :)

If you really want to play around with this, you need to modify the code you found to look like the code above. Each value changes something different, so you'll have to play with it a little and try to figure out exactly what each of the other values do. The important one is the icon-size value in the MRU element.

Thanks for the link. I actually managed to reduce the icon sizes, however, I think Homescreen Designer is certainly a tool I can use.

[Mike Temporale]

That's what I'm using now. It's so much easier with Homescreen Designer. 8)

[dchester]

Apologies, so it must be my very mediocre coding skills. I thought I'd need to only change the icon size in the code (from 32 to 16)? Is that not so? Do I need to copy/paste the entire code? To where exactly? Thanks again.

And just to clarify, the full.home.xml code doesn't contain any icon-size commands. The closest to the tweak is

<plugin clsid="{79EFB752-CB70-446d-B317-499723482B3D}" name="startmru" height="38">
<mru y="2"/>

So do I need to replace this? Change it? Thanks, much!
The line: <mru y="2"/>
will need to be changed to: <mru y="2" icon-size-"16"/>

32 is the default which is why it wasn't in there. As a result, you will be able to change the statement height="38" to height="22" to recover the space (16 pixels less).

[sracer]

xelar,

If you really aren't comfortable editing these files, I would strongly suggest Homescreen Designer (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6381) :)

If you really want to play around with this, you need to modify the code you found to look like the code above. Each value changes something different, so you'll have to play with it a little and try to figure out exactly what each of the other values do. The important one is the icon-size value in the MRU element.

How do you get Homescreen Designer to configure standard plug-ins to behave in a default manner? eg. I can't get the Calendar plug-in configured (in Homescreen Designer) to behave the same way as hand-coded xml.