CHome/Titanium Modifications - Adding Panels

[Hafrust]

Originally Posted by chuggy

I think this is a testament to what a good guy Hafrust is! He's even helping out while on the road!

lol...no I just got forced to tag along to the mall. I'm sitting on a bench watching the Masters and browsing ppcgeeks!

[fishfuzz]

Originally Posted by showaco

Chome Configurator only has reboot dialog if CTestUIPlugin is enabled due to a limitation on chome smartphone version which forced it in order to be able to reload the changes. I switched to a new panel, so thats why you don't see the dialog anymore. There is no need to reboot for changes to take effect, all that is necessary is to disable chome(windows default) plugin in settings\today\items and re-enable to see changes. I never rebooted when I made changes using chome configurator.

Excellente!

[jaycee1981]

Hi!

How to Add a New Panel

*Thanks to showaco...due to my lack of programming/coding skills, I never would have been able to get this to work.*

You have the ability to add new panels to CHome, however there are limitations. Currently, there are two options in doing this:

Option 1: This option is the easiest, however it does have more limitations. If you follow the instructions for this method, you can add a new panel, but it does come at the cost of losing the "Launcher" panel. You will need CHome Configurator and a registry editor.

• Disable Titanium.
• Open CHome Configurator.
• Select Menu>Panel>New to create a new panel. For example's sake, let's say we're creating a "Contacts" panel.
• After you name your panel, you will be back at the CHome Configurator home screen. Highlight the panel titled "Contacts" you just created.
• Select Menu>Panel>Customize.
• Select Menu>Page>New.
• You can either manually input the information yourself, or use a template. I recommend using a template until you get the hang of it. (Menu>Template>App Launcher/Contact Dialer/Internet Link). For this example, we'll choose App Launcher from the template menu.
• Select "Contacts" from the list of applications.
• Select the icon you wish to use.
• You will be taken back to the screen with your page settings. In the "Collapsed" field, type whatever you want to show on the CHome home screen. For this example, I'll use "Contacts"
• Now you should be back at the CHome Configurator home screen. Highlight the newly created Contacts panel and tap "Show" (left soft key).
• Highlight the CLinks panel and select Menu>Panel>Disable>CLinks
• Exit the program (make sure you close the program by using Menu>Exit or your changes will not be saved).
• Now you will need to open whatever regedit software you use. Go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\CHome.
• Open ExtensibilityXML. In the string, you will need to insert the name of the panel you just created in the place you want it to be displayed on the CHome home screen. The plugins are separated by a ";"
• Save your changes and soft reset. Upon booting, re-enable Titanium and you should see your new panel.

Ok, i followed the instructions (i did several times)
I did the example: Contacts, but it does not show/display on my titanium

Can anyone help me, please?

[Beandogg]

Originally Posted by chuggy

I think this is a testament to what a good guy Hafrust is! He's even helping out while on the road!

Originally Posted by chuggy

Before you added the weather panel had you changed you CPR files or used Hafrust's posted CPR files? If not you'll need to edit your CPR files as stated in the first post. Or, copy Hafrust's CPR files, and then Reinstall weather. Also, you need to make sure that the panel is added in your extensibility XML string in the registry.

Thanks you guys...finally got the launcher to show with all your help. I actually exported the registry settings from 2.1 and copied them in after I did version 3. Then did the cpr files and the extensibility regedits and now the Launcher is showing.

Thanks again...now I can start customizing!

[chuggy]

Originally Posted by Beandogg

Thanks you guys...finally got the launcher to show with all your help. I actually exported the registry settings from 2.1 and copied them in after I did version 3. Then did the cpr files and the extensibility regedits and now the Launcher is showing.

Thanks again...now I can start customizing!

Glad to help!

[chuggy]

Originally Posted by showaco

Y'all may have missed it, but there is another GUID that can be used(and should probably be the basis for all custom panels). Its from the htc sliding panels for smartphone and is the GUID that all htc panels are based on. Here's some of the reg files from v3 titaniumweather for example:

Notice that you must specify a data source(in this case is this registry location), and a layout(this would be panel name inside the cpr). It also uses the Updated dword value. This can update the panel when value is toggled. I toggle it between 0 and 1 for the weather app to update when data is downloaded.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\CHome\TitaniumWeather]
"Updated"=dword:00000001
"Pages"="Page1;Page2;Page3;Page4;Page5;Page6;Page7;Page9;Page8"
"DataSource"="SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\CHome\\TitaniumWeather"
"GUID"="{F0A1B246-6E64-40cd-8E15-347D29FF6F18}"
"Layout"="TitaniumWeather"
"LocName"="TitaniumWeather"
"ICONPATHS"="\\Windows\\Neo_Weather.png;\\Windows\\Neo_Weather.png;\\Windows\\Neo_Weather.png"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\CHome\TitaniumWeather\Page1]
"Time"="07:54 PM"
"CurrentTemp"="60°"
"CurrentIcon"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\condicons\\06.png"
"TodayTemps"="67°/56°"
"Day1Icon"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\condicons\\07.png"
"Highs"="H: 75           75           76           75"
"Lows"="L:    51           49           56           60"
"Day5Icon"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\condicons\\04.png"
"Days"="Sun         Mon         Tue         Wed"
"Day4Icon"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\condicons\\03.png"
"Day3Icon"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\condicons\\02.png"
"Day2Icon"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\condicons\\15.png"
"ACTIONURL"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\TitaniumWeather.mscr"
"SK2URL"="\\Program Files\\TitaniumWeather\\TitaniumWeatherOptions.mscr"
"SK2TEXT"="Menu"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\CHome\TitaniumWeather\CondensedPage]
"PluginLabel"="60° Mostly Cloudy"

With this GUID, you will also need to make your panel layout in your cpr since it won't be using an existing panel. It can read any text string or image location from registry. In cpr file there must be a corresponding image or text line with same name as reg entry. For example, here's my v3 cpr section. You will be able to find the reg values above for page1 listed in cpr along with there position values. You'll notice that there are many image and text files, but the reg above doesn't use all of them. You can define all for all the pages in the cpr, but then use different ones for different pages of the panel. This way you can have different layouts for each page of a single panel.

  <!-- TitaniumWeather -->
  <Layer ID="TitaniumWeatherExpanded" Visible="False" Width="480" Height="180">
    <Layer ID="Page">
      <!-- Page1 icons -->
      <Image ID="CurrentIcon" Left="10" Top="-10" Width="120" Height="120"/>
      <Image ID="Day2Icon" Left="195" Top="25" Width="60" Height="60" /> 
      <Image ID="Day3Icon" Left="265" Top="25" Width="60" Height="60" /> 
      <Image ID="Day4Icon" Left="335" Top="25" Width="60" Height="60" /> 
      <Image ID="Day5Icon" Left="410" Top="25" Width="60" Height="60" />

      <!-- detail pages icons -->
    <Image ID="ForecastIcon" Left="10" Top="-10" Width="120" Height="120"/>

      <!-- detail pages text --> 
      <Text ID="CurrentTemp2" Left="0" Top="-8" Width="168" Height="50" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="18" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
      <Text ID="Temps" Left="5" Top="90" Width="130" Height="70" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="17" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
        <Text ID="Day" Left="161" Top="17" Width="470" Height="60" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="8" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
        </Text>
        <Text ID="Desc" Left="161" Top="43" Width="470" Height="60" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="8" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
        </Text>
        <Text ID="Winds" Left="161" Top="69" Width="470" Height="30" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="7" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
        </Text>
        <Text ID="Prec" Left="161" Top="92" Width="470" Height="30" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="7" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
        </Text>
        <Text ID="Other" Left="161" Top="115" Width="470" Height="30" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="7" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
        </Text>

      <!-- Page1 text -->
      <Text ID="CurrentTemp" Left="0" Top="-10" Width="190" Height="70" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="22" FontStyle="Regular" Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Right" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
      <Text ID="TodayTemps" Left="2" Top="92" Width="150" Height="50" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="7" FontStyle="Regular"  Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
      <Text ID="Days" Left="205" Top="80" Width="370" Height="50" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="6" FontStyle="Regular"  Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
      <Text ID="Highs" Left="188" Top="100" Width="370" Height="50" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="6" FontStyle="Regular"  Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
      <Text ID="Lows" Left="188" Top="118" Width="380" Height="50" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="6" FontStyle="Regular"  Wrap="False" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
      <Text ID="Time" Left="2" Top="113" Width="150" Height="20" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="6" FontStyle="Regular"  Wrap="False" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>

    </Layer>
  </Layer>
  <Layer ID="TitaniumWeatherCondensed" Visible="False" Width="480" Height="60">
    <Layer ID="Page">
      <Text ID="PluginLabel" Left="20" Top="8" Width="460" Height="52" FontFamily="Segoe UI" FontSize="16" FontStyle="Regular"  Wrap="False" VerticalAlignment="Middle" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter"  Text="voicemail">
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetDropBottomRight" Color="#00000000" TextOffset="1" BlurFactor="3" Alpha="1.0"/>
          <TextStage TextOffsetType="TextOffsetNone" Color="#FFFFFFFF"/>
      </Text>
    </Layer>
  </Layer>

drkfngthdragnlrd found this GUID and pointed it out to me, so all thanks go to him. Now a panel could be made for almost anything now with this. Use your imagination of what you'd like to see. It would be possible to add Pocket SportsCenter to a panel too, baseball and football scores that auto update=D>

I've been playing with the for a while now, and I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I think I'm understanding that with the GUID we will be able to create new panels without making anything "invisible". To test it I simply created a "test" panel using that GUID, and then copied my "welcome center" panel in the CPR file and changed it to represent Test at the end of the cpr file. I then pasted my new CPR and I then went through the standard step to set up the panel, and havent been able to get it to show up. I see Test in the configurator, I've added it to the xml file, but i can't get it to show up. Anyone have any ideas? Shawco, am i missing the boat on this or am I on the right track?

[showaco]

Originally Posted by chuggy

I've been playing with the for a while now, and I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I think I'm understanding that with the GUID we will be able to create new panels without making anything "invisible". To test it I simply created a "test" panel using that GUID, and then copied my "welcome center" panel in the CPR file and changed it to represent Test at the end of the cpr file. I then pasted my new CPR and I then went through the standard step to set up the panel, and havent been able to get it to show up. I see Test in the configurator, I've added it to the xml file, but i can't get it to show up. Anyone have any ideas? Shawco, am i missing the boat on this or am I on the right track?

yeah, this GUID can be used multiple times without losing condensed titles. When you copied the welcome center panel in the cpr, did you rename it to TestExpanded and TestCondensed(in the cpr)? You also need to have the Test key in reg with the same values as first key listed in that reg I posted. So you need the values for: Updated, Pages, DataSource, GUID, Layout, LocName.

Make those values something like this:
Updated -- make this as dword, value of 0 or 1
Pages -- this is your list of pages your using in this panel
DataSource -- this shoud be set to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\CHome\Test
GUID -- just copy the same
Layout -- 'Test', this tells it the name to look for in the cpr files
LocName -- 'Test'

In the pages registry keys, make sure whatever the image and text lines are called in the cpr are listed here. This GUID reads the info based on name given in cpr. So if cpr says: <Image ID="Image 1" Left="350" Top="-4" Width="100" Height="100" />
then registry needs to have entry called Image 1 for it to read. For text that looks like this in cpr: <Text ID="Text 1" Left="20" Top="52" Width="348" Height="42" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="10" FontStyle="Bold" Wrap="False" VerticalAlignment="Top" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
then registry needs entry called Text 1.

The other GUID's used those names in cpr, but in registry they sometimes had different names and must have been loaded by chome on launch. This GUID can have values changed in registry, and if you toggle the Updated value from 1 to 0(or 0 to 1) then that whole panel reloads without needing to restart chome plugin or soft reset. I'm going to try to learn some programming to make a app to allow easy customization based on this GUID, but since I have little experience, it might take week or two.

[chuggy]

Originally Posted by showaco

yeah, this GUID can be used multiple times without losing condensed titles. When you copied the welcome center panel in the cpr, did you rename it to TestExpanded and TestCondensed(in the cpr)? You also need to have the Test key in reg with the same values as first key listed in that reg I posted. So you need the values for: Updated, Pages, DataSource, GUID, Layout, LocName.

Make those values something like this:
Updated -- make this as dword, value of 0 or 1
Pages -- this is your list of pages your using in this panel
DataSource -- this shoud be set to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\CHome\Test
GUID -- just copy the same
Layout -- 'Test', this tells it the name to look for in the cpr files
LocName -- 'Test'

In the pages registry keys, make sure whatever the image and text lines are called in the cpr are listed here. This GUID reads the info based on name given in cpr. So if cpr says: <Image ID="Image 1" Left="350" Top="-4" Width="100" Height="100" />
then registry needs to have entry called Image 1 for it to read. For text that looks like this in cpr: <Text ID="Text 1" Left="20" Top="52" Width="348" Height="42" FontFamily="Tahoma" FontSize="10" FontStyle="Bold" Wrap="False" VerticalAlignment="Top" Trimming="EllipsisCharacter">
then registry needs entry called Text 1.

The other GUID's used those names in cpr, but in registry they sometimes had different names and must have been loaded by chome on launch. This GUID can have values changed in registry, and if you toggle the Updated value from 1 to 0(or 0 to 1) then that whole panel reloads without needing to restart chome plugin or soft reset. I'm going to try to learn some programming to make a app to allow easy customization based on this GUID, but since I have little experience, it might take week or two.

Wow! I'm actually quit amazed how clear this seems now. I'm going to start from scratch on StarMans new rom, and see if I can make this work. As far as experience goes, you seem like you know what you are doing to me! Thanks!

[Hello_world]

This is a qvga wm6.5 startmenu, will give you 4 columns of icons in the start menu in portrait mode, and it will give you 5 columns landscape mode. Install, soft reset. Incase you don't like ,uninstall and goes back to default.

[bx718bklyn]

I must be an idiot i cant this ish to work