Today Screen Plugin

[Mr_Gee]

I know it is (currently) not possible to create a today plug-in with B4PPC
But what if someone (with C++ knowledge) would create a plug-in which would read a textile located in a specific directory

We could then at least create programs which can display things on the today screen.
Just in case someone wants to attempt this, I was also thinking the plugin could have 2 config files
one for the plug-in (colors used etc) and another one where the user can specify the directory of the text file,
maybe the option of having multiple lines in there (when it is done reading the first item in the first dir it goes to the 2nd directory)
if the text file has multiple lines the plug-in could read each one and display this data (kinda like a ticker)

 

[Mr_Gee]

I might have found something here :
Creating a Pocket PC Today Screen Plug-in with the .NET Compact Framework

The unmanaged plug-in hosts an HTML window allowing each project to specify the HTML content to appear in the Today Screen. The "Init" project is automatically loaded when the new item is first added to the Today screen. This component need only return the HTML that should initially be displayed in the Today Screen. When the Today Screen content for this item is tapped, the "Exec" project is launched providing a user interface for the user to interact with the associated information. This program can also update the displayed HTML.

I installed VS 2008 and tried to do this myself, unfortunately I don't have enough knowledge and the example is for eVC++ so I gave up for now

If we could edit the html file using our program we would have (limited) today screen plugin support :-D

 

[sahoopes]

[BUMP]
Can anyone help with this? Would be a great addition to the Basic4PPC capabilities.

 

[greko]

I might have found something here :
Creating
(...)

Hello Mr_Gee,

There was a time when I was looking the same thing. I needed it for my forex stuff and here is what I've found:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=312058

It's a plugin written in EVC4 where you're able to print some text messages on your today screen. Here is the description:

What does it do?
This plugin displays a string stored in registry.
The path is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RegDispPlugin
Value name: DisplayString

I believe this is exactly what you are looking for.

Cheers,
Greko

BTW: You might to see MortScript instead of basic4ppc, because probably it will do everything what you need to have (and it's working in the background perfectly).

 

[alfcen]

Hello Greco,

Nice discovery indeed. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Attached a simple "Today Message Editor" tested under WM6.

Copy RegDisplay.dll to \Windows, the rest anywhere in the device.
Source is included.

The ticker mode is everything else but smooth. This is inherent
to the frequency by which RegDisplay.dll fetches its data from the registry.
Playing with the timer interval may yield some improvement.
Short messages should be doubled to maintain a ticker feel.

Cheers
Robert

 

[taximania]

Not sure if it's just me, but Tenki crashes my mio clone, but displays the NotifyIcon on my new xda orbit, but doesn't show the message.

Lots of buts ......... ?

Anyone

 

[alfcen]

It is likely that RegDisp.dll was made for WM5/6 devices only.

In your XDA Orbit (WM?) you need to add the Display to the Today Screen:
Start/Settings/Today/Items. There you shoud see an entry labelled "Registry diplay".

 

[Mr_Gee]

I believe this is exactly what you are looking for.

I does sound like it, I'll give it a whirl

Thanks

@ alfcen
Nice Job, and even in B4PPC format, I'll also try this one

 

[Mr_Gee]

I just noticed this page:
ChrisTec Managed Today Screen Item Framework - Home

Is it something B4P can use?
I've already tried his demo files and that works.
importing the dll into a sbp file also works and I'm able to user the .New1
I just can't get it to show in the today screen, but that could be a user issue ;-)

I hope someone with a little more library knowledge will take a look at this,
creating today items would be a great addition to B4PPC.

 

[digitaldon37]

Hello Mr_Gee,

There was a time when I was looking the same thing. I needed it for my forex stuff and here is what I've found:

[New release] Registry display plugin - xda-developers

It's a plugin written in EVC4 where you're able to print some text messages on your today screen. Here is the description:

What does it do?
This plugin displays a string stored in registry.
The path is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\RegDispPlugin
Value name: DisplayString

I believe this is exactly what you are looking for.

Cheers,
Greko

BTW: You might to see MortScript instead of basic4ppc, because probably it will do everything what you need to have (and it's working in the background perfectly).

The weather application that Klaus and I did uses this. I would be interested if anyone expanded the capabilities of this plug-in (such as displaying an image or additional lines of text)

 

[Mr_Gee]

The weather application that Klaus and I did uses this. I would be interested if anyone expanded the capabilities of this plug-in (such as displaying an image or additional lines of text)

I don't see why this cannot be done with ChrisTec's framework

 

[Cableguy]

From what I could understand, from ChrisTec's framework, a reference is passed from the code in c# to the framwork..
This reference may be even a complete form, as I understood it...