[vicott]

Some tips on Pocket Plus & Creating Extended Themes

Some Links:
Extended Theme Generator
Extended Theme Generator Tutorial
Plug-ins for Pocket Plus
Free IconSet for Pocket Plus

Some Sites with Extended Themes:
Spb Software House
PDAgold
Juni's PocketPC Skins & Themes
Vicott's Theme Site
PocketPCThemes.com
PocketThemes.com

Important Note: Extended Themes created using Spb Extended Theme Generator do not work on Windows Mobile 5.0

Basic Guide for Creating Extended Themes:

• Prepare 1 empty image in your favorite image editing software (e.g. Adobe Photoshop). The image size should be 320x320 for QVGA and 640x640 for VGA. Let's call this the dummy image.
  
• Prepare another 2 empty images. The image sizes should be as follows:
  • VGA Extended Theme: (see layout)
    "tdywater.gif" should be 320x294 and "stwater.gif" should be 240x320 in size
    
  • QVGA Extended Theme: (see layout)
    "tdywater.gif" should be 640x588 and "stwater.gif" should be 480x640 in size
  
  
• Open your image. Resize your favorite image, preferably with the shorter side (either the width or height) to be 320 pixels.
  
• Copy/paste your original image to the dummy image. Move/adjust and do any modifications you need here.
  
• When you are done, copy this image and paste to "tdywater" and "stwater". Usually, you do not need to move/adjust over here. Save these files as GIF files under the same folder.
  
• Launcher Microsoft Theme Generator and on the first page, simply use "tdywater.gif" as the background to give u the visualisation.
  
• The color schemes customisation should be easy.
  
• Make sure the name of your Extended Theme should end with "Ext", e.g. "ThemeName Ext.tsk". For VGA Extended Themes, it should end with "Ext VGA", e.g. "ThemeName Ext VGA.tsk"
  
• When you are at the page for the Extended Theme Generator, select the folder u have kept both "tdywater.gif" and "stwater.gif".
  
• Choose your today indicators and also the taskbar battery indicator schemes.
  
• Extended Theme Created! :grin:

The above guide is only a very basic guide if you are going to use the bundled indicator images. If you are quite familiar with image editing, I believe the tutorial found on Spb's Web site is more detailed and you should be able to follow through, after trying out a few times. If anybody still can't manage to get it right, you can always drop me an e-mail to request for a custom theme.

[vicott]

In case anybody is searching help from theme authors to create some custom themes, I'm one of those who help others create custom themes for free. Read this for more info on how to submit your Theme Request to me.

Quote

First, you can send me an e-mail to . I would appreciate if you let me know which type of theme you wish to have. There are main theme types which I do, namely:

• Standard WM2003 Theme - Only portrait mode; smallest file size. Nicer display for most images.
  
  
  
• Extended Theme - Landscape support and includes Pocket Plus indicator icons
  
  
  
• VGA Extended Theme - VGA support and landscape support. I usually use the default Pocket Plus indicator icons, unless there is a special request. Largest file size.
  
  
  
• Square Themes
  
  
  
• QVGA Themes - QVGA screens and VGA screens in Default VGA mode
  
  
  
• VGA Themes - VGA screen in True VGA mode
  
  
  
• Orientation-Aware Themes
  
  
  
• Landscape Themes - Those that look good in landscape mode, but not so good in portrait mode
  
  
  
• Themes with WM5 support
  
  
  
• Modifications of WisBar Advance Skins or Pocket Plus Indicator Images in Extended Themes

I would also appreciate if you tell me more about the pictures u want to use, preferably attached with the e-mail. You can also provide me with some Web site links leading to the images u hope to use as the background. If you have any special requests to use Pocket Plus indicator icons from a certain Extended Theme, do let me know more about it too. If you have any other special requests in mind, do let me know also. Finally, I'm usually more free towards the end of the week (Friday to Sunday). So sometimes I may take a a longer time to complete the themes if you submit your request in the early part of the week.

[vicott]

If anybody is using a WM2003 device and have Spb Diary installed, you may notice that Letter Recogniser fails to work well, i.e. characters which require more than one stroke (e.g. ? ! : may fail to be recognised. This is how the problem can be resolved:

• Make sure you are using Spb Diary version 1.51 or above.
  
• Launch your Registry Editor
  
• Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Spb Software House\Spb Diary\DontUseHooks"
  
• Set the value to "1"
  
• Soft Reset. It should work well now :grin:

UPDATE: The registry key has been removed in version 1.6. The issue with Letter Recogniser has also been fixed.

[vicott]

The registry keys for Theme settings can be found under "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Color". Here are the registry keys for some WM2003/WM5 Theme settings that are not found in PPC2002 Themes:

• 15: Background color for Notes/Tasks and other native apps (left 2)
  
• 16: Background color for Notes/Tasks and other native apps (right 2)
  
• 36: Background color for Notes/Tasks and other native apps (left 1)
  
• 37: Background color for Notes/Tasks and other native apps (right 1)
  
• 39: Start Menu text color
  
• 40: "Tap & Hold" dots color
  
• BaseHue: Taskbar & soft keys color for WM5 [Color Chart]

To find out how to create WM2003 Themes, you can refer to this post. To find out how to make use of these registry keys to embed it into themes, u can refer to this thread.

[vicott]

This post is about how different theme types or images (tdywater.gif and stwater.gif under "\Windows\" folder) appear on the today screen for VGA devices. How the themes are displayed on VGA devices running on WM5 is still unconfirmed at the time of posting. I will update here once I find out about it. Please correct me if you find any mistakes here as I'm not too familiar with VGA devices & display modes.

Themes in Native VGA mode:

• Extended Theme or WM2003SE QVGA Theme in native VGA (below WM5):
  - Similar display as the theme on a QVGA device
  
• VGA Theme in native VGA (below WM5):
  - Top left hand section (240x294) is cropped for display

Themes in True VGA mode:

• Extended Theme or WM2003SE QVGA Theme in True VGA (below WM5):
  - Background image is tiled.
  
• VGA Theme in True VGA (below WM5):
  - Normal display.

Images in Native VGA mode:

• Using images (tdywater.gif) smaller than 240x294 in native VGA:
  - Tiling occurs
  
• Using images (tdywater.gif) larger than 240x294 in native VGA:
  - Cropping occurs

Images in True VGA mode:

• Using images (tdywater.gif) smaller than 480x588 in True VGA:
  - Tiling occurs
  
• Using images (tdywater.gif) larger than 480x588 in True VGA:
  - Cropping occurs

Conclusions
In native VGA mode (below WM5): better to use QVGA themes
In True VGA mode (below WM5): better to use VGA themes

[vicott]

Have u ever hoped u can optimize the number of icons to display per row for Pocket Plus? Read on to find out how! :smile:

1) Go to Pocket Plus Option.

2) Select Today Plug-ins & go to Feature Options as shown below.



3) Go to Margins Tab as shown below. Disable "Show Spb Pocket Plus icon".



4) Go to "Tab Icons" tab as shown below. Enable "Align Icon Left".



5) Launch your Registry Editor.

6) Go to "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Spb Software Hourse\Pocket Plus\3" as shown below.



7) Click on the registry key named "RightIndent". Change it to "0" if it was "1", as shown below.



8) Just to double check, also click on the registry key named "LeftIndent". Make sure it's "0".



9) It's better to soft reset after changing the registry values. You will now have an additional space for one more icon on the right, and also on the left. The whole row can be used fully with no wastage of space (see screenshot below for results). :grin:

[vicott]

Some users may be puzzled how the taskbar and soft keys are coloured by WM5 and how PPC2002/WM2003 themes work on WM5. Well, if you wish to change the color of the bars on the PPC itself, there are several applications around to do it.

BaseHue Express - Works for both Smartphone and PPC
VJBaseHue - For PPC
TdyScheme Changer - Customise the Today Scheme Colors for PPC, including color of the bars. Black Bars for WM5 also possible.

[Zerocool2311]

thanks a lot for the pointers! Really useful!

[vicott]

Theer are many options for themes that are not properly documented but discovered by users. Here are some of them.

Pocket PC System Colors

Registry Value: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\GWE [SysColor]
Registry Type: Binary Large Object (consist of 29 Binary values)

Please refer to this thread for the complete list.

Standard Pocket PC Theme Colors

Registry Key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Color
Registry Value Type: Binary

Please refer to this thread for the complete list.

WM5 System Colors

Registry Value: HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Today [Skin]
Note: The value is used for ThemeName.tsk below

Registry Key: HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Today\ThemeName.tsk
Registry Value Type: Binary

Please refer to this thread for the complete list.

Using Different Images for Portrait and Landscape

Requirements: WM2003SE and above
More info: Link

Today Background images
Both Portrait and Landscape: tdywater.gif (no OS restriction)
QVGA Portrait: tdywater_240_320.gif
QVGA Landscape: tdywater_320_240.gif
VGA Portrait: tdywater_480_640.gif
VGA Landscape: tdywater_640_480.gif

Start Menu images
Both Portrait and Landscape: stwater.gif (no OS restriction)
QVGA Portrait: stwater_240_320.gif
QVGA Landscape: stwater_320_240.gif
VGA Portrait: stwater_480_640.gif
VGA Landscape: stwater_640_480.gif

If you are familiar with the use of INF files for theme creation, you can check out this post to see how you can create orientation-aware themes using ThemeBuilder. Alternatively, you can also use ThemeGenCE to do the job.

Use Start Menu Image as Today Background Image

Registry Key: HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Today
Registry Value: UseStartImage
Value Type: DWORD
Value Date: 1

If you wish to use the same image for both start menu and the today background, all you need is stwater.gif, and tdywater.gif will not be used if the registry tweak above has been applied.

[vicott]

For those who are unsure what image sizes to use for today background image or start menu image on the Pocket PC, here are the details. You can also make use of these details to optimise the use the minimal size of the images for creating themes using ThemeBuilder.

Here are the initial numbers to start with.

QVGA Screen:
1) Portrait Mode: 240x320
2) Landscape Mode: 320x240
3) Taskbar/Command Bar/Soft Keys: 26 pixels height each
4) Start Menu: 152 pixels width (190 would be safest)

VGA Screen:
1) Portrait Mode: 480x640
2) Landscape Mode: 640x480
3) Taskbar/Command Bar/Soft Keys: 26 pixels height each
4) Start Menu: 304 pixels width (380 would be safest)

Square Screen:
1) Screen size: 240x240
2) Start Menu: 152 pixels width
3) Taskbar/Command Bar/Soft Keys: 26 pixels height each

To derive the height of the start menu, subtract 26 from the screen height. To derive the height of the today background, subtract 52 from the screen height. And here are the results.

QVGA Screen:
1) Today Background Image (Portrait): 240x268
2) Start Menu Image (Portrait): 152x294
3) Today Background Image (Landscape): 320x188
4) Start Menu Image (Landscape): 152x214

VGA Screen:
1) Today Background Image (Portrait): 480x536
2) Start Menu Image (Portrait): 304x588
3) Today Background Image (Landscape): 640x376
4) Start Menu Image (Landscape): 304x428

Square Screen:
1) Today Background Image: 240x188
2) Start Menu Image: 152x214

More details on filenames and exact image sizes can be found here.