Any way to remove the batt icon on top?

[juiceppc]

The new ROM puts that useless batt icon on the top bar and covers up my useful time display. Who approved that anyway?...

http://www.htcwizard.com/battsucks.jpg

Is there any way to remove that battery icon...? I use Batti so it's pointless to have it.

[bilbo_28]

I have been waiting for someone to post an answer to this problem since I upgraded a few weeks back. As far as I am aware no one has a solution yet.....

[JNGold]

To quote "whimpy" from Popeye:

"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today".

This is something we all want! I want to know who's the crack smoker that decided to put the battery meter on the task bar?

[juiceppc]

To quote "whimpy" from Popeye:

"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today".

This is something we all want! I want to know who's the crack smoker that decided to put the battery meter on the task bar?

Yeah what was the point if you're just gong to leave the comm manager down there anyway... Also why did they cover the time?! Now I have to have the date displayed on my today screen taking up valuabe real estate just so I can see the time just by turning on my phone. They must have been smoking crack.

BTW does anyone know how to get rid of the comm manager down there. It's one little icon taking up a whole row...!

[JNGold]

To quote "whimpy" from Popeye:

"I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today".

This is something we all want! I want to know who's the crack smoker that decided to put the battery meter on the task bar?

Yeah what was the point if you're just gong to leave the comm manager down there anyway... Also why did they cover the time?! Now I have to have the date displayed on my today screen taking up valuabe real estate just so I can see the time just by turning on my phone. They must have been smoking crack.

BTW does anyone know how to get rid of the comm manager down there. It's one little icon taking up a whole row...!

If I am not mistaken that's the Init_Tray.lnk in your startup folder. If I am not correct, please someone chime in.

[jaingram]

It's the program in your startup, just remove it and it wont load

[DREAMBOXER]

Yeah same here. Wish I could get rid of that stupid battery icon. I want to get rid of the time on the today screen and use it for something more useful again.

Screen estate is "expensive" - the person who finds out how to get rid of it will be my hero for quite some time :twisted:

[juiceppc]

I'll pitch in 5 bucks(USD PAYPAL). :P

[fowen]

I got $5.00 on it as well. I haven't upgraded to the latest rom because of this.

[boboki]

I am happy to join the list of wanters ;)

[bilbo_28]

I have been looking around some places and have a thought...... in the o2 Extended ROM there is a CAB file called "Signed_Remove_BatteryIcon.sa.CAB" I can't run this at the moment as I am at work and dont have a sync cable with me......

Anyone know what this CAB does? Can anyone try this before I get home?

The CAB is in the o2 zip on the FTP site, under Extended_ROMs -> o2

[ZeBoxx]

This is likely to be the cab that removes the battery icon from the Tray (bottom of Today Screen). This is where the battery indicator lived pre-AKU2 on many devices.

[boboki]

Just so people know, all the tweaks/hacks out thyere right now for this only removes the icon when in other programs, not out of the tray when at the today screen.

[ZeBoxx]

Just so people know, all the tweaks/hacks out thyere right now for this only removes the icon when in other programs, not out of the tray when at the today screen.
And that's not even really a tweak/hack, is it? Just enabling the clock on all programs - an option in the clock configuration - does that, no?

[juiceppc]

Just so people know, all the tweaks/hacks out thyere right now for this only removes the icon when in other programs, not out of the tray when at the today screen.
And that's not even really a tweak/hack, is it? Just enabling the clock on all programs - an option in the clock configuration - does that, no?

Correct.

We need to figure this battery thing out... Is it HTC that releases the ROMS or does Qtek and Imate make their own?

[ZeBoxx]

Microsoft delivers the OS and APIs/SDK. More than likely, this is a change by MS. HTC adds the HTC-hardware specific drivers and basic hookups (e.g. all default button functionality, what to do when a built-in keyboard is activated, etc.). All the others do the branding, extrom composition, what's extra in the box, etc.

In the end, I guess somebody might post a quick message on one of the windows mobile MSDN blogs to see what the thought behind this change was, and whether it can be undone in any way.

[jwzg]

My guess is that you'll have to roll back to the previous battery driver in order to get rid of it. If someone knows how to extract the driver from the first rom and put it into the second, we might get somewhere.

[elyl]

My guess is that you'll have to roll back to the previous battery driver in order to get rid of it. If someone knows how to extract the driver from the first rom and put it into the second, we might get somewhere.

Shhh!
Just shhh.

[rxr]

My guess is that you'll have to roll back to the previous battery driver in order to get rid of it. If someone knows how to extract the driver from the first rom and put it into the second, we might get somewhere.

Shhh!
Just shhh.

Does this mean you're hiding something from us????

[elyl]

No it means if you don't have a clue about something then don't theorise about it!

[jwzg]

I said it was a guess...not a definitive answer. Seeing as no one has found a registry hack to remove it, then perhaps you'd like to shed some light on what you think it is rather than flaming someone who's willing to state an idea...even if it is wrong.

[faria]

I said it was a guess...not a definitive answer. Seeing as no one has found a registry hack to remove it, then perhaps you'd like to shed some light on what you think it is rather than flaming someone who's willing to state an idea...even if it is wrong.agreed.every project starts with a teory.

[reejmond]

No it means if you don't have a clue about something then don't theorise about it!

Shhh!
Just shhh.

[elyl]

It is probably more involved than a registry hack. It is certainly nothing to do with a battery 'driver', since this would have absolutely no direct effect on the titlebar or the today screen. Because the thing is a battery meter does not mean it is in any way linked to updated "battery drivers"... thanks for your guess, but (and I truly do not mean to be rude) might be best to leave it to people who are a little more knowledgable. Every good rumour starts with a theory, or a wild guess.

Oh, and it wasn't a flame, it was tongue-in-cheek. Next time I'll be sure to embelish with gratuitous emoticons in order not to offend our thinner-skinned posters! :wink: :lol: :o :D :P

[jwzg]

No real offense taken Elyl (I'm very thick skinned BTW, I just don't like arrogance). I just wanted to get a serious discussion going and throw out possiblilites. My reasoning behind that theory is that I've not been able to find any .bmp images that match that battery meter in the entire device directory (programs either). I have been able to find those for the "battery alert", "charging" and "none" as well as every other icon that appears in the title bar. Since the today bar is not in there either, the icon may even be an integral part of it, but the only way the meter can show full, half or empty is if something is telling it to do that.

I cannot work on this since I've got a second kid on the way in a day or two and am just basically swamped. Is there anyone out there who knows more that has any other info. That's all I'm asking now.

[elyl]

Cool, as long as you didn't think I was being an ass, it's just a bit of banter.
Yeah, I suspect it is an integral part of the title bar. The fact that it's linked to the clock app makes me think it's gonna be more complex than some .bmp files, and is likely part of some .dll - I don't fancy using a PE hacker on every possible .exe and .dll in /Windows to try and find it, maybe one day when I'm bored. I've actually e-mailed the WM5 development folks (hopefully mikecal will reply, cos he seems to know all the most obscure stuff). I'll post here if I get any reply.

[jwzg]

I figured as much. Thanks for the work...let us know what you find out.

[ZeBoxx]

I cannot work on this since I've got a second kid on the way in a day or two and am just basically swamped.
Congrats :)

Has anybody poked at the MSDN mobile blog people about the icon? I know somebody else here once did on a different issue and got a reply, but I wouldn't even know which of the blogs to poke at

[boboki]

Being a MCSD and MCSE I get free support from M$.... I'll give them a call today and see if anyone knows anything (yeah right).

[elyl]

Has anybody poked at the MSDN mobile blog people about the icon? I know somebody else here once did on a different issue and got a reply, but I wouldn't even know which of the blogs to poke at

Yeah, I've given that a try too, I posted a comment off-topic on one of the blogs, but no reply as yet.

[boboki]

Sofar I have heard that it might be the .dll or driver....
Can we gank the old driver out of the older rom and try that?
I tried quite a few things today to make it work.... reg tweaks and hacks.... I even thought to try and add showicon to 0 in the drivers section.. no go. Tried changing the flags from 0-9 no go.
Found a powertray.exe which was disabled, so I just deled that key. Still no luck.

[huangyz]

may be i should add 5Yuan(RMB,not US$) to this beg......

[DREAMBOXER]

I will also pitch in 5 EUR ( PayPal ) to the person who gets this thing fixed on my MDA Vario with QTEK 2.18 (German)

[vijay555]

Guys, looking at the treo rom:
http://palmone.r3h.net/us/images/products/smartphones/treo700w/feature_today-screen.gif
they have a different battery meter. But this is done by emulation - they actually just map a new battery icon over the old one, and then stick a pseudo blank spot on the start bar (top bar) to fill the gaps (which doesn't work properly at VGA). Crap solution, but I'm thinking that if that's the best they can come up with, it look like the battery meter is quite heavily embedded in the rom.

We could quite easily write an app to do the same as the Palm rom.

V

[boboki]

No fixes are BAD fixes... just some are better than others.
I will do almost anything to get that annoying battery out of the damn taskbar!

[summiter]

Can someone throw the Treo WM5 ROM up onto the ftp? I want to pull some files out and see what I can come up with for the wizard.

[Bubisch]

Anyone tried vijays file? Can you post some screenshots?

[majdi]

i did, but iended up with two battery meters on top of my screen. ofcourse if you open any apllication you'll have both clock & battery endicator.

here's a snap of how it looks like.

[boboki]

As a TEMPORARY workaround, I would like everyone to know wisbar gets rid of the icon (well overwrites it anyways). Just a FYI for those that cannot STAND that battery.
When I did that, I had to replace my spb....
So my replacements to get the same good feel were:
Wisbar (2.6.1)
Batti (http://pda.jasnapaka.com/batti/ )
and battery pack pro.

See? just to get rid of that damn battery icon I PURCHASED two programs, THAT is how much I HATE that (*(^* icon!

[JNGold]

As a TEMPORARY workaround, I would like everyone to know wisbar gets rid of the icon (well overwrites it anyways). Just a FYI for those that cannot STAND that battery.
When I did that, I had to replace my spb....
So my replacements to get the same good feel were:
Wisbar (2.6.1)
Batti (http://pda.jasnapaka.com/batti/ )
and battery pack pro.

See? just to get rid of that damn battery icon I PURCHASED two programs, THAT is how much I HATE that (*(^* icon!

I rather have a responsive and quick device than load it with WA2 which is just a pig on a Wizard devices. I'll live with the battery meter.

[boboki]

Oh do not get me wrong.. this is by NO means a FIX.... but a bandaid.
I hatehatehatehate that battery icon almost to the point I would rather have a slower device than that stupid icon.
My runarounds with MS have gotten NOWHERE and my runarounds on the ms community forums are equally worthless.
There has GOT to be a solution for this, and I am almost not beliving that MS would program something like that into shell, and not leave a way to rid of it... short of downgrading the os.
Of course, then again, this IS MS... the creators of MS BoB...... the worls largest flop software ever.... (finger on the pulse of the community? yeah right)
I will continue to try and escalate this problem to a DEVELOPER, but it really does take some time to get this done, when the problem is NOT a non-fuctional problem.

Lets keep at it guys, the more complaining and trying to fix, the better!

[N!co]

Some very good work in progress over here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=45084

[vijay555]

Bubisch: the files I posted are stolen from the Treo 700w. Not something I'd recommend, just a curiosity!

V

[ZeBoxx]

http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=45084
Yeah, it is very nice - it certainly puts the clock back, which is the end-goal. It's not quite the same as removing the battery icon and getting the original clock back, however. That said, before somebody screams bloody murder again, yes - it's probably the best solution available yet :)

[Sleuth255]

Great Potential! I have SPB's battery meter running so LVMTime is pretty much perfect for me. The Treo700 battery is actaully quite nice in that it slowly drains in usable increments. Also, tapping on it gives a dialog showing the exact percentage of remaining power. This app + LVMTime would pretty much give you the whole ball of wax as far as startbar icons goes.

edit:

after testing, it would appear that LVMTime overwrites both battery icons so no joy. Also, it would appear that the Treo battery icon can't tell when the charger is disconnected on a Wizard. However...

Its a nice little app for sure. Even more importantly, as a POC, this little exe pretty much proves that someone could write something that combines the features of both to overwrite the lame battery icon with time display and an improved battery icon. It doesn't need to be a today screen plugin either.

[cptcoconut]

There hasn't been a post to this topic in a few days... is anybody still interested in this? I've been racking my brain for a week trying to figure out a way to make this happen, and I nearly have it working. My solution does not cover up any of the other icons, and you can choose to use the built-in clock in the top bar, or use no clock, based on the existing setting.

Can somebody reply back so I can make sure that my device is working the same way you were all complaining about? I'm using the AKU2 test ROM 2.17 ... When I'm on the today screen, I have the battery icon, but when I'm running any other application I do not have the battery icon, and if I have the clock enabled it shows up in the top bar. Is that what everyone else has and would like to get rid of?

[bilbo_28]

yes yes yes.... keep going and get rid of the battery icon on the today screen.........

[boboki]

I am neigh out of solutions, but very much waiting for a fix!

[boboki]

Reviving this topic to freshen developers minds.
I had to kill wisbar becuase it was just KILLING my mda... damn thing had some AWEFUL memory leak.... I was down to 5meg after 2 days, not to mention my poor device was slow as Helen Keller trying to color sort socks.

Switching gears.....
Perhaps it would be possible to OVERWRITE the battery icon in the taskbar with a picture of what the bar blank would look like. Then set it to back, so when you put another icon there, it shows on top of the old one? Has anyone checked if the icon itself is just a bmp? Perhaps killing the bmp would kill the battery alltogether.

Another solution.... we could port this thing to linux.. then run pocket ce over it though wine and edit the memory location out for the icon.... HAHAHAHAHA <--- dork

Being as I do not understand how the battery icon works, is this a possiblility? I noticed that when a program is running, the battery icon goes away. So it hit me, perhaps when a program is loaded the top bar goes into a different state.
If thats the case, can we trick the battery icon into thinking that the start bar is always in that state?
program not loaded = state 0
program loaded do not show battery icon = 1
force battery icon to think its always state 1
??
Grasping for straws here.

[cptcoconut]

boboki,

Your last suggestion is similar to what i've been working on for the last week or so. i sort of have it working, but right now it's impacting today plugins, and doesn't work correctly when the device is locked with the "Lock Device" today plugin. If I can fix those problems I'll release it.

[boboki]

Awesome! I would be happy to test it out some on my mda....
I currently am running the lvhtime program that was written earlier for a different purpose, and it is working GREAT....
I would like a more robust solution, and thus would be more than happy to beta for you.

[mikey42]

What's lvhtime? I wouldn't mind running that in the interum :)

[ZeBoxx]

they meant LVMtime;
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=45084

[mikey42]

Great thanks! And I was thinking the search finally failed me.

[bilbo_28]

Anything new on this? Been quiet for a week now....... Please don't tell me people are getting used to the battery meter and no clock?

[cptcoconut]

I have an application that seems to be working well except when the device is locked. That pretty much sucks, because for me, my device is usually locked when I'm on the Today screen. I think I can fix that last bug, but I haven't got it yet. I'll release it when I get past that.

[ZeBoxx]

Microsoft have addressed this for AKU 2.2 (currently sighted on Atom, apparently);
http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2006/04/28/586453.aspx

[cptcoconut]

Thanks ZeBoxx, I saw that MS Blog post last week and forgot to mention it here. I had very little luck getting my app to work with the Device Lock plugin, and pretty much stopped trying after seeing the AKU2.2 info.

If there's anybody that doesn't use the Device Lock, or just wants the battery icon to go away when the device isn't locked, feel free to give this a shot. I haven't had any issues with it, but YMMV. Use at your own risk. Just run the application, then return to your today screen to see the effect. Run the application a second time to shut it down. If you have the clock configured to show in all programs (Start->Settings->System->Clock & Alarms->More), XZNoBatTry should show the clock on the today screen. If you have that disabled, the battery icon should just be gone, and all other icons shifted right to fill its place.

Let me know if you have any issues, I'll see if I can knock them out.

[geek78]

works fine on my m600. thanks!

[boboki]

Works like a champ on my mda (wizard)!
The ugly ass bat icon is gone, in its place stands the volume icon...
Now I just need my time displayed up there. That lvmtime or whatever was working decently, but I do prefer a fix over a bandaid.

[cptcoconut]

boboki,

I'm not sure if you already saw this and just hadn't done it yet, but you can get the time up there without any other 3rd party apps. Just use the Settings/System/Clocks and Alarms / More option for showing the clock on all programs. That will add it to the today screen when my app is running.

I have been running this again myself this morning, and found another small problem. It seems like any window that is a child window of the desktop (today screen) might have it's title bar "Ok" or "X" button missing until you activate something else in that window. That's a side effect of the way I'm tricking the system into removing the battery icon, and I'm not sure I could easily fix it. I might look into it later.

[boboki]

Bad news....
I was playing about, and it seems that this kills the today screen quite often. Sometimes it just looks like a program closed, but did not clear the screen, and opening a window then closing it fixes it, other times it just hard locks.

[cptcoconut]

Hmm, I still haven't seen that happen. What today screen plugins are you using? Is there a particular scenario that seems to cause this? Any additional info would help me out, because I can't seem to make that happen with my setup.

[boboki]

Sure.. np.
I've got agile messenger (lastest beta build), Rhinostats (which rocks), messeging, and calander.
I have gotten it to lockup coming from file explorer, IE, Opera, and now calander and phone.
I have had it do the weird not-screen-refresh-thingy coming out of programs menu, and also coming from sktools free memory program.

Its possible agile messenger is playing with it, becuase its beta, but it does not lock any other time if I have lvmtime on instead of this one. Just tested it 12 times, lvm locked 0 and this one locked 10 out of the 12 programs I loaded.

[cptcoconut]

LVMTime works in a completely different way than this app. I have LVMTime running as a plugin, but I don't really want to let it cover stuff up on the task bar.

What XZNoBatTry does is force itself into focus anytime it sees the today screen get focus. When the task bar thinks another program has focus, it doesn't show the battery icon. I thought I was handling all the redraw issues by sending those messages on to the normal today screen window, but I guess my current method doesn't always work.

This sounds like a good excuse for me to try the Agile beta and maybe Rhinostats. I'll let you know if I can recreate and fix it. Thanks for the info!

[boboki]

No problem, I will be happy to test your apps for you, as long as they are stuff I would use. This is VERY much something I would use.

[cptcoconut]

Okay, I've seen it happen now, before I even got around to installing anything new. In my case, it was just one or two of the plugin windows (like just the section for e-mail or date) that failed to redraw, not the entire today screen. Is that similar to what you saw?

I think I might be able to get around this one, I'll start tinkering with a fix.

[boboki]

yeah, I have had the email one more often than not.
But when I got the full screen messups, the only one that would show was agile messaging.

[stargator]

I am using a o2 Atom with the latest May 06 ROM .

This Reg edit seems to work for me

I do not have the ugly Batt icon now on my Today Bar anymore



to get the clock back
goto
HKLM/software/microsoft/shell - new dword ShowTitleBarClock with value=1

Needed a soft reset to work for me

[ZeBoxx]

yeah, they added the functionality to restore the clock in the AKU 2.2 ROMs; http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=282184

Now we just have to wait for all the OEMs to release the AKU 2.2 ROMs... might take a while, they only recently released AKU 2.0

[TesterPL]

Have you noticed that after run this app there is problem with two hardwre buttos under screen? i can't use it when my tooday's screen is displayed, but inside any app they work fine...

but the most important thing is that there is no this ugly batt icon :) superb!

[ZeBoxx]

what app? do you mean making the registry edit? If so - can anybody confirm? :)

[JNGold]

yeah, they added the functionality to restore the clock in the AKU 2.2 ROMs; http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?p=282184

Now we just have to wait for all the OEMs to release the AKU 2.2 ROMs... might take a while, they only recently released AKU 2.0

Yeah, so they restored the clock and removed the space available information on the cab install screen, Go figure. :roll:

[cptcoconut]

TesterPL,

I hadn't noticed it before, but you're right. I'm not sure why it's like that, because I am passing keystroke messages on to the desktop. I'll try a couple of things, but right now I don't see what it's doing.

This trick I used is looking less and less exciting. From another thread it sounds like the new Cingular ROM will be based on AKU2.2, so I'm really just looking forward to that myself.

[TesterPL]

cptcoconut,

i only thought that you want to know about any issue :)

i'm waiting for new rom too :P

BR

[4fatal]

In pocket breez not worked all buttons (config, calendar and other)

[Jorren]

No real fix yet?

[1-2tje]

No real fix yet?

You can upgrade to the new customized AKU 2.2 ROM which circles this forum. Then you can put the original clock back with a registry hack, this is done by default in the customized ROM you can find in the topic. I don't know the details but you should look here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=51047

[mrtdgn]

It works very well on my Qtek s200. I put a shortcut on startup folder.

And as very well known it is not working when the device is locked. Thanks.