WM 6.1 Homescreen weather plugin

[reebzor]

Hey everyone!

First off I want to thank Dr. Gonzo again for the 6.1 rom. It's great and love it!

Second, I was using the HTC home screens that user tho made (found here (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=355955)) and I really got used to having the weather plugin on the homescreen. I really like how the homescreen is setup on this new rom, but I still want a weather plugin for it. Is there any way to add that plugin to this homescreen?

thanks.

[kimamil]

if i was you i would try the following:

install the home plugin on your device. copy the .xml file from the plugin to your harddrive. open it and find the coresponding <plugin...> entry for the plugin. Then copy this entry to the xml-file of your skin of choice and there it should appear again... if it does not work or you have no clue what i was talking about, give me report.. i will try to do it for you,

[reebzor]

Yea that's what I was thinking about doing. I just did not know if it would work or if it would look alright. I'm at work now so I don't really want to mess with it, but I'm going to try that when I get home.

[kimamil]

ok. let us know if it worked when you're done

[reebzor]

Wow this is a lot more difficult than I had thought. I can't find the weather plugin in the HTC Home screen and as the other thread may have tipped you off, the Sliding Panel home screen is very confusing to work with.

Basically what I would like to accomplish is to have Weather on my homescreen, while still using the Sliding Panel motif. So like if I could click over to the right next to where it displays the time it would show the weather. I'm going to keep working on this, but if anyone would like to jump in and help me I'd appreciate it.
Thanks.

[kimamil]

according to the slide panel. I think all you can do is to manipulate the panels with basic configurations read out from the registry. It is not that easy to create something new, but i think a good point to start is always the manipulation of the welcome center, because this one is what most people need when they like to make "their own panels". The only way something will create a new slide is to code a plugin which is dedicated to appear in the slides. and still someone has to figure out what basic options are needed to create a new panel or to figure out what these guids are respectively.

Can you provide the htc home xml at least? it would be nice to have all extracted files in a zip file, so i do not have to install it again and pic all files out by myself.

[reebzor]

Well that's sortof bad news that I can't create something new, however it might still be possible to edit the home panel to add that in?

I attached the xml for one of the home screens. I looked through it all and couldn't find the plugin for the weather but maybe you will have better luck than I will.

[kimamil]

well, that is exactly what i meant. First choice, change one of the existing panels. If it works then and someone can explain those damn GUIDs I think we would manage to get it work on an own panel.

As far as it is "documented" in the XML (which is quite interesting i think for non wm6.1) this is the plugin-option for the htc home:

<plugin clsid="{B0C8AC4B-CDDC-4010-AAEB-076A2A6EB171}" name="HTCHome" height="88"></plugin>

This means to me, that cannot extract the weather-plugin for the homescreen unless you know how the home-plugin was made and the weather-plugin is a standalone, built-into htc home.

if you install the htc home, and edit your slidingpanel.xml with this tag somewhere, the home plugin should appear. I added the .xml for Frau Hottelmanns panther scheme with the htc home plugintag so you can see what i mean (not sure if the comment-tag is allowed, so just remove it before uploading to your device).

This is all I can do for you right at the moment.

[reebzor]

Alright, Thanks a lot. I will try it when I get home.

[kimamil]

I am really sorry that i wrote some damn ******* before :D It surely is possible to create new slides!!! It is just not possible to create a slide with ANY functionality :D

i just had the idea, that we may figure out what the minimal options for a slide are and then go on to figure out what the others are. But if we know the minimal options we could for example copy the testuiplugin-panel and try to get it work with the entire htc home plugin in it.

just wanted to write that, so you would not be that hopeless :D

[kimamil]

Ok, what i found so far is:
- The htc home plugin works on wm6.1 as usual
- It seems not to work with the bronze-plugin in the same theme
* when loading the theme, the htc home plugin is displayed but vanishes as fast as the bronze-plugin is loaded.
* i played around with the height-attribute from the bronze-plugin but it seems to have absolutely no effect
- what i discovered in one of the previous skins is, that there are at least two major plugins for the htc home plugin which can be loaded in a theme. there is the notificationbar where the calls and sms etc. are shown and there is the htchome where the weather is displayed and so on.
- I also found that the exe-file for the weather-plugin is located at /windows/weather.exe so maybe its possible to configure the "output" on a call of this file and the weatherplugin is displayed (which means that we could put it into a slide)
- I also found an old thread here on xda for the "customization" of the htc home plugin, but it seems that the way the plugin works has changed since this thread and the version gregory released

- what is missing is something like a documentation on the htc home plugin, so which parts are implemented, how are they called from the homescreen etc. maybe gregory, if he's still around here has any idea(s) ???


- i just got that the weather.exe sets the city, downloads and refreshes the local weatherdata. So the output has to be somewhere else.

[reebzor]

sounds like you are onto something here. Since the HTC home weather plugin is causing some problems, I think I am going to take a look at some other weather plugins. They might make it a little easier. I'm specifically looking at SPB Weather and Fizz Weather.

The only problem is, once I install them I'm not really sure how to put them into the slide panel. I'm going to play around with it and I'll let you know.

[kimamil]

A tip from my side... always start from the delivered .xml files for the theme. mostly you can see there how they are implemented in the home-screen... then you just have to copy it.

i am wondering why the htc home plug does not work with the bronze. rinkus iconbar does, and its also just another plugin implemented... It also would not make sense that microsoft put something in the code of bronze which disables other home plugins

[Rolandh]

A tip from my side... always start from the delivered .xml files for the theme. mostly you can see there how they are implemented in the home-screen... then you just have to copy it.

i am wondering why the htc home plug does not work with the bronze. rinkus iconbar does, and its also just another plugin implemented... It also would not make sense that microsoft put something in the code of bronze which disables other home plugins

You mit be better waitin until HTC release a WM6.1 Standard ROM to see if HTC customize bronze to have parts of there Home plugins integrated and extract everything from a ROM then making a cab file to install it .

Roland

[kimamil]

this was my first thought, but as you may know, there are people out there (yes, i am one of those :D) that do not like to wait and have things first and before all the others do ;)

[Rolandh]

this was my first thought, but as you may know, there are people out there (yes, i am one of those :D) that do not like to wait and have things first and before all the others do ;)

Have you tried using Facade to use the HTC plugin with Bronze?

Roland

[kimamil]

nope. i thought one has to BUY facade???