SPB Mobile Shell 2.0 Beginner's How-to

[Dredd67]

Let’s sum up what we already know.

update 19-03-2008 : Icon tutorial by Luigi
update 26-03-2008 : Background mod by asefsef, some cleaning done.

*** IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING USEFUL NOT MENTIONED HERE, JUST PM ME AND I WILL UPDATE THIS POST. ***

0-Basics

.dat files need to be opened using winzip. To extract the files you will need to use a password which is:

PASSWORD = b0fm18zq

*** WARNING ***

If you plan to use WinRAR instead of WinZIP to reencrypt the files, be sure to change the radio checkbox from RAR to ZIP format before entering the password (thanks cincij for the trick).

1-Localization

Simply edit the SpbMobileShell.txt file and change the corresponding items to your needs:

…
Text Messages|Messages texte
My Documents|Mes documents
…

Note that not all of the texts will be changed; some of them require registry hacks.

2-Customize the layouts (Quick and dirty tuto from SPBCLUB, written by met3ora ?)

(I will use brackets to indicate the XML tags, since the SPB forum doesn't like the XML tags.) Copy qa_layouts.dat to your computer. Using a WinZip, extract Launcher.xml, using the password b0fm18zq. Opening up Launcher.xml in Notepad, you can see how MS reads the file. There are a few layouts that are defined, and are based on screen size and orientation. For my Kasier, 240x320 and 320x240 are the portrait and landscape layouts, respectively. Under {Layout Name="240x320"} and more specifically under {Plugins Extends="Default"}, we find what we're looking for. The first 12 plugins (named rN) are the "pinned menu" buttons, and the next 6 (named mN) are the large buttons. Defined in each Plugin is the following line (with variation on the numbers, of course) {BoundRect X="0" Y="182" Width="39" Height="45"/}. So obviously X and Y are the X and Y positions in pixels, and Width and Height are, well, width and height also in pixels. If you'd like to remove all the 12 pinned menu buttons, simply remove the following lines (for r0-rB): {Plugin Name="r0"} {BoundRect X="0" Y="182" Width="39" Height="45"/} {/Plugin} Just delete them, and then they're done. Now, this leaves the bigger launcher menu sitting on the bottom, looking pretty odd since there's a big void on the top. To even out the void, I moved each of those big buttons up 45 pixels. Why 45? Well, 45 was the height of one of the icons in the pinned menu, so moving it up that much would leave 45 pixels above and below the big grid. So just simply subtract 45 from each Y coordinate of each plugin m0-m5, giving you (for m0-m2) 46 and (for the next 3) 137. Now, I don't like the grid. Fortunately, we can just hide the grid by finding this line at the top of the XML file, under {General}, which is {Int Name="LineOpacity" Value="64"/}. Simply change the Value to 0, and that will hide the grid lines. There you go, now the 6 button launcher is in the middle of your Launcher screen, with none of those pesky 12 pinned items. Do the same thing under {Layout Name="320x240"}, except of course change the numbers so that your 6 grid is in the middle of your screen. Save the file. Go back to WinZip and add Launcher.xml back into qa_layouts.dat, remembering to overwrite the old Launcher.xml and remembering to encrypt it again with the same password (which is b0fm18zq). Now replace qa_layouts.dat in the \Program Files\Spb Mobile Shell\ folder and soft reset your phone.

How to get rid of this annoying icon tab at the bottom (Why do this soft has gestures enabled AND shortcuts ?) netzcoyote has a solution:

Not sure if this is already known: To get rid of the icon tab at the bottom, edit Main.xml in qa_layouts.dat: Basically, I moved the tab below the screen's visible area. - In every layout node you want the tab to disappear, add 47 (the tab height) to the Y-coordinate of the plugins named Tab1, Tab2, Tab3 and Tab4. - In order to make the area where the other elements appear extend to the bottom of the screen, add 47 to the height of the Plugin named Subform. This expands the canvas height on which to show elements like the calendar, clock, menubuttons, etc. Now you have to go into those xml files (for example LockScreen.xml) and change those element's coordinates, heights, etc. where appropriate. This can easily be done with the menu tab, launcher tab, speeddial tab, etc. Navigation with left and right gestures WORKS!

3-Customize the icons

Thx 2 Luigi

Do-it-yourself Icon Tutorial: here. <- Use this !


4-Customize the background

Thx 2 asefsef



So far, doing this is pretty easy:
- Extract files from qp_bkg_now.dat
- Change the separator2 and its mask to 240x320.
- Make the mask all white.
- Then put whatever image you like into the separator2 bmp.
You have to save the file as a Windows - 16bit - R5 G6 B5 - .bmp file.

if u miss the separator, just photoshop the separator back into the file. (thats not cheatin! >< hehe, it IS the separator layer after all.)


5-Registry Hacks

You can do some pretty nice things by directly editing your registry:
Look at the keys located here:

HKLM>Software>Spb Software House 2>Spb Mobile Shell>

How to enable the 9th icon with a 3x3 layout:Just create a .reg file with this inside:

 Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Spb Software House 2\Spb Mobile Shell\Menu\Root\Games]
"Image"=dword:00000008
"Text"="Jeux"
"MRUImage"=dword:000000BF
"Index"=dword:00000007
"Inactive"=dword:00000001
"Add"=dword:00000001

Copy to your PDA, and launch it from there. The "Games" Menu should be available in the settings as a 9th icon.

Here’s another exemple done by Vincentvg:

gr8 work you all! I now have 9 buttons and no need for all possible submenus. Therefore I started looking to use one of the menu buttons to activate the taskmanager from the main menu tab. in the registry HKLM>Software>Spb Software House 2>Spb Mobile Shell>Menu>Root I added the ninth menu with folowing values: Add = 0 Image = 8 Index = 9 Text = Active Tasks Type = TaskManager And the most amazing is that I got it 2 work! Looking at existing 'Type' regvalues show that the menu buttons can be used for a lot more!

6-Integration with Pocket Informant, Agenda Fusion and Agenda One

http://www.spbclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7794

7-Make SPB your Today screen

Have a look here, thedumbkid has done something neet for us, called SPBWatcher.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?p=2029338

8-Nice links

HOT Theme collection for SPB mobile Shell 2, maintained by iamwhoiam
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=380103

The development thread at XDA:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=374335

SPB Club:
http://www.spbclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15353

ActualiteMobiles: (french)
http://www.actualitemobile.com/forum...ic,1195.0.html

English translation of 4PDA.ru:
http://209.85.135.104/translate_c?hl=en&langpair=ru%7Cen&u=http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php%3Fs%3Da905e4fde300239b84d47f1dfd36ea09%2 6showtopic%3D31453%26st%3D2340%23entry1522182

[Alkhal]

natong's Example to change menu Texts, Types and Image icons
Click Here

natong's Conclusion to make 3x3 icons (9 menus)
Click Me

natong On how make a tab for 16 speed shortcut icons
Press Me

[azzambm]

Thank u ..
Great Work...

[Mr. Vi]

Originally Posted by Dredd67 *** WARNING *** WinRAR seems OK for unpacking the files, but there has been some reports that you need WinZIP to reencrypt the files into the .dat. Files reemcrypted winth winRAR, even with the right password won’t work with SPB Mobile Shell 2.

For me it works just fine

[rolly210]

Thx a lot!!
This is exactly what I was looking for!!!

Congratulations for this sum up!!!

[lepsyfou]

bon tuto mon ami et vive actualitémobile lol

[cincij]

Originally Posted by Dredd67 *** WARNING *** WinRAR seems OK for unpacking the files, but there has been some reports that you need WinZIP to reencrypt the files into the .dat. Files reemcrypted winth winRAR, even with the right password won’t work with SPB Mobile Shell 2.

I use WinRAR to repack, you just have to be sure to change the radio checkbox from RAR to ZIP format before entering the password.

[jakkrith]

Thank you very much for sharing, This is a good tutorial for everyone who love to customize spb mobile shell 2.

[Dredd67]

Originally Posted by cincij I use WinRAR to repack, you just have to be sure to change the radio checkbox from RAR to ZIP format before entering the password.

Thanks for the details. I will update the 1st post according to this.

[met3ora]

Thanks a lot for this. I'll be posting it over at the SPBClub if you don't mind!