Originally Posted by GhostXSeries

I cooked it in my kitchen build and it worked perfectly. Only issue I noticed is in my kitchen I have the start menu icons configured to only display the ones I want.

When I used the grid which looks awsome it gave me all the start menu icons. Is there any way to fix that?

That's weird in turn.

Icons are showing only if you put shortcuts (.lnk files) or folders into the \Windows\Start menu folder.

You can always put icons links and localized names in the registry, so your new shortcut will use them to display in the Start menu upon copying or moving it there, but they still wont show until an actual shortcut file (or folder) is physically present.

Apart from that, there are a few WM and HTC icons automatically displaying a link to their respective applets, either you actually put a shortcut or not. I'm not sure anymore because it's been a long time since I didn't bother about it, but I think "Home" and "Comm Manager" in the Start menu root might be of that kind.

And of course, Settings applets don't need a shortcut file to show : they are defined in the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlPanel] section, then the [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Shell\StartInfo\Start\ Settings] section just has to use them. It actually only gives them an icon and a name, since even their location is given by their "Group" value in [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlPanel]. Maybe you should check your registry for them.

Another group of icons automatically showing concerns HTC applications. If you want them tidily stored in a subfolder (or not showing at all), then you'll don't want them to add themselves in the Start menu root.

This is switched by setting "IsShortcutEnable" value to 0 in [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\HTC\Manila] : check for that registry key in your hive.

Yea figured out it was an issue with kitchen build. I built it again from scratch and it resolved the issue! Random

Originally Posted by Nullstring

Visual Studio 2010 Express for Windows Phones is free. But if you want to have a more complete dev environment, you must purchase VS2010 or VS2008

OK, thanks.

Does VS2010 still allow to build WM apps ? I was afraid they would have given up, now they are trying to impose WP7... Not that it could be a bad OS in fine, but it's still not finished IMHO, and I'm not fond of the xBox/Zune/cloud thing...

On the other hand, previous versions of VS express were limitated to QGVA WM5 : does VS2008 or 2010 Express now allow to build VGA/WVGA WM6/6.5 apps, and what are their main limitations compared to the professional versions ?



Back to the squared menu thingy, it was the first time I really played with the CPR files...

Then eliminating the start_menu_background files suddenly solved a problem I didn't figure out it was there (probably because of some margin/offset coordinates in the CPR) : the difficulty to align the Sense and WM (showing when opening the Start menu) wallpapers.

As I'm fond of full transprency, I had hard times trying to align all that (wallpapers, skinned bars, under Sense and WM at the same time, etc.) and trying to avoid visual glitches when rotating or switching from Sense to WM Start menu and vice-versa.

Now I know it's so easy to get rid of that supid additional wallpaper displayed from the CPRs, the tasks looks much easier !

I'll try again the trick from volDeus to get real transparency for Sense bars and make really good looking themes, now.

VS2010 doesn't support WM. Only VS2005/2008 do.
Then you should install Windows Mobile 6 SDK Refresh and WM6.5 (or wm6.5.3) DTK.

Don't forget that you need professional versions of SDKs.

OK, thank you for precising.

Another question for you, please : I noticed the softkeybar becomes almost transparent when using your modified shell32.exe : did you include the transparency trick, or is it just because there's no start_menu_background defined in the CPRs ?

cpr is almost default (with only some values fixed), exe is totally default (with two little patches not related to that).

OK...

So your changes in shell32.exe are only about the grid setup.

I'll certainly combine that with the transparency trick, then.

CPRs often contain a "Background" tag. These are the most commonly found :

portrait :

<Image ID="Background" Left="0" Top="-52" Visible="True" Opacity="1.0" ScalingAlgorithm = "TriLinear" Source=".\StartMenu_Background_Screen_480x800.png"/>

Landscape :

<Image ID="Background" Left="0" Top="-27" Visible="True" Opacity="1.0" ScalingAlgorithm = "TriLinear" Source=".\StartMenu_Background_Screen_800x480.png"/>

Notice the "Top" value, most probably responsible for the offset problems I've been battling against in order to try aligning Sense and Start menu wallpapers... It's even obviously calculated for WM6.5, though it was found in a WM6.5.3 ROM !

Without the tag at all, only stwater_480_800.jpg and stwater_800_480.jpg are showing under the icons, and they are kind enough to cover the screen without an offset.


---------- Post added at 09:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:11 AM ----------


Excuse me, while I'm thinking about it...

I've been modifying shell32.exe and aygshell.dll files for a long time, and always been working from original files extracted from the exact ROM I was using.

I've then noticed they were always different for each build.

And now, I'm using the shell32.exe you provided and it works straight out of copying to the \Windows folder, without even worrying for compatibility.

So why are there so many differences, while it obviously doesn't matter so much ?

And from what build was your shell32.exe originally extracted, please ?

21690
10 char

am using 28244. Which was working in the first try.

I'd love to have this as an option in my Final Customization app so users can choose if they like to have a squared start menu or the honeycomb one.

Here's my shell32.exe for build 28244.

Is it modified yet ?

I don't think I would have put a 21690 sell32.exe in my 29022 ROM without crashing : I used the WM6.5.3 version you also provided.

It's the one whose build number I would like to know, please.



BTW, I actually crashed my HD2 with a rotten aygshell.dll : I didn't do that for such a long time I completely forgot it couldn't work out of a file extracted from a NBH.

I had to download a fresh 29022 XIP package. I'm sometimes stupid !

Anyway, I spent the whole night on it, but I finally made a lightened ROM out of NRGZ28's last one, including your mod (transparent bars version ). I had a lot of fixed MUI file waiting to be included too, and I CFC compressed all the QTC pictures I had to include.

It's not a final release of course, but having 124 MB internal ROM free on an European model, with Documents and eReader tabs added and all the necessary apps installed, plus loads of new Start menu folders and their icons ("Accessories", "Utilities", "Applications", etc.), really, I'm happy with the results.

I may still find some more useless files to delete, and some day I'll compress all the QTC ! :P