Are you interested in making or editing a CHT widget? To make a widget for Co0kie Home Tab 2.0.0 is not such a difficult job as you may think, I tell you by experience. I have no previous formation in programs or informatic code but i could make a few widgets(*) and I would like to share this experience with you. This is not so altruistic work, I am expecting a huge amount of widgets made by all of you to install and enjoy in my brand-repaired HD2
Co0kie Master has allready published a guide for making a CHT widget (it is into the widgets kitchen); also Genius_Rat_2665 has made a tutorial for making a cht clock widget, so -the third time lucky- lets bring here all that knowledge and try to make a simple widget step-by-step. Also this could be a good place to share and learn each other some code for widgets. Things like how to make an blinking element, how to change number in text, how to read from the registry, etc.
(*) What is for sure is that no one widget I could ever do without the help of others. Lets start quoting the existing Co0kie's guide:
If you have reached here I recomend you re-read Co0kie's guide, is short but it contains a lot of information, i would say every word is important!
So now the first trial:
1.- Install the kitchen: Every widget has its own kitchen, I have attached a kitchen for a very simple widget. Just download in your PC and copy all the files & folders in a separate folder (\CHTwidgets\PoyTEST\) same as they are inside the .rar
Now connect your PC and your device via USB and sinchronize. Then run the file z_init.bat - You need to run this one before starting. You just need to run it only one time. It will copy restartmanila.exe to you device.
2.- Put your device in DevMode: Go to HKCU\Software\HTC\Manila\CHTI.AddonWidgets.DevMode and change to DWORD =1 (create if does not exit). Now restart Sense.
3.- Run the file _Deploy_to_device_in_dev_mode.bat. Your device will automatically restart Sense. Then go to Edit Mode - Add new element - Select PoyTEST - done. You should see now the simple widget in your device's screen.
It will continue ....
Co0kie Master has allready published a guide for making a CHT widget (it is into the widgets kitchen); also Genius_Rat_2665 has made a tutorial for making a cht clock widget, so -the third time lucky- lets bring here all that knowledge and try to make a simple widget step-by-step. Also this could be a good place to share and learn each other some code for widgets. Things like how to make an blinking element, how to change number in text, how to read from the registry, etc.
(*) What is for sure is that no one widget I could ever do without the help of others. Lets start quoting the existing Co0kie's guide:
Here is a guide on how to build your own widget for CHT.
I decided to break this up into 3 parts.
The kitchen section is a brief description of the kitchen structure and batch files.
The guide section will tell you how to build your own widget and make a cab to install it.
The "how it works" section will tell you what's going on in the background - why the system is the way it is.
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*** 1) Kitchen ******
#####################
Just a few words about the kitchen folder structure:
- Workspace - here you'll find all the raw files that are being worked on currently
- Tools - all the needed tools
- deploy - just a little temp dir used by the batch scripts to compile and deploy files directly to your device
- cab - the cab file and setup.dll
- cab\_files_final - all the final compiled files that will need to be inside the cab
The batch files:
These files automate the process of editing manila files.
Connect your device to your PC via ActiveSync to be able to run the batches.
z_init.bat - You need to run this one before starting. You just need to run it one time. It will copy restartmanila.exe to you device.
_Deploy_to_device_in_dev_mode.bat - this batch will:
1) compile the lua files from \workspace\_lua and copy them to the deploy folder
2) copy all files from \workspace\mode9 and other \workspace\ subfolders to the deploy folder
3) use rapicopy.exe to copy everything from the deploy folder to \windows on your device (it's set to overwrite exitsting files)
4) restart manila on your device
_Generate_files_for_cab.bat - this will compile and copy the workspace files but it will not deploy them to your device,
instead it will copy them to \cab\_final_files
it will also rename the base mode9 and lua files to CHTmode9 and CHTlua - more on this in the "how it works" section
[[ It also needs to be modified the files _Generate_files_for_cab.bat & _Deploy_to_device_in_dev_mode.bat to addapt them to your own widget. Click with the right button of the mouse over the files and select edit, then change the name of the widget (PoyTEST.lua & PoyTESTtranslation.lua in the attached example) and the corresponding manila files ]]
[[ Tools folder includes m9editor for the edition of mode9 files, notepad2 for the edition of the Lua files, CFC_GUI for the qtc files (graphics), manilaHASH to obtain the right manila names corresponding to .luac files, and some other .exe files used automatically by the kitchen. ]]
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*** 2) Making your widget ******
################################
Guide - how to make CHT addon widgets:
First of all, because you will be developing, you need to turn on CHT's dev mode.
Open the reg key HKCU\Software\HTC\Manila\ and create a DWORD value, call it "CHTI.AddonWidgets.DevMode" and set it to 1.
This will allow you to deploy and test your widget directly from the kitchen.
[[ This is very important as you do not need to create and install the cab for test the widget, just using DevMode the widget will go from \workspace\ directly to your device, so you can make changes and see results easily. ]]
Now proceed to build your widget. I suggest you use the analog clock addon as a base. [[ You can use PoyTEST, its much simplier ]]
There are two rules you simply must follow:
1) For every new widget, its CHTWidgetDev.lua file must change the "widgetName" property. It must something unique.
I suggest a naming system of "CreatorName_WidgetName" - that should ensure that the names are unique - there must not any conflict here!
Modify anything else however you'd like. The rest of the fields in that file don't need to be as unique as the "widgetName" property.
2) The 30182CB6_manila mode9 file must follow a special rule: The "Scene" section must not contain any components. See how it looks like in the example addon.
That's how it must look for all new widgets.
[[ Making a widget is like making a puzzle (but much more funny ), you have to put the right pieces in the right places. There is no a fix rule and there is a lot of trial and error. Where to find the right pieces? Co0kie gave us thousand of decompiled lines of Lua code in CHT_Source. Download it from post#6 of CHT 2.0.0 thread. Also look in every published widget's kitchen in CHT thread, Rat_2665, Dunc0001, ZaxXx, Azarbel, Colossus_r, RoryB, MnCessna ... (Sorry I dont remember all right now!) ]]
Once you've done that you can do ahead and run "_Deploy_to_device_in_dev_mode.bat" - that will compile the files, copy them to your device and restart manila.
Then just go to the edit widget menu in CHT - your widget should be at the bottom of the list - add it and test it.
When you have finished making your widget, you can pack it up into a cab file.
To prepare the files for the cab you have to run "_Generate_files_for_cab.bat".
The final files will be in the \cab\_files_final\ folder.
Making the cab file - this is what an addon cab must have:
1) Every last one of those files from \cab\_files_final\ need to be in the cab and they have to be set to be copied to %windows%.
Do NOT set the install dir to %windows%, set the files to be copied to %windows%.
2) The setup.dll that is in the \cab\ folder also needs to be added to the cab.
3) Last, but extremely important, set the install dir to \CHTAddons\^widgetName^ - where ^widgetName^ should be your unique widget name same as in the lua file.
[[ This is really important. If you are not creating a new widget but just editing the mode9 and/or lua files, please do not modify the installation dir in the cab properties, as it is used in the installation process and modification may cause problems in CHT ]]
If you want to test that cab on your device make sure you disable dev mode first ("CHTI.AddonWidgets.DevMode" to 0), so that the dev mode widget you were working on and the newly installed one do not conflict.
A widget must not be installed in both dev mode and as a cab at the same time!
##########################
*** 3) How it works ******
##########################
CHT addons plug into slots that interface with the core layout manager.
There is maximum number of addon slots (that number is 10 for the dev preview beta, but it will be 20 for the final).
Each widget consists of 4 parts:
1) a mode9 file for the CHT widget interface
2) a lua file for the CHT widget interface
3) any number of extra mode9 or lua files
4) xml file with a manila file list for CHTScheduler
Numbers 1-3 there are directly needed for CHT. Number 4 is needed for CHTScheduler (I'll leave the explanation of that for the CHTS thread - it's not need for now if you just want to try to build your own widget).
Numbers 1 and 2 are the most important and they are directly linked to the slots.
Here is how:
The interface mode9 and lua need to have a specific names depending on which slot they go into.
To make this happen those 2 files are dynamically named on install.
While you are developing your widget you are working with the dev widget slot. There is only one of these so it has one pair of mode9/lua names (30182CB6_manila and 7D241726_manila).
But once you make the addon cab the widget can be installed in any slot (first one found to be free). That's why in the release files, there is a CHTmode9_manila and CHTlua_manila.
Those are the same files that you were developing with (30182CB6_manila and 7D241726_manila) - they will be renamed on the fly once installed - this is where the special setup.dll comes in.
The dll will look for the first free addon slot and install the widget there, i.e. it will rename the files so they correspond to the first slot.
The install dir name that you had to specifically enter is used as the widget install ID and will be stored in HKCU\Software\HTC\Manila\ "CHTI.AddonWidgets.SlotX" (this is needed to uninstall the widget correctly).
The files that are being installed should all go to \windows so you set that directly for the files, and that allows the install dir name cab field to be used for this purpose.
If you have reached here I recomend you re-read Co0kie's guide, is short but it contains a lot of information, i would say every word is important!
So now the first trial:
1.- Install the kitchen: Every widget has its own kitchen, I have attached a kitchen for a very simple widget. Just download in your PC and copy all the files & folders in a separate folder (\CHTwidgets\PoyTEST\) same as they are inside the .rar
Now connect your PC and your device via USB and sinchronize. Then run the file z_init.bat - You need to run this one before starting. You just need to run it only one time. It will copy restartmanila.exe to you device.
2.- Put your device in DevMode: Go to HKCU\Software\HTC\Manila\CHTI.AddonWidgets.DevMode and change to DWORD =1 (create if does not exit). Now restart Sense.
3.- Run the file _Deploy_to_device_in_dev_mode.bat. Your device will automatically restart Sense. Then go to Edit Mode - Add new element - Select PoyTEST - done. You should see now the simple widget in your device's screen.
It will continue ....
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