Aygshell - an idea

Maybe I shouldn't write here - it's just an idea for developers.

Maybe it's possible to create aygshell, which could draw the UI 90* rotated, so the whole window would fit on screen without Ndot or Winwatch?

What do you think?

Hou Ming's dummydll implementation of Aygshell already does that to some extent.
Get it here: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/2039/ and search for the string "dummydll"

If a control on a dialog is cut off, his aygshell will wrap it to the left of the visible controls on an HVGA screen. Of course, this will also cause problems with some programs. This is not 90 degrees, but is does help with alot of programs that do not fit.

I don't think what you want to do would be possible unless you completely reimplemented all of the Windows CE common controls and other UI elements such as the window manager from scratch and allowed them to support rotation. At the moment, I doubt Windows CE supports rotating UI elements like buttons and dialog boxes 90 degrees. It does not seem like it would be worth it to rewrite critical parts of the OS just to support a few Pocket PC programs.


Edited by TFGBD 2006-06-14 12:29 PM

Yes, that was my afterthought - but the special aygshell is an interesting idea

I'm confused. So the 90-degree screen rotation possible on the Clio is a hardware function rather than a software one?

they meant rotating ONE app.

Okay, got my brain working again. We're talking about loading a full-screen app sideways from a right-side-up desktop, and returning to the right-side-up desktop upon exiting.

There are special implementations of GAPI that already do rotate full screen GAPI apps. I think this guy was talking about somehow rotating normal applications and that IMO would be suicide.
At the very least you would likely need to rewrite GWES.EXE, commctrl.dll and many other system components just to support this. Platform Builder 4.2+ does ship with source for these components, but I'm sure it is no simple task to first backport these to CE 3 and then further modify them to support some kind of control rotation hack... I prefer when apps fill the larger screen of an HPC anyhow. Holding an HVGA device like the Jornada 720 sideways is just not fun.

True - but some apps are easy to use sideways without having to turn the entire device 90 degrees. (I have a couple of examples on my H/PC 2000 devices: Handmark Monopoly and Elastic Software Favorite Card Games.)

BTW, it doesn't look like the "dummy DLL" link in Hou Ming's site is working any more. Are these just the same DLLs available on cmonex' site, or did Hou Ming have any others along with them?

the only kind of app i'd use in this mode is tetris.

CE Geek, hou ming has a new aygshell and new REAL doclist, i'll host them soon. did the link really stop working?!

I can't tell for sure, because I couldn't get a full translation - but I tried what hyperlinked text I could find, and each one just seemed to lead to a new window rather than a "File Download" dialog. (Glad to hear that there are some more DLLs coming - are they ARM or MIPS [the latter I hope]?)

well, the link is: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Cupertino/2039/dummydll.zip and working

Okay, I see what happened. You gotta right-click the link and place it in the address box. Downloaded.

Now, the MIPS aygshell - 25k. Different from DIC's 25k aygshell, I presume.

i dunno, didnt check it yet. run a file compare test over them with totalcommander on the pc for example

edit: err, if the authors are different then of course the files will be different too.

Edited by cmonex 2006-08-16 9:25 AM

Yeah, I see now that the file sizes are a little different - this new aygshell by Hou Ming is actually 24.5k in size. One success story thus far - I used it in Xircuit XWorld on my NEC 790, and it replaced the partially working menubar with a fully functional one. (I've also made a copy with the OS changed to 2.11 using Executability Check to try out on my 2.11 devices - but I haven't had any successes with it there yet.)