Devloping a skinning application

Has this been considered before? A skinning application designed specifically for HPC? It sounds like a good idea...

A skinning application optimised for HPC would probably run better than a hacked PPC one (any of them), so advantage right there. We could also skin HPC specific items (such as the OK/X buttons on Windows) if possible.

PocketBlinds can skin HPC buttons and taskbars on CE3.0 (HPC2000), which means that skinning controls should be possible. Apparantly it intergrates directly with GWE, although i cant find anymore details.

We'd need/hope to skin:
- Taskbar + startmenu
- Buttons, checkboxs, radio buttons
- The X/OK buttons
- Icons (if possible)
- Windows (e.g. rounding) if possible

If it works a control panel to change skins would be a nice addition.

So, is anyone up to creating a proper HPC skinner? I'd like to but i'm not the best programmer, especially not for HPC.

Starting with the original Wisbar source would be an entrypoint.

With the hacks working so well, is there demand?

Is it available? That would be useful...


I'd have to say yes. Tricking PPC software to work works, but it doesnt skin everything, and tends to be more memory hogging than unoptimised software (for example. PB uses 1MB of memory when running via aygshell.dll on hpc, the modified version which runs from the HPC's ceshell uses 320KB.)

The original author, Walkers, on which all these applications are based, did open source it for a period of time. All these other applications sprung up from that distribution.

Performing a resource hack doesn't recompile the program to an "optimised" state.
As to skinning everything, I would urge you to do a little market research there. While it may be credible to do it on a HPC2000 device with better threadding optimisation & a higher process count, doing it on anything lower is going to start to hurt. I also don't see a huge amount of demand from the community for skins.

As I say, ask the community for their opinions
May be I can queue it for a FP poll.

Well, i've contacted Pocket Blinds enquiring about the source code to make a HPC version. The newsgroup hasnt been posted to since 2005 though, so i may not get a response.

You asked StarDock for source-code.
... good luck with that.

Not likley to get it i know, but worth a try. Theres bits of it on their newsgroup though, so you never know.

i'd like a skinning app that works on hpc2000 and ce.net 4.1&4.2

the current hacks aren't satisfying enough, i don't use them... for example i hate the way wisbar changed the tabs on the taskbar. well, actually it would look VERY cool, what i hate is that it doesn't work right, the active window doesn't have the tab on the taskbar (or something like that, i used it a long time ago)

oh and it is too sad that the start menu can't be skinned atm.

hmm, there was someone who made new cool XP looking buttons (OK, X, minimize, etc..). should we contact him...?

Edited by cmonex 2006-05-21 11:21 AM

That would be excellent. Any idea how it was done?

(the newsserver has bounced my request back by the way)

(edit: sorry what i quoted was about another project.)

and the thread on this:

http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=925&start=31

(check the next page too, there's code posted!)

and maybe: http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=1166&posts=10#M9552

It works, i agree, but looks like it would be very difficult to integrate into my current setup skin (using DLL intergration of PB). I've overcome the issue of not modifying there code, by not modifying it (using drop-path-dll's, and custom plugin skin-dlls to get a nice XP format for buttons and the taskbar).

Anyone able to make the sample code into an application that automatically changes every window, or is that very unlikely? Just the OK/Close buttons, not minimise/maximise.


Doesnt look like he's been online for a while though...

Edited by chazco 2006-05-21 12:20 PM

I'd say the biggest gripe is that the behaviour of the taskbar changes to a PPC 'collapsed' mode. Fix that and I'd be happy.

Shame about the news post.

Well, i'm just researching at the moment.

1) PB seems to extend replace the shell. It creates an entry in HKLM\init
2) PB can obviously skin controls as well as the taskbar. No idea which controls can be skinned
3) The window can be changed (thanks cmonex) using bitmaps

It all seems possible, but a little beyond me (i can just about manage a nice "hello world" application. anything else breaks ), still i'm still trying. Its a real shame PB isnt open-source, it would be a massive starting point. Alternativly, has anyone got the wisbar source which was given out. Its not available anymore (the authors site has gone).

why integrate it into your current setup? if it doesn't work that way we need to find another way, don't stick to something forever.

he was indeed very busy for a while, then last october i had a chance to talk to him. (resulting in having to hardreset my J680.. )
don't know what he's doing atm, but it's worth a try, or look at the source code he posted.


about PB. if you want to skin hpc2000, don't count on PB if you mean platform builder.
cenet devices can actually be skinned relatively easily by using PB (***), but hpc2000 can't, at least i don't see how.
yes HKLM/init is where the bsquare explorer shell replacement is registered for example


***: ...but i wouldn't fiddle with it



edit: wow i realize you mean pocketblinds? ok then...

Edited by cmonex 2006-05-21 1:01 PM

I had a look at his source, but like i said i cant find anyway to apply it to all Windows that start up. The PB method was replacing the shell, so this probably needs to be done.

The main reason i was sticking to PB was that the skin looks nice, but if it can be done well another way that would be just as good.

Edited by chazco 2006-05-21 1:02 PM