Ken’s Today Screen Version: 1.1
Ken’s Today Screen is a Today Screen Replacement for Windows Mobile Phones. I wrote it in C# using the Compact Framework. In this project I implemented a few firsts for me, including finger gestures and animation. I’m very happy with the outcome. I also spent many hours on the Graphic Design of all of the icons and buttons. (Graphic Design ain’t my thing!) This program is far better than the original Today Screen in terms of ease of use. I can now quickly get to the things I use most often.
List of Features:
Home Screen
The Home Screen shows the programs you use most often. These programs can be changed easily by right clicking on the program and selecting “Choose New Program.”
Contact Screen
The Contact Screen shows your favorite contacts. You can call them by just touching their picture. The contacts can be changed by right clicking on them and selecting “Delete.” Then touch the plus to select a new favorite contact.
Choose Your Own Color (New)
The background color can be any color you like. Change the color by going to the Settings Screen, and either get a random color by touching “Random Color,” or choose your own color by touching “Choose Color.”
Notifications
The top notification bar shows all of the notifications you are already used to, plus a couple extra.
You will see:
- Battery Strength
- Signal Strength
- Connection type (3G, Edge, or WiFi)
- Missed Calls
- Voice Mail
- Text Messages
- Emails
- Bluetooth Connection
Shows Now Playing
When music is being played, the current song, artist, and album, scrolls across the screen.
Missed Calls (New)
When you miss a call from one or more of your favorite friends, their picture is outlined and a small notification let’s you know that you missed their call.
Finger Gestures
Ken’s Today Screen was designed to be used without a stylus. You can touch the tabs to change between the screens, or you can drag your finger across the screen to change tabs. Also dragging your finger up and down on the Contacts page, will reveal extra rows of Contacts.
Other Features
There are other features to be found on the Settings Screen.
You can:
- Have the Speaker Phone turn on when calling a contact
- Turn on and off One Touch Calling (New)
- Have the background color change every minute (New)
- Change if pushing the time locks the phone or opens the clock
- Change the Animation Speed (New)
- Change what opens when clicking the Battery notification icon (New)
- Change what happens when clicking the “Signal Strength” and “Connection Type” notification icons (New)
Requirements:
- Windows Mobile 5.0 or better Touch Screen Phone.
- Microsoft Compact Framework 3.5. Get it here
- Touch Screen size 320×240 or better
How to Install:
Be sure to first install Microsoft’s Compact Framework Version 3.5 if you don’t already have it on your phone. This can be found here.
- Copy the file “KensTodayScreenInstall.CAB” to your phone.
- Open “KensTodayScreenInstall.CAB” in File Explorer.
- Follow the instructions to install the program.
Setting up Ken’s Today Screen
Feedback
Let me know what you guys think in the comments bellow. Also comment telling me what phone you have, so I can compile a list of compatible phones. Thanks!
Download and Donate
Please consider donating if you enjoy this program. It took me MANY hours of work to write this program, and a donation will encourage me to continue writing Windows Mobile programs… Check out some of my other programs here.
Thanks!
Downloaded a total of 1372 times
37 Comments
I get a file not found error when I try and download.
I tested downloading on Firefox 3, IE7, Opera Mobile, Pocket IE, and Skyfire. Pocket IE and Skyfire did not work. So if you had tried downloading it from IE on your phone it could be why it didn’t work. I’ll see if I can get it to download from there, but in the mean time, try downloading it to your computer first, and then moving the files over to your phone.
Yeah downloading from my device didn’t work, but from my computer worked fine. Thanks for the wonderful Today Screen. I’ve been playing with it, and most of it works perfectly. I get a few errors when I try and click on some of the icons in the notification bar, and when I click on my contacts button on the home screen. I was able to change the program that the button pointed to, and that got my contacts to work, but it still popped up the “error in run” message. Other than that it’s a wonderful piece of work. Great job on it! I can’t wait to see what else you do with it.
Hi Kevin,
I’m glad your enjoying the program.
To fix the error in run message for the icons in the notification bar, try following the instructions here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbBSmhmag10#t=2m50s. Try changing the Wireless Manager in the More Settings page to Option #2.
Ken,
I just installed this on my HTC Fuze and the icons are all very small, have you seen this yet? If you are interested I might be able to help, I do a lot of .net development, but not much mobile, I could probably pick it up fairly quick though. Could be because the screen is 640 x 480 on this device too?
Hi Ryan,
I have not seen that yet. You are probably right that the error would be because of your larger screen size. I already have an idea on how to fix that, by making the icon’s size proportional to the size of the screen. Would you mind taking a screen shot or taking a picture of it somehow and emailing it to me? My email is: kenneth(at)KennethBrandon.com. I’ll try and get that fixed in the next version.
Thanks,
Kenneth
Tried to download but got 404 error. 1/3/09
Finally got around to fixing the downloading error…
It should work now.
Great utility. I love it and it works great on my tilt. However, I still get the “Error in RUn” error when I do contacts. I did the fix to change the link to contacts, and contacts still opens, but the error still pops up. ANy Ideas?
Thanks Trevor,
I have seen that bug, the reason I didn’t catch it in the first place is because I use a program called iContact for my contacts. It works much better than the original contact program. Using this program fixes the “Error in Run” because it is a totally new program. Check iContact out here:
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-icontact-v0-5.html
Is there anyway to completely remove the Today screen? I see that this runs as an application in front of the Today screen.
This app runs on top the normal Today Screen. I couldn’t get it to take over the Today Screen. I searched, but if anyone sees an article on how to run an application to take over the today screen in .Net, let me know.
I’d like to use your program, I think it is really good judging on the things I read and see on your site.
But when I try to download I get a 404 error, both with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 (even in compatible mode).
Can you please help me? I’d like to try it
The problem is fixed Ronald. The reason it didn’t work was an apostrophe in the file name. I renamed the file and it should work now.
Fantastic! You are fast!
Download went fine, installing right away.
Hi
Just installed your programme on my T-Mobile MDA Vario 111 – I’m really impressed. Just one bug to report.
I changed the contact button to locate the contacts and it works fine. When you close contacts it still leaves ‘error in run’ which you have to close.
Apart from that brilliant
Ken – very cool stuff. I’m working on an Windows Mobile app that also need partial screen animation, but using CF 2.0 only. Any thoughts on how best to achieve that would be appreciated.
Howdy Andy,
The way I implemented my animation was pretty simple. Here’s the basic idea:
1. I placed what I wanted to move on a panel.
2. When I wanted to start the Animation, I had a main Animation loop.
3. In the loop, I update the position of my panel depending on the elapsed time, how far I wanted to move, and how quickly I wanted to move.
So if I wanted to move something across the width of the screen, the loop would look something like this:
while(TimeHasn’tElapsed)
{
panel.Location = new Point(screenWidth * (TimeElapsed/TimeToFinish), panel.Location.Y);
}
screenWidth*(TimeElapsed/TimeToFinish) Gives me the x position the panel should be at right at that moment. So if it had been .5 seconds, and we wanted to finish in 1 second, the x position would be half the screen width.
This works fine when moving things up or down, but if you are doing things like zooming, rotating, or speeding up, this method wouldn’t work.
A few other notes:
You might need to throw a panel.Refresh() in the loop so it updates the screen. Also when dealing with Time Elapsed, you might use System.Environment.TickCount instead of DateTime.Now() . DateTime.Now() is only updated every second. Where as TickCount is updated every Millisecond.
Good luck!
Thanks Ken. Panel “sliding” is exactly where I’m headed. Thanks for the confirmation.
Minor, but on the settings screen, your button for the Animation speed is misspelled. It says Defualt
Hmm…did I get misspelled spelled incorrectly?
Yes Melvin you are correct the spelling is incorrect. I was wondering if anyone had noticed. =)
hi there i just watched your youtube video and i download the today screen on my samsungi780 but i believe because the freaky resolution on my device don’t work properly maybe you can fix it so i can be one of the countless satisfied form your great screen
What resolution is the samsung i780?
Looks awesome, but doesn’t look right on my Palm Treo Pro that has a 320×320 128 dpi resolution. Bums me out because looks like a nice today screen.
I’m trying to install the .net framework 3.5 but my Samsung Saga only seems to want to install .cab files, .msi files won’t run?
Ok, I figured out the MSI thing with Windows Mobile 6.1. You connect your device to ActiveSync and launch the MSI on your PC. The installer is smart enough to know that it needs to use Active Sync to install the program to your device.
Now for a question, is there any way to get this thing to run on a device like the Saga? The Saga has the full keyboard and a smaller screen so the interface doesn’t fit. If there were a way to disable the clock it might fit on the screen. Awesome program though, keep up the great work!
YOU ARE THE MAN!!! I have been looking for and app like this for almost a year now. I think this is the best app by far and I look forward to future releases.
I tried this on a palm tree pro with a 320×320 screen. It does install and run, but some of the icons are smaller than the holes they fit in. Also on the settings page I can only see the first two check boxes. If there were a scroll slider on the right I could probably get to the other settings as I can use the directional key to get to them. I just can’t see which one I am clicking on. If the resolution could be adjusted this would be a great app for the palm pro.
Great app, but same problem on my HTC Touch Pro with the small icons
screenshot of what I see.
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o83/kwanti/P1180942.jpg
Hey Kenneth,
Looks like a great little program but I am having the same problem that Steven is having above! Any thoughts?!
Thanks!
Hi Kenneth,
I love your work. Your program looks absolutely great in the videos.
Sadly I also got a VGA solution on my phone (HTC Touch Diamond) and the icons are really small.
Do you plan to fix that? I hope so, because I’d love to use this great Today Screen replacement.
As I’m a C# coder, I could offer my help fixing the issue
Greetings,
Bastian
I just tried this on an HTC HD2 (big screen), and I’ve got the “little icon” problem, too. Everything seems to function all right, but the icon problem make it pretty unusable.
where download it??
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