Single key search – Search like Contact

Ever wondered how contact application searches using all the character mapping of a key?When you press the “2″ key it matches all the contacts 

with ‘a’,'b’ and ‘c’. If you want to have the same kind of functionality in your application then the magic lies in the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESecurityPhonePhoneKeyMatch
 ”KeyboardMappings” = REG_SZ

This has the mappings for all the keys and there corresponding character values.

Windows Mobile 7?

Came across this article on Windows Mobile 7. This speaks about the various features of Windows Mobile 7 – like gesture and motion recognition, better visual effects like transition etc.

Though this is not an official announcement and might not be 100% accurate.But if even 70% of it is true, it would be an exiting time ahead, and might give iPhone a serious run for its money .Check the following link for the article:

http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2008/01/06/exclusive-windows-mobile-7-to-focus-on-touch-and-motion-gestures/

Windows Mobile 6.1

Next Version of Windows Mobile 6 , that is Windows Mobile 6.1 should be hitting the market in first quarter 2008.It would have enhancements over winmo 6.

It would have message threading so that you can view all the message in its context (Ala Palm Treo).

Home screen has been redesigned, a new application called Task manager (like Desktop Taskmanager) would be a part of it

it supports bluetooth DUN

support for vCard Version 3.0,photo sharing through bluetooth

while roaming when user wants to make a call a message would be shown to notify him that he is on roaming

it include communicator mobile

better integration of 3GPP codecs with Windows Media Player

Nokia – Windows Live on S 60 devices

Nokia would be offering Windows live on there series 60 devices.Check out the following link:

http://europe.nokia.com/A4491268

Interesting , isn’t it.Guess the entry of Apple and rumoured entry of google has revitalized the market.Am sure we would be hearing more and more interesting news in the Mobile space…:-)

If you remember then Nokia has also licensed DRM and the push email from Microsoft.Whats next a Nokia Windows Mobile device..:-)

Display notification baloon at top

When trying to display notification ballon you must have observed that they are displayed at the bottom of the screen.Whereas applications like volume control,clock display it at the top of the screen.This is much more intutive and user freindly, especially in the scenario when you are displaying it in response to user clicking at your icon. You can also do the same :

In the SHNOTIFICATIONDATA structure give the following value to the clsid member:

{ 0×99de7411, 0×772f, 0×43d0, { 0×81, 0xf0, 0×66, 0×83, 0×36, 0xca,
0×65, 0×1b } }

Status Bar Background color

Crating status bar windows is easy enough, you just need to use CreateStatusWindow function and you won’t forget to set WS_VISIBLE and WS_CHILD flag, would you?

When you are trying to set the background color of the status bar it’s easy again, if its simple, you just need to send SB_SETBKCOLOR message to status part. But the fun starts when you have set parts in your status bar. In this case parts would have the default color,so it would look as if border color has been setup.

To solve this issue you would need handle WM_DRAWITEM message in your WndProc. The lParam in this case is a pointer to LPDRAWITEMSTRUCT.

Eg.: code inside WM_DRAWITEM

LPDRAWITEMSTRUCT lpDrawStruct;

HBRUSH hBrush;

lpdis= (LPDRAWITEMSTRUCT) lParam;

hBrush=CreateSolidBrush(RGB(255,0,0));

FillRect(lpDrawStruct->hDC, &lpDrawStruct->rcItem, hBrush);

Case of the Runaway Menu

Recently I was trying to extend the menu of the Phone context in windows mobile 6 device.We hit a strange problem.As long as we were inserting Menu it was fine,but when we tried to insert Sub menu, all the main menu items were automatically inserted in the Submenu. E.g. If main Menu has a menu item “Create Note” the same menu item would reappear in the submenu. And what was really weird was that when you click on that it would launch the Note application. After lot of head scratching we couldn’t solve it. We later came to know that it is a bug and has been solved in Windows Mobile 6 AKU 0.3.

So guys if you hit this issue, please don’t scratch your head

Mobile phone with a Projector

Now this is what I call a kooooooool idea.Imagine your mobile phone doubling as a projector.Suddenly the phone can realy become an entertainment device.Have a movie you want to share, just show it.You are a sales professional and you want to share some presetation with a client,no problem just shoot it at the nearest wall.Microvision recently announced that they have signed an agreement with Motorola to develop laser based Pico projector solution for Mobile devices.

Ofcourse there would be loads of challenges on the way,one would be fitting the projector in to a mobile phone and somehow still manage to keep the size as small as possible. Second is ofcourse the achiles heal of mobile device,power;it wouldnt help if the projector devours the battery power in an hour. But if they manage to do that then I am sure they have Winner on there hand.I hope they succeed..:-).For the result would lead to realy exiting applications.

Windows Mobile Security – Whitepaper

Came across these interesting links for white-papers on Security on Windows Mobile.

1.Security considerations for Windows Mobile Messaging in the Enterprise: This white-paper covers the security consideration on the device,Security considerations within the corporate network and Security considerations on the network.

2.Security Model for Windows Mobile 5 and Windows Mobile 6: This white-paper deals with provisioning and managing windows mobile 5/6 device.

Channel 9: Big Book of BSP

Came across this interesting link today. Channel 9 guys have created a wiki for the Wince base port development. I am sure this would be welcomed whole heartedly by whole lot of BSP developers,since there are only a couple of books that I know of of Windows Ce BSP development,and they are quite old.

This should be fun to follow,here is the link:

Big Book of BSP