Win2X : Alternative Frontend

[chrisvcpp]

All we need now is for someone to make a new skin for the original front end to have the same style/colours as Win 2X. (So the videos page etc. don't look so odd)

I've just downloaded the Candy skin (from here: http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi?0,0,0,0,50,284 ), this colour scheme is almost identical to the Win2X blue one.
It's just a shame about the orange start up & shutdown screens. (Can these be changed?)

Cheers, Neil

I am searching on that Neil but no luck so far...The worst case could be the (orange)image files to be embedded in some of the filesystem boot
files(which I doubt)...Anyway nothing is impossible in electronics so we will eventually find a solution to that too...

 

[DaveC]

I haven't been following this too much lately but a few questions/suggestions.

Does this or could it support folders on the desktop and window with user changeable folder icon graphics for each one?

Can the window background color be changed by the user so they may select a more screen friendly color other than white?

And again could there be an option somewhere (even if in a text config file, don't need it in GUI) to set the size of the window for those of us that want to use more of the Wiz's screen (it is only 320 x 240 now so cutting it down even more makes it real tight).

Will there be a bootloader so you can select the launcher you want at startup by holding a hotkey on switch-on? This will also limit the dangerous re-flashing of the FW everytime there is a new version (less chance of bricking). This way you only have to flash once, all other times you just update the SD.

Thanks for the good work.

 

[fett42]

Can the window background color be changed by the user so they may select a more screen friendly color other than white?

If you open the "resources" folder there is a folder inside of it called "skin". Within that folder are the two choices for skin themes, "blue" and "gold". Open one of those folders and you can find all of the images used to make the skin/theme. You can easily change the background color of the various window images using a graphic editing program. I have considered making my own skins for Win2X, I just haven't gotten around to it yet as I have been too busy.

 

[DaveC]

Can the window background color be changed by the user so they may select a more screen friendly color other than white?

If you open the "resources" folder there is a folder inside of it called "skin". Within that folder are the two choices for skin themes, "blue" and "gold". Open one of those folders and you can find all of the images used to make the skin/theme. You can easily change the background color of the various window images using a graphic editing program. I have considered making my own skins for Win2X, I just haven't gotten around to it yet as I have been too busy.

Ok cool, one question down.

 

[NEIL L]

A shut down from the desktop would also be nice. (See here: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51368-howto-turn-off-the-wiz-in-software/page__pid__797353__st__0 )
Cheers, Neil

 

[chrisvcpp]

OK.I just now saw that...Thank Neil L!And thanks to Orkie for his implementation!Now we will finally have a shutdown command in Win2X!

DaveC...About the window size:I can't promise anything for now because I'm little short on time,but I will see to it in some of the next releases!
About the bootloader:It is already implemented(thanks to a previous post of yours).Version 1.2.0 now supports the "Recovery Screen" which includes 3
options:
1. Run Win2X
2. Run the original forntend
3. Uninstall Win2X (only works if you have installed Win2X)

To open the "Recovery Screen" just press and hold R while Win2X start-up.Hope this helps...

 

[TitanUranus]

chp - great news on the shutdown command, will you be implementing an option for "autoshutdown" if the Wiz hasn't been used for some time (for ewxample if there's no user input turn Wiz off after 5 minutes)? This would be really useful as I've been listening to old radio shows while trying to get to sleep, and if I do fall asleep the Wiz stays on till I wake up again! The GMU music player autoshutdown just exits out to Win2X, but if Win2X it's self could shut down that wouldn't be a problem.

Also, I found a small bug you might want to check out. In my emulators folder I have exactly enough icons to fill one page (and not more than one page) - for some reason if I navigate to the icon on the bottom right of the folder it automatically switches to a blank page which has no icons. Hope this helps you iron out another minor bug, I've been having great fun playing with the Wiz in the last few days. Nice to see you are still pressing on with the development of win2x, and it's also good to see so many other people taking such interest in it. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next version with it's shutdown feature!

 

[chrisvcpp]

chp - great news on the shutdown command, will you be implementing an option for "autoshutdown" if the Wiz hasn't been used for some time (for ewxample if there's no user input turn Wiz off after 5 minutes)? This would be really useful as I've been listening to old radio shows while trying to get to sleep, and if I do fall asleep the Wiz stays on till I wake up again! The GMU music player autoshutdown just exits out to Win2X, but if Win2X it's self could shut down that wouldn't be a problem.

Also, I found a small bug you might want to check out. In my emulators folder I have exactly enough icons to fill one page (and not more than one page) - for some reason if I navigate to the icon on the bottom right of the folder it automatically switches to a blank page which has no icons. Hope this helps you iron out another minor bug, I've been having great fun playing with the Wiz in the last few days. Nice to see you are still pressing on with the development of win2x, and it's also good to see so many other people taking such interest in it. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next version with it's shutdown feature!

Nice to hearing from you Titan!Yes,I have already implemented a normal shutdown function(by user demand) and now I am working on the auto-shutdown.
Also in the next version(which is almost complete) we will finally get rid of the ugly yellow shutdown screen!(But unfortunatelly not the start-up one).
I am aware of this little bug you mentioned and I will fix it...Thank you for your continuous support Titan!

 

[ejmd]

chp - great news on the shutdown command, will you be implementing an option for "autoshutdown" if the Wiz hasn't been used for some time (for ewxample if there's no user input turn Wiz off after 5 minutes)? This would be really useful as I've been listening to old radio shows while trying to get to sleep, and if I do fall asleep the Wiz stays on till I wake up again! The GMU music player autoshutdown just exits out to Win2X, but if Win2X it's self could shut down that wouldn't be a problem.

I use mine in the same way. An auto power-off function would be very handy.

 

[NEIL L]

I'm looking forward to the next release.
One thing I've noticed is if you try to put 2 links with the same .gpe name into one of the folders (eg. games), the first one will be deleted when you put the second one in (even if you've changed the link name of the first one), the .gpe's are in different folders in the game folder.
Cheers, Neil

 

[chrisvcpp]

I'm looking forward to the next release.
One thing I've noticed is if you try to put 2 links with the same .gpe name into one of the folders (eg. games), the first one will be deleted when you put the second one in (even if you've changed the link name of the first one), the .gpe's are in different folders in the game folder.
Cheers, Neil

Thanks Neil!It is almost done...
This is not a bug!It is supposed to do this because every executable is assumed to be unique...Do not worry though because in version 2.0 you will
have multiple user support in which every user can have different links,desktop,settings etc..

 

[NEIL L]

I'm looking forward to the next release.
One thing I've noticed is if you try to put 2 links with the same .gpe name into one of the folders (eg. games), the first one will be deleted when you put the second one in (even if you've changed the link name of the first one), the .gpe's are in different folders in the game folder.
Cheers, Neil

Thanks Neil!It is almost done...
This is not a bug!It is supposed to do this because every executable is assumed to be unique...Do not worry though because in version 2.0 you will
have multiple user support in which every user can have different links,desktop,settings etc..

Thanks for the quick reply, it's probably my fault as I've named all the programs (that I used the pollux set on) to pollux.gpe, I suppose the only way to fix this is to rename these files to all different names.
Cheers, Neil

 

[derdritte]

chp - great news on the shutdown command, will you be implementing an option for "autoshutdown" if the Wiz hasn't been used for some time (for ewxample if there's no user input turn Wiz off after 5 minutes)? This would be really useful as I've been listening to old radio shows while trying to get to sleep, and if I do fall asleep the Wiz stays on till I wake up again! The GMU music player autoshutdown just exits out to Win2X, but if Win2X it's self could shut down that wouldn't be a problem.

Also, I found a small bug you might want to check out. In my emulators folder I have exactly enough icons to fill one page (and not more than one page) - for some reason if I navigate to the icon on the bottom right of the folder it automatically switches to a blank page which has no icons. Hope this helps you iron out another minor bug, I've been having great fun playing with the Wiz in the last few days. Nice to see you are still pressing on with the development of win2x, and it's also good to see so many other people taking such interest in it. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the next version with it's shutdown feature!

Nice to hearing from you Titan!Yes,I have already implemented a normal shutdown function(by user demand) and now I am working on the auto-shutdown.
Also in the next version(which is almost complete) we will finally get rid of the ugly yellow shutdown screen!(But unfortunatelly not the start-up one).
I am aware of this little bug you mentioned and I will fix it...Thank you for your continuous support Titan!

Would it be at all possible that you compile that shutdown command in a tiny executable, because with GMU music player, there already is auto-shutdown, that simply doesn't work because there is no poper documentation on how to shut the wiz down. I would love to have a shutdown executable, just to be able to shutdown the wiz via a single command.

kkthxbai
derdritte

 

[Orkie]

there is no poper documentation on how to shut the wiz down

How do you think chp managed to shut the Wiz down? Might it have been... the documentation mentioned above?

 

[Pickle]

Is the win2x setting the clockspeed when its first run? I ran it from gmenu, which was clocked a low speed making the touchscreen unworkable. When I made a shortcut in gmenu and set the right clock the touchscreen works. This is on version 1.2

 

[chrisvcpp]

Is the win2x setting the clockspeed when its first run? I ran it from gmenu, which was clocked a low speed making the touchscreen unworkable. When I made a shortcut in gmenu and set the right clock the touchscreen works. This is on version 1.2

Yes,it sets the clock speed right on start-up.

 

[chrisvcpp]

Win2X version 2.0 is now released!Here what changes in this version:
> Implemented shutdown command
> Implemented auto-shutdown function
> Added Multiple user environment (PLEASE see the documentation on how the user environment works)
> Reconstructed GPH apps menu(now includes the LineDraw aswell)
> Added date/time selection(press A on the desktop or click on the taskbar time)
> Added desktop time format selection
> Fixed properties menu scroll
> Fixed text alignment
> Fixed explorer and category icons sorting(now it is alphabetically sorted without the CAPS bug)
> Added support for long .gpe file names
> Fixed category window scroll function
> Fixed a bug with the slideshow rotation(now recognizes alpha channel if exists)
> Fixed explorer files extension recognition(eg, my.file.gpe is now normally recognized as executable)
> Reconstructed system window and SideBar
To install just run "install.gpe".Your links will be preserved but not the desktop links...Hope you enjoy it!

 

[fett42]

Very nice update indeed. I like how the possibilities to customize the Wiz for our own personal use has grown even more. Even if it wasn't your intention, the logon and shut down images mean we can customize those features. I like the look of the ones you included though. However, if someone wants to make a new skin to give their Wiz a personal touch, logon and shut down skins to match would make it all the more complete.

 

[raindog]

Great work chp, a nice updated, many good features added, thank you very much.

Just one thing that i don´t understand, it is necesary to appears the user login everytime you close an application or game? It could be a bit annoying.

Thanks again and keep with you good work, oh and sorry for my bad english.

 

[chrisvcpp]

Great work chp, a nice updated, many good features added, thank you very much.

Just one thing that i don´t understand, it is necesary to appears the user login everytime you close an application or game? It could be a bit annoying.

Thanks again and keep with you good work, oh and sorry for my bad english.

You can enable the user auto-log feature under [System]>[Manage User Account].In that way the selected user will be automatically loaded on startup
without having to select it by yourself.