Home 2 Latest Build Information

From Pointui

Contents

2.1.06c

Released: 20 July 2009

  • [ADDED] Feature: Option to set size of LargeImagesFileMapThreshold, see http://community.pointui.com/topic/home-2-build-2104#post-22872
  • [ADDED] Customization: Show Script Errors option (default Off)
  • [FIXED] Update Folders icon information for Favourite Applications in the user XML when installing an upgrade
  • [ADDED] Consolidate builds so we distribute Pro that runs as Free until activated

2.1.04

Released: 16 June 2009

  • [FIXED] Bug: Screen jumps around a bit when coming back from other apps if have full screen on
  • [FIXED] Bug: Click-holding on button has it retaining focus
  • [FIXED] Bug: Keyboard showing when focus home from another app
  • [FIXED] Annoying: Click-hold interval too long
  • [FIXED (only on some devices)] Bug: SIM contacts not showing
  • [FIXED] Bug: Messaging list items not auto adjusting to orientation change in Pro
  • [POTENTIALLY FIXED (no feedback before release finalized)] Investigating if there is a simple solution to allow proxy server to be used for HttpFetch object

2.1.02

Released: 13 June 2009

Build 2.1

Released: 12 June 2009

The 2.1 release has once again included a lot of script updates, quite a few bug fixes, and some key improvements in battery life and reduced memory usage.

Changes, Fixes, Enhancements

Pro Specific Changes

Scripting Changes

Changes related to scripting are detailed below:

New Classes

New Methods

Important Bug Fixes

  • Clipping wasn’t being applied correctly on some horizontal repeating images
  • Fixed some of the String operators that didn’t correctly handle implicit data type conversion
  • Fixed a number of bugs that prevented nested using statements to be used correctly
  • Application.SetBackground() can now be called successfully from an Applet (Pro only)
  • Fixed a number of bugs that were causing problems using pointers
  • Fixed bug where am/pm times were not parsed correctly
  • Fixed layout issue where SetBounds was not correctly accounting for parent offsets
  • Fixed bug that prevented GDI fonts from being properly defined in a theme xml file
  • Fixed a number of bugs that caused Home to crash with float objects

Improvements

  • Probably the best improvement (and something I wish we had have got built in earlier) is the displaying of script errors within Home - it doesn't map it back to line numbers and tell you how to fix it (although that would be nice) but it at least informs you of a problem and gives a call stack so you firstly know there is a problem, and at least know the general area to go and fix it
  • Improved script runtime execution speed
  • Big increase in performance with 'using' statement – there is no excuse now for not having tidy organized code in separate cs files
  • Fixed some bugs that prevented multiple level of inheritance from working
  • Script code for core application functionality is now available in the Common folder (Pro only)
  • Script files can be placed in the Common folder to be shared by all applets
  • By adding the Task and Appointment objects it not only allows creating and editing of those items but also provides an efficient way to look up an individual item using the Set method
  • Added support for launching ams:// and mms:// urls with Process.Start

Build 2.0.30b

Released: Some time ago now

This release provides some powerful scripting enhancements to allow more complex applets to be developed. It also introduces support for Variable Sized applets that can resize themselves to make use of the extra space on widescreen devices.

Variable Sized Applets

Applet devs, please see this: http://community.pointui.com/topic/support-added-for-variable-sized-applets

Unicode Support

This will be the first release to provide support for unicode languages such as Russian. There may be a few issues with particular languages, so let us know if you encounter any problems.

Themes: Horizontal Signal and Battery Indicators

Home will now detect if the images used for the battery and signal indicators on the soft keys are wider than they are high - and if so will place them horizontally. This allows for theme creators to design themes looking like the "screenshots", I mean Photoshop mockups of WM7 - with the battery and signal bars at the bottom of the soft keys.

Scripting: Support for Pointers

As applet devs start building more complex applets, the need to make use of better organized code has resulted in custom classes being created. However, until now the scripting engine has been limited in how it can work with these classes. So, the support for pointers has been added to allow references to other objects. This allows custom objects to be passed around between methods and between objects. See http://docs.pointui.com/Pointer

Scripting: Gps Class (Pro only)

We have provided access to the GPS with a new Gps class. At present you can get basic information such as Longitude, Latitude, Speed, Heading, and Altitude, as well as handle a changed event to be notified when new location details are available. In the future we will extend this functionality, but there is enough there now for applet developers to begin integrating some GPS functionality.

Scripting: DateTime Class Improvements

For details on the new features please see: http://community.pointui.com/topic/date-and-string-functions

Scripting: 'null' Support

Support has been added for the 'null' keyword, but will not be fully usable until future enhancements are made to add default assignment operators.

Scripting: File Class Improvements

The following has been added: File.Copy(), File.Move(). See http://docs.pointui.com/File



Build 2.0.28e

Released: 20 Mar 2009

This release is primarily a bug fix for hardware key related problems introduced with 2.0.28b. The following changes have been made:

  • Hardware keys working properly (except dodgy X1 soft keys - they are coming through as random app keys not normal soft keys so we have reported this to Sony, but it looks like we will need to build in a work around specifically for the X1 devices)
  • Volume keys working properly even in full screen mode
  • Favorites folder got from system so it works for non-english roms
  • Added into font rendering to pick white/black shadow based on text color
  • Fixed OK button - well, just no longer handle it in Home - apparently only one thing can control it and it was stopping normal behavior outside of Home
  • Customize option for position of buttons on home screen
  • Customize option for notification icon

Build 2.0.28b

Released: 16 Mar 2009

The following changes have been made since the last public release:

Home Screen Changes

Just so you know, we have seen the many posts from users upset that Home isn't making optimal use of widescreen device screen real-estate. We are making changes to fix that, and this release includes a key change to the Applet Indicator bar. It has now been reduced to a single button instead of taking an entire row, and it has moved to the top above the applets. A new Home Screen Title control has been added which can be configured to show the date or time, and is also used to report certain statuses such as "Emergency Calls Only" that we are required to in order to comply with regulations in certain countries.

Applet creators: A new method is now available on the Applet class called SetTitleMode. This allows you to specify for your applet if you would prefer it display the time or date (only options at this stage). For instance, a Clock applet would choose to display the date in the title area as there is no need to repeat the time.

Other changes have been made to allow much greater customization of the home screen (see below), but they are reserved for the Pro version.

Counts/Time not Updating Bug

This has been fixed for WM6 devices. Well, we think it has been - we were able to replicate it if the Lock feature was enabled on the device that required a 4 digit pin to be entered. When that Lock app runs it stopped Home from setting up the registry notifications required to get updates for the time and counts etc.

Support for Bookmarks

You will notice that the right soft key on the home screen is no longer "Contacts" - it is "Bookmarks" which displays a screen allowing you to browse and launch your favorite bookmarks. If you are wondering, the Contacts screen (listing all available contacts is now part of the Call History screen as a soft key or you can just drag left/right to swap between them).

Contacts Filtering

You can now quickly filter your contact list by typing with your hardware keyboard.

Multi-Screen Flows

If you have done some scripting with Home, then you may have wondered why there is a FlowStack as opposed to a ScreenStack. This is because our underlying framework that the scripting is built on actually supports multi-screen flows - instead of branching to a single screen you can branch to a flow that contains multiple screens. This is now supported in script with a new Flow class and an overloaded FlowStack.Branch() method, and the Screen.NextScreen() and Screen.PrevScreen() methods. Flows with more than one screen can be swiped horizontally to move between each screen on the flow, or you can hook up buttons / soft keys to call Screen.NextScreen/Screen.PrevScreen. Currently the only use within Home is on the Call History / Contacts screens - they are both on a single flow now which is why they can be swiped between.

HTC G-Sensor Support (Pro only)

We have added support in for the HTC g-sensor - options in the Customize screen which allow Home to auto rotate the screen, or auto lock when the device is put face down.

Full Screen Support

Home can now work full screen which may appeal to some users. This is configurable in the Customize screen. Please note, this is not related to modifying the task bar.

Battery Saving Improvements

We did a fair amount of testing to see if there were ways to improve battery life, and we found a number of bugs where Home was not behaving as expected - particularly when in the background. These have been fixed and on some devices may provide noticeably improved battery life.

Support for Notifications

Notifications such as alarms, missed calls etc - the ones that typically have bubbles associated can now be accessed from Home. An alert icon will be displayed over the top of the Pointui logo in the center of the bottom menu bar if you have one or more notifications present. When you click the notification it will display the first available notification, and if you have multiple notifications then you can dismiss each one, return to home, and the alert icon will remain until all notifications have been dismissed.

Theme creators: a new image is now expected in the theme called "Soft.Key.NotificationAlert.jif".

Support for Alternative Task/Appointment/Contact Applications

Home will now automatically try and work with alternative applications that have been specified in the registry rather than always loading the default OS application. Previous modifications to applets that required Process.Start() to be used to launch alternative applications may no longer be necessary as the standard DisplayApp() methods will probably work as expected now.

HttpFetch Updates

There have been a lot of issues relating to the http object and as a result we have rewritten a large part of our tcp/http libraries which has fixed a number of bugs that would cause Home to crash, especially when concurrent connections were started. This was also a great opportunity to extend the capabilities of the HttpFetch object.

The extensions are primarily related to giving much greater control over http requests which will allow communication with more complex web sites/services.

HttpRequest Class

A new HttpRequest class is now available which allows you to completely control the request that is sent by the HttpFetch object. This includes providing binary content in the request using a ByteArray object.

HTTP Headers

You can now add custom HTTP headers using the AddHeader and AddBasicAuthHeader methods.

Basic Authentication Support

With the ability to add custom http headers, and the addition of the Cryptography class, Basic Authentication is now possible.

Reading the Response Code

It's now possible to find out what the server response code was using GetResponseStatusCode.

Additional Events

Three new events are now available on the HttpFetch object:

Downloading Binary Resources such as Images

To simplify the handling of binary downloads such as images a new method SaveResponseToFile is now available which will directly save the binary response from the server to a file.

Cryptography Class

This class provides only some basic methods at the moment but may be extended in the future as required. Encoding related methods will go here to like ToBase64 until there is sufficient to categorize them into their own class.

Net Class

New methods are now available in the Net class:

Please note that these methods have only been tested with the devices we have available, so if you have any issues with them on your device please let us know.

Changing Label Text Color

It's now possible to specify the text color of Label controls using SetColor.

Battery Status Force Refresh

If you need to get the absolutely latest battery information you can now specify an optional force parameter on the Refresh method.

Creating Shortcuts

It's possible to create a shortcut with script now using CreateShortcut.

Miscellaneous Changes

Additional Customization Hooks (Pro Version Only)

The ability to customize the Home screen to a much greater degree than is currently possible was made available by means of hooks into some key events. More information is available here.

Build 2.0.18b

Released: 22nd Feb 2009

Fixes

  • List Scrolling Behaviour
  • Battery Consumption - Today/World Applet

Customisation

  • Auto Size Background
  • Auto Dial Voicemail
  • Change Voicemail Number

Build 2.0.16b

Released: 18th Feb 2009

Fixes

  • Omnia - various

Customisation

  • Call History: Show All/Recent Calls Only
  • Show SIM Contacts added


Build 2.0.14b

Released: 11th Feb 2009

First publicly available release of Home 2.

Retrieved from "http://docs.pointui.com/Home_2_Latest_Build_Information"