GDesk by Gary Leach (garymleach@hotmail.com)

http://gdesk.wetpaint.com/

Note: GDesk is beta software – this is not considered to be bug free!

GDesk is a customizable and extendable desktop system.

Icons can be placed on the desktop representing applications, page links and plug-ins; these can then be launched by tapping them.

Plug-ins can be added at any time and as required; further plug-in functionality will be provided over time.

Comments, questions and suggestions are welcome; however, this software is written and maintained in my spare time so response is not guaranteed.

Disclaimer

By using this software you are indicating your acceptance of the following terms:

Use of GDesk is at your own risk.  The author is not responsible for any type of loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by the use of this software.

This software can expose system applications which might be dangerous to your phone and data.

This software is copyright Gary Leach.

Credit where credit’s due!

Thanks to Olicf for the application icons + more

Thanks to Z. for undertaking the PC based theme editor.

Thanks to everyone who has donated – it’s all really appreciated!

Thanks to everyone who has added to the Wiki.

And thanks to everyone for the constant supply of ideas and bug reports – these are making this product the best it can be!

GDesk can be used in flip-closed or flip-open mode (where applicable), using pen (in Flip Open) or keypad/keyboard.

Clicking the X icon on the left of the screen closes GDesk completely.

Menus are activated by tapping an empty area of desktop or pressing the right soft-key.

Icon menus are activated by clicking and dragging a short distance (flicking), or pressing # on the keypad.

Icons are activated by clicking with the stylus or using the select button inside the four-way control.

Icons can be selected by clicking, or using the four-way control or jog-dial.

In design mode they can be positioned by dragging or using the numeric keypad.

The safe mode choice menu is automatically activated when the program did not shut down correctly during the previous session.

There are two choices; either run safe mode or run as normal.

Safe mode takes you to a clean desktop from which you can bring up a menu with just three options:

1) Leave safe mode – attempts to return to normal operation

2) Delete desktop – retains the clean desktop and returns to normal operation

3) Save design – saves the design – useful for sending crashing designs to the author, or for attempting a reload after delete.

If you get repeated crashes then you could try e-mailing your desktop theme to the author – garymleach@hotmail.com - (see Save design) - remember to include details about your phone, which mode crashes (flip-open or closed, if you have those) and anything else you feel might be relevant.

The main options menu (accessed by tapping an empty area of the desktop) has the following options:

1) Run Main

This runs the normal main screen.

2) Run

This brings up a menu of applications; tapping one of these immediately launches it.

3) Options

This leads to a further set of choices:

a) Replace main – this makes the application a system application (which means the OS won’t close it down when memory is tight), and also replaces the main screen.  Note that this is specified separately for flip-open and flip-closed mode.

b) Flick launch – this toggles between tap-to-activate and flick-to-activate modes.  In flick mode, icons are activated by dragging a short distance from the icon in any direction.  The icon highlight changes colour when the flick is ready, and changes back if the drag movement goes on past a certain distance, indicating that the flick is cancelled.

c) List system apps – this determines whether application list menus should show system applications.  These might be dangerous and caution should be used in order to avoid losing data or damaging your phone.

4) Design

This switches to design mode (see Designing a desktop)

5) Help

Brings up this help

6) Quit

Quits GDesk

To start designing a desktop tap the background to bring up the main menu, and tap Design.

The title bar will go blue to indicate that design mode is active.

In this mode application and other icons can be added, moved and deleted; various colours can be set and a background image can be chosen.

Tapping the background brings up the design menu (see The Design menu)

Tapping on an icon brings up a menu of options specific to that item.

For standard application icons the options are:

1) Delete – deletes the icon from the desktop

2) Replace with app – replaces the icon with another application

3) Replace with other – replaces the icon with something else

4) Small/Medium/Large icon – chooses between three icon sizes for this icon

Custom Icons

Icons (and GUI elements) can now be replaced with custom icons.

Custom icons come in two parts, the icon itself and a mask.

The mask should be the same size as the icon and represents how ‘transparent’ the icon should be at each point.  A white pixel means completely opaque, black means completely transparent.  Grey values give a blend of original and icon pixel values (semi-transparent)

Be careful not to use icons that are too big – they’ll fill the screen and make it hard to see anything!

This menu gives the following choices:

1) Set Desktop

A further set of options:

a) Background options – Max fit image (fit image to leave no borders) and No fit image (don’t rescale the image – note that this will use more memory than other modes)

b) Set Colour – this brings up a colour picker to determine the background colour

c) Set Image – this brings up an image selector; choose an image to use on the desktop background

d) Remove Image – removes the image from the background

e) Set Highlight RGB – sets the colour that will be used to highlight an icon

f) Set Drag RGB – sets the colour that will be used when highlighting an icon that is being moved or activated

2) GUI

A further set of options:

a) Button – set the icon and mask for buttons (see Custom Icons in Designing a desktop)

b) Selected Button – set the icon and mask for selected buttons

c) Dialog – … for dialog backgrounds

d) Menu – … for menu backgrounds

e) Menu Select – … for menu selection

f) Menu Scrollbar – … for menu scrollbar

g) Menu Thumb – … for thumb (slider) on menu scrollbars

h) Menu Sel. Thumb – for selected thumb

i) Menu text – set the colour of menu text

j) Menu Select text – set the colour of the selected menu item text

k) Menu Grey text – set the colour of disabled menu item text

3) Refresh Icons

Reloads and caches all icons

4) Page

This presents a sub-menu allowing pages to be selected, created and deleted.

Page links can then be added to switch between pages (see Add Other, below)

The current page is shown with a tick.

5) Set default page

Set the default page used when returning to GDesk – can be a specified page or ‘last page’ – the last page in use before leaving GDesk

6) Add App

This brings up a list of applications.  Selecting one drops an icon representing that application onto the desktop.

7) Add Other

This brings up a list of installed GDesk plug-ins.  In addition it has the option to create a page link.  Page links can only be used when more than one page has been created (see Page above)

8) Use Grid

This shows the icon grid and snaps icon movements to it.

9) Align to Grid

This aligns all icons to the grid.

10) Set Jog Order

When selected each icon displays a small number in the bottom right.

These numbers can be changed by pressing 2/8 on the numeric keypad (Z/C on the keyboard).

Pressing 5 (X) toggles between blue and red.

These numbers are used to define the order of icon selection using the jog dial.

Red numbers are never selected; this can be useful with icons that have a key shortcut.

Note: If you find all of the numbers show 0 then move the jog dial once to initialise to default values.

11) Delete Desktop

This clears all icons and deletes all pages, reverting to the default, blank, desktop.

Make sure you save before deleting!

12) Load Design

This loads a desktop from a previously saved desktop file, including designs supplied by other parties.

This will overwrite the current desktop so save before doing this.

13) Save Design

Saves the current desktop state to a selected file.

This can be restored later, or sent to another GDesk user.

14) Export App List

Export a list of applications and their Id values for importing into the PC based theme editor

15) Done

Returns to normal mode, ending the design.

History

V0.20 – 14^th October 2007

Prepared the way for multi-lingual version – this will involve uninstalling old version before installing 0.20.

Added new Shortcuts plug-in – set up shortcuts to call/sms/mms/e-mail contact, or create new agenda item.  Won’t show contact icon or show detailed information in the title bar, but you can override the icon.

AgnView – days to show added

AgnView – now shows incomplete tasks from the past

Fixed soft-key tap

Fixed an icon caching bug

Fixed icon copy/move bug

Fixed control panel – time & date launch bug

Fixed control panel – uninstall (thanks Lisa@CPS)

Other small bug fixes

V0.15 – 5^th October 2007

Big change – icon masks (alpha channels) now read – no need to specify a separate mask!

Fixed taskMan on remote page bug

Fixed background quality bug

Fixed jog order display on custom icons

Fixed a crash in Save Desktop

Fixed a crash and an icon export issue

Delete desktop confirmation added
Moved the AgnView start time to midnight+1 second to (hopefully) fix the all day event bug
Added 'Copy to page' in addition to 'Move to page' on request and made both copy bitmaps over
Check for jog-dial order consistency on desktop load

V0.14 – 30^th September 2007

Shortcut jog press and 4-way fire now only activate when no icon is highlighted

Fixed shortcut to TaskMan bug

Added the option of making a shortcut ‘cross-page’ – i.e. the key press works from any page

Added info message when launching app using key press

Sorted items in ‘page as menu’ alphabetically

Added small block to show which icons have shortcut keys (blue box) and which have cross-page shortcut keys (red box)

Added option to AgnView and Clock to turn off text outline

Added move icon to other page feature

Added new InfoView plug-in – first version just shows free memory

Big new feature: icons can be replaced with custom images

Big new feature: GUI elements (menu background etc.) can be replaced with custom images

V0.13 – 20^th September 2007

Now returns to the correct page

Invalid app selection no longer leads to endless error messages

Plug-in shortcuts now work

Jog dial order setting added (see Design Menu)

AgnView – ‘days to’ now rounded up instead of down

AgnView – fixed maximum number of entries bug

V0.12 – 18^th September 2007

Page as menu

Fixed ‘remove background’ bug

Added control panel items (IR,Bluetooth,WLAN,Uninstall)

New Application icons, thanks to Olicf

New theme added to main package, thanks to Olicf

Option to switch off close button

Assign FO Menu and left/right nav keys

Customise left softkey (flip closed)

Shortcut keys disabled when controlling dialogs/menus

Numpad phone launch disabled if numpad key is assigned

Unassign key fixed

More memory leaks fixes / footprint reductions

Added AgnView option - 'show incomplete todos' – not sure it works!

Added AgnView option - 'show all repeats'

V0.11 – 13^th September 2007

Added default page selection

Fixed jog operation bug

Split ‘override main’ for flip open/closed

Added ‘assign key’ to page link

Fixed ‘space bar craziness’ bug

Removed title bar but kept self-glorification message

Reduced memory footprint by over 400kb

Fixed a couple of crash bugs

Made safe mode -really- safe

Added ‘max fit’ and ‘no fit’ options for image conversion

Widened sub-menus

Removed desktop reload on re-activation

AgnView: Added time column

AgnView: Made column widths more constant

V0.10 – 9^th September 2007

First beta release