Windwos Embedded Compact 7

Direct Insight was recently involved in running a Windows Embedded Compact 7 event at the UK Microsoft Campus. From which an article has been written including information and quotes from me and colleagues.

You can find the article here at http://www.mtemag.com/ArticleItem.aspx?Cont_Title=Real-Time+Operating+Systems%3a+Take+seven

Please have a read and let me know what you think.

>> Nigel

Visual Studio 2005 deploy error after downloading a managed code application to a Windows CE6 R3 device

Thanks to William White for this:-

After deploying a managed code application to a windows CE6 R3 device you get a deployment error something like:

Deploying ‘C:\will\VBProjects\CEApp\bin\Debug\HelloWorld.exe’
Deploying ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SmartDevices\SDK\CompactFramework\2.0\v2.0\windowsce\diagnostics\System_SR_enu.cab’
Post-deploy error 0×00000001 returned after calling ‘\Windows\wceload.exe /noui \Windows\System_SR_enu.cab’.
========== Build: 1

Visual Studio 2005 will attempt to download the .NET CF 2.0 cab file (System_SR_enu.cab) and automatically install if the device does not already contain the run time (however the OS dependencies for the .NET CF 2.0 must be included in the WinCE6 image). It appears that the version of .NET CF 2.0 included with Visual Studio 2005 SP1 is not compatible with the R3 release of Windows CE6. To fix the problem, shutdown all instances of Visual Studio 2005 and simply download and install .NET CF2.0 SP2:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=AEA55F2F-07B5-4A8C-8A44-B4E1B196D5C0&displaylang=en

Try again and everything should be fine.

A successful deployment should then look something like:

DeviceApplication1 -> C:\Documents and Settings\XPMUser\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\DeviceApplication1\DeviceApplication1\bin\Debug\DeviceApplication1.exe
—— Deploy started: Project: DeviceApplication1, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ——
Deploying ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\CompactFramework\v2.0\windowsce\wce500\armv4i\NETCFV2.wce5.armv4i.cab’
Deploying ‘C:\Documents and Settings\XPMUser\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\DeviceApplication1\DeviceApplication1\bin\Debug\DeviceApplication1.exe’
Deploying ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\CompactFramework\v2.0\windowsce\diagnostics\System_SR_enu.cab’
========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========
========== Deploy: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

Keeping your Smartphone alive for background processing

Want to keep your windows mobile smart phone alive, even if the user is trying to force it off?

This can be achieved by using the unattended mode, the power manager on Windows Mobile has an unattended state that will effectively look like the phone is off but the CPU will be running in the background with the LCD off. This is used for playing music, downloading emails etc. To invoice this

PowerPolicyNotify(PPN_UNATTENDEDMODE, 1);

To release this do

PowerPolicyNotify(PPN_UNATTENDEDMODE, 0);

Whist in this state you may need to poke the device to stay on by calling the above function again. If you want to wake up the device then use another power API:

// Force backlight and power on

SetSystemPowerState(NULL, POWER_STATE_ON, POWER_FORCE);

This will force the system to wake up fully if you want to display information to the user after your background processing.

Why's my Alpha blend not working!!

That was what I was saying as I do an AlphaBlend() of a 32 bit bitmap nicely saved in Photoshop, the result was a bitmap with white as the 'background' instead of a nice transparent edge.

I've seen this before and moving between Desktop and WinCE I seem to have slightly different results with Alpha blending and image factory stuff. Anyhow I found a few people mentioning that you need to pre-multiply any alpha per pixel before using the Alpha blend (which has an alpha on the image as well). Sceptical but tried it and hey presto my bitmaps now render perfectly.

Here is what I do in Win32:

HBITMAP hbmp = CreateDIBSection(hdcScreen, lpbi, DIB_RGB_COLORS, &pvImageBits, NULL, 0);

const UINT cbImage = cbStride * height;
if (FAILED(ipBitmap->CopyPixels(NULL, cbStride, cbImage, static_cast<BYTE *>(pvImageBits))))
{
// couldn't extract image; delete HBITMAP
DeleteObject(hbmp);
hbmp = NULL;
}

// Pre multiply RGB on alpha channels else alpha blit won't work!
//
if (lpbi->bmiHeader.biBitCount == 32)
{
 BYTE* linePtr = (BYTE*)pvImageBits;
 for(int y=0;y<height;y++)
 {
  BYTE* ptr = linePtr;

  for(int x=0;x<width;x++)
  {
   BYTE alpha = *(ptr+3);
   *(ptr+0)=(*(ptr+0) * alpha) / 255;
   *(ptr+1)=(*(ptr+1) * alpha) / 255;
   *(ptr+2)=(*(ptr+2) * alpha) / 255;
   ptr+=4;
  }

  linePtr += cbStride;
 }
}

Then just AlphaBlend on my bitmap...perfect, but why doesn't AlphaBlend handle the 32 bit bitmaps anyhow that's what I don't understand.... !

Adding custom notifications to the WM6.5 lock screen

If you are wondering how your application can add information on the new WM6.5 lock screen, this can be done easily by utilising a few registry entries! There are two OEM lockscreen entries reserved for OEM applications that will allow applications to register an icon to show on the lock screen with an optional number of unread or unhandled events, when the user slides this to the right or left the application is invoked to deal with the unread events.

The regsitry entry all of this appears under is:

HKLM\Software\\Microsoft\\Shell\\LockScreen\\Notifications\\Notif0

HKLM\Software\\Microsoft\\Shell\\LockScreen\\Notifications\\Notif1

Add the settings like this:

"Command Line"="\program files\myapp\myapp.exe"

"Image"="\icon_notclicked.png"

"FocusImage"="\icon_clicked.png"

"Notification Count"=dword:0

The command line should point to your application, this will be executed when the user slides your cusom slider to the right. The Image and Focus image are two icons which are shown on the lock screen with and without you pressing them. The notification count should be more than 0 to show your icon and 0 to hide your item. The number in the noticication count is displayed on the lock screen so this could be the number of unread messages or emails you've received, whatever you are counting in your application.

You should check that Notif0 and 1 aren't already used by another application and use the appropriate one.

Happy screen locking!

Accessing the phone vibrator

How can I access the vibrate function from my apps you may say...?

Well the vibrate function is part of the NLED (or notification LED) driver. You can use the NLED functions to pulse or turn on/off the motor in the same way as any LED. To find the vibrator search through the list of LEDs until you find one with a cycle time of -1, this indicates the vibrator.

The following code is complete example of searching through the available LEDs and turning on and off only the vibrate function. This should work on any Windows Mobile or Windows CE with a compatible NLED driver:

#include "nled.h"

enum Status
{
OFF = 0,
ON,
BLINK
};

int GetLedCount()
{
int count = 0;
NLED_COUNT_INFO nci;
if (NLedGetDeviceInfo(NLED_COUNT_INFO_ID, &nci))
{

count = nci.cLeds;

}
return count;
}

int ledCount = GetLedCount();

void SetLedStatus(Status status)
{
NLED_SETTINGS_INFO nsi;
NLED_SUPPORTS_INFO nInfo;
nsi.OffOnBlink = (uint)status;
for (int i = 0; i < ledCount; i++)
{
// request information from this led, we're looking for a

// cycleAdjust of -1 which indicates the vibrator

nInfo.LedNum = i;

NLedGetDeviceInfo(NLED_SUPPORTS_INFO_ID, &nInfo);

if (nInfo.lCycleAdjust == -1)
{

nsi.LedNum = (uint)i;

NLedSetDevice(NLED_SETTINGS_INFO_ID, &nsi);

}

}
}

void VibrateOn()
{
SetLedStatus(Status::ON);
}

void VibrateOff()
{
SetLedStatus(Status::OFF);
}


int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
LPTSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow)

{
VibrateOn();
Sleep(500);
VibrateOff();
}

Missing Ordinals in Windows CE

If you get the message:

ERROR: function @ Ordinal 297 missing
Please Check your SYSGEN variable!!!

Then the problem is most likely to be a missing funciton in CoreDLL, to check which it is go to the private sources:

\WINCE600\PRIVATE\WINCEOS\COREOS\CORE\DLL>notepad core_common.def

In this you should be able to search for the ordinal number

; @CESYSGEN IF COREDLL_BATTERY
BatteryDrvrGetLevels=BatteryDrvrGetLevels @297
BatteryDrvrSupportsChangeNotification=BatteryDrvrSupportsChangeNotification @298
BatteryGetLifeTimeInfo=BatteryGetLifeTimeInfo @713
BatteryNotifyOfTimeChange=BatteryNotifyOfTimeChange @714
GetSystemPowerStatusEx=GetSystemPowerStatusEx @715
GetSystemPowerStatusEx2=GetSystemPowerStatusEx2 @1358
; @CESYSGEN ENDIF