This info was in part supplied by "tbuiler"
I used the info he had on the .ncf files that the Neo uses and found out that one can customized the Neo's device Overview to their liking. I belive this puts the Neo right in league with the other Prontos. It isn't that hard to do. Anyone can change the size of the bitmaps that will fit on the Neo's screen, hide Devices, and change the font's color. I truely believe, that one can also run a Macro off one of the Device buttons, so that when pressed it will "Power on DVD player and change the TV's input, ect." I have not looked into this yet, but it is next on the list. I also think a program could EASLY be made to change this screen, as the file is in a XLM format! I don't program, but hopefully someone out there reading this does!
First thing first, by changing the .ncf extension to that of .zip allows you to open up the file using a zip program such as Winzip. There you will find a Dir named "Bitmaps" and one file named "ConfigEdit.xml"
Resave you .ncf file you are using to something else, and then with that file you need to add the Bitmaps you want to use for the "Device Overview"
screen. I created a device named Blank1, that had the bitmaps I needed and then using the same process as changing the other Devices, I set the "Blank1" to a 1x1 pixel and in the XML file changed the name to nothing, that way the page is hidden completly.
The XML file can be edited in any text editor program, such as TextPad, when you open the file search for " Start of Module", this is the start of the device overview page. There are four sub groups to each of the devices, that are Labels, Actions, ActionLists, and Items
The Lables holds the name, and if it is a name such as I had of "Drama Dvds" the name doesn't show up as that but is listed in "extended_char" format. So a simple name such as DVD is the easer way to try this.
If you look in the Bitmap DIR, find the bitmap you want to use for a device, and write down that name. It is only the Number that you will use, so say bitmap for the DVD button is named "Bitmap_id16.bmp" it is the #16 that is of importance.
This is the format for one device:
Info behing the ":" I have add info on what that line does. Though this is just brif and very incomplete.
- Labels>
- label id="16">
type>15
chars>DSS :Devices name
/label> :Can be blank
/Labels>
- Actions>
- action id="74">
type>0D0A
- !-- Action Jump Alias!
-->
moduleptr id="2" />
pageptr id="3" />
/action>
/Actions>
- ActionLists>
- actionlist id="14">
action id="74" />
/actionlist>
/ActionLists>
- Items>
- item id="14">
type>3101
color_normal>2 :color of text
color_txt_normal>0 :Black is 0
color_pressed>0 :White is 3
color_txt_pressed>3
font>1 :Font size
position_x>2 :Placement of Bitmap
position_y>23
dimension_width>46 :Bitmap Size
dimension_height>22
bitmap_normal id="75" /> :Bitmap to use here
bitmap_pressed id="76" /> :Use 0 for none
label id="16" />
actionlist id="14" />
/item>
I found it easy to load up your newly saved "temp" ncf file and add the bitmaps you are going to use into the Device Overview page, lay them out as you want, and then write down that bitmaps "Size" and "Postion" as this info will be needed later, also remember that the bitmaps have to be saved somewhere on on of the devices pages. It seemed that the Postion was off a little, by a _20 in the "Y" setting I believe, but it was easy to test.
The testing is simple in that after you have made your changes to the XML file, save it and then add it back to the renamed ZIP file, overwritting the other one. Then, rename the file back to .ncf and load it up into NeoEdit(I'm using ver 1.3), you can then view the Overview pages, and even run the Emulator to see the changes, BUT, whatever you do, once you save the file, NeoEdit will overwrite the changes, as it remakes the overview pages! So after you test it in the Emulator, just "Download" the file to the Neo...
If anyone wants to see this layout of the device overview screen, just send me an Email. It only has
three bitmaps on the first of TWO device screens as I 'm only using a DSS,DVD, and TV. All the bitmaps were taken from the Pronto and resized to fit at roughly 50x40 pixels
allamand@cheqnet.net
