I was enamored with one of the Today Screen plugins on the new WM Treo, of which you can see a screenshot here:
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/index.p ... ilable.htm

The plugin allows you to search the web from the today screen. This seemed useful, and I wonder why no one ever thought of it before. I've often debated which to leave my homepage on in PIE, yahoo for me to check my mail and the like, or google, to do quick info lookups. Yahoo has won, but now I could have the best of both worlds.

I decided to try to write a clone of such a plugin, and here's my result:



This is a 1.0/beta version that I'd like people to help me test out. It's not configurable, it will only search google. There are some issues with the Keyboard popping/not popping/not disappearing that I need to work on, and there may be some version and theme problems.

Basically, I'd like to hear from you if it works. I'm not sure if it will work on devices that use anything earlier than WM2003SE. If that's the case, I'll work on fixing that.

You can install it via cab here: http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~jmisurda/ppc/Se ... ay.ARM.CAB

Download/Copy it to your device, install, and enable it from the Today settings applet. There will be an improved installer in the future as well. To uninstall, you'll first have to uncheck it from the today settings applet, then uninstall.

Let me know how it works, and give some suggestions for future versions.

Thanks,

Jon

Works fine for me - Toshiba E830, WM 2003 SE. Running in real VGA mode using SE_VGA

But my theme gives your button and text entry field a dark background ... coupled with the dark text for each it means I cannot see what I type.

I guess from your comments that you already know there could be theme issues ... just confirming you are correct I suppose :-)

Nice idea - I look forward to the finished thing :-D

Hmm, ok, that must mean your theme has a dark start bar color, but a light today screen background with dark text.

That's something I didn't account for.

Ideally I'd like the textfield to be like 80% opaque, but I don't believe I can do that.

I'll keep working on it.

I can at least allow for a manual override.

Jon

Check out the 5th or 6th screen shot here from Radimus

http://www.lakeridgesoftware.com/forum/ ... 4b33021c44

it's (mostly) what my Today screen looks like.

Steve

what would be nice is if you can add in the same bar a search for contacts and calendar

Jon, I guess, the results are shown in PIE? If yes, you just gain one step versus go to PIE first and do the search there? Do I miss something?

I don't know how to do a search of the various PIM data, but I will look into it. The thing I do know is that it has changed in WM5, so it will require some effort on my part to produce working builds for WM2003 and WM5.

@SolSie:

The results are shown in PIE for now, I will allow you to specify the web browser to use in a later version. Is there some alternative way that you would prefer?

If not, and you don't find it's useful, that's ok. It's just something I thought might help some.

Jon

I can't get any response from it on my x51v. It displays fine but no SIP appears to be available for it. Nice idea though, looking forward to trying the next version.

Try using the menu in the new version to activate the SIP.

Thanks!

Jon

I posted this in your thread @ aximsite, but thought I'd post it here too.

I had a problem with the latest(?) version causing my system to not complete the soft-reset, requiring a hard-reset.

System :
Axim X50v WM2003se

I uninstalled it. I had three total system freezes in 24 hours. Had to hard-reset each time. When I stopped reinstalling your search totay plugin I stopped getting system lockups. Never had any before or since.


Toshiba E830, WM 2003SE.

Hello
Firstly "Thank you" I seen the Treo 700 and I feel in love w/ the today screen search so since then I have been on a mad hunt for it for my device and stumbled across this! So Thank you!
Just to report to you I have a Blue Angel AudioVox 6600 ppc 2003 SE phone edition and it is working perfectly. however can we skin the Today screen icon w/ another clearer .png or .tga type image ourselves and also the search bar background color? I mainly would like to skin the icon on the left to something alittle more softer and less jaggy. other than that you just hit the nail on the head!
Thank you again...
Doreen

I just found in the Today screen settings the option to color the background vs the text in the search bar on the screen so now I guess the only thing left is can we please skin the icon on the left that appears on the today screen w/ either an image of .tga or .png support?
Once again "Thank you"

Jon:

Works well on my hp2755 2003se. It would be nice to enter a url and have it launch the browser and bring up the requested site. The search function works...nice job.

Thanks
Albert

Loads PIE fine for me: Jasjar (HTC Universal) WM5 with OzVGA @640x480.

Tried specifying a different broswer (FTPXBrowser.exe, located in Program Files) but this would not launch for me - is there some syntax required, other than typing the name of the .EXE file?

What about support languages different from english?
for example russian

i think programm must have editable list of search servers

I am using your search bar with my depod 818pro. It works so nice. the only change I looking for is a transparent input bar, so it won't block the background picture. keep up the good work.

working great on k-jam. only complain is the dark coloring.

Works fine on my iPaq hx2750 running Windows Mobile 5 - nice plugin :)

It was working fine for me (wm5 on Jasjar) until I tried to change the google url it used to get full html results. What was the defualt setting, and should it have an option to restore to default settings? Even after uninstall/reinstall my borked settings are still used.

Thanks for making this app, as soon as I heard about it on the treo I knew I needed this functionality.

One great feature to add would be to allow quick toggle of search results to use either google images, froogle, or google local.

Aslo, another vote for the transparent text entry box.

The default pda google url is:

http://www.google.com/pda?q=%s

I won't be able to make a transparent text box, the best you can do is change the color. Sorry, it's really infeasible on the pocketpc to the best of my knowledge.

When I make my next round of changes, you'll be able to make a list of custom search engines. I'm busy now, but soon.

A second reminder: You can change the box color and the text color by tapping the globe icon and selecting the "Configure" option.

For multiple language support, do you mean just changing the menu and dialog text? if so, we can talk about internationalization. Send me an email throught the "Contact me" link on the right.

Don't forget to read other posts and comments to see if I've answered your question before.

Thanks for all the feedback!

Jon

Doesn't work for the PPC6700 with the ketyboard, and use the top row of keys properly, inputing numbers instead of qwerty.

Jon,

If you can make a transparent text box, may I suggest you to put a holo rectangular box @ where the text entry box is. and the holo box won't change to a real text entry box until it was tapped. Your plug-in is a great piece of software and it is very kind of you to share with rest of us, however we don't use it all the time, and I don't think it is very nice to block the background unless we need to.

once again thanks.

sorry for my stupid typo. I mean "if you can't make a real transparent text entry box"

great program! if you do it right you should sell it - you can make some well-deserved money with such a useful program that microsoft certainly needs to include with their OS! (of course it would search...MSN).

i think you should add the ability to create custom "types" of searches that you can choose from the types... through the icon...that way you could create easily-changable searches from all different sites that you want to use...

i also agree with the desire for a better, sleeker icon and and, if possible in any way, a transparent search box...if only when it is not in use, as the above poster suggested.

thanks for the great program...when adding features, keep in mind the desire for a small footprint!

if i can think of any more improvement suggestions i will certainly post them.

thanks,

-jeff

btw - let me also confirm that the hardware keyboard does not work correctly on the htc apache (ppc 6700)...some buttons act normally, some act as though the shift or symbol button has been hit.

-jeff

Works great on my HP 6315 PPCPE, thanks!


Regards,
Qman

Hi,

I tried it in my HP6515. It works just fine.

I detected two minor issues:
- you can not select this item using the joystick. It simply just from the previour to the next. There is not tab-stop for this item!!!
- once you click on this item, the on-screen keyboard appears... but my HP6515 has a phisical one! I'd like the plug-in choose my preferred keyboard (the phisical one in my case) instead of popping up the software keyboard,

nice work,

http://srv01.content-type.com/966839787 ... GOOGLE.GIF

Using it on the i730, the SIP keyboard comes up automatically, and the built in keyboard inputs numbers as if numlock is on instead of inputing characters.

Otherwise great job, I look forward to the next release!

Jon: thanks for sharing, this is a wonderful tool. ( I would definitely buy it for $5...)

2minor issues:

is it correct that i have to put a % between search words? if not only the first one is taken into consideration (on my pc, i can write the words next to each other with no sign in between...)


also: I have the MDA Pro by t-mobile using the default color schem. also here i have a rather dark blue background for the input line and black letters...

and a suggestion:
can you consider a simple option like a selection box on the input line where one could choose if the entry in the input line should be a google search or a URL? this way one could get to internet pages directly without opening the browser first (and eventually goint thru the start-up page-interruption routine)

besides this: see above....
Andy.

It is a wonderful application.

There is asking.
Please support the input of two byte character.

It is possible in copy & paste. (Japanese)

Great idea and a gret little app.... with my Samsung i730, however, the built-in keyboard does not work properly. Normally, letters are default and numbers are accessed with the <Fn> key, but this app defaults to numbers on those keys.

Keep up the great work!

works great on my h6513. thanks

Really nice, works fine on Audiovox PPC xv-6600. When I installed I had to do a soft reset to have it show up in options but now everything is great, thanks for sharing your work with everyone :)

I'll echo the comments on some of the phones. My XV6600 has the same on-screen keyboard popup issue, and also the numlock for the slideout keyboard.

Great app!

I am having the same problem as Jim (jan 10th 12:43pm post)

On my Sprint PPC 660x I cannot use the sliding keyboard on the right side where the numberletter buttons are. It defaults to num-lock on for some reason and when I hit the FN key it still does numbers.

Other wise its a great little toy if you use the virtual keyboard.

Incredible program.

Been using it for 4 days now with no hangs, errors or problems other than the above mentioned keyboard mapping issue with Sprint's (HTC's (UT Starcomms)) PPC-6700.

Great app, thanks!

My XV6600 (HTC Harrier) 2.04.00WWE has the same keyboard issue as the other hardware keyboard guys, so here's some input that hopefully will help.

1. If using the onscreen pop up keyboard, there are no issues.

2. If pulling out the hardware keyboard, there are the following issues:
a. The onscreen keyboard goes away, and does not return. Even if replacing the hard keyboard (sliding it in) and clicking in the text box, the soft keyboard will not return. It would be nice to have a micro button for toggling soft keyboard on/off.
b. The hard keyboard doesn't acknowledge symbol-off mode, and starts off in symbol-on mode. It DOES ack caps-on and caps-off (fn-caps, fn-caps). This means the double-mapped keys (symbols&numbers) don't allow text entry.

Overall this rocks.

Oh yeah to those who said they had to soft reset to get it to be seen, you don't have to soft reset. Try this:

1. start-menu->settings->today->items uncheck the applet hit "ok" and go back to today screen
2. start-menu->settings->today->items check the applet hit "ok" and go back to today screen

For those running Sprite Pocketmon there's an even easier way; select the "cog" icon that leads to the today screen. Then hit ok. Getting there through this method reloads *all* today screen applets. This is very convenient when one of them gets stuck e.g. weatherpanel.

Ehud

Working great.
I haven't even tried the hardware keyboard (I really only use that for longish emails).
Works quickly and no hangs.
using Sprint PPC6600

Hi,
I've just tried out Google search and its incredible. Works like a charm. I am using it on my XDA 2 with 2003 SE. Havent had a problem and takes over seamlessly whether I'm on activesync or gprs.
Great Job.

Murugesh

Very nice work!

The only issue/request/comment that I have is that on my Samsung i730, when the text box gains focus, the on-screen keyboard appears. The i730 has a built-in keyboard, and I almost never use the on-screen keyboard. Also, when typing with the hardware keyboard, the letters that have the keypad numbers as the alt-option show up as numbers no matter whether the function key is pressed or not.

It is still very functional--and I appreciate the plugin. It's just slightly annoying with the on-screen keyboard taking up a large portion of the screen and covering the plugin needlessly.

How to make it to work with a opera browser?
Thank you.

Thanks, great app. Works fine on T-mob MDA. Only request is for it to be selectable with the dpad, while "tabbing" through the today screen (new for WM5).

Hi

Great app, lots of potential. I'm using it on a T-Mobile MDA Pro and it appears there is no way to select the input field using the joytick or keyboard cursors.

Otherwise does exactly what it does on the tin.

Thanks

Jon,

I have a Tmobile Dash running WM5 smartphone edition. When I try to install the program is says this device is not supported. Do you have or will have a release for Smartphones?

Thanks in advance
Adam
baker.ac@gmail.com

Works perfectly on my HTC Tytn (T-Mobile Vario II)
Thanks!

Perhaps needs a "reset to default search URL" button as I messed mine up. The original URL is in this thread somewhere if anyone else has done the same.

Apart from that, its simplicity is its greatest feature.

first of all- thank you so much for this little app. i've been using it since last summer and use it quite frequently on my MDA. i don't have any complaints, just one question. i would love to use mobile.msn search as the search engine. i tried to figure out the url and have tried everything i could think of. do you know how i could get this to work?
thanks for your time.
~adria nicole

Jon:
Like the others, I appreciate your work very much. I've been using it regularly for several months on my PPC 6700 with no problems, except for the slide out keyboard issue (displays numbers only when top row of keys are pressed). Any chance of getting that fixed?
Thanks again...
Roy

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