Menneisyys

So far, the biggest problem with running Opera Mini (or any MIDlet that uses characters to display anything; for example, the Gmail one) on high-resolution (W)VGA Windows Mobile devices was the far too small character size all contemporary, recommended (most importantly, Jbed) MIDlet managers used. That is, up to now, only people with flawless eyesight and/or comparatively large (say, 3.6+”) VGA screens were able to really enjoy Opera Mini on their high-resolution phones, not people with considerably smaller (W)VGA screens (Gigabyte and E-TEN VGA models; the new Toshiba and i-mate phones etc.) I’ve searched far and long for hacks for Jbed – currently the best all-in-one MIDlet manager – in vain.

JBlend, the most important Jbed-alternative to the rescue! The JBlend version coming with the HTC Diamond supports large characters. Which is pretty much understandable as the Diamond only has a 2.8” screen – way too small to run Opera Mini with the default character size. (Again, it can only be read by people with excellent eyesight even on considerably larger, 3.6” VGA screens.)

It was some days ago that an XDA-Developers forum member, Diamond user reported
I’ve stuck the thread at once in order to make as many Diamond users aware of the possible solution as possible and have even mentioned it in my last Misc news article in order to give the subject as much press as possible. Fortunately, another XDA-Devs user, Sogarth, has managed to “hack” the JBlend manager out of Diamond after this.

You can download it HERE (it’s now on my backend so that you can avoid having to deal with public, free file repositories like MegaUpload). Unzip ALL the files into \Windows. Put JBlend.lnk into \Windows\Start Menu\Programs. With a registry editor, import either 83f46fc6-70de-49eb-bed1-719f4a1d8751.rgu (after renaming it to .reg) or THIS file, depending on whether the editor is REGEDIT4- or 5-compliant. (If only the latter like Pocket Controller’s registry editor, use the latter file I’ve created for your convenience.)

That’s all – after this, Jblend will work. Yes, I know: it doesn’t support full screen (unlike Jbed), which can clearly be seen in the screenshot below. However, if you use it in Portrait, the screen estate lost by the two (upper and lower) bars can be minimized. (I haven’t tested it in real VGA mode – there, if Jblend works OK with it, you can further reduce the screen estate loss by halving the size of the bars.)

I’ll update this article as soon as an easier-to-install CAB installer for the files is created. Up until then, just follow the tutorial above. Consult my older articles on, for example, importing Registry files if you don’t know what it’s about.



I’ve tested it on a WM6.1 HTC Universal. Haven’t done the same on a phone-less VGA PDA like the iPAQ 210. I think it’ll work on it too with the usual “dummy” phone/SMS DLL’s. Make sure you read my MIDlet Bible if you don’t know what I’m referring to.

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MS MVP- Mobile Devices.