WM5 Softkeys

[pivaska]

Here are the questions and answers from the live chat about the softkeys at the bottom as well as the wifi and bluetooth icons.

Q: [17] Is there a way to disable the soft keys on the screen. Also is there a way to place the icons back onto the bottom bar
that are now claiming the space at the bottom?

A: The SHEnableSoftkey() API should do what you need. I'm not sure what you mean by the icons on the bottom bar.

Q: [43] WM5 now places the wifi, bluetooth etc icons within the screen itself and not on the bottom bar as in SE2003 thus making
the today screen loose about 10 or so pixels from the bottom.

A: Ah, yes, I understand now. The reason for this is that the Today screen did not have soft keys on PP2003SE. There is no longer any room to put the icons on the soft key bar. The Today window is scrollable.

[tiger_splash]

The Today screen has always been scrollable, but I hate the idea of scrolling on a screen that should put everything at my fingertips. Is there going to be a way to disable the softkeys and regain the space they take up? We don't have the buttons on our device, so they aren't a big 'bonus'.

[pivaska]

I am not sure if they were planning on doing something for the average user and how to eliminate them. This was a live chat and this was the answer they gave me when I asked them the same type of question.

[tiger_splash]

This is something that scares me about the upgrade because every pixel of my Today screen is important. It took me a long while to 'perfect' my screen to provide the plethora of information it does while fitting without a scroll bar.

Do you have any idea what "SHEnableSoftkey() API" means? Is it a registry edit? Is it a setting? Does he mean "Yes, softkeys can be disabled."?

[c00lk1d]

I presume he means you can call the API from a program to hide the bar.

You can easily hide them using Wisbar Advance Desktop.

[pivaska]

Since I don't use Wisbar and like the other person, I have every pixel accounted for on my today screen then does anyone know how to call the API and dump them off...permanently?

[a_skeptic]

I'm also interested to disable those softkeys.
Can anybody help us?

[tiger_splash]

I'm not using Wisbar Advance Dektop. I do, however, use Wisbar Advance 2. It's a wonderful program, but I don't really want to start adding more programs to my device. Already I really have too much on startup. Is there a way to call this without buying another program? Any ideas out there? I realize it sound funny, but this will stop me from doing the upgrade.

[mattdb]

Any answer to this yet. These buttons are rediculous. I want my full screen back.

[picopir8]

You guys are talking about the soft key bar that has "contacts" and "tasks", right? I always thought that was rediculus to have that since I can always access those with a button press or access them through the today screen.

I would also like to get rid of the bar that contains the bluetooth icon and possibly move the bluetooth icon next to the wifi icon up top where it belongs.

[hopper13]

The latest version of tweeks2k2 allows you to change the softkeys to something you consider more useful. It's not quite getting rid of them, but at least they now don't duplicate the hard keys on my machine.