An Easy Home Screen Modification

When I first got my BlackJack, I quickly changed the Cingular Default to the Windows Default home screen. Not too long after than I made a modified version.

One of the very first modifications that I made to my home screen was to shrink the MRU (Most Recently Used) plug-in. I felt the MRU list took up too much screen space. When I looked into the attributes for this plug-in I found that you could shrink the size of the icons by half simply by using the icon-size attribute.



To accomplish this, you need to copy the "full.home.xml" file from the "\Application Data\Home\" directory on your BlackJack (see my previous posting on how to access files if you need help doing this) to your desktop.

Next, using your favorite test editor, open the file and find the section:

<plugin clsid="{79EFB752-CB70-446d-B317-499723482B3D}" name="startmru" height="52">
<mru y="3"/>
</plugin>

Now all you need to do is add the attribute icon-size="16" and modify the height as listed below:

<plugin clsid="{79EFB752-CB70-446d-B317-499723482B3D}" name="startmru" height="36"<
<mru y="3" icon-size="16"/>
</plugin>

Finally, so you still have access to the original Windows Default screen, and your new modified screen, you should give your new one a different title and file name.

To change the title, simply go to the top of your XML file. Now between </contacturl> and <version> replace all the "titles" with a single line that reads something like <title>My New Screen</title>. Here is an example of what the beginning of your new file will look like:


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<home>
<author>My Company</author>
<contacturl>http://www.BlahBlahBlah.com</contacturl>
<title>Skreech's Home</title>
<version>1.0</version>


All that is left to do it save your file with a new name such as "new.home.xml" and copy it back to the homes screen directory on your BlackJack (\Application Data\Home\).

Now when you go into "Start\Settings\3 Display\Home Screen" you can select your newly created modified screen.

That's it! You will now have space on your home screen for additional information before it has to scroll - and it was FREE - no plug-ins to buy.