What's New in Shell and UI

4/12/2010

Shell

Dramatic differences have been made to the shell in Windows Mobile 6.5, particularly for Windows Mobile Professional. Designed for a more engaging user experience, the new Start screen has a hexagon design that is interactive as the user taps, flicks, and pans. Enhanced touch and gestures support on list views and menus make them easier to navigate for a better user experience.

If the device is locked with a simple PIN, the user can now respond to interactive user interface elements without having to enter a PIN. For better protection, the new Lock screen cannot be used when the PIN is alphanumeric or strong.

Multi-level menus give you more options in how to organize tutorial topics that you include in the Getting Started application. Each menu can now have sub-menus.

You can now enable the battery icon to blink when a Windows Mobile device is charging.

The call status was moved to the top of the screen, which is especially important for devices on landscape mode. If the user dials an emergency number from the Personal Unlock Key (PUK) Required screen, the emergency call status is now visible.

A new Japanese sample code Input Method Editor (IME) helps OEMs create Japanese standard builds that improve the user experience for input. Sample code does not contain an actual IME dictionary or engine. An OEM can use a third-party IME to use the sample code.

The Graphical Device Interface now sends strings instead of single characters, which reduces the amount of system overhead and significantly improves text performance.

As an option, you can include Adobe Reader LE 2.5 on devices. This is a royalty-free component that lets users read Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

Home Screen

Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard keeps the same Home screen style as Windows Mobile 6.1. You can replace this Home screen if desired, but the replacement must follow the title bar and soft key requirements.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional now has a Home screen, the Windows Default Home screen, which is similar to the Home screen in Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard. The new Home screen for Windows Mobile Professional is focused on touch and gestures (tap, flick, and pan) and is designed to be fun and interactive. It supports all orientations.

Users can view high-level information for the various plug-ins at a glance. There are separate notification plug-ins for Live services, e-mail, SMS/MMS, missed calls, and voice mail. This new Home screen contains plug-ins from the Windows Mobile Standard Home screen, such as Home/Clock, Calendar, Getting Started, Music, and Photos. OEMs and mobile operators can create customized plug-ins for the new Home screen.

Users can toggle between the new Home screen and the legacy Windows Mobile 6 Home screen. The following scenario describes some of these interactions with the enhanced Home screen.

Marco loves the fresh new look and improved usability of his Windows® phone. The scrolling Home screen allows him to effortlessly view and access his most frequently used tasks. With flicks and drags of his fingertips, he scrolls past the translucent bar mid-screen, which highlights phone, e-mail, music, text message, and other categories. “Phone1” tells him he has one missed call. A touch sends phone to the highlight bar, where he sees immediately the call is from Jane. There’s her picture right in the bar. Another tap opens the phone dialer screen, and Marco returns the call. Then with a few more flicks and taps he checks the weather to see what clothes one should take to Vermont this time of year.

OEMs, mobile operators, and ISVs can create custom Home screen s to showcase high-profile services and Internet services. You can build your ultimate layout and content.

A new hardware Start control opens a new Start menu, which gives you more flexibility. You can now remove the software Start control and replace or hide soft keys on the Home screen.

The new Home screen, Start screen, and Lock screen require the following minimum hardware prerequisites.

For devices running Windows Mobile 6.5, the following is required: CPU: Processor clock speed greater than or equal to 400 MHz; RAM: 128 MB or greater total memory available to the OS; and ROM: 256 MB or greater.

** Devices that don't meet this bar will use the Home screen from Windows Mobile 6 (the Windows Classic Home screen).

Start Screen

The Start screen for Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional has changed dramatically. The new Start screen provides style, simplicity, and better response to touch than the Start menu from previous versions. This new Start screen features a different user experience. With a grid design, the new Start screen is also focused on touch and gestures (tap, flick, and pan) and is designed to be fun and interactive. It supports all orientations.

You can customize the Start screen. Specific ways to customize are described in the Visual Refresh portion of this document.

Visual Refresh

In addition to the new Start screen with the grid design, Windows Mobile 6.5 includes an overall visual refresh. It provides several new features and lets you extend and customize many elements, some of which are described in the following user scenario:

Waiting for his flight to Paris, Marco takes out his Windows phone. Without unlocking it, he immediately sees how many missed calls and voicemails he has and that he has a few new messages. He unlocks his e-mail account directly, without having to go to Home or Start. Nothing of importance. Without unlocking, he can also put a call on speaker, adjust the volume, or put it on mute. When the alarm goes off, he can snooze it with a gesture. The phone rings, and Marco sees a picture of the person calling. It’s Jane.

Somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, Marco is still thinking about the phone. He takes it out again. He really likes the new Lock, Home, and Start screens. The icons and controls are crisp and new. The hexagon theme is great for Marco, who can easily feel clumsy with lesser phones. The background picture, which is shared between the Home, Start, and Lock screens, makes the phone more familiar, more pleasant to use. He replaces the picture of Jane in Times Square—which now seems too busy—with a stark beach scene, overcast, hazy. In addition, he changes the layout of the Home screen and picks a new theme. It’s like a new phone.

Marco launches Start, and immediately he sees Phone, Contacts, Calendar, Messaging, Settings, and Internet Explorer at the top of the Start Menu. The screen feels responsive to his touch. When he wants to scroll he scrolls, without worrying about accidently selecting the wrong thing. He loves to play the solitaire game, which he moves to the top of the Start Menu. From there it takes him only one click to go straight to solitaire.

New four-color themes adjust backgrounds, focus areas, tabs, title bar, scroll bars, and status bar icons. Menus and title bars are now finger friendly. And there are many more ways in which you can customize the device.

Extend

• You can extend the Themes, or add your own vibrant themes to help add a sense of ownership for users.
• OEMs and third-party developers can develop custom themes to mobile operators that match their brand colors.

For more information, see Creating Themes.

Customize

You can also customize many elements in the user interface (UI), including the following:

• Configure the amount of horizontal and vertical space between icons and the font size of the icon title.
• Customize text color and font that are used in the Security/PIN entry dialog box by setting registry values.
• Customize right and left arrow icons with a custom resource module by setting a registry key.
• Configure the icon in the roaming slot to be consistently displayed in the taskbar of all UI screens. By default, the icon is displayed only in the taskbar on the Home screen or the Call Progress screen. **
• Hide or customize the data connection name that appears in the notification bubble.
• Prevent the loss of notification messages when the clamshell is opened.
• Enable or disable the IME for the Home screen. The IME must be enabled on the Home screen for all Windows Mobile Professional devices that have multi-tap keys. If the IME is not enabled, plug-in edit controls such as Live Search on the Home screen will not accept multi-tap keys.
• Configure the right soft key as an additional device unlock key for devices using Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Classic by setting a registry key.
• Retrieve and modify the alpha opacity values of the title bar and the Home screen soft key bar.
• Remove or replace the default Services property sheet in the Phone application and the default Word Completion property sheet in the Input application in devices using Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Classic.
• Configure the notification sounds so that when one notification tone is playing and a new notification comes in, the tones do not overlap.
• Override the font color of text in the Recent Programs list.
• Lock the default Home screen in Internet Explorer Mobile by disabling the user Home page selection feature.
• Remove the Welcome Center page.
• Configure the order of the Recent Programs list, and specify an image that is to be displayed as the background in the Recent Programs list.

Additionally, users can set the background image by using the Settings menu or by using Photo Viewer.

Other Changes

Other shell changes include:

• The Date and Time control has changed so that changing the AM/PM field is more intuitive on QWERTY keyboards. When the focus is on AM/PM field, any keydown event that does not map to another behavior toggles the value in the AM/PM field.
• There are now icons for International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI)–attached indicator states for all Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) radio types.
• A vertical scrollbar is now available for wizards, dialog boxes, and tabs in Connections and Settings so that the user can view the entire page or dialog box and the associated tabs when the software input panel obscures the controls.
• Enhanced soft key and context menus in Windows Mobile optimize the user experience. The appearance of the menu scroll arrows is enhanced; menu background color is now a gradient that is based on the theme chosen by the user; and the menu divider does not have a buffer.
• Users can now quickly start any recently run application. Users can turn this functionality on and off by using Show Recent Programs check box in the Start section in the Settings dialog box.
• Instead of having all menu selections in the Sounds and Notifications menu display in alphabetical order, the first entry is now the ringtone. You can enforce a strict alphabetical order or can change the display order for specific entries.
• Windows Mobile Professional now supports animated images when the device starts. Earlier versions of Windows Mobile Standard supported this feature.
• New Chinese (Simplified) user interface font GB18030 makes the displayed text more readable than did previous fonts. Additional steps are required for using the font and bitmaps. OEMs are responsible for certification of their devices, including the font and paying fees associated with shipping devices containing the font and bitmaps.
• Japanese Meiryo font for Windows Mobile Standard screen resolutions of 131 DPI or higher.
• Windows Mobile Professional now supports file locking with PIN 2, even when the device is unlocked.
• CompIME supports typing shortcuts like replacing spaces in e-mail addresses with "@" and ".", pressing and holding keys to toggle between uppercase and lowercase letters, pressing and holding keys to insert accented characters, and replacing double spaces with a period and space and capitalizing the next letter.

Lock Screen

Windows Mobile 6.5 introduces a new lock experience on Windows Mobile Professional when there is no password or when simple PIN setup (six digits) is used. The user can now respond to interactive user interface elements even if the device is locked with a simple PIN. The changes do not apply when alphanumeric or strong passwords are used.

You can now lock the auxiliary display when the main-screen keypad is locked. Device lock is no longer required.

In Windows Mobile 6.5, notifications—such as those for missed calls, voice mail, e-mail, text, and calendar items—are more intuitive and more actionable on the Lock screen. A user can intentionally navigate more easily from a notification on the Lock screen to an area of action. Other changes include reducing the set of touch actions needed to unlock a device, and an improved alarm and emergency call experience when the device is locked.

The following user scenario presents typical interaction with the enhanced Lock screen.

When Anna arrives in New York she sits down in the baggage area and pulls out her Windows phone. Without unlocking it she immediately sees how many missed calls and voice mails she has, and that she has two new messages. With the phone still locked, Anna calls Jane to pick her up. She can adjust the volume without unlocking the phone, or mute the phone or put the call on speaker, which she does briefly while rummaging through her bag for a pen. After talking to Jane, Anna directly unlocks to her e-mail account without having to go to the Home or Start screen and sends a brief e-mail to one of Jane’s coworkers, Marco Tanara, who is coordinating the conference in Barcelona.

Start

The new Start menu for Windows Mobile Professional provides an appealing Start experience. This menu now has a visually striking hexagon design. Through touch and gestures, the user traverses the long hexagon list. No longer a drop-down menu, the Start screen can be launched directly. The following user scenario presents one user's interaction with the Start screen.

When Jane launches Start, she sees icons for Phone, Contacts, Calendar, Messaging, Settings, Internet Explorer and other applications arranged in a translucent hexagon over a background picture of the Canadian Rockies, where Jane had vacationed that summer. She is delighted to find that she can move the solitaire game to the top of the hexagon by touching and holding the icon until the context menu pops up. Ever since her friend Marco taught her solitaire she’s been hooked on it. A single click takes her to the game, which she plays while waiting for her plane. When she’s finished she touches the left soft key, locking the phone, and drops it into her overnight bag.

You can customize the Start menu. You can personalize the background image, add widgets, or add your own 24-bit blended icons to the Start menu. And, with the exception of the top three positions, you can choose the applications and services to display in positions by a policy setting.

The new Start menu includes the following updates:

• A mechanism to promote Favorites, programs, and settings to the top.
• A new grid, appearance and interaction model.
• Help that goes to the main Help list.
• Enhancements to support PNG icons for programs as well as the current .ico format.
• Active icons for things such as messaging and missed calls.
• No scrollbar present on the new Start menu.
• The ability for OEMs to set the default highlighted item.
• A provision for the OEM to toggle the old Start menu and settings panes.

You can change the order in which icons appear on the Start menu by specifying the order in the registry.

Typing Shortcut

Typing shortcuts have been added that will improve usability, such as using T to move to the top of a page, and B to move to the bottom. The following user scenario presents the convenience of using these shortcuts.

Jane likes her phones with a full keypad, and she likes the many shortcuts that make using her Windows phone easier than ever. While waiting for the bus she decides to go through recent e-mail messages. She scrolls quickly through the list, then presses and holds T, which takes her back to the top, where she finds a message from her friend Anna, who is writing to say she will be joining their team in New York for two months. Jane presses and holds N, which opens a new message, which she addresses to Marco. She tells him that Anna is coming from the San Francisco branch. Jane types out the message quickly, pressing and holding letters to capitalize them, hitting two spaces to make a period and a space, and using the many other keyboard shortcuts on her phone.

*Requires OEM to use MS CompIME and turn on the registry key for the shortcut feature.

Touch

Touch capabilities are expanded in Windows Mobile 6.5 to include gestures. Recognition for a standard set of gestures—such as tap, tap and hold, pan, and flick—improves user navigation and the input experience. To provide feedback to the user, each gesture has an associated set of animations (rubber band, bounce, and scroll) that are powered by the Gesture Physics Engine. The following user scenario provides a description of one user's touch experience.

Anna can’t stop playing with her new Windows phone. She scrolls through the attractive translucent hexagon on the Start screen and touches the cell containing the icon for Internet Explorer Mobile 6. She calls up a Web page on Barcelona and smoothly scrolls and pans through the text, zooming in and out, from a close-up reading view to an overall page view—using only gestures. How much easier and more intuitive this is than the old hardware controls! Touch is fast and gestures now work in most E-mail, Contacts, and Calendar levels. And cut, copy, and paste are still as intuitive as ever.

Gesture support is now added to components across the platform, from individual controls like the ListBox, ListView, TreeView, Tab Control, and WebView to applications and complex components like the Home screen, Calendar, Contacts, and Windows Media Player. Moreover, the Gesture APIs are public, and gestures can be added to third-party applications and plug-ins.

Touch-Oriented UI Updates

Applies to Windows Mobile 6.5.3

On Windows Mobile Professional and Windows Mobile Classic, the UI has received touch oriented updates to improve the experience of touch devices that do not require the use of a stylus. The following list displays these touch oriented UI updates.

• The size of the soft key bar has been increased, and bubble tile common controls have been added.
• The title bar has a new touch oriented pull-down interface that is activated when the user clicks the title bar.
• The height of the list view items for the Getting Started application has been increased.
• The UI for the Clock and Alarms application has been updated with touch oriented controls that allow the user to adjust the time and alarms without a stylus.
• The alarm settings page in the Clocks & Alarms application has been updated with larger UI controls.

The following is a summary of UI changes, designed to increase legibility and touch responsiveness, implemented in the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 release.

Basic Specifications

Microsoft fonts Tahoma® and Segoe® are the platform fonts and should be used only in regular and bold formats. Do not use default sans serif or other serif system fonts.

Visual Overview

The following areas of the Windows Mobile UI have been updated to increase legibility and touch responsiveness:

• Lock screen and the Lock screen notification icons
• Home screen
• Start screen
• Card view
• List view
• Incoming call screen
• Answer call screen
• PIN screen and PIN to application
• Alarm screen
• Internet explorer

Graphical Elements

Windows Mobile 6.5.3 includes the following new graphical elements:

• Title Bar and Pull-Down List -A pull-down list has been introduced that changes the functionality of the title bar and improves touch responsiveness. Tapping the title bar now reveals a pull-down list with full-color versions of the status icons; an additional touch will open the application or feature associated with the icon. **
• Tile Bar and Horizontal Scroll -Primary navigation is contained within the menu bar, now called the tile bar, where users interact with touchable tiles instead of soft keys. A new horizontal scroll functionality at the top of the screen replaces the tab format to provide better touch responsiveness and ease of use. **
• Touchable Tiles - Five touchable tiles replaced soft keys present in previous Windows Mobile releases. Touchable tiles increase touch responsiveness. Touchable tiles are present only in the menu bar (now called the tile bar) and can accommodate icons on any of the five tiles, subject to position naming and use rules. Two of the tiles, TT1 and TT3, can contain text strings. **

In addition, the following existing graphic elements have been redesigned:

• Menus, scroll Bars, dialog boxes and common controls have been modified visually to increase readability and to support better touch responsiveness. **
• Toasts (Pop-Up Notifications) – Toast UI elements have been redesigned to make them more touch responsive; however, the functionality of these pop-up notifications has not changed. Navigation in the toast module is indicated by arrows on either side of the page number.
• Internet Explorer - The Internet Explorer Web browser chrome has been modified to provide improved navigation and touch responsiveness.

Iconography

The following summarizes the icon styles and sizes in the UI of Windows Mobile 6.5.3:

• Lock Screen - The Windows Mobile 6.5.3 Lock screen icons are a single color (white), and the drop shadow is included in the deliverable asset.
• Home Screen - The Windows Mobile 6.5.3 Home screen icons are rendered in full color; the final asset includes reflection.
• Start Screen - The Windows Mobile 6.5.3 start screen icons are rendered in full color.
• Title Bar (Status Icons) - Title bar icons remain visually unchanged in Windows Mobile 6.5.3. They are small, single-color icons that notify a user of system and application status. Touching any location on the title bar will invoke the title bar pull-down, which contains touch-responsive icons.
• Title Bar Pull-Down List - In the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 release, tapping the title bar reveals a pull-down list with full color versions of status icons, an additional touch will open the associated application. The icons do not reflect the application state.
• Legacy Icons – Windows Mobile 6.1 - Windows Mobile 6.1 legacy icons are still used in some locations throughout the interface; one notable location is in messaging functions.
• Touchable Tile Theme Primitives - Windows Mobile 6.5.3 ships with a set of theme primitive icons that help provide predictable user interactions and simplify navigation. These icons can be replaced as part of a theme and customization.
• Internet Explorer Buttons - Icons and containers are supplied together as one asset for Internet Explorer navigation tiles.

**.

Windows Mobile Active and Focus States

Focus states indicate the active state of elements in the Windows Mobile UI. Focus states are a theme-dependent asset used as a background image. It can be a color treatment or color and graphic treatment with varying levels of opacity. The Home screen has a noticeably different focus state when compared to platform-level screens.

The following summarizes the different states of UI elements in Windows Mobile 6.5.3:

• Card and List Items, when in focus, do not alter the font size. Focus state text treatments invert the font color to stand out over a focus state background graphic. The color is theme driven. Icon treatments do not change for focus states.
• Menu items, when they have focus, are shown by a large, clickable button that floats between the text and the menu background color. When the item in focus is selected, the button color changes to indicate the new state. The button appearance may change with different themes.
• Common Controls have four distinct states: Disabled, Normal, Focus, and Pushed.
• Touchable tiles and Internet Explorer tiles have three distinct states: Normal, Pushed, and Disabled. However, tiles have three distinct states: Normal, Pushed, and Disabled. Some Internet Explorer tiles are always active and do not have a disabled state.

Interactions

The following UI interactions have been redesigned in Windows Mobile 6.5.3:

• Unlock to Home - Drag the lock slider left or right to the edge of the screen to unlock. The lock slider returns to center and the device remains locked if the user lifts their finger before dragging the lock slider close to the edge of the screen. This unlock experience is touch only and is not supported for the directional pad (D-pad).
• Unlock to Notifications – Tapping the lock slider will cause the application icons to fall into the screen from behind the slider. If there are more than five applications with notifications, the overflow will pass the bottom of the screen and users will need to pan or flick up and down the list to access them. The list does not cycle and the lock slider does not move in response to pan-and-flick gestures. Slide any notification icon left or right to the edge of the screen to unlock the associated application. The unlock experience is touch only and is not supported for the D-pad.
• Home Screen: Tap, Pan, Flick, D-Pad – The Home screen provides access to a collection of plug-ins. Only one plug-in at a time can be active: the plug-in under the fixed focus bar. All other plug-ins are in a condensed, inactive state. You can activate a plug-in by pivoting a plug-in to position under the fixed focus bar. The plug-in that has focus can include multiple tiles of content that users can page through by panning the fixed focus bar left or right. The same navigation can be achieved by moving the D-pad left and right. Every plug-in is associated with an application and tapping the focus bar will launch the application.
• Start Screen: Tap, Pan, Flick, D-Pad, Drag-and-Drop - You can navigate around the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 Start screen either by touch or using the D-pad.
• Internet Explorer Navigation. - Navigation in Internet Explorer for Windows Mobile 6.5.3 has been enhanced to provide a richer experience when viewing HTTP Web pages on a touch-enabled mobile device screen. By default, pages are loaded in full-screen mode, and upon page load the chrome slides in from the top and bottom. If no action is taken in the chrome, it will automatically time out. In addition, it will roll off to full screen in response to touch interaction with page content. When completely zoomed out in full-screen mode, you can tap or double-tap for maximum zoom. After you have zoomed in, you can pan in any direction to navigate the page. A miniature display map shows your page location while panning. You can double-tap to zoom out the maximum amount.

See Also

Concepts

What's New in Windows Mobile 6.5

Other Resources