Leslie Franke

I have created a new 16-bit Palm T3 DIA and a revamped Crystal ZLauncher theme for download. The Crystal ZLauncher theme has been changed to make it more colorful and to match the 16-Bit DIA. The Palm T3 DIA skin requires the use of SkinT3! and the Crystal ZLauncher theme will work on any Palm OS handheld with at least a 320×320 screen resolution.

You can find out more about SkinT3! by looking at the previous post.

I have made several changes to the T3 Crystal DIA skin that have been requested by others including changing a few icons to make them stand out more. In addition, I split out the big graffitti buttons and left handed writing areas and put them into their own files. If you want to use these files just merge them into the Crystal DIA.

Warning: Many of the icons in the ZLauncher theme have changed. Installing this new skin will apply different buttons to each function.

Download Links:
Crystal ZLauncher Theme —- T3 Crystal DIA

I have been playing with a great new program to skin the Palm T3′s DIA area. SkinT3! is a DIA skin loader and manager that, among other things, allows for 16-bit skins. Among its highlights:

* Skins are loaded instantly. If you have used T3AgendaBG or changed your StatusBarResources.prc file you know that additional actions are needed to load a new skin. Not so with SkinT3!.

* SkinT3! has 16-bit support. Even T3AgendaBG skins were only 8-bit. This resulted in many skins being of lower quality and also making it hard to match a DIA skin with a launcher skin, such as a ZLauncher theme. Not so with SkinT3!.

* DIA skins can be combined. If you like the way a keyboard is layed out on one skin and a status bar on another skin you can combine these two skins together to achieve the desired match.

* The Graffiti application buttons, those buttons that are always white in the DIA area, can now be set to use full color icons. Through the use of a program such as AppIcon, you can basically make these four buttons look like anything you want.

The DIA may look still look strange in some applications. In addition to SkinT3! you may want to use Force16 which comes in the SkinT3! download. This OS5 hack for YAHM forces any selected apps to run in 16-bits mode. This may cause some applications to not function correctly or to look strange but I have found that it works with many applications including AeroPlayer, Iambic Mail, SmartListToGo, TiBr, and Today. One program I would not use this with is Filez. While the application still functions correctly the color scheme gets distorted.

Colorize is a Palm application (a UIColorTable editor) that allows a customized color theme to be applied to a Palm based handheld. It will change the color scheme of the device from the default blue bars, black text, and white background to about anything desired. This change occurs across all programs, not just in a launcher. Colorize 1.4a is freeware and will work on any device running Palm OS 3.5 and above. Designed by Chris Antos it can be downloaded from Palm Gear.

Colorize comes with several different themes but allows for the importation of custom color screens. On the left hand side of the Colorize main screen there is a button that is labeled Import. Click on this button and and new screen will appear asking you what memo you want to import. Choose your desired mmemo and click on import. This new theme is now the theme you will see on your handheld.

Notes:
1. If a change is made to a Colorize memopad record it must be reimported into Colorize.
2. To follow current Colorize convention, make the first line in the memo read Colorize – Theme Name (ex. Colorize – LF).
3. Generally speaking it is best to set the default color code to 8 bits. Usually there will be noticable difference. The newest of handhelds can run the 16 bit color mode but may have problems with some applications that cannot support a 16 bit color mode.

Most of the icon sets I have created are hi-res icon sets only. I have received numerous emails about how to get these icons to run on hi-res Clie’s running OS4. Here is the solution. You need to get a simple, freeware hack called VB3Hack exists that enables older CLIE models to display high-resolution bitmaps in programs like Agendus. (A hack is a collection of code snippets that access system calls indirectly. Despite the negative contation of the work hack, this is common and will not hurt your Clie.) In addition, if you do not have a hack manager, you need to get one of these two. A good free one is X-Master.

Getting this to work is easy. Hotsync the hack manager and V3BHack to your Clie. Then go into the hack manager and activate the V3BHack and you should be good to go. A Word of Warning: Some people have reported various problems using V3BHack with certain applications. If you find this to be the case, just go into V3BHack in your hack manager and deactivate the offending application so that it does not try to use V3BHack.

Downloads Links:
V3BHack – http://www.freewarepalm.com/utilities/v3bhack.shtml
X-Master – http://linkesoft.com/xmaster/

If you are like me and have ran Agendus 7+ on your Palm, whenever you go into an icon set in, Icon Manager, you will notice a non-icon resource (a dot) in each set that has been opened by Agendus. Unfortunately this is a problem caused by Iambic that cannot be fixed. Ideally, icon sets should contain only icon resources (Tbmp type), but Agendus 7 modifies every icon set on the Palm, inserting some non-icon resources into them. These non-icon resources can range from being just an annoyance to causing some applications to crash.

If you are no longer using Agendus and would like to get rid of the non-icon resources the following steps will remove them from an icon set.

1. Open the infected icon set in Icon Manager.

2. Open the clipboard by clicking on the notepad on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen.

3. Click on the Select+ square (on the bottom middle of the screen) so a checkmark appears in it.

4. Choose all of the icons you want to keep(drag your stylus over them) and copy them to the clipboard. An important note: Do not use the “Select All” option on the Record menu for this step. If you do the non-icon resources will be selected. This icon is not an icon resource.

5. Click the “Select All” option on the Record menu and then choose the “Delete Icons(s)” option from the Record Menu. An important note: Do not delete the icons in the clipboard.

6. From the Record menu choose the “Paste and Insert” option to copy the icons back to the set from the clipboard.

7. Delete the icons in the clipboard, save your set and then close the icon set.