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Customising the Treo 500v

This has taken me some time to figure out, mostly because there doesn’t seem to be very much interest (at least in the internet vocal enthusiast crowd) about this phone. In fact, the net is so quiet about this that it’s almost as if someone is actively deleting anything that has to do with this phone. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done to customise my phone to suit how I like to use it.

(EDIT AT YOUR OWN RISK!)

The “carousel” menu

I like this menu, but I don’t like that you can’t change the programs that it displays. From the “Recent Applications” screen you can click on the right softkey to go into the “Main Menu”, but that’s time wasted waiting for the carousel to load and go away. The name of the carousel menu app is “Hotlist.exe”, and to change the program that is launched when you press the “Start” key, go to:

\ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Shell \ Rai \:MSHotlist\ 1

…and change the value to a different launcher. I used the app that shows the “Main Menu”, which is called “Gridview.exe”.

The side hardware button

The Treo 500v ships with the side hardware button (not the volume buttons, the one below those) not linked to any program on a click, but will launch Pocket IE when held down for a time. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this except that either Vodafone or Palm forgot about it when then were setting up the phone. You can change it so that when you press down on the button it will launch one program, but when you press and hold down it will launch another. To do the former you have to change these two keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ Click \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ Default \ Click \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

…and to change the latter:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ PressAndHold \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Apps \ KeyAssignment \ Default \ PressAndHold \ 195
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”
“Remap” = dword: 00000000

I’ve changed my phone so that it launches the “carousel” menu on a click, and the camera on press and hold:

Click — Open: “\Windows\Hotlist.exe”
PressAndHold — Open: “\Windows\Camera.lnk”

The Vodafone Live! softkey

I bought my phone unlocked from eBay, and I don’t use Vodafone, so it’s pretty pointless to have a button devoted to a link I can’t use. I do, however, lean pretty heavily on my tasks program, so I changed it to launch Tasks instead:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ software \ microsoft \ home \ key \ 113
“Default” = “Whatever the label should be”
“Open” = “\ Program Files \ YourProgram.exe”

You should be able to change the icon as well with the “IconResDll” and “IconResID” keys, but I’m not sure where the icon for the Tasks program is, and it’s not that important for me anyway.

Start Menu icon order

The last thing I did was to put all the apps that are useful but aren’t used too often (like the calculator, voice notes etc) in a folder in the Start Menu. But folders are placed low in the list, with Windows prioritising application icons. To change the order, and to “pin” my “Quicklist” folder to the top of the menu:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Shell \ StartMenu \ Order

…and edit the “Order” key by adding (or removing) a line from the list.

That’s all the changes I’ve made to my phone so far, and it’s working pretty well for me. I’m no expert though, so you make these changes AT YOUR OWN RISK. I also had a fair bit of help to find these myself, the solution for the “Start” button I found here, the left hardware button here and the Start Menu order here.

Hope this works as well for you as it does for me.

• Posted in LeftBrain, Obsessions on the 27.06.2008 @ 9:42:36 PM, Permanent Link
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