Contacts first because it was successful.

Problem: Every time I tried sending one or two contacts from my phone, the F700 took all of them. In my phone I'll have or three numbers for a given name. The F700 would list the same name over and over, with no way to tell which number was under which icon without actually calling them!!!! GRRRR. I wanted to edit them so I could just say stuff like Mom - Home or Mom - Cell and I only wanted the half dozen I need, not every last flipping one that is in my phone.

Solution: Boot the F700 to testmode, go to My Flash Drive/User/UserData/Phonedata/PhoneBook?????????.db and copy that file to your SD card. Move the SD card to your computer and use SQLight 3.x to edit the database as much as you want, then back to the SD card and back to the F700. Presto! I have the entries I want, in the order I want, named the way I want. Yay!

Now the blue boxes... This is not success (yet) but definately a work in progress. The existance and presense of the boxes are determined by two files: In data.zip, ui_pioneer/800_480/ui/navigatemap_800_480.ui and ui_pioneer/common/navigatemap.ui which seems to be duplicated at ui_pioneer/common/ui/navigatemap.ui -- I don't know which is actually used at the moment so I'm messing with them both at the same time.

I have to learn more about how the software handles scripting, but based on what I see, it *should* be possible to make these boxes appear and disappear depending on if we're navigating or not. Currently I am able to make the boxes vanish (but not the line yet) permanently - not ideal but it's a start. I need to learn more about the scripting functions to get these things to appear/disappear based on what is actually happening. I'm confident that it can be done though.

Cheers!

p.s. Don't unzip the data.zip then rezip it - just explore it in place, make your changes then copy them into the existing data.zip rather than making a new one.

p.p.s. Make a backup of your original data.zip before you do anything else!!!

That's awesome about the contacts list editing. This might help me get my contacts over to the unit since my Motorolla/Nextel i880 absolutely refuses to transfer anything no matter what I do. The question is, will that file actually be there if I have never transferred any contacts to the unit? I guess i will find out.

If not maybe I can sync up one of my friend's bluetooth phones and transfer their phone book, then the contacts database will be present for me to alter.

If the file isn't there, then having someone else do a sync to initialize it should be fine. The ???? was for a bunch of crazy hex characters that are in the file name. Or I could provide the SQLite dump for an empty database, if you like? Then you could plug in your own values and go from there. The crazy hex characters should be the same as those for the recently-calls database file.

Caveat - I don't really know how to use SQLite, I just downloaded it and fumbled my way through this 2 hours ago... I can provide the empty dump file but not really much in the way of detailed instructions on what to do next.

Hi Stephanie, just a little confused on the blue boxes, I have CE booted up on my F90 right now, but don't quite understand how you got rid of the blue box. I wouldn't mind it being gone permanently, as you stated you have done. If you don't mind could you give some instruction on how to do this for simple but good with windows people.

Great progress Stephanie, you're fast becoming the pundit when it comes to hacking the F-Series.

I couldn't believe how much redundancy there was in the file system while playing around with adding more TTS voices today. I can't imagine the system is actually using the exact same file structure in two different places, which means the developers were even lazier than I thought. Sure makes a trial and error method of development difficult though when you don't know which files are going to make a difference.

I wonder, though, is that database linked only to the phone it was created from, or would that not matter? I'm guessing it wouldn't matter and it will display all the contacts in that database no matter what phone is connected to it?

Jascias, sorry re. the confusion. I haven't actually posted any info other than what files I'm looking at, because I don't want to post incorect info... I did that once before, got excited and posted some info prematurely and it led people into trouble.

I'm exploring two different methods to achieve the same objective (no blue boxes but usable navigation info). When I have a method that works and I'm fairly confident it doesn't break anything, I'll pass that on.

skycrave -- I'm a computer geek, not a car or audio geek I'm also a bit OCD. So I think of this as a computer, as opposed to a car radio/gps... I just wish it ran linux rather than wince

HiFiSi - I don't know if that database is phone-dependant. I can pair a 2nd phone and then check and see if the existing database is usable with the 2nd phone, that should confirm that there is just one database? OTOH those hex characters in the filename could tie the database to a given handset... but if you've done any calls with your own phone, there should be a CallHistory?????.db file, and the hex part of that filename will be the same as what you need for your PhoneBook database. So even if your friend's phone creates a second set of databases, you should be able to edit the new phonebook database and then just rename it to have the same hex filename as what is in your existing call history file.

Edited to add: The hex digits in the filename are definately tied to the handset - they are the bluetooth 'MAC address' of the handset, so they will be unique and probably tied to the individual phone.

It doesn't matter, once a phone is paired with the device it can access any of the contacts that are stored in memory. So any of the (five?) phones that system can be paired to will all access the same contact database.

I'm guessing the hex characters in the name are the unique identifiers for that bluetooth device. Each device has a unique ID that is registered with the FCC, and that's probably what those characters represent.

Thanks for the reply Stephanie. I fully understand your position. Would you mind if a usable method doesn't come up though, and its not to much trouble, could you still send a pm of how it could possibly still be turn off permanently. For me some fix is better then nothing. Good Job so far, you the man!

Thinking about it some more, I think this is pretty safe. Just understand that you will not get those navigation boxes ever if you do this.

In the data.zip file, pioneer-ui\800_480\ui directory, use notepad to open the file navigatemap_800_480.ui

Look for the following two lines:

Note that they may not look *exactly* like this, but if you just search on the names sprNMRCockpit and sprSecCorner you'll find them.

Edit the two lines to look like this (just add the word hide at the end of the lines):

One other bonus: Near the top of this file is the line that sets the clock text - change the size and colour by editing this line:

(note - I haven't had a chance to test the clock changes yet but I am pretty sure it will work.

Cheers!

p.s. Jascias -- I be the woman, not the man

....has anybody throught of how the wording and turn icon would look, without the box and line???? now that im thinking about it, if you set it to night, i think just the text and arrow by itself would look pretty nice.

Stephanie, awesome job thus far! just a question about this.. it will only delete the box and line right? it wont have any effect on the text and turn arrow while En Route? cuz if it has no effect ill do away with them forever and post pics of how it looks. And if i want to put them back, i can just take out the Hide texts and they'll go back?

and with the clock color mod, is there a color code table to go by? because i will do that too

Using the 'hide' thing in my last post will eliminate not just the boxes, but the stuff that went in the boxes. That's why it was not ideal.

What follows, however, will eliminate the boxes but (I think!) keep the content - so you get the directional icons and details floating over the map image, without any box backgrounds. This simply eliminates the graphics of the boxes, without eliminating the 'sprites' that hold the boxes, hence the content can still appear.

I have attached two files: navigatemap.ui and 746_32K_OM-blank.bmp

navigatemap.ui goes into data.zip\pioneer_ui\common *and* data.zip\pioneer_ui\common\ui (because I'm still not sure which of those two is the 'real' location)

746_32K_OM-blank.bmp goes into data.zip\pioneer_ui\800_480

With the navigatemap.ui file changed, and the 746_32K_OM-blank.bmp file added, this replaces the bar across the top, and the two rectangles on the left-hand side, with a one-pixel transparent bmp file.

With that change made, there are no blue (or green) boxes on the screen, but when you are navigating, the icons and text should still appear. I tested this a little, I plotted a route and the info did appear, but I didn't actually drive anywhere so I didn't see the info change. I'll test that tomorrow morning.

Also -- I tested the clock colour change and it works fine. The colours are straightforward RGB hex, so any HTML colour chart will do you fine. The first colour is the outline and the second colour is the fill of the text, IIRC.

That's about all the fun for me for tonight.

no_boxes.zip

This is awesome. these need to be sticked with step by step instructions so anyone and everyone can do this

Here is a good color picking tool. I would recommend something along the lines of:

color:#333333 color2:#FFFFFF

That will give you white text with a dark grey background that should provide good contrast and still "look" right with any background color combo.

do you know the color code for black background red numbers?

do you know the color code for black background red numbers?

color:#000000 color2:#FF0000

Should be black outline, red fill

p.s. Jascias -- I be the woman, not the man

Lol, I stand corrected, and humble. I bow to you, you're Highness.

p.s. Jascias -- I be the woman, not the man

 

Lol, I stand corrected, and humble. I bow to you, you're Highness.

Honestly i dont know how her user name didn't give it away...but I digress..

Sure, but Pioneer hasn't given us control of the background through a hex color (it looks like that can only be done with a BMP where they've allowed it, like for the time/distance to arrival info).

Anyway, black is #000000, and a a bright red is #ff0000.

I second this being stickied, we're starting to amass a good deal of info (mostly thanks to Stephanie), so we should start organizing it a little.

Great, i'm stupid, can anyone point me to where the data.zip file is? I'm in my car searching all through CE

Excellent detective work there Stephanie!...

I noticed at the top of the "navgatemap.ui" file, there are "State Modes" that indicate the navigation state. Might it be possible to use the "3DNavigateMode" flag to somehow enable/disable your 'hide' command?

-Eric

P.S. Wasn't it nice of Pioneer to leave all the comments in the files to help us figure it out?...

Great, i'm stupid, can anyone point me to where the data.zip file is? I'm in my car searching all through CE

It's in the \APL2\iGo folder of the flash disk.

-Eric

Thanks dericn.

UPDATE:

Outstanding, It works perfectly!!. This was the one thing that bugged me the most, and now its fixed. Stephanie you are the greatest Goddess of all time. Please excuse, my ignorance earlier, I am not worthy.

P.S. Did I mention........... you're a hotty.

As always, I assume no responsibility if you have problems or damage your nav unit. Follow these instructions at your own risk.

This assumes you know how to work with Test Mode, how to get into Test Mode and how to copy files in WinCe.

1. Get a copy of the file data.zip - you can find it in the firmware update files that can be downloaded from Pioneer or you can grab the one that is already on your nav unit, from "My Flash Drive\APL2\iGo\data.zip

2. Get that file into your windows computer, and right click then Explore it. Do not extract it, just explore it.

3. In that file, find the folder "ui_pioneer" and open it

4. In there, find the file 800_480 and open it

5. Copy into this folder, the file 746_32K_OM-blank.bmp which you can download from my post above (it's in a zip archive)

6. Navigate explorer back up to the folder "ui_pioneer"

7. In there, find the folder "common" and open it.

8. Copy into this folder, the file navigatemap.ui -- you will get a warning that this file already exists, overwrite it. This file is also in that zip archive from my earlier post.

9. Now still in the "common" folder, find another folder "ui" and open it.

10. Copy into this folder the file nvigatemap.ui -- you will get a warning again about overwriting, go ahead and overwrite it.

11. Close Explorer, and copy your modified data.zip file onto the same SD card where you have the Testmode files

12. Boot your nav unit into Testmode.

13. Start -> Program Files -> Explorer to get explorer going on the WinCE

14. Find and open Storage Card, find the data.exe file and select it

15. Tap the Edit menu then Copy

16. Navigate back up, now go into My Flash Drive then APL2 then iGo

17. Find your existing data.zip file and select it

18. Tap the File menu then Rename

19. Use the onscreen keyboard to rename this file. Add "-bak" to it or something.

20. Now tap edit and paste, this will copy the new data.zip into the iGo directory.

21. Turn off the nav unit, remove the SD card

22. Turn on the nav unit, and when it's finished booting, verify that the boxes are gone but navigation still works.

23. Enjoy!

I noticed at the top of the "navgatemap.ui" file, there are "State Modes" that indicate the navigation state. Might it be possible to use the "3DNavigateMode" flag to somehow enable/disable your 'hide' command?

Yeah, that is the other option I have been exploring - you will see a lot of the elements have a visibility flag on them, so they appear or disappear depending on certain criteria. I tried toggling these boxes with the visibility modes but it didn't work when I tried it the first time. I intend to revisit that, because I do think the boxes provide some needed contrast, for the instructions and icons. To me, the perfect solution would be to have the boxes come and go as needed, but having them gone all the time is (I think) a good second choice.

Now that I'm getting a feel for the ui files, there's a few other things I'd like to explore...like moving some of the other things around, hiding stuff I'll never use, etc. It's a bit of a PITA though, having to make changes on the computer then run out to the car to test them, then run back inside to work on it... I'm a Mac/Linux gal and I don't have access to a windows laptop - I have to fire up Parallels/Windows on my desktop so I can work on the data.zip file (the nav unit doesn't like whatever the Mac does to the zip file.)