[ROM] Retro 1.0 [28205]

[Farmer Ted]

This is a rom that I've been working on for a while (like 6 months)- that could be a good thing or a bad thing, lol. It seems really stable to me (at least for a 6.5.3 build), and is reasonably fast (I think, but I have no basis for comparison, to be honest). The name says it all: this rom is close to what a stock microsoft rom would be like, with some nice added apps. It has a lot of storage memory (339.4 MB) and a lot of free RAM after startup (149 MB-it drops 15-20 MB after a lot of use, like all 6.5 builds in my experience). There are as few HTC apps as possible in the rom; just things that are needed like quick gps, the comm manager and a few odds-and-ends. Let's just say, there ain't no Sense in this rom, or any ported dialers. It uses the stock microsoft dialer as well as the old-style lockscreen (that saves 15 MB of RAM right there). There's a cab file in windows (see later, it's easily found) that will activate the new lockscreen. Arcsoft has been removed (saving 10 MB of storage memory)-I don't use mms, but I believe that cabs can be found. I personally use the old-style Today screen, and have included several additional plugins. These include Pocket Digital Clock, Weather-2-go, Skyfire, and PDA Status. PDA Status has phone, wi-fi and bluetooth toggles that are nice. The BT toggle isn't activated-there's a config file in windows where it can be activated. The icons look nice, and I decided that custom task bar icons would be redundant, so I haven't included any. The start menu is well organized, and there are plenty of folders to add shortcuts to without getting cramped.

Along with the general 'retro' theme of the rom, I've cooked in my own UI tweaks that reverse a lot of the absurd finger-friendliness of the new-style 6.5 roms. Let's just say, if you use a Snickers bar as a stylus, this is not the rom for you. The menus are reasonably sized, and you don't have to scroll forever to exit a program.

The packages in the rom are pretty much all put together by me; I didn't just download ready-made packages, and there's a good reason for it. My packages load nearly all of the apps directly into the rom (windows folder). The only apps you'll find in \program files are TCPMP and Opera Mini. I really had no choice with them. There are good reasons for doing this. First, it saves a ton of storage memory. Second, it allowed me to take advantage of the new virtual memory management in winmo 6.5. I've converted a ton of .dll's to modules (see the build log). You can read about it in the main 6.5 thread at xda, but the added modules help reduce ram usage a bit (in theory), and also improve boot times of apps. In my personal rom, converting sk tools to a module decreased the average boot time from ~4.5 seconds to ~3.3 seconds. If this stuff interests you, there are two tools in the start menu (virtual memory and Dump Memory) that allow you to look deeper at the ram usage and profiles. There's a third (devhealth.exe) that I didn't give a shortcut to that's even cooler. It dumps a large file on your sd card (taking 5+ minutes-that's why I didn't put in a link, to avoid accidentally running it). Anyway, I put a lot of work into building packages to optimize the rom structure. Although the rom has a lot of free storage memory, it's not uber-light. It has a lot of features, imo.

Thanks: Norcal Colby for the welcomeheader. See his thread for an appropriate splash screen. Also, thanks to Da_G for posting up all the great builds and the great tutorials on cooking.

[Farmer Ted]

Featured Apps and Customizations
Browsers
In addition to PIE, the rom has the newest Skyfire (1.5) with VGA support, the newest Opera Mini (5 beta 2) and the newest version of UC WEB6. Mini needs to have full-screen editting enabled to get rid of their awful SIP. It can still be a little buggy, but is much better than the first beta.

SIP
Fingerkeyboard 2.1 is included as well as sipchanger. I personally use sk tools (not included) to change sips. Fingerkeyboard isn't active after boot-up; use sipchange to get it going (in Office Center). It takes just a second to get it going. If you'd prefer to use the stock keyboard, then delete the sipchange.lnk in the startup folder (use the startup.lnk to get there, it's easier).
Media
I've included Technology1's TCPMP in the rom. It should work well out of the box, and play .flv videos seamlessly. (Edit: the video speed is cooked in at 10%-oops!-just change it to 100%.) Ive also included ereader and mobipocket, and the newest version of Power Radio (2.2). It has rds info, and is far better than the crappy HTC FM radio.

Tools and Tweaks
The rom has a lot of the normal things, plus several options for task managers. The task managers are all very light weight, so it's not adding bloat. The nicest (and newest) is XTask. Included in xtask is a program called xhook that runs in the background and that closes applications with the x-button and ok-button. It works great. I've also included vold-pad. If you don't like it, kill it with a task manager, and remove the startup link. It's nice with the ereaders. I've also included a customized (slightly) version of advanced config. I basically pulled out the cache tweaks in Performance. Believe it or not, these tweaks don't do jack. You need to cook in the cache settings, and can't change them afterwards. You can see this visually with VirtualMemory.

Root links
I've included links to the start menu, the startup folder and the windows\temp folder for convenience. I use them all the time. Also, the directory hotlist in total commander is set up for easy navigation.
MSVC
The rom includes MSVC. I mainly use it to launch start menu programs. I've re-named many of the links to be voice-friendly. A short PTT activates voice command. The backup/restore scripts in the rom save the MSVC user lexicon to optimize the performance over multiple flashes. I personally have a library of a 100 or so .dat files built up, and MSVC works well for me.
CAB Files
There are cab Files in the windows folder to activate/de-activate the 6.5 lockscreen. A soft reset is needed for the cabs to take effect. Also, I removed tmail and sapsettings.exe from startup, but included cabs to run them at startup in the windows folder. The cabs are easy to find, as their names begin with 000- to make them appear at the top of the list. Poutlook doesn't run at startup. As far as I can tell, these processes are useless. I can do file transfers with bluetooth explorer without issues, but you may need sapsettings for other BT applications. Finally, I've cooked in a dummy exchange account and schedule to keep active sync from running all the time. This is easily changed in active sync settings if necessary. Did I mention yet that I don't have a data plan?

Icons
Most of the folder icons are by Skizzo (one is by Mort). I stole the TCPMP icon from energy rom. Mortscripts have a nice looking custom file icons.
Rilphone
This rom has the 1.14.25.05 rilphone cooked in as a module. I strongly recommend using this rilphone unless you experience real problems with it. I use the new Raphael radio (1.17.25.09), and they work fine together.

[Farmer Ted]

Add-ons

The rom includes backup/restore scripts that backup a large number of settings and user data. It also has a script to export several registry settings. It's easiest to import these manually (use dotfred's task manager, or just click on them like a cab-but you may need to open dotfred's first). The scripts create backup folders on the sd card. I will attach them here in case anyone wants to try the rom, and perhaps save some data/settings first. The restore can be run during customization, although I haven't tested sdconfig myself (should work, though). The script will backup pim.vol, but I strongly recommend backing it up by other methods (like the included pimbackup) as well. You need multiple backups for pim.vol, in multiple locations.

Just check the scripts below to see what is added to the backup folder. The export script won't work if you don't have dotfred's task manager in the right location and the right name. Also, I've relocated the PIE cache-the backup of cookies and favorites likely won't work without tweaking the paths.

The ruu is attached below. It may set off anti-virus software. Also, the config file is attached to show the BT icon on today. Unselect PDA Status in the Home Settings (items), then drop the file into \windows, then re-select 'PDA Status' and you should be good to go.

[Farmer Ted]

I totally forgot, but I also included the newest Navicomputer (0.8). You'll need to visit the main thread at XDA to download the desktop software needed to download maps. The map folder is on the storage card (in my documents\maps or courses, I forget, lol). Also, I've got the bitchin' goldfish app. You just never know when you need that, lol.

[Farmer Ted]

XTask in action!!! The third pic is a shot of my storage card; the icons are available in my icon thread, if you want them. They look awesome in xtask. You can see the screenshots in hi-res at my flickr account.

[Farmer Ted]

Download Link


Tip: After flashing, I recommend putting the sim card in for customization. It seems to work better. Ignore the ADC pop-up; just click the 'customization begins in 3 seconds' box. And sometimes it just sort of hangs at the 'restart' call. Just let it sit and do it's thing.

I've included a page pool changer in the download (the ruu is two posts up). The stock page pool is 16 MB; don't set it higher, it's seriously just a waste of RAM in this rom. I've run it at 12 MB with no problems; I almost sort of recommend setting it at 12, because you'll save 4 more MB of RAM. Lower than 10 is a bad idea.

Edit: I'm running 12 MB on my personal rom right now-it feels fine to me. My rom is exactly the same as the one posted (all settings and caches are the same), it just has more apps cooked in. These are all commercial stuff I have a license for. The biggest difference is that I have AE Button+ running instead of vold-pad, I use sk tools for the sipchange (have it working out of the box), and I run gscroll. But it's basically the same rom, with ~10 MB less storage space.

Edit2: Ok, maybe 12 MB is a little too low, lol. I'd say leave it at 16 MB. Subject to change.

Edit3: 20 MB. Yeah, that's it, lol.

[Farmer Ted]

Update to 28205 is uploading now.

Changelog:

Upgrade to XTask 2.16
Upgrade to UCWEB 7
Upgrade to Navicomputer 0.8 R2
Added Transcriber
Added a RAM-refresh mortscript-look in mortscript. First run the close script; wait about 30 seconds, the run re-start. It clears up 1-2 MB RAM typically.
Updated classic blue theme so that it has its own wallpaper (see below). Also tweaked the orange theme so that the listview looks a little better.
Stock Page Pool is 20 MB; changer included in .zip file.

337.5 MB free storage; ~142 M Ram at startup.

[Farmer Ted]

Download Retro ROM 2.0 here.

[Badger]

Looking good Ted. You are still using those folder icons? I stopped for a bit and was just thinking about digging them out again.

[Farmer Ted]

Originally Posted by Badger

Looking good Ted. You are still using those folder icons? I stopped for a bit and was just thinking about digging them out again.

Yeah, it's too much of a pain in the butt to change them, lol. They've grown on me, but I can't believe I've been using them for like 6 months.