Welcome to shell: revealed Sign in | Join | Help
in Search

Concept UI for Windows Mobile Centre

Last post 03-21-2008, 1:38 PM by Lawrence. 1 replies.
Sort Posts: Previous Next
  •  06-13-2007, 8:32 AM 7254

    Concept UI for Windows Mobile Centre

    You can also read the article on my Blog.

    Windows Vista comes with Windows Mobile Device Centre which support only for Windows Mobile Devices. I thought that this should be changed, so I made this concept User Interface for my own application which I think should be bundled with Vista.

    Presenting Windows Mobile Centre, the solution to all your mobile phone & PDA needs. Everything you are about to see is made on a system running Windows Vista Ultimate with Photoshop CS3 & Axialis IconWorkshop 6. I have not made a single icon in this mock UI because everything is already in Windows Vista. It is very easy for developers to make the backend of this application.

    When you first start Windows Mobile Centre this is how it looks like. A simple welcome screen telling you what Windows Mobile centre is for & what can it do for you. Just click on "Select Device" to select the device you want to manage.

     Main Window

    You now come to the 2nd screen on which you are asked to select what kind of device you have, whether it is a Mobile Phone or Pocket PC or PDA or UPMS. Just click on the type of device you have & click on "Next". For this article I selected Mobile Phone because I have a K750i & it is easier for me make a mock UI keeping a phone in mind. Obviously the phone is in my hand, thats why. :D. 

        Select Device

    After selecting "Mobile Phone", I am given a list of all the mobile phone Windows Mobile centre can sync. This database is plug-in based & new phones can be added via simple Windows Update. Here for the article I selected K750i because like I said, that is what I have in my hands right now so easier to make this UI for me. You are given information for your phone & a photo which makes it easy to visually identify the phone from the list. You are also given 2 checkboxes stating whether you want to let Windows Mobile Centre automatically try to connect using the best & fastest available connection or whether you want to select a connection type manually such as Bluetooth or WiFi or IrDA or a Data Cable. For this article I have selected to connect automatically. Now click on connect.   

    After selecting "Mobile Phone", I am given a list of all the mobile phone Windows Mobile centre can sync. This database is plug-in based & new phones can be added via simple Windows Update. Here for the article I selected K750i because like I said, that is what I have in my hands right now so easier to make this UI for me. You are given information for your phone & a photo which makes it easy to visually identify the phone from the list. You are also given 2 checkboxes stating whether you want to let Windows Mobile Centre automatically try to connect using the best & fastest available connection or whether you want to select a connection type manually such as Bluetooth or WiFi or IrDA or a Data Cable. For this article I have selected to connect automatically. Now click on connect. 
      

     K750i Selected

    Windows Mobile Centre now automatically tries to find the best & fastest possible connection available. It searches & finds Bluetooth connection. 

     Searching for a connection

    Bluetooth connection found 

    Once the connection is established it displays the status of the phone such as Phone's name, battery left, connection type, free memory in memory card or phone itself, IMEI Number, firmware etc. It also tells you whether the phone is synced with Windows Mobile Centre or not. Since this is the first time, it is not synced & it gives you an option whether to sync right now or not. Without syncing you cannot see the saved Phonebook, SMS, and Mail etc. You can sync the whole phone anytime using the green Sync button at the topmost toolbar alongside Configuration Options & Help button. Or in this case for the first time you can also sync using the options given below the notification. 

    You can also get advanced information using this window. Like clicking on Bluetooth Icon gives info in a new palette like which COM Port it is connected through, which Bluetooth device it is using etc. Same goes with battery 

     Phone Status

    Once the phone is synced, you can start working on it the way you like. Some basic phone tasks are available in the right click context menu or the following toolbar button. You can mouse over the toolbar buttons to get information regarding what that button does. Let us go through all sections one by one. 

    Contacts Section. : After you sync the phone with the computer, Windows Mobile Centre automatically copies all the contact to Windows Contacts folder through which these are also available in Windows Mail, Windows Calendar & other such Windows application like Live Messenger etc. Those contacts which are not in Phone but are there in Windows contacts are also synced to the phone.

    The contacts are available in a list view depending in whether you have selected to show Phone contacts or SIM contacts. You can search for a particular contact using the search bar provided at the toolbar. You can simply right click on the column to show more info as required such as other phone number, fax, address etc. To copy a contact from Phone to SIM, either drag & drop it or simply copy paste using the keyboard or right click menu.

    The toolbar provides access to some basic tasks available for contact list, like refreshing the contact list or adding a new contact to the contact list, editing an existing contact, deleting a contact or simply sending a message to your contact using the computer. You can also select whether the message is a SMS or E-Mail.

     Contact List 

    Suppose you want to send SMS to someone. Just click on the contact & click on the new Messege toolbar button. You will be given a simple window to write your SMS which will be then messaged using your Mobile Phone. You either enter a number manually or select from contact list. If you enter an E-mail ID, the message will go as an E-Mail through your phone & GPRS/EDGE connection using the settings for E-Mail set in your phone. This is how the Message Window looks like.

       SMS Window

    The call logs section shows the recent call logs. It shows all calls, missed calls, answered calls or dialed calls as selected in the left hand pane. You can again perform basic tasks such as refresh the list or add an unknown number to your phone or delete the entire recent logs or send a message to a recent number. You can also search for a particular caller in the call logs.

     Call Logs

    The Messages section provides you a view at the SMS you have in your phone. It shows your phone Inbox, the saved messages, drafts, sent messages & Outbox. From here you can simply click on any message & either forward it to another number, or reply to that sender or delete the SMS or refresh the SMS list. You can also select to write a complete new SMS using the new message button in the toolbar. 

     Messages

    The Files section gives you option to browse the phone's memory or the memory card in the phone. Although the memory card is also available in Windows Explorer as a removable drive. The explorer is just like Windows Explorer & you can navigate or sort. You select the type you want to view the folders as, or simply right click in the Explorer area & select to view as large or small icons for folders. If you have selected to show thumbnail previews of files, then it will show the images as thumbnail by simply downloading them to computer in the background.

    Using the toolbar, you can simply refresh the file list or go one up level, create a new folder, delete a file or download the file to a location in the computer or upload a file to the location in Phone. You can also install JAVA application using this Files view because K750i supports installation of JAVA Applications. You can also search for a particular file in the Phone or Card memory.Single clicking over a file or folder gives its information in the File Properties pane such as file size, location, type etc. 

     File Browser

    The Organiser Notes Part is complete. If your mobile phone or device supports notes, then you can sync them automatically with your Windows Notes Gadget or Outlook Notes. To access notes, click on the notes icon in the toolbar which will show you all the notes in your phone. Pressing the refresh button will sync the notes from your computer to the phone & vice versa. Here are the 3 views in which you can see your notes. I prefer the detail view though but since it is upto the user he can chose to look anyway he wants by clicking on the view type icon in Notes toolbar.

    Thumbnail View 

    Thumbnail View

    Details View

     Details View

    Text View

    Text View


    Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
    My Blog : http://gxsaurav.spaces.live.com
    Filed under:
  •  03-21-2008, 1:38 PM 7827 in reply to 7254

    Re: Concept UI for Windows Mobile Centre

    Ok, I'm a strong fan of this one... needs a lot (and I mean a lot) of work to get it ready (new icons, new fonts, new notes panel (text is misoriented) and more.
    Wake me up in 2010 for W7. For now I'm waiting for Vista to boot.
View as RSS news feed in XML
Powered by Community Server, by Telligent Systems © 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks | Privacy Statement.