Skin pocket pc, disable hardware buttons, disable start button

[Tizio Incognito]

Hello folks,
I'm going to write an application that works as a "skin" on pocket pc.
It needs to run at startup, then it have to cover everything on the
screen, hiding most of functionalities. The user can access only some
programs, from links inside the application, but not everything in the
handheld: for example, he mustn't be able to access control panel,
add/remove and so on.

To do this, I have to be sure that:
- hardware buttons are disabled (intercepting click and running a sort
of cancel?)
- start button is hidden/disabled
- close (top-right) button is hidden/disabled

Finally, I need to:
- add a sort of "shell" command to run certain applications (maybe
listed in a configuration file)

Do you folks think it is feasible? Am I going to choose the right way,
or maybe there are other ways (like working on the registry, if there is
one! I'm a newbie on handhelds)?

Thanks in advance, Claudio

 

[Peter Foot [MVP]]

You have a number of options ranging from a commercial product which will
make any application run in "kiosk" mode:-
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/products/kioskengine/?en

You can also manually remove the start menu and handle the hardware keys by
using a bit of Platform Invoke
The SHFullScreen method will allow you to enable/disable the Start Menu,
Input Panel button or Taskbar. This will remove access to other
applications.
Hardware keys can be registered to your application. see this thread for a
couple of implementations:-
http://www.opennetcf.org/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=283

you can start other applications either by P/Invoking the CreateProcess or
ShellExecuteEx API methods, or use the Process class in the OpenNETCF
framework (www.opennetcf.org/sdf/) which works just like the full framework
Process class.

Peter