Monday, November 21, 2005
Windows Mobile 5 Takes Two Steps Forward With Storage Cards, And Two Steps Back
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 05:00 AM
Windows Mobile 5 takes two steps forward in how it deals with storage cards, and it also takes two steps back. Lets deal with the positive first. As many of you know, when you install an application into RAM (WM2003SE and earlier) it would put the files in \Program Files\Application Name. When you put it on a storage card or in the storage ROM of those devices, the install directory was just off the root, so if you installed 20 apps to your storage card, you'd have 20 folders showing if you looked at your storage card. WM5 now puts all apps in \Program Files\Application Name regardless if you install to the device or to storage cards. :way to go:
Next up, the often confusing ignore_my_docs file seems to be gone. You can read more about this hidden file in an article I wrote over three years ago.
Now, related to that, it seems the new behavior is to ignore the My Documents folder on storage cards altogether. :? This can be nasty if you used your storage card for a lot of data in a My Documents folder. Since that folder is ignored, and since for some reason most apps can only see files one level deep, if you have any sub-folders in My Documents, files won't be seen. For example, a file in \Storage Card\My Documents\Personal is technically three levels deep. The old behavior was to see the My Documents folder as the root by applications so files in Personal were visible. The new behavior seems to be to treat the Storage Card as the root, so files in My Documents are visible, but not files in Personal. The solution? Move all of your document storage folders out of My Documents and up to the Storage Card. Ugh. Get rid of 20 application folders on the Storage Card and replace it with 20 document folders. Some applications bypass the Windows Mobile browse dialog box and work fine, like eReader and PocketBible. Most apps though use the WM file browser and can't see files that deep. Oh well. We are getting close. The solution is, of course, to get rid of the multiple nested folder limits. \Storage Card\My Documents\Business\2005\Recapitalization Project may look cluttered and inefficient to some, but it makes great sense for me and I should be allowed to use that kind of structure on my device just like I do on my desktop.
The other step back deals with how the card itself, the hardware, is dealt with. Now, in fairness, I don't know if this is how the HTC devices do it, or how iMate has customized it, or if it is how WM5 itself deals with it. When my devices suspends, it seems the OS loses sight of the card. I have witnessed this with a 1GB SD card in a JasJar and a 1GB minis card in the K-Jam. The result is the application hangs or crashes. For example, coming out of suspend, PocketBible is still on the screen, but as soon as I try to change the page, the app disappears. Poof. No crash, just gone. When I reopen it, all of the browsing history is gone and I my place has been lost. I've seen it with ListPro and Daily Reader as well. This is reminiscent of how Windows Mobile 2003 did things too. Fortunately, that was largely fixed by a registry hack to change some obscure setting. Something about the EPS conduit to the Bussard Collectors or some such technospeak. That same registry key exists in WM5 but the default value is the hack value, so there is nothing to change. :( I'd be curious to see how this works with the Dell Axis X50v with the upgrade or the new X51v, or any non-iMate device. If things work great for you in this regard, let me know the size of your storage card. I had a 512MB SD card but I can't find it to test.
Next up, the often confusing ignore_my_docs file seems to be gone. You can read more about this hidden file in an article I wrote over three years ago.
Now, related to that, it seems the new behavior is to ignore the My Documents folder on storage cards altogether. :? This can be nasty if you used your storage card for a lot of data in a My Documents folder. Since that folder is ignored, and since for some reason most apps can only see files one level deep, if you have any sub-folders in My Documents, files won't be seen. For example, a file in \Storage Card\My Documents\Personal is technically three levels deep. The old behavior was to see the My Documents folder as the root by applications so files in Personal were visible. The new behavior seems to be to treat the Storage Card as the root, so files in My Documents are visible, but not files in Personal. The solution? Move all of your document storage folders out of My Documents and up to the Storage Card. Ugh. Get rid of 20 application folders on the Storage Card and replace it with 20 document folders. Some applications bypass the Windows Mobile browse dialog box and work fine, like eReader and PocketBible. Most apps though use the WM file browser and can't see files that deep. Oh well. We are getting close. The solution is, of course, to get rid of the multiple nested folder limits. \Storage Card\My Documents\Business\2005\Recapitalization Project may look cluttered and inefficient to some, but it makes great sense for me and I should be allowed to use that kind of structure on my device just like I do on my desktop.
The other step back deals with how the card itself, the hardware, is dealt with. Now, in fairness, I don't know if this is how the HTC devices do it, or how iMate has customized it, or if it is how WM5 itself deals with it. When my devices suspends, it seems the OS loses sight of the card. I have witnessed this with a 1GB SD card in a JasJar and a 1GB minis card in the K-Jam. The result is the application hangs or crashes. For example, coming out of suspend, PocketBible is still on the screen, but as soon as I try to change the page, the app disappears. Poof. No crash, just gone. When I reopen it, all of the browsing history is gone and I my place has been lost. I've seen it with ListPro and Daily Reader as well. This is reminiscent of how Windows Mobile 2003 did things too. Fortunately, that was largely fixed by a registry hack to change some obscure setting. Something about the EPS conduit to the Bussard Collectors or some such technospeak. That same registry key exists in WM5 but the default value is the hack value, so there is nothing to change. :( I'd be curious to see how this works with the Dell Axis X50v with the upgrade or the new X51v, or any non-iMate device. If things work great for you in this regard, let me know the size of your storage card. I had a 512MB SD card but I can't find it to test.
