Monday, January 16, 2006
Changing The Scrolling Behavior In Pocket IE on Windows Mobile 5
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "SOFTWARE" @ 03:00 PM
For those of you that have a new Windows Mobile 5 device or OS upgrade, you may have noticed something, erm... irritating in how Pocket Internet Explorer now scrolls. If I understand it correctly, on a Smartphone, when you press up/down on the dpad, the cursor would move up/down to the next link, not page up/page down. However, you could press some keys on the keypad that would give you full screen up/down movement. Well, in an attempt to make the Pocket PC less dependant on the stylus and work more like its baby brother the Smartphone OS, WM5 for the Pocket PC also moves up/down one link at a time when you press up/down on the dpad, something that can be brutally painful on a site like Pocket PC Thoughts in the forums where each post has 7-8 links plus whatever is in the post itself, and even on those devices with keyboards, it doesn't seem there is a full page up/down workaround.
Until now. :) Simply whip out the registry editor of your choice(1) and see which of the below hacks works for you.
• Under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ add a key called "KeyMaps". Then add a new DWORD value called "48" with a value of 1, and another DWORD called "49" with a value of 2. Close IE by using a task killer, CTRL-Q on the keyboard or in the memory control panel icon in system settings. If you're lucky, the numbers 1 & 0 on the keypad should be mapped to Page-Up and Page-Down.
• If that fails, try this as long as your device has a hardware "Tab" key. Navigate to \HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Navigation\4-Way Nav and set that to 0. Now, your d-pad should page/up and down, and you can use Tab and Shift+Tab to navigate from link to link. Again, you may need to kill and relaunch Pocket IE. Whatever you do, don't immediately soft reset. Registry entires aren't flushed to ROM immediately so doing a quick soft reset may undo your changes.
Unfortunately, this won't help much if your device lacks a keyboard, like the Dell Axim X51v. Note: As of yet, I have not tried either of these, and these are apparently undocumented, so there may be other consequences to doing this. After setting one of these keys, I would launch key apps, like the phone, and make sure things like 0 and 1 still actually dial, or that Tab works correctly in other apps.
(1)Standard registry editing disclaimers apply. Edit the registry at your own risk. You can render your device unbootable and require a hard reset. You may be inadvertently be contributing to global warming when making these changes. Even worse, you could unknowingly tap into the computer systems at CTU, and that means Jack Bauer may come after you. Void where prohibited, and in Vermont. Children under 18 should get their parent's permission before editing the registry.
Until now. :) Simply whip out the registry editor of your choice(1) and see which of the below hacks works for you.
• Under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ add a key called "KeyMaps". Then add a new DWORD value called "48" with a value of 1, and another DWORD called "49" with a value of 2. Close IE by using a task killer, CTRL-Q on the keyboard or in the memory control panel icon in system settings. If you're lucky, the numbers 1 & 0 on the keypad should be mapped to Page-Up and Page-Down.
• If that fails, try this as long as your device has a hardware "Tab" key. Navigate to \HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Navigation\4-Way Nav and set that to 0. Now, your d-pad should page/up and down, and you can use Tab and Shift+Tab to navigate from link to link. Again, you may need to kill and relaunch Pocket IE. Whatever you do, don't immediately soft reset. Registry entires aren't flushed to ROM immediately so doing a quick soft reset may undo your changes.
Unfortunately, this won't help much if your device lacks a keyboard, like the Dell Axim X51v. Note: As of yet, I have not tried either of these, and these are apparently undocumented, so there may be other consequences to doing this. After setting one of these keys, I would launch key apps, like the phone, and make sure things like 0 and 1 still actually dial, or that Tab works correctly in other apps.
(1)Standard registry editing disclaimers apply. Edit the registry at your own risk. You can render your device unbootable and require a hard reset. You may be inadvertently be contributing to global warming when making these changes. Even worse, you could unknowingly tap into the computer systems at CTU, and that means Jack Bauer may come after you. Void where prohibited, and in Vermont. Children under 18 should get their parent's permission before editing the registry.
