{"id":378,"date":"2010-02-05T17:11:31","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T22:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/?p=378"},"modified":"2023-08-15T12:31:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-15T07:01:44","slug":"wince-shortcut-to-control-panel-applet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wince-shortcut-to-control-panel-applet\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating shortcuts to Control Panel Applications"},"content":{"rendered":"

A recently invoked query on the MSDN news group for Windows CE has induced me to script this post. Most WinCE professionals\u00a0might be aware of creating short-cut for a file. Now the\u00a0question is<\/em> – Would\u00a0it be possible to create a short-cut to every individual control panel application? The answer is a definite YES!<\/p>\n

Shortcut syntax<\/strong><\/span>
\nA shortcut file has the extension of .lnk, containing the following entry as a command line parameter.
\nnn# command [optional parameters]<\/em><\/p>\n

Where \u201cnn\u201d denotes the number of characters followed by the # symbol. The \u201ccommand\u201d denotes the actual command and the \u201c[optional parameters]\u201d<\/em> represent the optional arguments for the command. For example, 27#\\Windows\\iexplore.exe \u2013home \u2013<\/em> is a command to open internet explorer with home page. This entry should also be saved in the iexplore.lnk file.<\/p>\n

Control Panel Applets<\/strong><\/span>
\nControl panel applets are individual configuration tools, implemented in the form of .cpl files listed with icon and name in the Control Panel user interface. A .cpl file is a DLL that implements the CPlApplet API. Ctlpnl.exe loads and runs the control panel applets. A single .cpl file can contain single as well as multiple Control Panel applications.<\/p>\n

Shortcut to Control Panel Applets<\/strong><\/span>
\nNormally we can create short-cut for a single file or a .cpl file containing single control panel application in a straight forward approach. An example for this is as follows:
\n33#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\intlp.cpl<\/em>
\nWhere Intlp.cpl is a control panel applet for regional language settings that contains a single control panel application.<\/p>\n

Another example for a control panel applet containing multiple control panel application is cplmain.cpl.
\nFollowing is the\u00a0list of short-cut entries for each control panel application that resides in the Cplmain.cpl.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. PC Connection –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,0<\/li>\n
  2. Dialing –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,1<\/li>\n
  3. Keyboard –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,2<\/li>\n
  4. Password –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,3<\/li>\n
  5. Owner –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,4<\/li>\n
  6. Power\u00a0 –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,5<\/li>\n
  7. System –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,6<\/li>\n
  8. Display –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,7<\/li>\n
  9. Mouse –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,8<\/li>\n
  10. Stylus –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,9<\/li>\n
  11. Volume & sounds –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,10<\/li>\n
  12. Input Panel –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,11<\/li>\n
  13. Remove Programs –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,12<\/li>\n
  14. Date\/Time –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,13<\/li>\n
  15. Certificates –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,14<\/li>\n
  16. Accessibility –\u00a0 35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,15<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Ctlpnl.exe invokes the cplmain.cpl with its parameters 0 to 15 to execute the corresponding control panel applications. The parameter to the cplmain.cpl is given from 0 to 15 based on the array index value of CPLAPPLETINFO rgApplets[] = { \u2026\u2026.}<\/em>. This control panel applet table presents in the \\PUBLIC\\ WCESHELLFE\\OAK\\CTLPNL\\CPLMAIN\\cpltable.cpp<\/em> file.<\/p>\n

    Exposing Shortcut on Desktop<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n

    \"WinCE<\/a>
    WinCE Shortcut<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Following steps are involved to integrate the short-cut file with the OS image:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • To create the required short-cut, copy the short-cut command line parameter entry in notepad application and save it as a .lnk file. For example, short-cut file for Date-Time.lnk will contain the following entry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      35#”ctlpnl.exe” \\Windows\\cplmain.cpl,13<\/em><\/p>\n

        \n
      • Copy this file to your \\WINCE600\\PLATFORM\\<your BSP>\\Files folder. This will then be automatically copied to your release folder during build process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
          \n
        • Open a \\WINCE600\\PLATFORM\\<your BSP>\\Files\\platform.bib and add the following entry in the FILES section to make this short-cut file as a part of the nk.bin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

          Date-Time.lnk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 $(_FLATRELEASEDIR)\\ Date-Time.lnk\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 NK<\/em><\/p>\n

          This Date-Time.lnk<\/em> will be resided in \\windows folder of your device.<\/p>\n

            \n
          • Open the \\WINCE600\\PLATFORM\\<your BSP>\\Files\\platform.dat and add the following entry to show the short-cut on desktop.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

            Directory(“\\Windows\\LOC_DESKTOP_DIR”):-File(“Date-Time.lnk”,”\\Windows\\Date-Time.lnk”)<\/em><\/p>\n

              \n
            • The following figure shows the short-cut for Date-Time control panel application on the device desktop and also has been indicated by a red elliptical mark.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

              A recently invoked query on the MSDN news group for Windows CE has induced me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[70,132],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1879,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/1879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-consystems.com\/blog\/windowsce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}