Today I am in Atlanta, GA with Brian Hitney and Glen Gordon. We are presenting Mobility Roadshow: Programming for Windows Mobile. We had a long drive last night, and will have another long drive back to Florence, SC tonight. So I choose not bite off anything too intense today.

Many people today carry mini-flashlights on the end of their key chain. Apparently there is a need for this type of device because many stores sell them near the cash registers in the checkout lines. I wonder why these mini-flashlights are so popular when almost everyone has a mobile phone today. Maybe it is because the phone’s back light is not bright enough.

Hmm, this got me thinking. Most Windows Mobile devices have large powerful screens, maybe there is a way we could reuse our device as both a mobile phone and a mini-flashlight.

Mobile Flashlight

The UI is simple but the task is simple. I considered using a watermark image for the background or add a gradient to the background. With a goal of having as much of the screen as bright as possible I think the simple solid color background was the choice to make.

We only have a few menu options: Burn, Menu, Settings, About, and Exit. I decided to use the term “Burn” like you see on road sign saying “Motorcycles must burn lights”. We only have a few screens: Main, Settings, About. The settings screen you should see to the left, and the main screen should be to the right of this text.

On the about screen we let the user choose the color they would like the screen to “burn” at. By default we have chosen white to maximize brightness.

We used NumericUpDown controls to maximize usability, this allows user to choose the soft input panel or the control directly to set the color amounts.

Save Color Values

   1: int red = (int) numericUpDownRed.Value;

   2: int green = (int) numericUpDownGreen.Value;

   3: int blue = (int) numericUpDownBlue.Value;

Get Color Values

   1: numericUpDownRed.Value = (int) Global.Color.R;

   2: numericUpDownGreen.Value = (int) Global.Color.G;

   3: numericUpDownBlue.Value = (int) Global.Color.B;

Possibilities:

The biggest need this application has is a way for the user to save their color preference. Right now if the application is closed the color will go back to the default color of white. Another great feature would be to make the application to go full screen and hide both the title bar and the menu. One last addition would be code to maximize the screen brightness setting in Control Panel.

Download executable: mobileFlashlight.cab

Download Source Code: mobileFlashlight.zip

Feedback:

Want more? What else would you like to see? Time’s running out on submitting ideas. Be sure to get yours in soon!