JeffKirvin.net

I’ve made the case on several sites recently that most of us PDA enthusiasts probably don’t want a device running Palm OS Cobalt. Because current licensees are more likely to stick with the OS they know� Garnet� almost all of the new Cobalt devices will be from new licensees, and those will be companies that make smartphones. Cobalt will disable many of our favorite system extensions, and while it does allow for a little hacking (it seems there’s actually a Term window in there somewhere) it also allows for much more locking down than Garnet.

That said, it sure looks cool. I’ve played around with the Cobalt simulator and the system looks more refined and polished than Garnet while remaining recognizably Palm OS. So I started to wonder if it was possible to at least get that fresh Cobalt look on a Garnet device.

The first step was easy. I needed to get my Garnet color scheme to match the default scheme in Cobalt. I downloaded and installed Khroma, a freeware color scheme editor. I created a new scheme called Cobalt, which I’ll attach at the end of this article. Just copy that into a memo and import it into Khroma and it should be ready to activate. This is as close as I could get to the colors in the simulator.

The next thing I needed was the font rendering in Cobalt. Unlike Garnet, Cobalt supports anti-aliased font rendering, making characters seem much smoother and more like the printed page. For this, I’m using Alex Pruss’s FontSmoother and Lubak’s Fonts4OS5. I’ve got Trebuchet AA 17 set as my default font system-wide, and it looks a lot like the default font in Cobalt, but even a little more readable (check out the bottoms of lower case Ls, for example; no way to mistake that for a capital I or a 1).

For the status bar, I’m using SkinDIA (again by Dr. Pruss) and a skin called OS6 (which my screenshot software can’t capture). While certain elements are in different places, this captures the feel of the Cobalt status bar quite nicely. Of course, I’ve modified mine to incorporate Fitaly instead of the wide, three-cell Graffiti area.

For the launcher, I’m using ZLauncher with a skin called T3standard. This is a very good clone of the standard Palm OS user interface, and allows me to set up my home screen any way I want. I’ve deviated a bit from a strict Cobalt look with this, inspired by Cobalt’s use of tabs in the Date Book to set up tabs on my launcher. I also have the first tab set up to display current appointments and tasks, not unlike the PPC Today screen.

For the Date Book itself I’m just using the stock Calendar app that comes with the T5. Many of the innovations that Cobalt adds to the stock Palm OS are already present in the PalmOne-modified version of Garnet. These include time zone support, events spanning midnight, locations and categories. The PalmOne Calendar adds color-coding by category, something I don’t believe Cobalt does by default.

That’s really it. I’m still looking for a more elegant way of “skinning” the buttons, but for now, this works, and whenever I need a Cobalt “fix”, I can just set this up and pretend. Or, if you look at it another way, I have most of the benefits and aesthetics of Cobalt without having to buy a new device. W00t!

—Create a memo containing the following for Khroma—

Khroma: Cobalt
UIObjectFrame:
i=219; r=119 g=119 b=119
UIObjectFill:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIObjectForeground:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIObjectSelectedFill:
i=19; r=204 g=204 b=255
UIObjectSelectedForegound:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIMenuFrame:
i=219; r=119 g=119 b=119
UIMenuFill:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIMenuForeground:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIMenuSelectedFill:
i=19; r=204 g=204 b=255
UIMenuSelectedForeground:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIFieldBackground:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIFieldText:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIFieldTextLines:
i=219; r=119 g=119 b=119
UIFieldCaret:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIFieldTextHighlightBackground:
i=120; r=255 g=255 b=0
UIFieldTextHighlightForeground:
i=233; r=0 g=0 b=0
UIFieldFepRawText:
i=106; r=0 g=51 b=153
UIFieldFepRawBackground:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIFieldFepConvertedText:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIFieldFepConvertedBackground:
i=149; r=153 g=0 b=102
UIFieldFepUnderline:
i=105; r=0 g=102 b=153
UIFormFrame:
i=105; r=0 g=102 b=153
UIFormFill:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIDialogFrame:
i=105; r=0 g=102 b=153
UIDialogFill:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIAlertFrame:
i=105; r=0 g=102 b=153
UIAlertFill:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
UIOK:
i=189; r=51 g=102 b=51
UICaution:
i=140; r=204 g=153 b=0
UIWarning:
i=161; r=153 g=0 b=0
WinForeColor:
i=89; r=51 g=0 b=153
WinBackColor:
i=0; r=255 g=255 b=255
WinTextColor:
i=255; r=0 g=0 b=0