Now that a first beta version is available since last week, I invite all the beta testers to share their impression with the community on the newly created TouchXperience Facebook page.

Many of you ask me how to become beta tester, unfortunately TouchXperience beta testing is closed at the moment and I have enough qualified beta testers. But contributors are still welcome to join beta testing group, so if you contributed in any of my projects or if you are willing to donate and wish to be beta tester, feel free to contact me and I will send you instructions about how to download TouchXperience and participate in beta testing.

Keep in mind that your donations are really important for the project because I need to invest in different device models, so I can work to port TouchXperience on those devices. Thank you!

Here are some links to make things easier for those of you who are interested:

1. Contribute to TouchXperience project (PayPal donation)
2. Register on TouchXperience
3. Contributors can contact me to be beta tester (and let me know your username)

DOWNLOAD APPLICATIONS

This is a short demonstration of the new hardware accelerated graphic engine and some other nice features of TouchXperience, like G-Scrolling and multi-touch. Beta testers can expect a first preview on next month. During the following weeks I will publish new videos and screenshots of other TouchXperience features, you can follow my work on twitter.com/touchxperience. My other softwares which are currently in beta will be publicly available in february/march.

TouchPaint is similar to Microsoft Paint but designed to use with fingers or stylus, allowing you to create drawings or edit images. It supports Bitmap, JPEG, PNG and GIF image formats. You can use different kinds of tools/shapes (pen, brush, eraser, line, rectangle, triangle,...) with any color. It may be useful for example to draw a sketch when you don't have a sheet of paper with you, to draw a diagram and send it via e-mail, or simply to amuse children!

Command Prompt provides a real console for Windows Mobile, it supports most of standard DOS commands and many other extended commands. Command Prompt allows running any console application, so developers who want to make simple programs without developing user interface can make and running console applications with standard input/output. Even better, Command Prompt supports batch commands and scripts!

You may think it’s surprising to develop a console for a touch user interface, but it can be useful for example to run a script when a specific event occurs, to realize complex file operations, to diagnostic or to get a total control over your phone.

A concrete application is the use of SysActions, a small program included in TouchXperience which allows you to execute system actions from command line, for example: turn off the phone, rotate screen, change backlight, activate WiFi, change profile, sync messages, close an application, change theme, control Touch Diamond/Pro ring LED,... There are more than 100 possible actions!

Here is an overview of the menus which will be included in the public beta of TouchMenu. Most of them are built-in menus but you can also create your own custom menus where you put programs, websites, contacts, commands, links to other menus,... There are more than 100 different types of menu items and that list will be extended in the future, I am also thinking about opening its interfarce to allow developers to create their own menu items. Most of menu items can also be customized, to change their icon for example.

You can navigate and scroll in menus using finger, keypad, G-sensor, or scroll wheel, for example slide left/right to display the next/previous menu, a long press on a menu item shows its options,... Each menu has its own list of actions, for example « Send/Receive » in Messaging or « Close All » in Active applications. You can set a different view for each menu (large list, small list, small grid, large grid), you can also change graphics and colors, by default TouchMenu generates colors according to the current theme.

At this time, TouchMenu is the most completed part of TouchXperience, but it’s just a part... There are many other nice stuffs to come! To give you an idea of the amount of work I’ve done, source code of the whole TouchXperience project is more than 70 MB! Hopefully compiled programs are much smaller! I am a young developer, so I hope you imagine how much it is difficult for me to manage such a big project, and to meet a deadline.

Well, I did my best hoping to release the public beta today, but I have to admit that it will be hardly possible now... I suggest you not to wait longer; another sleepless night is not the best solution, I did not have time yet to test the new builds and when I see the huge expectation of this release, I think it’s too risky to rush. I’m sincerely sorry to report the public release again, I fixed a date to be sure I would respect it but with the best efforts I can’t control and anticipate everything...

I have been away the last two weeks so I could not work on the project as I planned it, meanwhile some private beta testers informed me that they did not receive their invitation for beta testing, and I suppose there are also other people in the same position who did not contact me. So I decided to organize a last private beta during the week before a public release. Previous beta testers will be automatically invited, as well as people who donated lately (new donators are also welcome). For this time, if some of the private beta testers do not get access to the beta within the next 7 days, don’t hesitate to contact me!

Don’t worry, TouchXperience will be released before Windows Mobile 7 (and 6.5!), it’s just a matter of few days, I will not take another risk by announcing a release date, it will be done... when it will be done! I will tell you more about the content of the beta during this week. Thank you for your understanding and for your patience!

TouchXperience website has not been updated since a long time but it was for a good reason, I was actively working on the project, solving issues and finalizing the different features to release TouchXperience as soon as possible, and I would not announce a release date until I’m sure of it. I’m working on the project since more than a year and release has been delayed several times, due to lack of free time and various difficulties beyond my control. Hopefully it comes to the end! All donators should have got an invitation for the private beta testing, and the public beta will be released on February 1st! Due to the huge demand for private beta participation, I decided to make a unique TouchXperience build working on all devices (TyTN, TyTN II, Touch Diamond, Pro, HD), and the different ROMs will be released at the time, I will need few more days to accomplish it, so don’t worry if you didn’t get the beta yet.

I wish everybody all the best for this new year, 2009 will be the Year of TouchXperience, the upcoming beta will come with a lot of nice stuffs but that will be a preview of what’s to come during the year! I didn’t tell yet about all the features which will be included in the first version, but I will give you some interesting details in the following days.

I will start immediately by introducing a cool feature that will interest some of you. Many people asked for a Windows Mobile application to display Xbox Live gamertags, so I’ve got the idea to develop a gamertag plugin for TouchMenu (see screenshot).