Page Created: 23rd October, 1999

Last Update: 26th April, 2001

What's the difference between Wallpaper and Logos?

There isn't necessarily any difference.  However, you might normally think of Wallpaper as being a 'background logo or picture'.  In other words, you want it to be a logo/picture that doesn't intrude too much on whatever is in the foreground - eg. your folders and files.  In practice, this probably means that you only have 'light greys' showing in your chosen wallpapers.  Having said that, there is certainly a grey area (no pun intended!) between what you might want to consider as Wallpaper for your 5mx / MC218 / etc. and what might be considered as a logo (or picture) that you'd want to use as a screensaver in (say) Clock5.  The pictures in the Wallpaper.zip file below are predominantly more suitable as Wallpapers and those in the Logos.zip file are probably better suited to being screensaver logos.  It's a matter of personal preference however and you might want to play with both.

NB: You cannot change the system  wallpaper on the Series 5 or Geofox - only on newer ER4 and ER5 machines (e.g. Osaris, Revo, 5mx, etc.)

Free 'Wallpaper Creation Service':

If anyone has a particular logo/image that they'd like converted for use as an EPOC logo or wallpaper (and/or 'greyed' and/or 'embossed' so that it can be used as a wallpaper without overpowering the folders and files in front of it), just email it to me and I'll get it back to you asap (probably in a day or two).  :-)

But I want to create my own wallpaper...

If you want to have a go at creating your own wallpaper, it's really not that difficult.  EPOC can display wallpaper images that are stored in the c:\system\wallpaper\ folder on your machine (and/or d:\system\wallpaper in a 5mx/Osaris/Series 7/etc. with a CF card fitted) but the images must be in EPOC's MBM (Multi BitMap) format.  There are currently at least two (shareware) programs available for the Psion which let you convert standard GIF, JPG, BMP, etc. images to MBM:- MBMView from Lieuwe de Vries and nConvert from Neuon - both are excellent programs.  However, you probably have more flexibility if you convert the files on your PC - and you can do it for free!  ;-)  Read on...

Psion (now Symbian) produce a free DOS utility called BMCONV.EXE.  This command-line utility lets you convert to/from MBM <> BMP file format (BMP being the standard PC bitmap format).  Initially, Psion bundled it on the PsiWin CD but I believe now that you have to either download it from Symbian's DevNet site or it should be on any of the SDK (Software Development Kit) CDs if you're registered as a developer.  If you go looking for it on a CD, make sure that you've got the latest version as pre-ER5 versions didn't support colour.  To make life easier, here's a zipped copy of the program to download (click on the zip icon):-

The syntax of the program (obtained by just typing BMCONV at the DOS prompt without any arguments) is as follows:-

All of which is a bit of a mouthful!  However, if you just want to convert from (say) Example1.bmp to a 4-greyscale MBM file called Example.mbm then you'd use the following:-

BMCONV  Example1.mbm  /2Example1.bmp

(note the lack of spaces between /2 and Example1.mbm)

 

Or from Example2.bmp to a 256 colour MBM file:-

BMCONV  Example2.mbm  /c8Example2.bmp

 

Or from an MBM file called Example3.mbm to an equivalent bitmap:-

BMCONV  /u  Example3.mbm  Example3.bmp

Now that you can convert to and from BMP <> MBM files, it's an easy matter to use any one of the image manipulation/conversion programs available for the PC to lighten your original images, change the contrast, convert JPG/GIF to BMP, etc.

Another option is to use one or both of the two freeware programs, WinPic and XnView (links below) to do the conversions.

Other useful links / programs / information:

I'd suggest that you check out the following if you haven't seen them already:-

• David Steer's excellent (and free) PsiWallpaper program.  It changes the background wallpaper in your EPOC device automatically with whatever regularity you choose.  It also comes bundled with an initialisation file that lets you display your wallpapers as 16-colour images as opposed to the standard 4-colour images and a whole bunch of 16-colour wallpapers (all of which are available as 4-colour wallpapers below).  Download David's program from PalmScape.

• You might also like to check out PocketDownload's free WallpaperMan program.  It also gives you control over how often your wallpaper gets changed and can also generate fractal pattern wallpapers for your machine.

• Another good source of wallpaper files is the TUCOWS download area:- http://pda.tucows.com/epoc/wallpapers5.htm 

• Kevin Millican has some excellent hints for making the MBM (wallpaper)<>BMP conversion process much easier on your PC - check out his page on the subject.

• Alternatively, try these 2 excellent freeware programs which can convert EPOC's mbm (i.e. wallpaper) format to/from other standard image formats:- WinPic by Richard Wakelin is available at http://www.rwakelin.freeserve.co.uk/ and XnView by Pierre-e Gougelet is available at http://www.xnview.com/ .

• J.D. Medhurst (aka Tixy) has details of how to run the 5mx in 16-colour mode at his site (Tixy's Psion 5 Pages).   Well worth a visit.

• If you haven't seen it before, you might want to check out my own freeware program - Clock5 - which can display logos (or wallpapers) of the user's choice as one of its screensavers.

EPOC Wallpapers:

This file now contains some 53 different wallpapers.  Some generated by myself and others kindly donated by others.  Please feel free to send me any others that you have for inclusion here and you'll be sure to get a mention.  All the wallpapers are converted and/or dithered to 4-colour images (this is personal preference on my part as I prefer just to run my machine in 4-colour mode to save battery power).   A selection of some of the wallpapers are shown below.  Download the complete file from the zip icon here:-

Compatible with:

A selection of wallpaper from the Wallpaper.zip file...

New - Series 7 / netBook wallpaper:

I recently converted some wallpapers for Pedro Regalla in Portugal to use on his netBook - and he has kindly agreed for these to be available for download on Pscience5.  There are 7 images altogether and each has been dithered to 16 colours so that they display correctly as Series 7 / netBook wallpaper.  The image below is one of these dithered images converted back to a gif image - so this is how it should look on your machine.

Compatible with:

One of the wallpapers from the Series 7 / netBook collection...

New - Revo / Mako  wallpaper and/or logos:

Compatible with:

One of the images from one of the the revo / mako collections above...

Logos:

This file now contains some 20 different logos.  Some generated by myself and others kindly donated by others.  Please feel free to send me any others that you have for inclusion here and you'll be sure to get a mention.  Download the complete file from the zip icon here:-

Compatible with:

EPOC Art:

Bruce Altman has very kindly sent a collection of EPOC Art - i.e. images that he's either created himself in Sketch, adapted from existing images, or scanned in directly - all for use as background wallpaper.  Click on the zip icon to download:-
Most of Bruce's images are sized for a Revo's screen - although of course they'll work just as well on a 5mx, etc.  Currently there are 13 images in the zip file.  Many thanks Bruce for all your hard work.

Compatible with:

A selection of Bruce Altman's EPOC Art (picture will change every 10 seconds)

Mathieu Brugman has also sent a collection of EPOC Art - i.e. images that he's either created himself in Sketch, adapted from existing images, or scanned in directly - all for use as background wallpaper.

Mathieu has created the images so that they exactly fit a 5mx/MC218 'desktop' with the Title bar on the left and the Toolbar showing on the right.  He's also drawn his subjects to the right of the 'paper' so that they don't get in the way of folders and files on the left hand side.  The quality of his own sketches really is astonishing and I'm totally in awe of his artistic abilities.  There are now 76 in the collection and Mathieu has indicated that he intends to add to them on a regular basis.

Compatible with:

A selection of Mathieu Brugman's EPOC Art (picture will change every 10 seconds)