Landscape Opera on UIQ phones
Luca Cassioli 2006
cassioli,at,iol,dot,it

On some UIQ phones the Opera version installed is designed to be viewed both in portrait and landscape mode (from v. 7.50 on); for uknwon reasons, some Carrier Operators such as "Tre Italia" disabled this feature (and sevral others!) in the Opera menu, so it is not possible to rotate Opera screen in landscape mode. It WAS... til NOW! ;-)

Unfortunately, I was not able to find any screenshot program able to take
landscape snapshots, so I had to take it using a digitalcamera.

There are two methods to get Opera in Landscape mode:

- Modify original firmware (qweb_flex.rsc file) and flash the phone with the new firmware (see this Italian forum; free registration required)

or

- Download and install my Landscape freeware program (includes C++ sources)

The first method has advantages and disadvantages:

- It allows unlocking several hidden menu items in Opera, such as "Rotate screen" (=Landscape mode)

- It breaks your warrantee, being not an officially released firmware

The second method does not change anything in the firmware, it's just a C++ program.

Both methods require at least 7.50 version of Opera installed on the phone, so they can't work on SonyEricsson p800/p90/p910 and on Motorola a920.

How to use Opera in Landscape

Upon starting, Opera will show up in full-screen mode; press on Game A button to bring up menu; press on Game B button to restore Portrait Mode; press HANG-UP button (red) to restore Portrait Mode for the phone. PLEASE NOTE: Opera is the only application designed to work in Landscape mode on a1000; every other application will result "cut" in landscape mode and can not be used correctly!

WHERE IS MY KEYBOARD???
When switching to landscape mode, bottom bar disappear, so starting default keyboard is not allowed: you'll need a 3d party program such as PopOnTop or Decuma On Spot to replace the default keyboard.

How can I stop page loading or go back to previous page?
Keep tapping on the screen until a popup menu appears.

How do I switch back to portrait mode?
Press Game B button

How it works

On every symbian phone, there's a WSINI.INI file stored in ROM drive, in path z:\system\data ; this file describes, among other things, which video modes are available on the phone. Motorola A1000 phone has this wsini.ini file:

AUTOCLEAR 0

STARTUP \SYSTEM\PROGRAMS\qstart

WINDOWMODE COLOR64K

SCR_WIDTH1 208

SCR_HEIGHT1 320

SCR_ROTATION1 0

KEYCLICKPLUGIN MAUDIOCLICK

SCR_WIDTH2 320

SCR_HEIGHT2 208

SCR_ROTATION2 90

SCR_WIDTH3 320

SCR_HEIGHT3 208

SCR_ROTATION3 270

This means that there are three video modes available: standard one (1), clockwise rotated (2) and counterclockwise rotated (3).

My Landscape program just enables the Screen Mode 2 (looks like Opera doesn't "like" screen mode 3) using these statements:

CWsScreenDevice *DeviceMap = iEikonEnv->ScreenDevice(); // Used to rotate the screen.

DeviceMap->SetScreenMode(2); // Activate mode 2

The method which instead uses firmware modding acts in a different way: it modifies file qweb_flex.rsc , stored in A: , which defines which menu options are enabled and which not in Opera browser. Thus, firmware modding allows activating several other hidden features in Opera: