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I have had an android phone for about a month and continue to find new ways of doing things...
Not sure if you were aware of this...
If you have LauncherPro, there is a shortcut menu option called "Activities" that will display and let you create a shortcut icon from items inside programs and SETTINGS.
That means, you can create an icon for MobileAP, Wifi selection,VPN, etc.
Using this one step further, you could add these shortcuts into FolderOrganizerLabels and display a label(folder) on your home screen(s).
I am stoked now because I can get to so many settings individually without having to do the extra 5 steps to get there.
I am super stoked as well because I created a folder specifically for BTEP ssh client shortcuts to access my firewalls, servers and switches.
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I know the last few builds of Launcherpro have been bogged down due to new widgets (twitter). But I don't think i can get any happier.... well unless samsung fixes my gps!
Krad said:
I have had an android phone for about a month and continue to find new ways of doing things...
Not sure if you were aware of this...
If you have LauncherPro, there is a shortcut menu option called "Activities" that will display and let you create a shortcut icon from items inside programs and SETTINGS.
That means, you can create an icon for MobileAP, Wifi selection,VPN, etc.
Using this one step further, you could add these shortcuts into FolderOrganizerLabels and display a label(folder) on your home screen(s).
I am stoked now because I can get to so many settings individually without having to do the extra 5 steps to get there.
I am super stoked as well because I created a folder specifically for BTEP ssh client shortcuts to access my firewalls, servers and switches.
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I know the last few builds of Launcherpro have been bogged down due to new widgets (twitter). But I don't think i can get any happier.... well unless samsung fixes my gps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, the activities shortcuts are nice... I was able to create one to the GPS Service menu as well,so I can jump right in and do a GPS Test and/or clear out the GPS data very easily. I have found that whenever my GPS hangs, clearing out the data does seem to help and this makes it super-easy (no need to dial the number!)
Also, like you, I used this feature to create a shortcut to "MobileAP" ... very nice!
jsmith8858 said:
Also, like you, I used this feature to create a shortcut to "MobileAP" ... very nice!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did you do that? Never mind. I figured it out. I needed a little patience for the screen to arrive.
I too love LauncherPro Plus. I use Smart Shortcuts to put apps in folders on the desktop. You can apply any icon you want. It also handles folders for bookmarks and contacts. I'll check out FolderOrganizer as well.
Thanks!
I believe ADW Launcher has the same feature. You just need to choose "Custom Shortcut" instead of "Shortcut" and it will allow you to choose your activity. Haven't played with it much, but was curious about what it did so tried to create my own shortcut. Worth some more investigation, certainly.
jsmith8858 said:
I was able to create one to the GPS Service menu as well,so I can jump right in and do a GPS Test and/or clear out the GPS data very easily.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not wanting to cry wolf, but can you describe how you did this? I looked at the scripts menu, but it seems to want a script that has already been written.
thanks so much for posting this. i was trying to figure out how to create a link to my call log on the home screen, now there is one with launcherpro.
mrschwarz said:
Not wanting to cry wolf, but can you describe how you did this? I looked at the scripts menu, but it seems to want a script that has already been written.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi -- no script is needed, you just add an activity shortcut.
i am dropping folderorganizer.. it is getting way to slow. Trying smart shortcuts now.
Only thing keeping me from using the stock browser is not being able to get my bookmarks as my homepage
Any way for this to be done?
Run a script or set homepage and put the file path to the bookmarks instead of a url?
looked on google and everywhere and seems no way for this to be done on stock browser.
Figure some type of workaround for this should be available by now.
fidorulz said:
Only thing keeping me from using the stock browser is not being able to get my bookmarks as my homepage
Any way for this to be done?
Run a script or set homepage and put the file path to the bookmarks instead of a url?
looked on google and everywhere and seems no way for this to be done on stock browser.
Figure some type of workaround for this should be available by now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will probably get moved to q&a or somewhere other then android development.
If you have cyanogenmod 6/adw you can do this easily.
long press blank spot on one of your screens,
click custom shortcut,
click pick your activity,
click Activities,
click Browser,
Click Bookmarks(CombinedBookmarkHistoryActivity).
Enjoy your new shortcut to bookmarks. Alternatively you could use anycut/bettercut to launch this specific activity.
gIMpSTa said:
This will probably get moved to q&a or somewhere other then android development.
If you have cyanogenmod 6/adw you can do this easily.
long press blank spot on one of your screens,
click custom shortcut,
click pick your activity,
click Activities,
click Browser,
Click Bookmarks(CombinedBookmarkHistoryActivity).
Enjoy your new shortcut to bookmarks. Alternatively you could use anycut/bettercut to launch this specific activity.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry if this wasn't in the right forum but reason I posted it in development is I actually want to change the browser homepage to the bookmarks in the actual browser app and not simply put a shortcut to the bookmarks which current isnt an open with the stock app.
Reason for this is many times when I use my browser (dolphin currently) ill open multiple tabs (windows whatever you want to call it) strait from my bookmarks
So for example at the homepage(aka bookmarks) I long press on a page and open in background
I do this for maybe 7 pages thus they are loading at the same time and I can do what I need
With the current config with every new window I open the original window goes back to the homepage thus I have to re-select to access my bookmarks instead of the bookmarks page simply staying put
I know this isnt a big deal but it would save me at least 1 extra click per page I want to open doing this so it can add up over time
Don't know if this would be desirable to many, but with launcher pro you can set the swipe-up activity to pop up your bookmarks. So on my launcher I can start the browser normally or swipe-up and select the bookmark I want to access directly.
poorboy168 said:
Don't know if this would be desirable to many, but with launcher pro you can set the swipe-up activity to pop up your bookmarks. So on my launcher I can start the browser normally or swipe-up and select the bookmark I want to access directly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info but still simply a work around. Im sure im not the only one who would want this
many other browsers allow this such as opera (even if limited to 9) or xscope and even miui browser
Also chrome on my computer shows by default the most visited sites when opening a new tab which is almost the same thing
I would like to dedicate one homescreen to show all (or as many as possible) of my Dolphin bookmarks, either with a fullscreen widet, an app that syncs shortcuts on the screen to the bookmarks, or even a folder icon that would open to the bookmarks. So far I have searched in vain. The widgets I have found are not big enough.
Would appreciate any help.
If you use launcher pro plus it has a bookmark widget that is scrollable. LP plus isn't free but it's worth every penny.
i dont know how many bookmarks you have, but I also love LP's swipe gesture to show the widgets when swiping up on Dolphin in the dock. All the LP widgets are awesome
Over the years I grew tired of syncing bookmarks among computers and between different browsers on the same computer (and now the tablet). The ISP includes a bit of disc space for hosting pages as part of the account. I use an editor (jedit.org) with FTP within it to edit very-straight-forward HTML pages directly on the server. Each browser on my cell phone, tablet, and computers has its homepage set to an appropriate page; a mobile sites page for the phone, a "tablet" page for the stuff I use daily. It sounds like a lot of work, but not so. It takes me only a few seconds to open a page to update and resave the page. The pages are quick to load. No more losing bookmarks when something fails or when changing computers. Just an idea as an alternative to looking for a piece of software... hope it helps.
Tom
Well, I found a solution, kind of. I switched to the Notion Ink browser, which uses stock bookmarks. (To see how to update the NI browser to the latest version, which fixes a couple of nasty bugs, see http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=928832&page=19). Then I got DMarks from the market, to sort the bookmarks automatically. Then I got Live Bookmarks, which shows all the bookmarks on an overlay on your screen. Works great for me.
Hello
And happy new year to everyone!
This is my first week on Lumia 735 after being 6 years with Android.
I like very much it's desktop, but there are some simple things that I thought until now I would figure out but I cannot find a solution....
1. How can I download a PDF from an email and then attach it to another email?
2. Is there a way to have a shortcut on notification bar for data connection?
3. Is there a way to remove Bing and get Google as default engine?
4. Is there a way to tide up settings? I feel that are randomly scattered...
5. Is there a way to open a new tab in internet explorer, but open in background? Cause we are always transferred to the new tab.
Thanks!
I'm on the same phone since about 4-5 days, so I have not yet answers for you, but another question to add:
- why on some apps the keyboard doesn't turn in landscape mode when I flip the phone? I found it working on some apps only, but in Bing search (just an example) it remains in portrait
EDIT: a bit of googling partially answers to 3: I'm a newbie so I don't know if I can link external sites here, but it seems you can change the default search engine in Internet Explorer in the browser settings (so when you type words in the address bar, it uses Google instead of Bing). Regarding the phone search button, maybe the trick is not so easy...
1. did you see download in email message? click on that link to download file to your phone.
2. with latest WP OS 8.10.14219.341 you can add mobile data shortcut in action center
or use Quick Launch app from store
3. settings - applications - internet explorer, select advanced settings and change to google
4. no... latest updated is always at end of list...
5. not exactly... try UC Browser 8.1, maybe you like it better than IE
Download a app named File attacher,it can help you to attach any files into outlook client.
Sent from my AT&T Nokia Lumia 920 using Tapatalk for Windows Phone
1) Download the file to your phone. You can then open it from the email (which will let you choose what PDF viewer to open it with, if you have more than one installed; some of them directly support sharing) or you can then switch to a file manager app (Files, Pocket File Manager, Aerize Explorer, etc.), go to the Downloads directory, and share the file from there. When "sharing" the file, one option will be to use email; this will attach the file to the email. This approach also works for other file types, by the way.
2) As dxdy says, you need to be on a new OS version (you may need to be using the "Preview for Developers" app) to get the ability to add mobile data specifically to the Action Center (swipe-from-top notification area thing) but there are lots of other ways (tons of free apps, for example) to pin a link to it on your Start screen. You can also have both WiFi and Airplane Mode toggles on the Action Center, even in less-than-newest versions.
3) Not unless you're in Russia, I think? You may be able to change the IE default search engine using the method dxdy posted above, but if you want to change the search button behavior, that's trickier. I think in Russia (or possibly just tell your phone you are), if you have the Google app installed, it may run that... haven't tried, though.
4) Settings are, unfortunately, not directly orderable. The default order for Microsoft-provided settings is basically "what MS has found people use most often", thus things like visual and audio customization are at the top, WiFi is on the first page, and stuff like Backup requires scrolling down a bunch. There's also OEM customizations, which are technically just Store apps that are pre-installed and use the Settings hub instead of the normal app list; those are always listed underneath all the Microsoft settings, and (as dxdy says), the one that was most recently installed/updated is at the top of that section ('top of the bottom of the list' if you will).
5) Doesn't seem to be any such way in IE, but there's lots of other browsers. Most of them just wrap the IE rendering engine, so pages will look the same as on IE but the UI can be totally different. This includes changes to tab management. They won't sync with your other devices, at least not by default, though. There's also a beta of Opera for WP8; it still has some bugs but mostly works and has a very different UI from IE. Annoyingly, though, Microsoft doesn't allow any of those apps to be set as the default browser (you can't change the URI association for http:/https: for example).
@axxel84: It depends on whether the app supports landscape mode. That requires work from the developer, since they have to change the layout of everything, so a lot of apps don't support it. If the app doesn't support it, then it will be locked in one orientation no matter how you turn it, keyboard included. Some apps (mostly games) are also locked in landscape mode only, and don't support portrait.
Hi guys, thanks for the help but I am still finding difficult to compose with windows after coming from fully updated Android phones.
- pdf attachments, not possible. You can see that you download files but no where to be seen in order to attach them in another email! What????
- the option to change Bing to Google was in the past, but they don't have it on new phones. And this is the company that wants to increase market share? With these kind of acts I don't think they will last many years...
- I found a way to have a shortcut on desktop that takes me to settings and there to click on for data. But why don't they include this in notification option? How difficult is this?????
- the other frustrating thing I am feeling, is that most other times when resuming an app when I go out and then in, it starts the"resuming" screen and takes 5 seconds to load... For example viber, I can't chat instantly with someone, I have to leave the program on continuously to do this
- no led notification. I should have known earlier by reading reviews, but there is no led notification!!
- no major apps as official pinterest, dropbox, instagram, sms backup to gmail. My biggest disappointment is Dropbox... I am thinking of selling the phone now and going back to Android. Having two small twins, I take continuously videos and photos, and I don't want to think about backup. I found another application but doesn't sync videos automatically. And also the backup app of windows doesn't do automatically the job... If I was windows I would hire people to help these companies develop the "big" apps...
- notification center doesn't always work. for example when a new app is downloaded, nothing comes app on notification. Or in viber you might get 10 messages on notification, if you click one and then in viber you read all, they remain on notification
Nobody seems to have emailed me a PDF recently, but I can download them from the web and they show up in my Downloads folder (on my SD card, since that's where I told Storage Sense to put new downloads). From there, I can see it in Aerize Explorer, select it, Share it, and choose an email account; a new message is created with the file attached.
Some new phones have the option for Google search, but it's not in all regions.
As you have ALREADY been told, the option to toggle data service from the Action Center is available in the latest version. It's also largely un-needed; Data Sense and related settings should give you enough control over your data usage to make it fairly unimportant. Mind you, I agree that it should have been there from the start, but asking rhetorical questions isn't actually helpful.
The "Resuming..." screen can come up for two reasons (or a combo thereof):
1) Badly-coded app that does a bunch of stuff immediately on resume, before it lets you use the app.
2) Your phone ran low on RAM and removed the app from background execution ("tombstoned" it, sort of like hibernating a laptop), so it needs to be restored from the Flash storage and then resumed.
Lots of phones don't have notification LEDs. That's not a WP8 thing, that's a "if this feature is important to you then you ought to buy a phone with that feature" thing. My HTC has a notification LED, my Samsung did not. Both are/were WP8 devices.
Automatic backup of photos and videos is included in the OS, has been included since WP7 actually, but it goes to OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) instead of Dropbox. Microsoft software uses Microsoft services; this isn't really surprising.
SMS is automatically backed up as well, just not to Google. Why would Microsoft include a feature to back up your messages to a competitor's service?
Lack of official apps is somewhat annoying/disappointing, but you could have easily enough checked that before buying, and the apps will come in time. In the meanwhile, there's usually third-party versions of those apps.
App downloads are fast, and you know when you started them. Why would you need a notification for that? As for the thing with Viber, it's not the OS' fault that the app doesn't report when a message is read. Notifications are really easy to clear though, just swipe them to the right and all notifications for that app will clear (or hit the "clear all" button to get rid of all of them at once).
5-31-21 I've ceased development on this app because I think there is a better alternative. See post #7.
*updated to version 1.3, adding error trap for discontinued or blank feeds*
It's been awhile since the demise of the last working version of Genie Widget (aka Google News and Weather) but not so long since the big G retooled news.google.com so that our browsers can no longer deal with it and also put the kibosh on the Google News RSS feeds. Sigh.
I have a work-around
Google News 1.3 for the NST/G exploits the "alerts" that Google offers on news topics. These alerts can be optioned in the form of RSS feeds. My app downloads the HTML source for the feed, picks out all the good stuff and trashes all the rest, then builds up a local HTML document which is easily displayed by our browsers (I highly recommend Opera Mobile for ease of scrolling and general all-around function). You can build up your own topics, change your mind, mix them about, read that one more story you didn't get to the first time around, etc. I'm not saying that your browser will negotiate every target link. Some newspaper sites have just become too much. That was true even when Genie Widget was still working. But updating Opera Mobile for TLS 1.2 solves much of that. See this post for details.. The beauty of this app is in the simplicity. It's entirely browser-based once the feeds are downloaded, so you're not going back and forth between the app and your browser (like the current Google News app.......). Designed for both portrait and landscape.
Requirements
1. Android 2.1 has a security issue with opening local HTML files. In order for Google News to work properly you need to address that. Included in the zip below is a tiny app, android-open-in-browser-0.0.4-4-debug. Install that. It's not my app but I have used it for years and wish I could credit the originator.
2. This is a Tasker-generated app. If you already have one of my other Tasker-generated apps or have previously installed GApps, you don't need the two Google maps library files included in the zip and can delete them. If you do need them, copy the two files into the locations shown below:
/system/etc/permissions/com.google.android.maps.xml
/system/framework/com.google.android.maps.jar
Set permissions for both files to rw-r--r-- and reboot. Without these files resident, the app will not install.
3. Create a folder in the root directory of your sdcard: Google News (exactly as shown)
4. Install the app itself, Google News.1.apk
How to use
Before you run the app you need to select some news categories, set up the feeds, get the URLs, blah-blah-blah. All of this is covered in the PDF included with the zip. It may seem a little annoying at the start, but it goes quickly once you get started and it's not like you have to do it every time you use the app. You're just setting up your news topics, just as if you were using the current Google News (either the app or the web version). Once you have your topics and URLs and have edited the included text file google_rss_feeds.txt, copy that into the Google News folder of your sdcard.
Note: recently (June 2019) the big G has not been very consistent with the RSS feeds. Some days they are "empty" but come back the next day with lots of stories. Some feed topics simply "die" and a minor change in the topic will resurrect them (change "World" to "World news", as an example). Version 1.3 includes a trap for these eventualities so that the app should not crash, even if your first feed comes up empty. To inspect/edit your feeds, point your browser (on your PC) to your Google Alerts page. If you are signed in this will be found among the options on the Google home page, in the upper right corner where the "apps" grid is shown.
Now you're good to go. Start the app, make sure you're connected to WiFi. There are only three buttons on the app screen. The first one, "Fetch the news" does just that. You will see a little toast that the first news category is being prepared. Once that is done, you will be taken to the browser and that page will open. Meanwhile the remaining pages are being downloaded and reconstructed in the background.
The news page is very simple. I tried to aim for readability over all other considerations (this is the reason the news items are in bold black, even though they are the external links). I have my Opera Mobile set to 100% page zoom. It looks good to me, but you could probably get away with 75%. External websites are another matter. At the title bar left is a drop-down menu button that gives you access to your other news topics. Since no fixed navbar schemes work under Android 2.1, there is a duplicate drop-up menu bar at the end of the page. The use of NoRefresh, or to a lesser extent FastMode, is a plus.
Edit: you cannot use this app with Opera Mini. It lacks the ability to open local HTML files.
The second option on the opening screen, "Read old news" sounds a bit daft, but I just thought maybe someone might have been looking at the topic pages, saw something that interested them and then got interrupted. So this option opens the first local file in the browser again and you can navigate from there. Strictly speaking, WiFi is not needed to browse the local files once they have been created, but it is needed to pursue any stories.
The third option simply dismisses the app screen.
Whew! So this is new...and I think I exterminated all the bugs, but I did not try other browsers. I'm open to suggestions and would appreciate feedback.
Google alert change? No option for RSS alerts anymore...
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
v619284 said:
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm away from home right now but my copy of the app is working so the RSS feeds must still exist. I'll have to sit down with my instructions in front of the computer and see what mischief they've done. Thanks for letting me know.
v619284 said:
If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, so I've run through the instructions sitting at my PC. Everything is correct although Firefox no longer wants to open the RSS feed page as anything other than an xml "text" file. That just means the image on page 4 needs updating.
As far as page 3, everything is currently exactly as shown. Just to be sure, you have to be signed in to Google on your browser before you do any of this. Then when you get to the screen depicted on page 3 you need to change the "Deliver to" option to RSS feed. But even before that, it's important not to get sucked into the email alert business back on page 2. Do NOT click on "Create Alert" there, only on "Show options". That's how you get to the screen I show on page 3.
When you finally get to click on the little RSS symbol shown on the lower half of page 3, you (at least on Firefox) may end up at a page of xml code, or perhaps your browser may show a news feed page. Regardless, the URL shown for the page is the same and it's what you need to copy, just as described on page 4.
Let me know if you are still having issues with this.
v619284 said:
First off, thanks so much for putting the time and effort into this app. I would love to have a more "future-proof" news reader solution for my NST. Sadly however, in typical Google fashion of constantly dropping/messing with feature support, it seems that there is no longer an option to deliver Google alerts to RSS feeds (only email addresses). If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So a few days after I wrote my last post, the app stopped working for me. It just hangs on "Preparing......News"
Google has apparently changed the format of their RSS xml file. Right in the middle of something else at the moment, but I will get it fixed.
Nope, nix that. After fooling around with the app and an xml file from the Big G, I find nothing out of place and it seems the app is now working again
They're just messing with us.
Edit: Indeed they are. Today I caught another malfunction but this time looked at the Tasker routines for an error. Google is sending out (at least today) RSS feeds with empty content fields. That messes up my app. So I wrote an error trap for that. Updated in first post. Have to watch the big G like a hawk....
v619284 said:
If I'm reading this thread and your PDF correctly, I'm worried that this may break the app. In any case I'm stuck on page 3 of your setup PDF since I can't figure out how to get the RSS alert string from Google anymore. Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whilst looking around for a solution to a different issue, I came across this: https://medium.com/@cassandragraft/...tion-not-appearing-heres-the-fix-bf842ca32b88
It appears to address the issue you describe. I never encountered the issue, but obviously some people have.
The Big G is making me very angry lately. Even version 1.2 with a new error trap is crashing. I'm finding that some of my feeds are "empty". The skeleton of the RSS file is there but there is no content populating the file. A category as ordinary as "world" is simply blank. This is new and very annoying. Just a change of topic to "world news" brings up a list of stories longer than your arm. I encountered this before with "science" and fixed it with a slight change in name, so I should have seen this coming. It's a nasty game Google seems to be playing....
Anyway, if the app crashes on the first topic it leaves an overlay artifact behind when you exit. To remove this, go to the App Manager and force stop the app. I will work on a fix which will alert you to the effect that the feed appears dead but allow the app to complete the download of whatever is still working and exit properly.
Grr....
Edit: App updated to v1.3 in first post. I hope that solves the problems. For now.
As I mentioned in my edit of the first post, I think my app is exhibiting creakiness already owing to Opera Mobile's increasing difficulty negotiating many websites.
I have an alternative to suggest, however, that is totally browser based. It seems to work "OK" with Opera Mobile although text display is a bit small with a default zoom of 100%. In Opera Mini, however, it shines, especially with NoRefresh.
Thanks to XDA member @SJT75 , I found out about a list of text-only news sites. One of them is a text version of Google News! The list is at: https://greycoder.com/a-list-of-text-only-new-sites/
While the Google News option does not allow for custom categories (hey, there's an app for that!), it does cover all the usual suspects. Even better, all of the links lead to text-only versions of the sources. Occasionally you go to a page and find it could not be fetched by whatever mechanism the author is using, but pages (even those error ones) include a link to the original source
Also notable on the list are the NPR and CNN sites. Both work well.