Database Develop

how to create url shortcut on homescreen

Hello guys
Before my new XZ1compact running Oreo, i was able to create URL shortcuts using app like "website shortcut" and choose a nice picture as icon.
IT seems it no more possible to use such app with Oreo ( noted on website shortcut app website) :
"NOTE: due to a change within Android functionality, Android Oreo (8) does not seem to support the shortcut creation service that this app relies on. A solution is in the works, but will require some time."
Can you please tell me a way to do it or do i have to wait for devellopers to update their application ?
Thanks in advance.

In Chrome navigate to the url you want to add a shortcut to, then in the menu choose "add to homescreen".
That should do what you're asking.

Hello Ohbkid
You're right, this method works to just add a shortcut but you cannot choose shorcut icon; it also works with Edge for android.
this is Something i want to do and i could do using "website shorcut" app in the past.

hbkid said:
In Chrome navigate to the url you want to add a shortcut to, then in the menu choose "add to homescreen".
That should do what you're asking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry, does not seem to work on Oreo and Samsung S7. The possibility to make a shortcut on the homescreen is still there in the Chrome browser, but nothing appears on the homescreen. Is this again some security issue in Oreo 8.

url shortcut create on oreo
so, is there a working way to create a url shortcut on homescreen with oreo or not?
thanks
Tom

Absolutely not and impossible. Discovered that it might also have to do something with the launcher you're using. Really, aside from other issues this Oreo is giving me I deeply regret ever having updated to Oreo. What about this adaptive icons problems ??

PSA/Guide - How to set custom tones in Gmail, hide "running in background.."

PSA/Guide - How to set custom tones in Gmail, hide "running in background.."
The solution is not my own, I found a post where someone tried to hide a running process notification. But it gave me an idea. And boy, was I correct.
So, what's the fuss about?
Apparently, Huawei's skin (EMUI) loves to not only change how Android works, but it also hides some functions. Such function is custom notification tones for accounts in Gmail. And the option to hide "running in the background" notification.
How do you get this function back?
- Use an activity launcher, or a custom Launcher like Nova.
- Open "Settings", and look for "App notifcations" (".Settings$NotificationAppListActivity").
This will grant you ALL the options you might be missing from pure AOSP/Android.
- tested and confirmed on EMUI 8.1 (GPU Boost update)

How to set Gmail tones?
1) Open Gmail from the new Activity
2) Tap your account you want to modify
3) ???
4) Profit
How to hide running...
1) Tap top-left "..."
2) Show system processes
3) find Android System
4) ???
5) Profit!

What? Sorry but your instructions are as clear as mud.

Hoo boy, I was going to write a guide explaining how to access notification importance and the Do Not Disturb override from EMUI. When I wrote the title, XDA found this thread as similar.
If you're on EMUI and you're looking desperately for how to set an app's notification importance (urgent, high, normal or low), and set it to override do not disturb settings, follow the steps in the OP! If you need a specific activity launcher, you can download Activity Launcher from Google Play (unfortunately I didn't find the app on APK Mirror).

Thnx for the tip!!
Download App Shortcut Maker, search for the activity needed and create a shortcut.

[APP][NST/G] NST Weather Widget

2-25-23: Updated to version 1.6 Uninstall any previous version..
-cleaned up some obsolete code
-fixed potential infinite loop when update fails
-new issues related to processing incomplete weather data fixed
NST Weather Widget is a Tasker-generated app that runs in concert with Minimalistic Text to produce a true home screen widget displaying the current (forecast) weather in your locale as provided by OpenWeatherMap. The code for the weather is based on my NST Weather app with a few tweaks and without the status bar temperature/condition display. Because you build the widget yourself you can customize to suit yourself (within the parameters I have supplied).
Requirements
0. Root
1. If you previously installed NSTWeather (the status bar app), remove it completely, including the NSTWeather folder on the sdcard.
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. Copy the folder "NSTWeather" and its contents from the zip below to the root of your sdcard. This contains all the condition icons for the forecast panel and is where the weather.xml file from OWM will be stored.
4. Go to https://openweathermap.org/ and find the current weather for your locale. When this is displayed you will also see the "geocoordinates" (i.e., the latitude and longitude). Copy these two values.
Edit: I have three devices and on one of them the coordinates given by OWM always result in a town about a 100 miles up the coast. This is the same data used successfully by the other two devices! What finally worked for me was to go here: https://www.maps.ie/coordinates.html and enter my full home address. The coordinates were quite a bit different but worked perfectly.
5. Go to https://openweathermap.org/api and sign up for a free API (right there in the opening paragraph, click on the words "sign up"). You will eventually receive an email with the API.
6. Install Minimalistic Text (attached below). Installation and setup are tricky on the NST. There seem to be permission issues which are not entirely resolvable. What I ended up doing was installing a copy on a KitKat device and copying out two of the xml preferences files from the /data/data/de.devmil.minimalitext/shared_prefs. But this is not consistent and finally I decided to put together a flashable CWM zip of a working installation. That's what's below. Copy this onto your CWM sdcard, boot up CWM and install the zip. Reboot and your Minimalistic Text is good to go. No CWM card? Head over to here and make a card from either of the two sdcard versions. I have also modded the version of Minimalistic Text in the zip file so that widgets you create are visible in the opening screen of the app (as opposed to a black screen...).
7. Copy the Font folder (and its contents) from the zip below to your sdcard. The customized TrueType font of weather condition icons resides in this folder and you can add additional custom fonts for Minimalistic Text to access in the same folder.
Installation and Use
You MUST have Minimalistic Text installed before installing NST Weather Widget.
Install the app from the zip below either by side-loading or ADB. The initial user interface of the app is a Settings page. Open NST Weather and enter your latitude and longitude, as well as your API. Be especially careful with the API and make sure to include any negative signs with the geocoordinates.
Next, make your selection of the units you want displayed. Finally, to make the app fully functional you need to check both of the boxes in the lower section (you can disable the app temporarily by unchecking these). When you've made all the selections, tap on the bottom box to start a manual data retrieval. The Settings page will close and you should see WiFi come on for a bit. It will then turn off. If a successful connection was made with OWM and if you entered your information correctly, you will eventually receive a notification that the process is complete (first time only). How long will it take? About 3 minutes. There's an awful lot of stuff to be done. That's one reason for having the data update done at 3:30 am when you are hopefully snoozing. OWM finally added a time zone adjustment to their xml data file but I decided to leave my own in place because various municipalities have their own approach to daylight/standard time changes so your time zone will match the local clock setting of your device.
If for some reason the device fails to contact OWM the first time it will try a second time. If the second time fails, you will get a notification telling you that download failed, assuming there is nothing wrong with the values you entered. Go back to the Settings page and carefully check your API. That's where the most likely error will occur. Of course you should check your geocoordinates, too, just to be sure.
Once an initial weather forecast has been successfully retrieved (and the data is processed), tapping the app icon will display the 5-day forecast panel rather than the Settings page. However, you can access the Settings page from the little cog-wheel icon on the forecast panel.
If you have made a successful connection with OWM before and one day there is a notification saying download failed, you can just ignore it and hope for better luck the next day unless you absolutely must have an updated forecast. In that case, you can use the manual retrieval option from the Settings page. There is no need to re-enter the latitude, longitude and API each time you open the Settings page once they have been entered correctly. Also, if you decide to change the locale, you only need to enter the new latitude and longitude, not the API.
The 5-day forecast panel is updated daily even if a download fails (data is just shifted to the left and the names of the days are changed). You access the panel by tapping on the app icon or--better--by assigning the app to your widget (see below). If you run through the data entirely without any WiFi contact OR if the device has been off for awhile and the data is no longer current when it is turned back on, you will receive a notification that there is no more forecast data. A tap on the widget will initiate a manual data update.
The Widget
This is the hard part for the user (as opposed to the hard part for me, which was the app!). The version of Minimalistic Text for the NST has some issues but once you get past them it seems to behave OK. Unfortunately, it appears to have been intended for black screens, so fonts are default white, and the opening screen which ought to display your widget configurations just shows black rectangles, regardless of how you've set up font colors and backgrounds. And...a few menu options are "invisible" due to the colors used.
Edit: I have replaced the copy of the apk in the zip with a modded version in which the display of the widgets in the opening screen of the app has been fixed.
Not to worry. You'll get past it.
The app shares four variables with Minimalistic Text every three hours as well as updating one of the variables at both sunrise and sunset (within the nearest quarter hour). The variables are:
LOCATION (where OWM says you are)
CURRTEMP (the current forecast temperature)
CURRCOND (the current forecast general condition--as icon)
TCURRCOND (the current forecast specific condition--as text)
You can use as many or as few of these as you like, as well as static text, in any arrangement, to construct your widget.
What follows is not an exhaustive exploration of Minimalistic Text. There are people better qualified for that. This is what worked for me. Your mileage may vary.
1. Find a spot on your home screen and long press there to add a widget (or do whatever you do for the launcher you are using to add a widget)
2. Choose a Minimalistic Text option. The sample widget shown below (just the weather one, not the day-date) is a horizontal 2x1, just to give you an idea.
3. Minimalistic Text now opens to a Settings page. Give your widget a Name (Weather?).
4. Uncheck the "Show background". Ignore Shadow settings (at least for now).
5. You can ignore the Orientation settings for now. If there is some effect you are trying to achieve it may pay to return to them, but maybe not.
6. Under Predefined layout, select the last option: Custom (BTW, don't get distracted by the temperature stuff. The weather services of this old app are defunct.). We'll come back to Custom layout in a moment, but first...
7. You won't be able to see anything you are doing unless we do something about the font colors which are white by default. So under Text Style you will see three different options. For each one, you will want to set a font size (I like 20--you can override this later), a font color (probably black?), maybe the case, and an actual font to use.
Here's what I did:
Normal: font family=default, (not bold, not italic), size=20, case=normal, color=black
(use the "Back" status bar button to return for the other fonts)
Accented: font family=default, (bold, not italic), size=20, case=normal, color=black
(for some reason a sample of your Accented text does not appear...but it does work)
Non-accented: font family=weathericons.ttf, (not bold, not italic), size=20, case=normal, color=black
Note: you will only see the weathericons.ttf as a font option if you have done all the stuff described earlier.
8. Scroll on past a lot of Settings stuff to get to Tap behavior. You want the third option, Start another activity. When you check this box you see a new section to tap that will open a page which will eventually populate with activities. Find NST Weather and select it. This will make the forecast panel open when you tap on the widget.
9. Scroll back to Custom layout. DO NOT hit the back arrow!!!!! This will exit the app and you will lose everything you've done! Tapping on the box will open the "workspace" where you actually assemble your widget. By default there are three things already present there and it looks like mush below that because of the weather icon font. So, long-press on any of the default items until a trash can appears below. Then drag the item into the trash. Repeat for the other two. Now you have a clear workspace. There are three buttons at the right. The top button is for adding elements, the next one down adds a line, and the lowest one deletes a line.
10. Tap the topmost of the three buttons and you will see a bunch of options appear at the bottom of the workspace. Again, don't get distracted by the Weather options. They don't work any longer. You can explore later but for now what we want is "Misc". There are only two options on that tab, Locale variable and Static text. The first of these will be one of the four things I listed earlier. The second is just plain text that does not change (including something as simple as a space!).
OK, I am now going to build the widget shown in the image attached below. This may not be something you'd actually like to make, but I hope by me describing the process you'll get a feel for it. You can always go along with me now and then delete the whole thing afterwards, no harm-no foul.
11. Long-press on Locale variable until everything else fades away and then drag it up under "Custom layout". In the display space below you'll see [LOCTV]. That's for Locale Tasker Variable (I guess). Now tap on the grey Locale variable box and you'll see a mostly black section for text input. The first blank is for the name of the variable, like LOCATION. The drop-down is for the type of font face you want to use. I would select Normal. The last part is for overriding the font size from what you set before. I left that blank, so it's at 20. It is theoretically possible to dismiss this black area with the tiny "-" in the upper right corner, but it's devilishly difficult. I discovered by accident while working on this that another tap on the grey "Locale variable" box will clear the bottom box and save your work. (you can dismiss the keyboard with the status bar "Back" button)
12. Now tap the second of the right hand buttons to add a line. Tap the top button to add a new element and drag up another Locale variable, positioning it below the first one. Tap on the grey box. In the workspace, enter CURRCOND for the first field. Choose Non-accented text (this was where we assigned the icon font). I wanted this a bit larger so I checked the little box and entered 32 for the font size. Tap on the grey box to close all this and dismiss the keyboard as before.
13. Tap the top button to add a new element and drag a Static text box up to the second row. The only purpose of this box is to provide a space between the icon and the temperature! So tap on the grey box and the only thing you really need to do here is enter a space into the first field. Close things up as before.
14. Tap on the top button to add another element and drag another Locale variable box next to the Static text box. Tap on the grey box and enter CURRTEMP in the first field. The font would be Normal and I overrode the size to 32, as for the icon. Close things up as before.
15. Tap on the top button to add another element and drag another Static text box next to the Locale variable you just did. This is for the degrees symbol. Tap on the grey box and enter the degree symbol and either C or F in the first field. The font would be Normal and the size I made 32. Close things up as before.
16. Tap on the second button to add a final row. Now tap on the top button to add a new element and drag a final Locale variable box to sit below everything else. Tap on the grey box and enter TCURRCOND in the first field. I left the font at Normal and the size at default. Close up everything as before.
17. Use the status bar "Back" button to return to the Settings page. Scroll all the way to the end until you see Save/Restore. Tap "Save". Enter the name of the widget again (Weather) and hit "Save".
18. AND NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP. Tap the "Menu" button on the status bar and you will see a menu appear at the bottom of the screen. Tap "OK". This is how you save your actual work, not just the settings. If you make changes, you always need to do this. This will exit the app and take you back to the home screen where--hopefully--you will see your widget!
19. If you wish to change/tweak the widget (as opposed to deleting it and starting over), tap on the MT icon and you will find yourself at the preferences entry page (all black...). You'll see your widget if you named and saved the preferences, but only as a black rectangle since your font color is most likely black and so is the page background (ugh...). Anyway, tap on the rectangle and you'll be back in the Settings area for that widget. Just remember, you need to save the preferences (near the end of the Settings menus--use the same name unless you are trying something out), and also you need to use the status bar "Menu" button to bring up the menu at the bottom of the page where you can tap on "OK" when you are done making changes.
Icons credit and information
I could not have done any of this without the weather icon font from Erik Flowers: https://erikflowers.github.io/weather-icons/. I did locate one other font but it had far fewer choices of glyphs. In the end I only actually used 13 of the glyphs for the weather condition icons. OWM has 18 general conditions (actually just nine doubled for day and night). After looking at the many choices offered in the font and the more detailed descriptions of the conditions from OWM, I decided to use day-neutral icons for situations in which the sky would be largely obscured. That means that the inaptly named "broken clouds" (51-84% cover), "shower rain", "rain", "thunderstorm" and "snow" show neither sun nor moon (and in fact are identical for day and night). There just seemed something odd about looking at driving rain and the sun peeking over clouds. Even in Coastal California we occasionally have such conditions as a storm is on the wane, but there just isn't enough fine gradation in the OWM condition icons so I had to make judgment calls. The specific text conditions, on the other hand, cover 54 situations and give some nuance to the general forecast.
In order to make the glyphs accessible to MT, I needed to partially remap the font, "moving" the 13 glyphs to standard keyboard characters rather than the glyph section which there is no way to access with the NST. I used the free version of Type Light 3.2 (https://www.cr8software.net/typelight.html) to do this.
The icons in the forecast panel are just images I created with a graphics program on my PC, using the remapped font.
So...if you don't like the condition icons you can, of course, not include them in your widget. If you want to change the icons in the forecast panel, you can replace the images in the NSTWeather folder. Just keep the size the same and make a transparent png. But if you want to replace the condition icons used in the widget, you will have to find another font somewhere and treat it as I did. You could also remap the font supplied if you prefer other choices of glyphs. That's quite a project and best left to individual questions.

That's a lot of work.
Wednesday at 11 AM has overflowed into two lines. Maybe there are extra spaces in the text?
I'd rather have the hours go left to right (even if there is less detail) and the days top to bottom.

Renate NST said:
That's a lot of work.
Wednesday at 11 AM has overflowed into two lines. Maybe there are extra spaces in the text?
I'd rather have the hours go left to right (even if there is less detail) and the days top to bottom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, indeed, a lot of work. Thanks for catching that layout issue on the panel. I was just fixing it as the email of your post came through. Layout is my least favorite part as Tasker on the NST is very cranky as you approach the screen size limit and it keeps shifting things every time you make a change. Then you need to go into the xml and find the coordinates and correct them...Then you transfer to another device on which App Factory will run and correct all the image paths...
Well, it's fixed

Amazing work. I hope you can get the error figured out. I'd love to add this to my office desktop nook.

deleted

Just switched from S8 to P30pro. What I miss ...

Hi, I just switched from Samsung Galaxy S8 to Huawei P30 pro.
What I miss 'till now is:
1) HD calls (Vo LTE) are they available?
2) phone with caller ID and spam protection: what do you suggest?
3) swipe down to open notification bar (edge gesture just installed works fine)
4) home with drawer: in drawer I see icons ordered by name with vertical scrolling. No way to create folders, move icons and have pagination?
5) seems stupid but was very useful: in Galaxy you can use a tool to take a partial screenshot and keep it floating on the screen. Useful p.e. if you have to write down info from a business card you photographed.

1- working for me
2- depends on where u at, where i live i used true caller till it got blocked
3- install 3rd party launcher
4- same as 3
5- use your knuckles, youtube it to learn how it is done

Thanks.
About screenshots: I can take screenshots using knuckles, I can save a partial screenshot,but I can't make it floating in the screen. You know how to do that (tried to search with no success)

You can split the screen by drawing from left to right with a knuckle across the middle of the screen. Place the screenshot in one half and your app in the other.

Once you take the screenshot, just click the small image of it on the bottom left, it will display it full screen so you can view it, or edit it.

Thanks all, but this do not reply to my question.
If you ever tried galaxy screenshot floating function you should. It's very useful!

Sunlight76 said:
Hi, I just switched from Samsung Galaxy S8 to Huawei P30 pro.
3) swipe down to open notification bar (edge gesture just installed works fine)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, i did the same switch.
Which app do you use for swipe down for notifications?
Playstore link?
Thx in advance

This one is good: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.de_studio.recentappswitcher.trial
But finally I reintroduced the bottom bar with fourth button to show notifications

Emui is the best(for me) , just give it some time. Samsung experience is the reason I never go with galaxy devices(my wife has s9)

I installed Nova Launcher (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher) as soon as I set up my P30 Pro. It'll take care of your #3 and 4 concerns.

Few basic (newbie) tricks for unrooted stock MIUI

Hi,
The following are few tricks for unrooted stock miui 12. These are somewhat basics and possibly known methods. Please feel free to share your thoughts or share something that hasn't been included.
1. Double tap lock screen on third party launcher
- Install OneKeyLockScreen-signed from https://drive.google.com/file/d/15kfzoSnz6WOSh8KD2LTNT297nEfOPexd/view?usp=drivesdk This is not my work so credits to OP / dev.
- Grant necessary permission
- Set double tap gesture on launcher settings
- Screen will be locked instantly, no 10 seconds waiting time nonsense. Fingerprint unlock works.
You can also use "Button shortcuts" in Settings to turn off (and lock) screen using long press
2. Add media / volume control on quick ball
- Install Media Volume Control from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.krdevteam.mediavolumecontrol
- Open Quick Ball settings
- Replace one of current shortcuts with "App"
- Select (Media) Volume Control
3. If Quick Ball isn't your cup of tea, you can use "Shortcutter" or "Tiles" to add available shortcuts to quick settings tiles.
4. Add Accessibility Menu to nav bar, as an alternative to Quick Ball
- Go to "Accessibility"
- Turn on "Accessibility Menu"
- It will show up on bottom right corner, comprises of a handful shortcuts including volume panel, toggles etc
- The downside is, it's not one-hand operation friendly.
- On the other hand, if you use Control Center with third party launcher, selecting 'Toggles' will show Control Center.
This particularly useful since swipe down gesture on the right side of home screen will show notifications i/o CC
5. User friendly debloat tool with GUI (executable JAR), credits to dev
https://github.com/Szaki/XiaomiADBFastbootTools

Thnaks man! I love the 3rd one! I was looking for it the first time i got pro!