The Palm Pre’s launcher is good, and it’s also okay. The best description is a melding of the iPhone and Palm launchers, giving you a scrolling application list like Palm, but with no categories or auto-arranging - just like the iPhone. Granted, with Universal Search you probably won’t be visiting the launcher often, but for those of us engrained in the ways of Palm OS and the iPhone, it’s going to be a hard habit to break. So that leaves us with how to manage your launcher.
First up we’re going to cover rearranging the icons in your launcher. If like me you’re obsessive about the organization of your digital information, or like others simply want this app and that app at the top of the list, you’ll want to switch up the order of your launcher icons. To move an app, all you have to do is tap and hold on it until glowing rings appear around it, and then drag it to where you want and release. Thankfully due to the scrolling nature of the launcher it won’t be nearly as frustrating as the iPhone (where apps seem to randomly switch pages when you try and move something). If you want to move the app to a different one of the three pages (Three? Come on Palm!), all you’ve got do is move it to the edge of the screen and wait a second for the page to slide over. You can quickly gauge which page you’re on by the little white bars at the bottom of the launcher - they indicate how many pages are to your right and to the left.
One of my favorite applications from the Palm OS days was SharkLinks; it let me add websites to my launcher as if they were applications. You can do the same in your browser, just open the menu, click on Page, and then select Add To Launcher. Just like in Bookmarks you can rename the site, change the URL, and reposition/resize the icon snapshot. Once you click the Add To Launcher button it will throw a link onto your launcher at the bottom of the first page (and then you can rearrange it to wherever you like).
You can do the same in Contacts. Just open the contact you want to add to the launcher, open the menu, and then click Add To Launcher. They’ll appear just like an application, and clicking on the icon will open that contact. Using Universal search any links or contacts you’ve added to the launcher will appear as applications (at the top of the list) and as the original contact (or not at all, in the case of web bookmarks). To remove a contact shortcut from your launcher, just open the contact and in the menu select Remove From Launcher (which will have replaced Add To Launcher).
But what about removing a web page? Since they aren’t technically applications, nor are they bookmarks, you can’t delete a web page link through the List Apps option in the Launcher menu, nor can you get rid of it through the Bookmarks menu in Web. To delete a launcher web link, or any third party application for that matter, all you have to do is hold down the Orange/Option key and tap on the icon. This will bring up a dialog with the app name and version, plus the option to Delete or just hit Done and get out of there. Tapping Delete will give you a Delete or Cancel confirmation and then you’re done. Easy as pie, and if there’s anything that we at PreCentral like, it’s pie. And webOS.
Comments
Call me when I can delete that damn Nascar application....
ditto
B I N G O! What a dumb ass app
Please get rid of Nascar!!! Give me the NFL app instead!
Agreed. Hate nascar & would love to delete the app (& "sport" for that matter).
I have placed all of my frequent contacts on the first page, all of my favorite apps on the second & all settings on the 3rd with infrequently used apps at the bottom.
Works great for me!
Lovin my Pre!
+1
Totally dude, I hate that app.
Yea, I tried to delete the Nascar as well w/o any luck! :(
DELETE NASCAR (gotta root it first, but it's pretty easy):
http://predev.wikidot.com/hide-delete-the-nascar-app
Thank you so much - I refused to even open the program just in case it did "something" to me.
Agreed!
me too!
fo' sho brotha
and also the launcher icon from the main task bar... why the hell is that locked in when all you have to do is swipe up to open the launcher?
Sorry guys, but the Nascar app is probably protected just like Quick Tour in the Palm OS launcher. The best we can expect is to be able to hide it at some future point, although it is encouraging that it was the homebrewers first victim. For now I've just buried it at the bottom of the 3rd page with the icon-ed bookmarks.
Hey, is there anyway to map an application to a keyboard shortcut?
I've set some of my contacts to keyboard shortcuts but would like to set frequent apps as well.
It can't be any easier to keystroke an application to launch than just swiping up to the launcher and tapping the app. ...unless you have 100 apps, which we very soon might, in which you can very well just spell the first few letters of the app, which is pretty much your keyboard shortcut, no?
One observation I would like to make concerning organizing the apps is that I get the impression Palm thinks that we should make it a habit to use the Universal Search feature rather than categorizing our apps and scrolling through lists. Unfortunately that defeats the touch screen if I always have to slide open the keyboard to find the app I want. I believe they should minimize the use of the keyboard to strictly input and very little navigation.
Two additions that would aid here are, as you pointed out, more than 3 pages (create your own pages) and application categories. User should be able to categorize applications then should be able to filter you apps down to a few.
Thanks for this tutorial, I found it very helpful!
Thankfully I did the root access thing via telnet and can now create as many additional launcher pages as I want! Very simple change (relatively speaking) so I'm sure Palm will be "fixing" it
does anyone know how to foward text messages?
You can't.
If you search the forums and the wiki (http://predev.wikidot.com/) you will see that you can already (1) create your own pages for the launcher and (2) hide the nascar app
Yes an easier way to organize the apps would be nice. Maybe folders or a desktop on the main page.
I've been trying to figure out how to delete web pages for a couple of days now. Thanks.
Feature request for launcher - provide an option that is a throwback to the Palm OS. Allow screens to be named and themed in some way, such as Games, Utilities, Web, etc.
This would solve a lot of problems for me. In many ways, the Pre is too much iPhone and not enough Palm.
I've had this phone from day #1 and still thinking they should have named it Pre-Mature.
Thank Christ. I was going insane trying to delete a web page I added to the Launcher. Now to follow the instructions to baleet Nasfail.
I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to use the speed dialing? I called sprint, and the lady tried for 2 hours to see how to do it, I finally got tired and told her to forget it. I called the sprint store, where I bought my phone and asked them, and they said when they found out they would call me. Two weeks later I am still trying to figure it out. Thanks
Tip #3: Creating a speed dial
While viewing a person’s contact info, tap Set Speed Dial from the application menu. Next tap the phone number and then tap the number key you wish to use as the speed dial. Now from either the Launcher, Card View or Phone, simply press and hold the speed dial key to make your call.
Amen to the Nascar idea, lol!!!
Any idea on yahoo IM release for our phones?
I'm sorry but no can like "N.on A.thletic S.port C.reated A.round R.ednecks" that much. Not even rednecks
is there a way too minimize the icons ? right now they're in 3 per column....anyway to make them smaller?? thanks..
how come i keep getting " too many cards" error when i try to open a app but i dont even have a app running.? please help
you can forward text check on youtube 3rd party app i think...but it can be done
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