I need to have 3 contact groups, Family, Friends, Work. In the past I have used an old app called smart shortcuts, I could add a shortcut for each folder to my home screen, It works buts its a huge pain.
There has to be a better way
Someone must have a better way?
Thanks
Maybe try a different launcher, I have groups in Nova Launcher for contacts, media apps, social networks apps, etc.
I second trying Nova launcher. A lot of these kind of features are available and built-in. I was always an Apex user, but it just didn't seem to work as well/smoothly with Oreo and S9... they haven't updated it much in the past few years. Nova on the other hand is extremely smooth.
Have you considered using the "edge" feature? It seems to be designed for exactly what you're looking for, without having to put shortcuts on the desktop.
I do use the edge feature for favorite/family contacts but I have something like 80 work contacts I need a seperate shortcut for and another for about 20 friends
Related
Hey guys,
I have finally decided to make the switch to Android with this phone, however I do have a question I was hoping to answer before I switch...
One of the features I missed on my Iphone was being able to turn on my phone and have the homescreen display my outlook calendar and to do list(windows phone). I have tried doing some research and some hands on the Verizon store so I know about widgets...although the ones on the droidx I played with were very small.
So my question is...can I set my homescreen to give me half the screen worth of outlook events/tasks and then move everything else to other pages? Sorry if this is a repeat/stupid question but I appreciate the help!
The calendar app has a widget which will show your calendar apps, you can sync to outlook via various means including exchange activesync for your e-mail.
You also can download a app like Jorte it has several different widgets sizes like. 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 of the screen size.
I use Launcher Pro Plus. Great widgets (calendar, agenda, facebook, tweeter, etc). I hope app will get updated for ICS
Also the CalenGoo app has tonnes of different size widgets for all your needs!
kkh786 said:
Also the CalenGoo app has tonnes of different size widgets for all your needs!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this looks like it will work great!
soon as I switch there will be no more excuses why I forgot to do something!
you can also install widget locker and display all of this on your lock screen (the initial screen you see when you turn the screen on)
Haha as you see there are many ways to do things on Android. +1 for Possibility.
you can do almost anything on android. super customizable! That's the beauty of Android.
Jorte can do this
There is also an app called Pure that is a highly customizable widget for your ToDo app of choice and Calendar, and looks much better IMHO. Jorte is the best calendar I've seen and that's what I use as an app, but with Pure you can skin the widget (I like highly transparent) and set all sorts of options so it looks perfect on the home screen...
So yes, the beauty of Android is you have TONS of options to do what you are looking for... Granted I haven't used an iPhone before, but I venture to guess you'll have many more options than you have now.
Is there a way, without downloading a 3rd party app, to get the samsung calendar and/or email widgets aside from what are on the magazine ux, which are a bit cumbersome in my opinion. I'd prefer to have the same widgets I have on my galaxy S5: full screen month view calendar widget, and the default email widget. Is there a way to do this, also, without doing a different launcher, like Nova, which I've tried and don't love.
Odd Samsung would strip these out, but they clearly want to push this magazine ux thing.
Thanks in advance for the help!
I am also looking for the calendar widget. Someone knows how to get it? I don't like this magazine ux
drjea2010 said:
Is there a way, without downloading a 3rd party app, to get the samsung calendar and/or email widgets aside from what are on the magazine ux, which are a bit cumbersome in my opinion. I'd prefer to have the same widgets I have on my galaxy S5: full screen month view calendar widget, and the default email widget. Is there a way to do this, also, without doing a different launcher, like Nova, which I've tried and don't love.
Odd Samsung would strip these out, but they clearly want to push this magazine ux thing.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too was annoyed at this. I didn't mind losing TouchWiz, but wanted to stay stock for potential future updates (please Google change SD card write access) so I downloaded the "Google Now Launcher" to get rid of the Magazine UX (although I didn't install "Google Now" so not to have that pop up on the home screen). I use "Pure Grid Calendar Widget" from the Play Store. If you choose the "4x4 free" calendar you can set the pixel count for your tablet/preference upon creating the widget. I have it around 1550x1550 pixels for my Tab Pro 8.4 and stretched it to fit most of the screen.
I liked Pure Grid Calendar Widget on my old HD2, but didn't need it on my S3 and S5 because the Samsung Calendar was similar. Enable events in the timeline to show descriptions in month view on the widget. I also wanted a full-screen email widget for 2 accounts, so I downloaded Aqual Mail, which looks and works similar to the S5 Email widget. I stretched that widget to full screen too (or square with some app shortcuts below it).
All in all, Google Now Launcher made the Home Screen interface seem less laggy (along with some adjustments to animations in Develop Options). Add in these two free apps (paid version unlocks additional features) and I it gives a similar feel to my S5 setup. I know you said you didn't want to download any apps, but this seems to be the only option (I didn't check Samsung Apps for a calendar though, don't know if they have something there).
***Note: I don't have any apps installed on the SD Card, but some people say that the shortcuts for apps installed on SD Cards disappear from the Home Screen if you use the Google Now Launcher.
Hi all, So i as usual installed Nova to use some of their gestures (such as bringing down status bar from swiping down anywhere on screen etc)
In the process i lost access to the google weather widget (as it isn't available through Nova launcher)
Any lightweight suggestions to replace it? or is there any way to get the google weather widget functioning on 3rd party launchers?
What about alternatives to google photos? To be honest i never really used photos , I'm going to try to start doing so but i notice that it doesn't even pick up all my folders such as facebook folder (pics downloaded from facebook).
How do i get it to recognize folders like this ? What other lightweight yet useful gallery app is out there? (not quickpic please that purple font is killing me)
Thanks in advanced!
quickpic version 3.4.9.1 doesnt have pink icons for me and its neutured down so no google drive, dropbox etc linking - just pure gallery.
virtyx said:
quickpic version 3.4.9.1 doesnt have pink icons for me and its neutured down so no google drive, dropbox etc linking - just pure gallery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got a trusted source for that APK?
I am seeing some of the benefits of Google photos though... wondering why i didn't use it sooner
Edit: found a trusted apk for quickpic.
How do I get google weather widget in nova
masri1987 said:
Got a trusted source for that APK?
I am seeing some of the benefits of Google photos though... wondering why i didn't use it sooner
Edit: found a trusted apk for quickpic.
How do I get google weather widget in nova
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i was about to upload
how do you find it? its slim, lightweight, fast - and gets the job done without any extra add-ins which is what i like, almost like the huawei launcher plus you can change the display and it recognizes ALL your images on your phone (im looking at you google photo)
masri1987 said:
Hi all, So i as usual installed Nova to use some of their gestures (such as bringing down status bar from swiping down anywhere on screen etc)
In the process i lost access to the google weather widget (as it isn't available through Nova launcher)
Any lightweight suggestions to replace it? or is there any way to get the google weather widget functioning on 3rd party launchers?
What about alternatives to google photos? To be honest i never really used photos , I'm going to try to start doing so but i notice that it doesn't even pick up all my folders such as facebook folder (pics downloaded from facebook).
How do i get it to recognize folders like this ? What other lightweight yet useful gallery app is out there? (not quickpic please that purple font is killing me)
Thanks in advanced!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too use Nova, for weather, I've been using Weather XL by exovoid for years, link
Action launcher has the Google widget and weather baked in. I switched from Nova to it years ago and while I'll go back to Nova briefly for change of pace purposes I never leave Action for very long. Once I got used to and understood the blinds and shutters features in Action everything else became dad's old launcher; including Nova. You can also set the Now page, assign gestures, all the usual staples of fully featured launchers.
I've used Piktures as my main gallery app for a few years. Great app.
NepoRood said:
I too use Nova, for weather, I've been using Weather XL by exovoid for years, link
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, tried it out, looking for something a bit more lightweight, just for the purpose of widget use.
krabman said:
Action launcher has the Google widget and weather baked in. I switched from Nova to it years ago and while I'll go back to Nova briefly for change of pace purposes I never leave Action for very long. Once I got used to and understood the blinds and shutters features in Action everything else became dad's old launcher; including Nova. You can also set the Now page, assign gestures, all the usual staples of fully featured launchers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So i installed action launcher and I cannot find the option to build out tabs or folders within the drawer itself? Also can't remove the multidot drawer icon and just use the swipe up feature by itself
Cool thing is it did import everything almost from nova
Fuzzy13 said:
I've used Piktures as my main gallery app for a few years. Great app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i just discovered that app ,
I also discovered that any motion photo or any other like top shot (to show you the whole selection of photos taken) etc doesn't show up in 3rd party gallery apps
You just long press and drag the icon up and out, you'll see the remove label at the top of the screen, drop it there and it's gone. The rest will take a bit of reading as Action doesn't work the way normal launchers do so it takes some explaining. Before I do you can create folders in the drawer section of the home settings, it's under folders. I'm saying this because Action doesn't really work the way Dad's old launcher used to do and there are some new paradigms in play. Don't want to deal with that then just imagine the post ends here.
In action you don't really need to make folders in the drawer as it's laid out to use it's killer features, the covers and shutters. For covers you can drop a shortcut you tap as normal to open that app and then you can also swipe or tap the shortcut and it will open a folder with whatever apps you want inside of it. Those are created by dropping one app onto another to create a folder as with most launchers, open the folder you just created and tap the menu (3 dot), choose create cover and now you have it. Tap the first icon you placed and it will simply open that app, swipe it (or double tap if you select that as the opener) and it will open up the folder underneath. I'm not sure if there is an app limit for the folders, I've had 14 in one now. Using my setup for example I use Hangouts as my personal primary text and instant message app but I also use several others; I have a hangouts cover set in the dock, as its a cover I tap it and open hangouts in most cases. Because it's a cover I have the apps for texting that I use infrequently underneath that which I access by swiping the icon instead. This goes on for all the shortcuts I set in the dock. I use a 2 page dock which is all covers save for one which is a shutter and through those have quick access to 47 applications. Much quicker than finding them in a drawer, even when folder the drawer because you will need more touches to get to the app than with a cover.
The shutter is an app shortcut which you use to either open the app or by swiping it open one of that apps widget. An example would be Whatsapp is my work messaging app. I have the icon set and use it as a shutter. I touch it and go into the app as normal. I get a lot of junk messages though that really aren't for me so sometimes I'll swipe it and open up the unread messages widget. This allows me to skip straight to the more important messages first rather than sort through them all in the app itself. The menu(3 dot) when you first open up the shutter will allow you to select the widget you want to use.
Despite all that you can still access the built in long presses if the app/icon has them. What happens in all this is the app drawer itself becomes more of an initial setup bin where the apps are laying until you set your covers and on the odd occasion you go in there to open a seldom used app. In the rare cases you do need to get into the drawer the sea of icons pulled out of the bottom ala Pixel may look cool but it's slower than using the side drawer which I would highly recommend folks try. While not looking cool it's more efficient; particularly for those with many apps. Still want the bottom drawer pullout it's the default action, just get rid of the shortcut and it's there.
You're going to want to menu dive with Action because there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. You can have it match your wallpaper for the launcher theme in the quick theme section. In quickbar you have what amounts to the Goog searchbar with extra functionality that you can adjust. I don't use it as I find little need for it with all the different ways you can get to the search function and it takes up space which can be better spent showing off my carefully selected wallpaper. The icon pack section is self explanatory. Icon appearance will let you change functions and visual cues like notifications counts. App drawers is where you will decide on trying that side drawer and other related settings. Recommend if you do go to a side drawer to tell it to remember where you left it. Otherwise it will always default to the top of the alphabet. Desktop is where you will do the meat and potatos of setting your desktop, the grid, icon scale, scroll effects, infinite scrolling, etc. One thing of interest in the desktop section is it will allow you to create a quickpage. This is a page you can "pullout" from the side that is separate from simply the page to the right of home. I use it for my travel apps of which I have a fair few but only use during that time. Desktop shortcuts will take you to the settings for which functions will show up when long pressing the home screen out in the open. You'll be able to add typical actions like wallpaper, widgets and so on but also custom actions. Docks is where you'll set up the number of dock pages if any, style of dock, dock seperators (or not), etc. Folders and shutters will allow you to change functions there for those tasks. Shortcuts is where you'll define whatever gestures you want.
While all that seems like a lot when you start fiddling with it it'll start making sense. Sorry for the length of that and I hope it wasn't too boring for those that made it this far.
---------- Post added at 04:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:39 PM ----------
Oh, yeah... If you use a launcher that allows you to set custom action widgets (Nova, Action Launcher, etc.) you could simply install Action launcher, never use it but get use of the weather widget via custom action in Nova or any other launcher which supports that function.
Huge fan of Today Weather! Can choose which service to receive forecasts from and has a number of widgets.
After many years of using Samsung phones, I just switched to a Google Pixel 3XL (which is rooted with the stock ROM). While the new phone seems to be quite good, there are some minor ‘issues’ that have cropped up – most probably due to my familiarity with the Samsung devices…
Merging contacts: Using MyPhoneExplorer, I imported my Outlook contacts into the phone. I also configured LinkedIn so that those contacts would also go into the contact list. Unlike the Samsung phone, the Pixel did a much better job of merging contacts. However, it missed a few and I cannot figure out how to manually merge them. How is this done?
Keyboard: One of the Samsung features I miss the most is being able to long-press letter keys to get symbols, e.g., long-press ‘a’ to get ‘@’. The Pixel approach of having to switch to a separate keyboard is annoying. Is there some way to enable the long-press functionality?
Image gallery: The default image gallery on the Pixel is Google photos, but I have no interest in sync’ing stuff with the cloud. The Samsung phone came with a really simple gallery app which met my needs. Is there such an app on the Pixel that I missed? If not, what gallery app do you recommend?
Aspect ratio: The ‘images’ for two of my apps, specifically the widget for Weather Underground and Enjoy Sudoku, are elongated – they should be square but are appearing as rectangles. Is there any way to adjust this via settings or is this a fault of the apps?
Autoruns: When my phone reboots, I see notifications that two apps are seeking permissions. However, when I looked to see what apps are autorunning, none are listed. Why this apparent discrepancy? How can I determine which apps are launching after a reboot?
You can change the keyboard settings to show symbol on long pressing,as for Google photo you can turn backup off.
No idea for other things.
groston said:
After many years of using Samsung phones, I just switched to a Google Pixel 3XL (which is rooted with the stock ROM). While the new phone seems to be quite good, there are some minor ‘issues’ that have cropped up – most probably due to my familiarity with the Samsung devices…
Merging contacts: Using MyPhoneExplorer, I imported my Outlook contacts into the phone. I also configured LinkedIn so that those contacts would also go into the contact list. Unlike the Samsung phone, the Pixel did a much better job of merging contacts. However, it missed a few and I cannot figure out how to manually merge them. How is this done?
Keyboard: One of the Samsung features I miss the most is being able to long-press letter keys to get symbols, e.g., long-press ‘a’ to get ‘@’. The Pixel approach of having to switch to a separate keyboard is annoying. Is there some way to enable the long-press functionality?
Image gallery: The default image gallery on the Pixel is Google photos, but I have no interest in sync’ing stuff with the cloud. The Samsung phone came with a really simple gallery app which met my needs. Is there such an app on the Pixel that I missed? If not, what gallery app do you recommend?
Aspect ratio: The ‘images’ for two of my apps, specifically the widget for Weather Underground and Enjoy Sudoku, are elongated – they should be square but are appearing as rectangles. Is there any way to adjust this via settings or is this a fault of the apps?
Autoruns: When my phone reboots, I see notifications that two apps are seeking permissions. However, when I looked to see what apps are autorunning, none are listed. Why this apparent discrepancy? How can I determine which apps are launching after a reboot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Merging contacts: I have a Note 8 too. I personally believe Google contacts does a better job of syncing and merging contacts, specially if sync is on for contacts. If you could play around with it maybe you will find what suits you.
Keyboard: `Long press for symbols` option in keyboard preferences.
Image gallery: Turn the sync off if you don't want it.
Aspect ratio: Try nova launcher and see if it solves it for you.
Autoruns: What apps need what permissions?
groston said:
After many years of using Samsung phones, I just switched to a Google Pixel 3XL (which is rooted with the stock ROM). While the new phone seems to be quite good, there are some minor ‘issues’ that have cropped up – most probably due to my familiarity with the Samsung devices…
Merging contacts: Using MyPhoneExplorer, I imported my Outlook contacts into the phone. I also configured LinkedIn so that those contacts would also go into the contact list. Unlike the Samsung phone, the Pixel did a much better job of merging contacts. However, it missed a few and I cannot figure out how to manually merge them. How is this done?
Keyboard: One of the Samsung features I miss the most is being able to long-press letter keys to get symbols, e.g., long-press ‘a’ to get ‘@’. The Pixel approach of having to switch to a separate keyboard is annoying. Is there some way to enable the long-press functionality?
Image gallery: The default image gallery on the Pixel is Google photos, but I have no interest in sync’ing stuff with the cloud. The Samsung phone came with a really simple gallery app which met my needs. Is there such an app on the Pixel that I missed? If not, what gallery app do you recommend?
Aspect ratio: The ‘images’ for two of my apps, specifically the widget for Weather Underground and Enjoy Sudoku, are elongated – they should be square but are appearing as rectangles. Is there any way to adjust this via settings or is this a fault of the apps?
Autoruns: When my phone reboots, I see notifications that two apps are seeking permissions. However, when I looked to see what apps are autorunning, none are listed. Why this apparent discrepancy? How can I determine which apps are launching after a reboot?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
download quickpic 3.4.9.1 <-- this version is just a gallery with no backup/syncing in the background its what i use on all my androids, reminds me of samsungs gallery... (or was it huawei) either way.
i use chrooma keyboard, completely customizable. and does exactly what you want
as for merging im pretty sure this can be done on a PC since its easier might want to go to go google contacts on a pc and attempt to do it there.
Thanks for the helpful replies!
Merging contacts: I avoid using Google products (so why did I buy this phone?). I have turned off syncing the contacts on the phone with the cloud, so addressing this issue via the PC won't work. What is odd is that the contacts stored in the phone app are separate from the Contact app. Will keep poking around on the phone, but not finding anything useful...
Keyboard settings - did not dig deeply enough to find this, thanks.
Google Photos - I did turn off sync, but had forgotten to hit the 'Confirm' button - big duh. Now it is working, will heck it out - and QuickPic as well.
Aspect ratio: I am using Nova Launcher.
Autoruns: The two apps seeking permission are Chromium (I have disabled Chrome) and an app from my local utility company.
Is there any way to organize apps into folders while using the default Pixel launcher? I have various apps that I'd like to group together, rarely used apps, utility type apps etc. Wondering if there's a way to group them on the stock launcher.
Found the answer myself, now running Microsoft Launcher, tried Nova but did not want to pay for Prime just to make folders. I've used the Microsoft Launcher previously and been happy with it, so using that for now. Still, kind of stupid that Google do not include that simple functionality with the default launcher.
Thanks