[jfisher]

okay, here's the new shortcut app with customisable icons, it's not finished yet, there's a few bugs and layout problems but that's only with the master utility app, the shortcuts themselves work fine so it's perfectly useable.

please dont link or upload this to any blackberry sites yet... it's last thing on a friday and i expect to spend the weekend drunk, there'll be a finished version released on monday or tuesday, this is just a zip for anyone who wants to test.

download it here: http://sundaracommunications.net/dow...tcutsdelux.zip

inside you'll find 5 shortcuts apps and a master application, make sure you run the master utility first as there's no error checking so the shortcuts may go bang if run first.

step 1 - install all 6 applications

step 2 - run the 'shortcut utility app'

step 3 - enter the url for the .png file you want to use as your icon, and below that enter the address of the site you want the shortcut to launch.

step 4 - hit save and wait for the app to download the icons

step 5 - if it all worked okay look at the pretty icons, hit escape to exit

step 6 - launch your icons, hit escape... you should now have your custom icon on your shortcut.

NOTE: i rushed to get this finished before the weekend, it's buggy. make sure you include the http:// in the url, make sure you only target .png image files of icon size, 32X32 is a good target size. there are some layout problems in the utility.. they'll be fixed next week when i release this proper.

if you like this and use it please please let me know, it's nice emails from folk that keeps me releasing free software.

cheers,
jon
( )

[John Clark]

Sweeeet! That's exactly what I needed! You rock!

Yes, it's a little bit buggy. If you don't get the url for the icon just exactly right it hangs on downloading icon with no way to stop it except for removing the battery. Do you have to install all 5 shortcuts or can you just load one or two? Also, is there something different about shortcut #2? It keeps telling me it's trying to access a secure api no matter what icon or webpage I point it to. Also, is it possible to have the ability to customize the lables for the shortcuts by renaming the .alx/cod files or is it tougher than that?


John

[John Clark]

OK...I see now that you can't just change the names of the .alx/.cod files to rename the labels and no you don't have to load all 5 but just the ones you want.

Just a couple suggestions, if I may. 1) Is it possible to have the ability to edit the labels that go along with the icons on the home screen? 2) is it possible to make the pages available offline as with the browser? 3) I notice that the icons revert back to generic icons after a reboot. Any possible fix for that? 4) Will the .jad apps you included work OTA? I tried them but I couldn't get them to load OTA. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...wouldn't be the first time (or the last!) Also, which browser gets used with these shortcuts? Is it whatever is the default browser just as if it's a link in an email?

I really like what you've done with this! I can't thank you enough already! Even if you never touched it again it does exactly what I was hoping for!

John

[jfisher]

should be up and running a lot better now, done quite a lot of work tightening it up this morning so a lot of issues should've been resolved.

read instructions and download it here: MeshTech News: Blackberry Custom Shortcut Icons

regarding the reboot issue, this isn't easily solved, they should become customised again once you relaunch them. it is possible to do it but requires a lot of programming and it'd be overkill, ie. it would probably require more lines of code than are currently in the whole bunch of applications combined.

pretty sure it just spawns the default browser set in options.

have put a post up over at the rim site about programatically changing the application names, no joy as yet but it may feature in a futre update if i ever figure out a way.

as ever, if you use this let me know, leave any bugs here, at the meshtech site or email me, feel free to post the meshtech link up on other sites.

cheers,
jon

[John Clark]

Jon,
Thanks for the good job on this app. It is going to work well for what I need. The only bug I can find is while entering the url for the icon if the url is more than one line long the url line for the website moves down but the numbers and the brackets don't move. So it looks like you are typing the #1 website url on the #2 or the #3 line (depending on how many lines the url is. Does that make any sense? I can work around it but I thought I'd post here anyway in case there is anything that can be done with it. Here is a screenshot. LOVE THIS APP, THOUGH!

[Dispatcher35]

The web paage says it has only been tested on a 87XX BB. Has anyone tried it on a 71XX BB yet?

[John Clark]

Originally Posted by Dispatcher35

The web paage says it has only been tested on a 87XX BB. Has anyone tried it on a 71XX BB yet?

yes, it works fine on the 7100. My screenshot in my last post is off my 7100t.

[snirody]

When testing I did not enter a url for an icon, thinking I'd leave yours the default ones (at least for now...) So, when saving in step 3 it goes to "Downloading icons" and stays there forever... Had to pull the battery to stop.. Otherwise it's great..
SNi

[jfisher]

oops. will fix that.

have decided i'm gonna sign up to handango, there's people selling some much worse stuff on there, will do some more work on this before i start selling it.

basically i program blackberry's for a living but work aren't paying me anywhere near enough, if i can get a few hundred folk buying some programs at 15-20 dollars it'll add to my wage and make life a little easier.

[guruleenyc]

I installed just the setup utility and entered the info for line#1. However, after it downloaded the png nothing new displays on my home screen...

How would I deploy this over-the-air or from my BES?

[jfisher]

sorry, not touched this application for a few months; i'll give it a rewrite at some point if i have time. if you have a bes there's another method you can use that pushes a browser shortcut to the blackberry ribbon (homescreen), there's a tutorial that covers it on the bberry site somewhere.

[guruleenyc]

Anybody know where this RIM/BB tutorial is?

[jfisher]

it's in the knowledge base on the blackberry site,

title: 'How do I create a browser shortcut icon on the ribbon?'

[jfisher]

more info here: BlackBerry

i just used the search function on ther blackberry dev site btw to get these links: 'web shortcut'

[guruleenyc]

If I use the PHP delivery mechanism, what if anything do I need to install on my IIS Webserver (i.e. PHP)?

[fbrimm]

Here's the link to the RIM page that includes software for trying the Browser Channel Push if you are using a BES. Download the BlackBerryBulkPush.zip file for everything you need to get started. The zip file includes code ready to run, so don't worry about having to compile anything. I've used both the single push and the bulk push (to multiple users), and both work great.

The only thing you have to be careful with is making sure the page you want to push doesn't have any authentication needed. The app has to be able to load the page (to verify the page is valid?), so if the page needs authentication the app will fail.

If you need to push a page with authentication, then you'll probably have to modify the source code provided and re-compile.

fbrimm

BlackBerryPush

[guruleenyc]

Can I Globally specify the icons and URL for all handhelds or is it per device?

Do I need to install PHP on my IIS Webserver for this to be supported?

[jfisher]

i don't have a clue what you're talking about.

[guruleenyc]

Basically I am looking to deploy a Browser-Based Push Application to all my handhelds, which will resolve to a Intranet URL.

This is my Thread on this: http://www.blackberryforums.com/deve...tion-help.html

[cliffr39]

link in #1 post no longer works... any updates?