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I would like to see a today plugin that features quick contacts (Kind of like the HTC home plugin).
The features I would like to see are:
* Today plugin
* Either use photo or set text for each contact.
* Opens contact in default contacts app, doesn't just dial (ie so you can choose to send an SMS)
* Vertical or horizontal list scrolled by gesture. Vertical or horizontal option would be nice, but vertical scroll probably more important - a lot of cube apps (eg ultimatelaunch) are controlled by horizontal gesture, if we could have this contacts app controlled with vertical gesture it would not interfere.
Please note that I mean a gesture controlled list WITHIN the today screen window, not as a seperate full screen app - plenty of things already do this.
* No add contact interface would be required, adding contacts to be included in dialer into a regular outlook category would be perfectly acceptable. Showing photo if contact has one or name if not would also be perfectly acceptable rather than an interface to select that.
V2R Photo Dialer 2 is almost exactly what I want but is controlled by horizontal gesture only. I tried to contact V2R to request this change but I received no response.
[Edit: Thinking about it, it doesn't need to be a favorites dialler, it could just have tickboxes for each category - if you want to use it as a favorite contacts launcher, just set it to the "favorites" category only, or you could leave all categories on to show the whole contacts list]
I'm using Face Contact which has all you've asking for, except horizontal but if you use Ultimate Launch then you can exclude the plugin from the gestures of Ultimate Launch.
http://www.cnetx.com/products/contact/
Nice app - I prefer it to the V2R one. I have emailed the author asking for the option of vertical gesture to scroll the list. I don't care if the list spins horizontally as it is, as long as I can spin it with a vertical gesture so it don't interfere with ultimatelaunch.
evilc said:
I would like to see a today plugin that features quick contacts (Kind of like the HTC home plugin).
The features I would like to see are:
* Today plugin
* Either use photo or set text for each contact.
* Opens contact in default contacts app, doesn't just dial (ie so you can choose to send an SMS)
* Vertical or horizontal list scrolled by gesture. Vertical or horizontal option would be nice, but vertical scroll probably more important - a lot of cube apps (eg ultimatelaunch) are controlled by horizontal gesture, if we could have this contacts app controlled with vertical gesture it would not interfere.
Please note that I mean a gesture controlled list WITHIN the today screen window, not as a seperate full screen app - plenty of things already do this.
* No add contact interface would be required, adding contacts to be included in dialer into a regular outlook category would be perfectly acceptable. Showing photo if contact has one or name if not would also be perfectly acceptable rather than an interface to select that.
V2R Photo Dialer 2 is almost exactly what I want but is controlled by horizontal gesture only. I tried to contact V2R to request this change but I received no response.
[Edit: Thinking about it, it doesn't need to be a favorites dialler, it could just have tickboxes for each category - if you want to use it as a favorite contacts launcher, just set it to the "favorites" category only, or you could leave all categories on to show the whole contacts list]
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Click to collapse
You can do horizontal scrolling photodial with my app, throttlelauncher.... It's free, so if you want to, try it . You can install it from http://www.throttlelauncher.com. After making the full instalation (use the exe setup or install both cabs) here you have a little setup cab for a theme showing only a contact row (if you're interested, you can have much more showing app's and other stuff in multiple pages). So to sum up:
- Go to http://www.throttlelauncher.com/
- Ensure you install everything on the same media (SD or device)
- Install both cab or use the desktop instalation in full mode.
- Install the cab attached to this thread.
- Enable throttletoday today plugin (it might take a little bit to load)
- Add as much contacts as you wish to the row .
Feel free to post any comments, requests or constructive critics . You can customize an xml to make the photos biger, order them in multiple rows, remove the ad delete icons, etc. Hope it matches what you're looking for....
Thanks for that, but the ThrottleLaunch PhotoDialer only allows scrolling of contacts via a horizontal gesture. I need to control it with a *vertical* (up/down) gesture. Also, ThrottleToday will not show inside ultimatelaunch - it will show if I put it on the main Today screen, but trying to add it as a today plugin in ultimatelaunch does nothing.
I did get an encouraging response from the makers of Face Contact yesterday though:
Hello,
thanks for your feedback.
At first thought, the idea of using a vertical gesture and having the list scroll horizontally appears a little bit disturbing, but we think we understand the rationale behind your suggestion.
We will indeed play around with UltimateLaunch to see if you can find out an option that is both intuitive and that allows Face Contact to be usable within their interface.
As it is now a possible solution is to exclude our plugin from being affected by Ultimate Launch gestures, so that when our plugin is active (and only in this circumstance) the left-right gestures will actually scroll the contact list instead than spinning the cube. Then, as soon as you apply the left/right gestures outside of our plugin, the cube will take control.
When developing Face Contact we left the door open to the possibility of having a vertical layout of the contact list, though, of course, this doesn't fit well with the current Today screen organization, which assumes all plugins are placed horizontally. In other words, it wouldn't be that difficult for us to layout the whole list vertically instead than horizontally,
So, we will definitely keep your comment in mind, as it is possible that within a different context (such as Ultimate Launch), we could actually provide both a vertical layout and vertical gesture, which would indeed make quite a lot of sense.
At this stage, having just released Face Contact a couple of days ago, we are currently gathering feedback to see how to move on with further releases and updates.
So, your feedback is very welcome: thanks again.
Best regards,
The CNetX Support Team
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I downloaded Face Contact last night, and so far I am liking it. The reason I went with Face over VR2 is the space issue. VR2 looked to take a lot of space up in the Today screen, and being on a 240x240, space is a big issue. Face seemed to take a minimum of memory and leave room on my screen. I have it in a Shell tab with the native Palm picture dialer. The only option I could think of adding is the ability to dial automatically when the picture is pressed. I know that can lead to a lot of mis-dialings, but maybe a setting like normal usage until the pic is pressed for a second or so, and then the chosen primary number is dialed. If that makes sense great, if not, please let me know and I will try to explain better!!
Here is a screen shot of where I have Face on my Today screen:
im using face contact. it does everything you are asking for. im also using ultimatelaunch, the two make beautiful music together. especially if you choose the "disable gesture" feature when you enable it in ul. ive played with this quite a bit, and it is very intuitive how smooth everything STILL works. especially for these to be a first version for both apps. experiment with it. the result is perfect
Lots of nice feedback here: thanks guys.
syrguy1969 said:
...
The only option I could think of adding is the ability to dial automatically when the picture is pressed. I know that can lead to a lot of mis-dialings, but maybe a setting like normal usage until the pic is pressed for a second or so, and then the chosen primary number is dialed. If that makes sense great, if not, please let me know and I will try to explain better!!
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Click to collapse
I'm not sure if this is referred to Face Contact, or to other software you are using. If you are actually talking about FC, then please note that you can easily reassign the TAP and TAP & HOLD actions to trigger different commands, including CALLING the selected contact. Just check the "Action Settings" screen and you'll find the options there.
Also note that when Face Contact is the active plugin you should be able to CALL the selected contact by simply pressing the START CALL key of your phone. This is usually easier and less error-prone than having to tap or tap and hold. And, if you call by using the START CALL key, you can use the tap and tap&hold actions for other things, such as displaying the shortcut menu, or accessing the Face Contact Manager.
PS: we have included quite an extensive help file, with lots of tips and tricks and information on things like this. Maybe you may want to give it a quick look.
I guess I missed the tap+hold part, that is exactly what I was getting at!!! I guess this app has just about it all for me then, I will keep testing like crazy, but so far I am very pleased with it!!!
i'm using throttle now, but the pics look like garbage. I'm seriously OCD about the dumbest stuff, so I'm still looking for an answer. I just want face contact to have a transparent background, and I'd buy it.
J Shed said:
...
I just want face contact to have a transparent background, and I'd buy it.
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Hey Shed, please have a look at my post concerning the plugin background in the Face Contact thread here...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=378145&page=7
evilc said:
Thanks for that, but the ThrottleLaunch PhotoDialer only allows scrolling of contacts via a horizontal gesture. I need to control it with a *vertical* (up/down) gesture. Also, ThrottleToday will not show inside ultimatelaunch - it will show if I put it on the main Today screen, but trying to add it as a today plugin in ultimatelaunch does nothing.
I did get an encouraging response from the makers of Face Contact yesterday though:
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Hi evilc!
Sorry for the delay on the answer. Vertical scroll on throttlelauncher is planned for a further release (probably 1.0), it's still alpha so many things are missing but I thought It will mach what you where looking for... Any way, I've install UL and find out why the plugin is not showing... seem's that UL doesn't work exactly like the today screen when hosting today plugins (probably to save some memory) so the today plugin exe is not launching. To sum up, to make throttletoday plugin show inside UL the only thing needed is running manually the ThrottleTodayPlugin.exe located on the throttlelauncher instalation path. At least that worked for me. Also as you've said the horizontal scrolling will interfer with the tab change gesture so disabling os setting a time out it is needed by now....
J Shed said:
i'm using throttle now, but the pics look like garbage. I'm seriously OCD about the dumbest stuff, so I'm still looking for an answer. I just want face contact to have a transparent background, and I'd buy it.
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Click to collapse
Hi shed!
If contact photos don't look good you can try playing with the config.xml file to change the contact photo width an height values (I recommend to keep the 3/4 ratio if you use standar photo dial photos). The config.xml file will be inside the PhotoDialer1Row (or 2Row if you use this one) on your setups folder on your throttlelauncher instalation path. All you need to do is search for the allcontactswithphoto tag and play with it's height and width attribute.
Gabibbo:
I saw your post and had already replied. I'm just waiting for the version to show up.
APBilbo:
I have thinkered with that setting, the problem is in just how throttle scales the images. I don't recall the terms, but the scaled images are distorted.
@evilc .... I too use face contacts in a UL panel. When you use the disable gesture feature, It only disables the gestures from being passed to UL in the active plugin area. You can still spin the cube via gesture in an inactive area of the panel. Or if combined with something else, an area that does not otherwise respond to a gesture. Try it out.... In my case I have found that though it is a great idea, the vertical gesturing is not necessary for a fully functional solution.
J Shed said:
...
APBilbo:
I have thinkered with that setting, the problem is in just how throttle scales the images. I don't recall the terms, but the scaled images are distorted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, thanks for the info... I'll take a look at that... It's NET.CF the one scaling the images.... probably there's a smother method to get it...
nextpimp said:
@evilc .... I too use face contacts in a UL panel. When you use the disable gesture feature, It only disables the gestures from being passed to UL in the active plugin area. You can still spin the cube via gesture in an inactive area of the panel. Or if combined with something else, an area that does not otherwise respond to a gesture. Try it out.... In my case I have found that though it is a great idea, the vertical gesturing is not necessary for a fully functional solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I realised that a while ago, it is OK if you have something else in the UL tab without gestures disabled, so that you can gesture left in that area to spin the cube.
I think overall, the interface I would like would be gesture left/right between the faces, then up/down to scroll info on each face. I think for this interface, a vertical list would be more suitable than horizontal scrolling icons, it would just work better visually.
I really like the music browser in conduits pocket player - I would kill for one of those in a UL face along with a contacts list done in a similar manner on another face, thumbcal (with scroll month by vertical gesture) on another face... That would be nirvana for me.
I have done much searching across xda and the web and have still yet to find what i am looking for. I have a diamond and like many people i disabled the HTC dialer due to the ring delay.
I have been using the standard wm dialer. I am quite happy with the incall screen this provides but i am unhappy with just one aspect of the dialing screen. I like the smart dialing feature and use this all the time only ever using "contacts" for sms. BUT I find that sometimes it is difficult to select a name from the rather small list above the keypad. I dont see the point in the dialed digits being displayed so large as they do not need to be selected with a finger. I have therefore been looking for a way to reduce the size of the dialed numbers and increase the size of the contacts in the list. Couldnt find any tweak to do this
I did find a program yesterday (cant remember its name now) that displayed easily selectable tabs in place of the small menu items sadly twas qvga only and develpment had been stopped years ago. I have looked at using alternatives such as phonex ect but these come with incall screens and call history lists ect which i dont need or want. All i want is slightly larger menu items OR a simple dialer screen only, no incall screen ect but i would like it to look nice tho.
Does anyone know how this mod could be made or of any app suitable? I've attatched a screeny to give you an idea of what i mean
Thanks Guys and Gals
I'm interested too
Is it only me?
I'm coming from WinMo only phones. I owned a lot of them, the last being the Touch HD. I was so used to press the "green" key to access the dialer and look for a contact using that mixed numbers/letters phone keyboard.
On Nexus One, I select "phone" shortcut on my homescreen and I get the dialer. But if you push buttons on that keyboard, you only get to dial that number (no contacts lookout, matching what you have pressed). So you have to go to Contacts or Favorites to select someone you want to call (too many operations to not get annoyed )
Is this a normal behavior on Nexus One? Or am I doing something bad?
I made a movie to see what I am talking about (not a native English speaker).
Movie 1
The second movie is made showing what I am talking about using a Market application I found: SuperDial. It works as expected, but still I am confused why Google didn't make this a default (I see this on every phone)
Movie 2
Thanks for any suggestions.
Alin.
On the N1, you can press the "search" button at any time and begin typing a contact's name, and they should pop up as a top result. Alternatively, you can hold the Search button, and simply speak your contact's name. I find this to be the easiest way.
Yes, I've seen this, but it gets more general results, not only contacts. Also, after you find a contact that way, you click on it and it won't dial directly. You still have to select what to do.. not that fast ...
I'm not an American/Englishman and nor my contacts are , so speaking names is useless. Last try was: "Alex Axon" and the phone undesrtood "alex sucks own" .. you got the idea
Thanks for answering anyway. Are there other methods?
You can install aContacts from the market. It does what you want and very configurable. Unfortunately android stock dialer doesn't support T9.
Thanks.. will try that also. As I mentioned, I already found some replacement for my issue.
The question was: is this normal behavior for the default dialer? Or am I doing something wrong?
It looks plain stupid to open an application (Phone in Nexus case) always on a tab that nobody uses (dialer with this behavior). How many times someone will dial a number directly instead of using a saved contact?!? At least the application should remember the last tabs it was in: Favorites, Call Log or Contacts... Dialer is plain useless most of the time with this implementation
alithenake said:
Thanks.. will try that also. As I mentioned, I already found some replacement for my issue.
The question was: is this normal behavior for the default dialer? Or am I doing something wrong?
It looks plain stupid to open an application (Phone in Nexus case) always on a tab that nobody uses (dialer with this behavior). How many times someone will dial a number directly instead of using a saved contact?!? At least the application should remember the last tabs it was in: Favorites, Call Log or Contacts... Dialer is plain useless most of the time with this implementation
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Click to collapse
This is how mine reacts as well. There's another "application" called "Contacts" in my tray (it also started out on my desktop but I've removed it) which takes you to the same four-tab screen but starts on the "Contacts" tab. This sounds like it would be perfect for you if you used it instead of "Phone."
I also really miss the smart dailer (I think that's what they called it) on the Windows Mobile phones. I'm amazed that it wasn't implemented in one way or another in the stock dialer since it's been in the WinMo phones since forever.
I remember trying out some apps in the market that emulated the smart dialer. On is called SuperDial and the other was Star Contact. Both looked too ugly for me to use, though.
alithenake said:
On Nexus One, I select "phone" shortcut on my homescreen and I get the dialer. But if you push buttons on that keyboard, you only get to dial that number (no contacts lookout, matching what you have pressed). So you have to go to Contacts or Favorites to select someone you want to call (too many operations to not get annoyed )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also wanted to point out that at this screen, you can long press "Menu" to bring up the soft kb, which you can begin typing contacts with.
kozm0naut said:
I also wanted to point out that at this screen, you can long press "Menu" to bring up the soft kb, which you can begin typing contacts with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's something cool I never tried, but OP wants to dial immediately after tapping on the contact's name. Doing it this way would be the same as hitting the magnifying glass while in the dailer/contacts app, which brings you to the contacts page where you'd have to then tap on the number you wish to dial. On Windows Mobile, after you T9 the contacts name into the dialer, you can select them and it'll automatically dial the contacts default number, which was very useful.
if you say "call" before the contact's name when using voice input, it will default to dialing them.
aContacts actually do the job really, but really well. It replaced my Phone application from this moment on.
SuperDial was good also, but ugly looking.
kozm0naut said:
if you type or say "call" before the contact's name, it will default to dialing them.
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Click to collapse
Where do you type "call"? OP can't use voice dial because he's not from an English speaking country.
you type call on the keyboard as far as I understood, just before entering contact name.. but the process is long in my opinion...
I'm a bit lazy myself
EDIT: tried to enter contact using keyboard on Dialer.. and nothing happens, contact is not found, and dialer just starts dialing the corresponding key number
alithenake said:
you type call on the keyboard as far as I understood, just before entering contact name.. but the process is long in my opinion...
I'm a bit lazy myself
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't do anything... I type "call John" in the search box and my contacts don't come up.
Yeah, I edited my original post. I only had the misinfo in there for about 30 sec. Jeeze, you guys are fast
When one selects the "people" tab at the bottom of the phone, it opens the HTC "People" app, where you can put photos of people to click on as "favorites".
If one then clicks on the phrase "all people" on the bottom left, one comes to Contacts.
Is there any way to set it, registry tweak, etc., so that clicking on that people tab will bring you directly to Contacts, without having to go to their "People" app first?
Thanks for your input.
i just put the htc contacts tabe on my homescreen. but id also like to see if there is a fix or not for this...
74. Add All Contacts to Home Screen Left Softkey
By default the left softkey on the the Sense home tab is coded to Phone which is pointless and a waste because you can get to the same Phone page by pressing the Send hardware key. Change it to the All People page (eliminating 2 taps) by using the following reg entry:
HKLM/Software/HTC/Manila
HomeLSKPath = !"\Windows\manila.exe" --switchtopage Manila://people\browserlayer\?.page
HomeLSKText = Contacts
Search [REF] *Leo Hints, Tips and Registry Tweaks* in the forum.
Thanks for the reply, Bazingo. I'll try that.
I'm still very much a newbie at Sense, just having got the HD2 a couple days ago, and never having used a device with that interface before.
One unfortunate thing I find about it though (again, I could be wrong, being so new at it), is that (out of the box) it seems so unconfigurable.
For instance, the main feature seems to be that ribbon of tabs at the bottom. That is a good idea. However, from what I can see, the only configuration one can do of them, is to remove them (other than Settings or Home)! One should be able to set any of the tabs to do what you want it to do, to include whatever app launchers you want from it, etc. One certainly SHOULD be able to set that people tab to go directly to contacts, if one prefers that, over that HTC "People" app.
I'm sure I'll learn more ways to hack the configuration here on XDA, and I am really grateful for this site. Most users won't know, of course, about XDA, might not feel comfortable with hacking the registry, or installing cabs from folks they don't know. This UI should really be much more configurable "out-of-the-box". (I wonder if HTC is listening?)
Configurable?
I really don't know what to say except wow. People should know what there buying before they purchase it. Do a little research. There's a reason they made it that way, last I checked Manilla wasn't open source. Nevertheless you are in the right place when it comes to customizing.
cdguider said:
I really don't know what to say except wow. People should know what there buying before they purchase it.
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Click to collapse
My response to a comment like that-- arrogant BS sarcasm.
Well, if having such an attitude makes you feel good, to each his own!
Ok, I have a few questions that should have easy solutions that I just can't find... probably because what I'm looking for is pretty specific. Hopefully I can get answers to at least a few of them. I will start out by saying that I am currently running the Energy Reference ROM on a Touch Pro 2 (with plenty of RAM I might add). As I find solutions, I will post them below under the "Resolved" section, just in case someone else needs help as well.
Questions:
----- How do you change the color/skin of the stock dialer? The only one that I found searching was the "dusk" dialer... I'm looking for something that I can change the color of some of the buttons (to blue or something)... someone has to have a CAB with a bunch of different colors???
Resolved:
----- First... how do you change the panel backgrounds in SPB Mobile Shell 3.5.5? I'm not looking to add widgets... not looking to change the background of the Today screen (already have done that)... I'm looking to change the background of the panels ONLY. Without changing the layout of anything. Just the panels. I have tried a few programs/skins (Vostradamus, etc.)... and I just can't figure out how to do this simple thing with them. So I'm hoping there's an easier way (registry edit, setting that I'm just not seeing, etc.).
Fix: ----- http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=4766529&postcount=730 (make SURE to use WinZip, NOT WinRar or anything else)
----- Second, for some reason, I can't see the settings of "Smartlock" in the SPB settings view (as in, if I go through SPB Mobile to get to "Settings", Smartlock isn't there). However, Smartlock is visible when I switch over to the "stock" Start Menu. So is there any way for Smartlock to appear in the SPB Mobile "Settings" tab? It's pretty weird that it isn't there (ALL of the other programs/settings functions show up, but not Smartlock).
Fix: ----- This fixed itself after a clean reinstall of SPB Mobile Shell 3.5.5.
----- Is it possible to keep all the "stock" icons up on top of the screen and add the clock display?
(I currently have the "data" icon, "signal strength" icon, "phone volume" icon, and "battery" icon... with room for the "X"/"OK" icon when a program is running)
I am looking to keep all of those icons while adding the clock display. Don't know if it's possible, but I thought I would ask.
IF it is possible to put the clock up there, would this be compatible with "Brian's Taskbar" to make the icons colorful? I don't have it on there yet, but I'm just wondering for future reference.
Fix: ----- http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=612083 (Battclock program... I'm still trying to figure out how to perfect it though). Doesn't appear to be very compatible if you have multiple backgrounds/different screens... but it'll work on at least one of the screens.
----- In the "stock" contacts, there are a few different "filters" (viewed via the menu button). To avoid duplication, I would like to have it always set to "Device Conacts", rather than "All Contacts" ("All Contacts contains SIM and device... which results in duplication). You can change it temporarily but selecting "Device Contacts", but when you re-enter it, it automatically switches back. If anyone knows of a way to permanently/by default choose "Device Contacts", that would be what I'm looking for.
Fix: ----- Registry edit... HKCU/Control Panel/Phone/ShowSim (change from 1 to 0, and they will be gone).
I can help with "third"... look at battclock. It is completely customizable and completely great. Alternatively, there is an option in the settings to display just a clock instead of battery meter in the task bar.
For the "first", try this post from the tips and tricks thread (may need to back out and read some surrounding posts to get a better idea)
cbeck said:
I can help with "third"... look at battclock. It is completely customizable and completely great. Alternatively, there is an option in the settings to display just a clock instead of battery meter in the task bar.
For the "first", try this post from the tips and tricks thread (may need to back out and read some surrounding posts to get a better idea)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm looking into the Battclock program, so I will update when I figure that out.
Thanks for showing me that thread for the "first" issue... that led me to the link that I posted in my first post, which is for 3.5.5 (I'm sure they're both the same... but the link I posted makes it pretty easy to understand I think).
Still looking for a solution for the color of the dialer/dialpad. I think I'm just going to have to either delete all of the SIM contacts and same them on my computer (to upload later when I switch phones or whatever).