6 posts tagged “s60 3rd”

Ok so we all know about the new Nokia s60 3rd Feature Pack 2 release... Ok so we are all excited about it... Ok, it brings Open C-and-all-that-technical-talk-I-understand-nothing-about-but-is-supposed-to-be-a-real-step-ahead-of-the-rest-in-developping... Ok, and then what? Ha?

When I read New FP2 on Darla's and Tommi's blogs, I expected to see many improvements in the UI, and when I say many, I really mean MANY! I mean the s60 wishlist has been going for months now (and even before that, Tommi did a wish compilation himself)... they'd better take it off the net if they aren't going to at least try to implement the most rated (and hence most wanted) wishes!

I'm disgusted!

Ok we'll have to wait for another year or so for the developpers to realise those changes, and change needs time and beta testing, blablabla but isn't it weird to notice that many of the wishes stated were already realities in the S40 UI? Hmmmm, leaves me perplex...

I read the whole piece from Jouni on the UI and what I think is:

- the new "active applications" in the options menu is useless, just talk more about it and people will know it. Plus there should be a way to take it off, which I suppose isn't possible, ight?

- the middle softkey is more than useless! I've seen this type on my friend's S40 device (which I found less intuitive) and I thought S60 was supposed to move ahead, and not backwards. I think pressing the middle joystick/5-way button is more of the same... so why add text on the screen for that?

- so the timed profiles are back? ok and where are the reminders? the font and color changing possibilities? the different alarms?

- why oh why can't we create sub-folders? Since it is doable, and I've already explained that just in my previous post, why can't it be "legally" added? Is that too much of a trouble? Or do users always have to come up with tricks to make the phone do stuff that it's supposed to do... I mean Nokia are branding their devices as "Multimedia Computers", PLEASE TELL ME IN WHICH COMPUTER ARE YOU FORBIDDEN THE RIGHT TO CREATE A FOLDER IN ANOTHER FOLDER?

Ah I could go on for years like that... I'll just shut up before I say anything I'll regret.

Ooooooh i have to mention that i love the full screen contact picture, the slideshow wallpaper (since the slideshow screensaver is already available by a free Nokia download from their chinese support pages), the vertical idle screen toolbar (though no screenshot was available) and the ability to playback a downloaded song/video whilst still downloading...

But what I expect of Nokia and symbian are G.R.E.A.T changes and I expect them Q.U.I.C.K.L.Y.

I guess none of the "wishes" stated on the s60 wishlist are hard to realise. I even do believe all of them are already realised, but still waiting in the drawers of Nokia developpers, marketing choices. If all those changes were implemented in the s60 platform right now, what would Nokia people do in the future? Well, they'd kick out the developpers for a couple of years, because we'll all have our dream device in our hands...

But please don't we, loyal users of s60, deserve a prize for our loyalty? Like some little changes? Maybe gallery folders, sub-directory possibility, multiple alarms...? (a) Oh then I guess Best Alarms would stop selling, hehehehe (6)

Now, before saying this is a long thread, before giving up, before supposing this tip is a hell of a one,..., before all of that, calm down, read it carefully and then try it... and try it again if it doesn't work... and even again, because eventually it will work and eventually you'll get used to it and eventually you'll start wondering how you've survived so long with your symbian device without knowing it.

I want to create a "Most Used" folder inside my "My Own" folder

I will demonstrate this trick using my screenshots and this example. Then I will re-explain the trick.

Preparing the menu for the trick

Before doing the trick, you need to have a couple of things done on your phone's menu:

1 - Create the new folder "Most Used" in my main menu

2 - Move the "Most Used" folder so it is the first icon in my menu (and this is very important)

3 - Place any application, like Camera, so it is the 5th application on the menu list (the default icon highlighted when you press menu)

Refreshing the menu

In order to do this trick, the menu needs to be refreshed, and that's how you achieve this:

1 - Place any .sis / .sisx / .jar application on your phone

2 - Install this application (I will install eBook mobile trial)

3 - Before the installation is over, ie check the screenshot, press the menu button, the default highlight will be "Camera" (as I have move it to be my 5th application)

 

Performing the trick

1 - Directly after pressing menu button, press options (left selection key)

2 - WAIT for a couple of seconds and don't press anything more (even though it may seem like the phone has frozen)

3 - The menu will refresh: instead of having "Camera" highlighted, the highlight will be on the first icon, ie the folder "Most Used" but the options list will still be open (check the screenshot)

 

4 - Choose "Move to Folder" from the Options list

5 - Then choose "My Own" as a target.

 

6 - That's it  :D The "Most Used" folder is now in the "My Own" folder as a sub-directory

 

Explaining the trick

1 - The whole point of the trick is to have the menu refreshed while the options list is open with "move to folder" as one of the possible choices. This happens when u press options while having an app (and not a folder) highlighted. That's why I chose Camera.

2 - I decided to place Camera as the 5th app (the default one selected, so no buttons needed to be pressed) because when u press Menu just before the installation is over, the phone is in such a delicate confused state that the least buttons are pressed, the better it is.

3 - When the menu refreshes, the highlight moves to the first icon on the menu, which means that whatever this icon is, if the options list is still opened, you can pick any choice from it and let it apply to the first icon, instead of the 5th icon

More to the trick

1 - You can create sub-directories and sub-sub-directories and sub-sub-sub-directories... the possibilities are endless

2 - You can move any app / game to this newly created folder, just by selecting it and pressing options > move to folder, ie like you normally do with any other folder (check screenshot)

 

3 - The menu also refreshes after uninstalling an app, so you can also perform this trick just before the uninstallation process is over

Other

1 - If you want to act delicately with your phone and are afraid this trick will confuse it, try to turn bluetooth off and other running apps (like autolock)

2 - After trying this trick a couple of times, you'll get used to it, it would sound so easy ;)

! Huge thanks to Ayush for this helpful tip !

It took me ages to figure it out (no screenshots available, so I had to trust my instincts) but now I do it blind-folded (or almost)

Coming soon: renaming applications / games (also by Ayush)

I've had my 3250 for 7 months now and I can say the only thing that really bothered me in the software was the inability to uninstall themes. The app manager freezes and only shows .jar installed apps. So I was done to keeping all my themes on the phone and secretly crying every night before going to sleep (lol)

I have read a lot of tips to remove these themes, none worked on my phone, and some I didn't try because they were too complicated (re-install the theme then go to app manager and uninstall it... argh *starts banging my head against the wall* )

But I always knew I would come across an easier way to do it. And that's how, after wondering around in with Smartphone Ware's Best Taskman, I had this light in my brain and here it is *drum roll*

1. Connect your phone to the pc using the data cable
2. Select "Data Transfer" mode (for other phone models, it's the option where the mobile is like a usb)
3. Make sure your pc has SHOW HIDDEN FILES AND FOLDERS on (if you don't know how to, choose Tools > Folder Options > View > Show hidden files and folders)
4. On the computer go to My Computer > Removable Disk (the memory card) > Private (it's a hidden folder) > 10207114 > Import
5. Now you'll have a number of folders with barbarian names, like "dc60815d47351ce2" and others. Each folder corresponds to one theme.
6. Open each folder and you'll see in the contents 4 files: a settings file, a .mbm file, a .mif file and a .skn file. The 4 files have in their title the theme name. For instance, in my dc60815d47351ce2 folder, i have the following Pink_Seaflower_3250.mbm, Pink_Seaflower_3250.mif and Pink_Seaflower_3250.skn which means that the dc60815d47351ce2 folder is the one of the Pink Seaflower theme (by Babi)
7. When u come across a theme that you want to delete, go back to the Import folder and delete the whole theme folder. Like if I want to delete the pink seaflower theme, I would delete the whole dc60815d47351ce2 folder
8. Safely remove your phone
9. Enjoy your emptied theme gallery :D

I just tried this tip in my 3250 and it works perfectly fine. After disconnecting my phone, I opened Themes on the mobile and all the themes I deleted were gone *starts dancing*

For other phones, the parent folder "10207114" may be different (I think). You just have to find the folder that contains an "Import" sub-folder.

This tip is courtesy of Dotsisx.vox.com, feel free to use it, but please link back here... I could use some advertisement :)

I was browsing through Imserba's forum when i came across this post by ayush. It's a trick to use the landscape mode in S60 v3 mobiles. Quite complicated, but worth the trouble for people with internet browsing, etc, who need to have their phones in landscape mode. Personally I haven't tried it (because I don't need it, and because i'm on dial-up connection) so I can't say if it works... Go ahead and tell me.

P.S: ayush is a very efficient member on the forum, so I trust his trick will work :)

For over 2 months now, the only themes installed on my phone are made by one and only one person: Babi. She's italian and makes these themes for free (try to donate). They are neat, well done, with perfect visibility, no errors and very nice images used. She also makes different versions of each theme, adapted for N73, 3250 and other phones. Oh and her themes come with brand new Bandez icons.

I can't help but say "Way to go Babi! I just hope you keep rolling and producing these amazing themes!"

Currently my theme is sylvester (pic above) , but you have to check out glass flowers, snow, night raid, seaflower, new glamur, oh and many many more!

This an old trick, but i found out there's more to it. First things first:

• when you press the menu button for about 2 seconds, you get this window on top of screen (you can do it when you have an app running, and not when in idle mode)
• as you see, I have Standby, Medical and Screenshot. These are the 3 applications running in my phone at that time. So you can switch between these apps. it's good when you're running an app, then get a phone call. Don't go through the menu an open it again! Just press menu for 2 secs (even less) and there it is.
• one more thing is that you can exit any app here just by scrolling to it and hitting the "c" button on the phone. You get an exit confirmation question and there it is. You can kill any freezing app as easy as that. No need for an add-on to do that.
• the other plus is the scrolling between apps and selecting in that little menu. Probably all of us use the joystick/5-way keypad to do it then select by pressing the central button. Nope nope. Another way: after that running apps menu shows on the left, keep your finger on the menu button, and now press it normally, you will scroll through all those apps like on that screen, if i push menu i will have scrnshot highlighted instead of medical, if i do it twice, i'll have standby... and so on. Now that you have the app you want highlighted, you need to select it. No need for central button. Just push the menu button for 2 seconds again, and you switch to your selected app. That's nice for lazy people like me :D

I don't know if that trick works on previous s60, but it sure does on s60 3rd. I usually use it when i'm reading a book on mobireader and need to check some definition in my oxford dict.

Gotta go now. I have some chicken to cook now... well during the exams period, i was so desperate i did all kinds of crazy things, like watch tv 10hrs/day, wake up at 9am (i'm a 6 oclock girl), watch a report about north korea, and, well, promise mom to cook!!!