8 posts tagged “tip”

Ever found yourself browsing through application manager with a dozen .sis application that look like this?

Well, I have. And apparently many other people have too. These 200002b3.sis and 200012ff.sis and others files don't get deleted with the "c" button, and if you press options, you can't install them nor do any other thing.

Well, these files are, most of the time, remnants of applications you have installed then uninstalled (or you have on another memory card), so, deleting them won't do your phone any harm.

These .sis files can be found in E (memory card) :/ private / 10202dce.

You can either access this folder by using the traditionnal method (memory card reader / usb cable on data transfer mode, with the pc set to show hidden files and folders) OR you can access it directly on the phone using the file manager find trick explained previously in the Trick: Uninstalling themes right from your phone post. After finding the private folder, follow the path written above, and you'll find those .sis files, select and delete them. There you are.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT .SIS FILE NAME (THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE) BEFORE DELETING ANYTHING.

Trust me, if you delete the right files, nothing will go wrong on your phone. And this is how app manager will look like after cleaning up the mess :

Previously I have detailed how to access the themes folders using the computer and how to delete an unwanted theme.

Using a trick provided by lipkiss over @ the imserba forum (http://www.imserba.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80947), you can now delete the themes right from your phone, ain't that just amazing?

How to?

1 - Using a memory card reader OR connecting your phone to the pc with data transfer mode, open the memory card folder.

2 - Set your pc to show hidden files and folders, you will see the private folder.

3 - Right click on it and uncheck the Hidden and Read-Only attributes

4 - The pc asks if you want to make these changes for the folder and its sub-files and folders, say YES

5 - Remove your mem card and put it back in the phone OR remove you usb cable (according to which connection method you used in step 1)

These first 5 steps have to be made ONLY ONE TIME.

6 - Using the phone, open File Manager

7 - Select Options > Find > Memory Card > and then type private in the Find Text field, and click Find

8 - Despite the fact that the private folder doesn't show up normally in file manager, it will show up with the FIND trick

 

9 - Now click on the private folder and go to the 10207114 subfolder

10 - Open it then open Import and there you will see the different themes folders.

11 -  Remember each folder is specific for one theme. You can open the folder in order to see which theme it refers to, and then click on Back and delete the whole folder.

 

 

12 - Hope that makes your life easier.

Following the MODIFYING JAVA ICONS trick, I have found out that renaming javas is very easy, even before installing the app/game.

All you have to do is open the .jar file using WinRAR, open the MANIFEST.MF file in Notepad, then see these two lines:

MIDlet-Name: applicationname

MIDlet-1: applicationname, iconfilename, ...

By changing the application name on both of these 2 code lines, and saving the .jar file and then installing it on your phone, you will have successfully changed your app / game name, even before having it installed!

Enjoy!

P.S: for more details on how to, refer to my previous post Trick: Modifying Icons - JAVA

So we've all tried to install some java apps / games on our mobiles, but sometimes, some of these apps end up having this grey puzzle brick with a blue cube icon (see the AED icon in the pic)

And you have always wondered what's the problem, why don't these JAVA apps have a decent icon like every other app, and you've always wondered "Can I change them?" the answer is YES, yes you can change JAVA apps icons, and that is done even before installing the app on your mobile.

This is a detailed step of HOW TO DO IT:

1 - On your computer, using WinRAR open the .jar file

2 - You will see one or more folders (there is ALWAYS a META-INF folder and sometimes a couple of others)

3 - Open the META-INF folder, inside, you'll find a MANIFEST.MF file, open it using notepad. The first time, you have to drag-drop the file to your desktop, right-click on it and chose Open with then Chose Program then chose Notepad from the list and check the Always use the selected program to open this kind of file then click on OK. But then afterwards, you will be able to open the MANIFEST.MF file directly from WinRAR.

4 - In notepad, you will see that the MANIFEST.MF file contains a couple of codes, most of which start with "MIDlet-"

5 - 2 of these lines are of interest in the icon changing process: MIDlet-1:.... and MIDlet-Icon:...

6 - The picture here shows how the file SHOULD BE , i.e:

MIDlet-Icon: iconfilename.png

MIDlet-1: applicationname, iconfilename.png, ....

7 - But if your app already installed with a wrong icon, something is wrong, like the MIDlet-Icon line is missing OR the iconfilename.png is missing from the MIDlet-1 line OR both

8 - If both these code lines are correct and still, the application gets installed with a grey/blue default icon, then there's something wrong with the icon file (icon.png). Sometimes it doesn't exist, sometimes it has a different name. Go back to the .jar file (get out of the META-INF folder) and you will see your icon.png file there. If it isn't or it has a different name, you found yur problem!

In the AED (Advanced English Dictionnary) example above, before correcting the mistake, the problem was that there was no icon image file and hence no code for it in the MANIFEST.MF file. What I did is that I got a dictionnary image from the internet, saved is as a .png file, added it to my Advance English Dictionnary.jar file and then opened the MANIFEST.MF file and added the right code for it. The pictures here show the final result of the work. And below you can see the result after installing the AED on my phone: the icon is changed!

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 :)

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!!!