How To Droid tips, tricks, and easter eggs

[gwlaw99]

Tip:

You can set the browser font size and amount of double tap zoom by clicking on the menu key while the broser is open, clicking "more", and clicking settings. I find using the "Huge" setting for font size and the "far" setting for zoom makes landscape reading easy with just the right amount of zoom to see all the text.

 

[gwlaw99]

Email

Internet:
If you long press the back button it brings up your browsing history so you can back track without having to hit the back button 10 times.

Awesome tip! Especially when the browser seems to have to reload the page when you hit back.

 

[DroidPower]

Camera Fix until new software

I made a separate thread for this, but I thought I would post it here as well.

To get the camera to autofocus quickly set the scene mode to "action" and you will get a fast green focus (this is probably a fast shutter speed mode). Works for Shopsavvy and barcode scanner as well.

it Does stay set to action setting after closing camera and then opening camera again.

 

[joscon]

All info here:

PdaNet -- Use your Android as a USB Modem

 

[scheng12]

Anyone know how to do a "Update All" in the market so i don't have to go one by one when 8 updates come out? (use to do that on iphone).

Also, how do I do "mark all read" or select all in my email?

There's an app called aTrackDog. Its very useful

 

[KobrioJohn]

3 pauses seems to work for me

Thanks 3 pauses worked perfect.

 

[gwlaw99]

Application to triger media doc application without the dock

Also, if you hit the house icon in the application you have landscape homescreen without the keyboard open.

 

[Pkooistra]

Double click the "Alt" key on the QWERTY and it stays in Alt mode. This helps when you have a lot of numbers to type in. Double click again and you are back to regular mode.

 

[entcee]

Home screen rotation not working is not a bug. In stock Android form, it isn't supposed to rotate. When I rooted my G1, it was possible, but until the Droid is rooted..probably not gonna change.

Actually, the home screen DOES rotate. You just have to slide the keyboard out.

I know that is not what people want, but you can at least see what it should look like when you hold the phone horizontal

 

[NHARRISON1969]

I found App Organizer, it is free. You can make your own categories, tag each and every app into one or multiple categories and use the app to launch, unistall, etc.

I have installed around 60 apps so far and was getting sick of trying to find them by name anymore, especially games (for my daughter of course)

I took some shortcuts off my home screens and replaced with the shortcut to the app organizer, and it is beautiful.

 

[ccerino]

All you have to do is copy the MP3 to your SD card, go to the music player, play the mp3 and hit menu...hit "select as ringtone" or something close to that. The mp3 will now appear as a ringtone choice.

You don't even need to go that far.

If you create a folder called "ringtones" (without the quotes) on your card and copy/dump sound files into that folder - they'll show up.

No need to use the music player.

 

[unknowndroid]

Not sure if this has been reported before, but if you need a special character when you type like and e with an accent or a u with an uumlot (sp), just press and hold the e or the u or any vowel key and some other keys and options will pop up to select any type of 'e' or 'u' or whatever. I've done in virtual keyboards haven't tried in physical yet.

 

[Arsonman]

When on the home screen, if you just put your finger on the notification bar on the top and the date shows up.



Look at me I am helping.

 

[MotoAlex]

If you notice that your phone drops the WiFi connection, you may need to adjust the WiFi Sleep Mode setting. Go to Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> WiFi Settings press the Menu button and select Advanced. Go to Wi-Fi sleep policy. There are 3 choices:

- When screen turns off (default) A-ha! That's why my WiFi was disconnecting
- Never when plugged in
- Never

Select one of the "Never" settings.

 

[daikonv]

i seen that. The facebook app automatically added all my facebook friends to my contacts, but for some reason wont let me update that contact listing with their cell numbers. kinda annoying.

Yeah I was bothered by that initially as well. I would have 2 entries in my contacts list, my friend (say John) and the facebook contact (John Doe). If I changed the name from "John" to "John Doe" so that the two contacts matched, they would automatically merge. It made it nice as now my contact list has pictures from their facebook account.

 

[El Blacksheep]

Nothing too fancy here, but I'm new to android and I'm sure other Droid users are too so I'll share what I found:

Don't want to clutter your 3 home screens with dozens of app shortcuts? Create folders instead and organize your apps categorically, and keep your home screen real estate for widgets, or for showing off your background. To create a folder, long press on an empty spot on the home screen and choose Folder. You can name the folder by opening it and long pressing the title bar.

I only keep my most accessed apps on my home screens such as phone and browser, everything else I use goes into folders.

 

[jer.lawrence]

I found App Organizer, it is free. You can make your own categories, tag each and every app into one or multiple categories and use the app to launch, unistall, etc.

I have installed around 60 apps so far and was getting sick of trying to find them by name anymore, especially games (for my daughter of course)

I took some shortcuts off my home screens and replaced with the shortcut to the app organizer, and it is beautiful.

That's a good one, I'll have to take a look.

To keep my home screen organized, I create folders -- games, tools, multimedia, etc. This is done the same way you create shortcuts, just by selecting "New Folder" instead of "Applications." Once you've created the folders, you can drag the shortcuts from your desktop into the individual folders.


Edit: Sorry, Blacksheep. I didn't finish reading the thread before responding. :/

 

[BBKing]

So I was messing around on the Facebook site on my Droid and thought Id see what the full site looked like so I clicked the link and all of a sudden a chat popped up and I was like Wtf so I opened the window to see who was online and started chatting. I could not believe this actually works right from the phone IDK if anyone else has seen that yet but I thought it was sweet!!!

 

[ginigma]

how do you rename folders

Open the folder. Press and hold the folder name at the top of that window.

 

[syntrix]

So I was messing around on the Facebook site on my Droid and thought Id see what the full site looked like so I clicked the link and all of a sudden a chat popped up and I was like Wtf so I opened the window to see who was online and started chatting. I could not believe this actually works right from the phone IDK if anyone else has seen that yet but I thought it was sweet!!!

Wow, that works a little too well! FB chat yay!

 

[ccerino]

Apps Organizer is a fantastic (free) app to conserve home screen real estate.

I have a TOOLS shortcut non my LEFT Home
MULTIMEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS and INTERNETon my MAIN Home
GAMES on my right

 

[nka]

Apps Organizer is a fantastic (free) app to conserve home screen real estate.

I have a TOOLS shortcut non my LEFT Home
MULTIMEDIA, COMMUNICATIONS and INTERNETon my MAIN Home
GAMES on my right

This tool is great. The shortcomings of folders is handled nicely with this one. The icons are a bit too small though, maybe they could make them a little larger?

 

[chefboyardee]

This tool is great. The shortcomings of folders is handled nicely with this one. The icons are a bit too small though, maybe they could make them a little larger?

That seems to be a common comment in the app's market listing, from the screenshots they're normal sized on other devices so I wouldn't be surprised if the developer is currently updating it for 2.0/Droid. I sure hope so anyway - I *LOVE* that app.

 

[enduser]

Found a cool way to share contacts with other android or mobile users.

Pull up the contact you would like to share. Menu key > Share > Barcode Scanner (i assume you need the app barcode scanner installed).

This will create a qrcode of the contacts info that can then be easily scanned to a second device using the barcode scanner app. You could create a contact of yourself for quick sharing of your own business info.

Coming from a blackberry I know they just added this feature to BBM 5.0 and it was a very cool feature. People would create the qrcodes and save them out and use them in forum postings and what not.

kg.

 

[DroidPower]

Found a cool way to share contacts with other android or mobile users.

Pull up the contact you would like to share. Menu key > Share > Barcode Scanner (i assume you need the app barcode scanner installed).

This will create a qrcode of the contacts info that can then be easily scanned to a second device using the barcode scanner app. You could create a contact of yourself for quick sharing of your own business info.

Coming from a blackberry I know they just added this feature to BBM 5.0 and it was a very cool feature. People would create the qrcodes and save them out and use them in forum postings and what not.

kg.

Its sounds good... but can you break down the steps a little more... thanks