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HTC Desire Tips & Tricks [READ ME]

Can you help? Is it possible to have notification sound for emails inhibited (gmail in my case) but still retaining normal ringtone for voice calls. I have a a very annoyed wife who who was woken from her beauty sleep at 1am this morning! I have been into settings but only seem to be able alter the notification sound choice.
 
I'm also a newbie - fantastic to all you kind people offering tips. Is there a way to view my bookmarks in a thumbnails format instead of line by line? appreciate any advice.
 
In short I would like to follow the instructions provided on one of the pages here to add a notification tone to a new notification folder I need to create on the sdcard. I didn't receive the cable to connect to my computer and read on one of the pages here about using ES file explorer to bluetooth (using wi-fi) to my computer. I have downloaded ES file Exp. What do i need to do now to link to my computer? Sorry for the dumb question...(esp. if i have misinterpreted what was said)
 
daddycool said:
I'm also a newbie - fantastic to all you kind people offering tips. Is there a way to view my bookmarks in a thumbnails format instead of line by line? appreciate any advice.
Click to expand...

When you add the Bookmarks widget you should be given the option of list or thumbnail view?
 
Can anyone help please?!

The ringtone I downloaded from a company when I first got the Desire back in April disappeared last week!

The only thing I'd done was install an app where it says the name of who's calling etc.

I uninstalled it but the ringtone has gone - & I miss that song!

Any ideas how to get it back please.......................?!

A few things don't happen now - like the notification sound if an email or message comes in. All the settings are in place. This has been for a while now, so again could it be after I'd installed apps?

Any help appreciated from a technophobe..............................:o
 
sam81 said:
Can anyone help please?!

The ringtone I downloaded from a company when I first got the Desire back in April disappeared last week!

The only thing I'd done was install an app where it says the name of who's calling etc.

I uninstalled it but the ringtone has gone - & I miss that song!

Any ideas how to get it back please.......................?!

A few things don't happen now - like the notification sound if an email or message comes in. All the settings are in place. This has been for a while now, so again could it be after I'd installed apps?

Any help appreciated from a technophobe..............................:o
Click to expand...
Do you know if the ringtone was saved on your sd card and has it gone from there? If it's still there it should be possible to set it as your default ringtone again. You can use a file manager such as Astro to browse the files to check if it's there. For instance all my zedge ringtones are in a folder directory zedge/ringtones. If you find that it is still there long press it, select music options, set as ringtone.

I have seen a few posts about notification tones stopping working but I don't know the cause. You could try installing a volume control app such as Smart Volume (free). This will allow you to control all the volume settings individually, including toggling on and off the notification one.
 
daddycool said:
I'm also a newbie - fantastic to all you kind people offering tips. Is there a way to view my bookmarks in a thumbnails format instead of line by line? appreciate any advice.
Click to expand...

1. Open the browser
2. Press "Menu" (Hard Button)
3. Select "Bookmarks"
4. Press "Menu" again
5. The top right option will let you toggle between "List", "Thumbnails", and "Grid"

You can also use the Bookmarks Widget if you have space :)
 
Hi peeps.

Great thread & forum tbh REALLY REALLY helpful but confusing at the same time lol.

Is there away to find out the time spent on incoming & outgoing calls, maybe even txts?

Is there an app maybe?

Thanks.
 
Hi there,

I'm almost certain that these topics'll have been covered elsewhere on your exceptionally comprehensive site but the fact that my RAM seems to be taken up with suggested linked contacts from the various streams and no matter how many times I (exceptionally laboriously) manually delete them they reappear until the only option available is to go into the SD card and delete the contact mini-database that I had to create to port everything back to the phone so that it would sync smoothly under the gmail heading because it seemed that it might be pulling some of the suggestions from there, but also suspend syncing on FB, HTC FB, Twitter and basically everywhere except between my phone and Gmail- which I find a touch defeating, frankly- there should be more in-house duplicate suggestion management, in my opinion. Also, although I have now stopped these suggested links, I am suddenly exceptionally low on 'phone storage and have had to delete some of the more useful non-HTC programmes, even though I haven't actually added to them since they all co-existed without seeming to suck all my RAM. I'm prepared to root the thing if necessary, but would like answers to my above massive paragraph, if possible.

Thanks,

fixxlevy
 
is it possible to delete album art from my music files? i can't seem to find an option to do so..

also, is it possible to set up profiles? eg. on my last phone, before i went to work i would set it to "work" and it would automatically be on vibrate only, as i had calibrated it previously. on the desire, there isn't any such options, as far as i can tell; you have to manually keep changing the silent to vibrate or ringer.

not that it's a massive problem, simply wondering :)
 
m0J03 said:
also, is it possible to set up profiles? eg. on my last phone, before i went to work i would set it to "work" and it would automatically be on vibrate only, as i had calibrated it previously. on the desire, there isn't any such options, as far as i can tell; you have to manually keep changing the silent to vibrate or ringer.
Click to expand...

Might be worth taking a look at timeriffic, its free and you can schedule a lot of stuff e.g. volumes, data toggles etc. I use it to put my phone into "night" mode automatically at 23:00 and "day" mode at 07:15.

There is profile manager that is free but its a manual version.

Also locale is another auto version based on location but thats a paid app
 
Official FB app has problem with syncing.


Use the HTC FB app.


Theres a problem with the Official FB app in the market. It syncs the contacts but doesn't sync pictures, status etc. and everytime it syncs it duplicates the contacts. I would turn off contact syncing with the offical app until resolved. This can be done either in the app, press menu and settings or from phone settings, Accounts and sync.

I would sync contacts with google as this creates a backup online and this allows voice search/dialing.
You can sync fb contacts using the htc app.
 
I actually just discovered where all my RAM is really going:

I went to send a bulk joke text and when I clicked on the 'people' icon to the top right of the screen above the FWD, there are literally 20 to 30 copies of each contact- it appears that when it suggests the 'linked contact' that even if you dismiss it (or manually laboriously delete, time after time after time after time, as I have mentioned in my earlier post), the data is withheld by the phone and almost treated as some unseen extra contact that won't show up in 'people' but is lurking in the shadows, only to be discovered in the sharing of bulk SMS communications.

And I cannot figure out how to delete these intruding usurpers, even if my 'people' folder is now not taking on the Chinese population aping ballast of before.

If I go to 'view' in people, it shows my 137 contacts in 'google' with a similar amount in FB, 'phone' shows 8 (for some reason) but 'com.facebook.auth.login' shows a meaty 3817 contacts. So, checking only the populous one brings up all of these grey imports, yet if I click delete, it only shows a single contact- a fully formed and wanted one from my gmail contacts. Bizarre.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi- you're my only hope.
 
m0J03 said:
as far as i can tell; you have to manually keep changing the silent to vibrate or ringer.
Click to expand...

Just wanted to make sure, did you know that you can change to silent and vibrate using the volume toggles on the side of the phone? Turn the volume all the way down for silent and then hit down once more for vibrate.
 
fixxlevy said:
I actually just discovered where all my RAM is really going:

I went to send a bulk joke text and when I clicked on the 'people' icon to the top right of the screen above the FWD, there are literally 20 to 30 copies of each contact- it appears that when it suggests the 'linked contact' that even if you dismiss it (or manually laboriously delete, time after time after time after time, as I have mentioned in my earlier post), the data is withheld by the phone and almost treated as some unseen extra contact that won't show up in 'people' but is lurking in the shadows, only to be discovered in the sharing of bulk SMS communications.

And I cannot figure out how to delete these intruding usurpers, even if my 'people' folder is now not taking on the Chinese population aping ballast of before.

If I go to 'view' in people, it shows my 137 contacts in 'google' with a similar amount in FB, 'phone' shows 8 (for some reason) but 'com.facebook.auth.login' shows a meaty 3817 contacts. So, checking only the populous one brings up all of these grey imports, yet if I click delete, it only shows a single contact- a fully formed and wanted one from my gmail contacts. Bizarre.

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi- you're my only hope.
Click to expand...


OK, so after having nose about this site and finding a few other people complaining of the same storage/contact/space issues, I noticed that somebody mentioned that they'd had success with clearing their 'contact storage' data, so I gave it a go and serendipitously enough, it flipping worked. I totally can't have FB on active sync duties either, but that's fine. I really do think that this pain in the arse glitch should be sorted out at source, however- not everyone has the resources nor the inclination to go trawling websites for solutions to 'phone-based problems and for such an advanced piece of kit, it seems strange that there's no cap on how many times a contact from the same source can be suggested and it's beyond me why it's then kept on the 'phone to slowly (or actually quite swiftly) fill the thing up so that it comes to a grinding shoe-thrown-into-the-works stasis and also I genuinely don't get why programmes and the like are sent to the 'phone- it's not as if we couldn't back everything up to the PC quite easily if the memory card was being upgraded or whathaveyou- I'm sure that it wouldn't be too much of a chore for some HTC minion to write that into the HTC Sync.exe, right? Yes, I can root the thing- no, I've never done it before, but am quietly confident that the comprehensive instructions detailed on this very site will see me in good stead. I'd give this 'phone a 4.8 styled rating IF none of the strangely obvious issues existed but, as is, it drops a whole star for all the nonsense that I've had to go through. As do HTC generally.

Rant ends.

fixxlevy
 
eske said:
lekky you mention the ability to add your own mp3's to the alerts notifications
but when i attach my Desire to my pc it just shows as any other external drive

you say "browse" to the following folders

Ringtones: /sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
SMS Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/notifications
Alarm Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/alarms

 ... but I can't see any of these in the directory structure

I'm sure I'm being thick here but can you explain again

cheers eske
Click to expand...

Couple of notes on this, which came to me after some head-on-desking...

Firstly, sdcard is not a folder. The file location is denoted by disk:/folderA/folderB - that is, in WinXP, e:\media\audio\ringtones where 'e' is the drive letter assigned to the device.

Secondly, if you have your handset mounted as a drive, it will not recognise that you have added new files while still mounted. That is, if you copy a file into the \ringtones directory while mounted, you won't be able to add the new file as a ringtone.

In order to change the ringtone to the new mp3 file, you need to dismount the device, then as it says here, you will (if it's a valid file) see it available in the settings as described.

Hope that helps.
 
lekky said:
Source: HTC Desire New User Guide Nimbu


Ok fella's, the Desire is a fantastic phone, probably the best on the market at time of writing, a truly desirable device!

This guide will be split up into the different logical segments of the phone, offering hints, tips and general know-how to ensure you get the most out of your new phone.

As always please either message me here, Rachid (le3ky) on Twitter or leave a comment at the source if you have a tip to add or wish to clarify something I have written here.

Useful

Add Turn by Turn Navigation To HTC Desire
Add Voice to Text To HTC Desire
Add Nexus One launcher to HTC Desire
Add Nexus One Gallery to HTC Desire
Add Voice Search to HTC Desire
Add Google Talk to Orange Branded HTC Desire

General Android Advice


  • Android is a multitasking operating system. It is very smart at self-managing its memory and applications. You may hear talk of using a task killer, or another memory management tool, but this is NOT necesarry. Android will manage this task itself. You may have the question "How do I close this app?". With android this question does not need to be asked as android will take care of it in the background.
  • Turn off WiFi and GPS if you are not using them. They can cause the battery to drain much quicker than if you turned them off. Toggling between these settings is easy via the default HTC widgets.
  • To add a new photo album, just mount the phone via USB to a PC, create a new folder and give it a name. Add your pictures to this folder. Now browse to the “Albums” in your phone and it will automatically create an album with the folder name you specified containing the pictures you added.
  • Calibrate your keyboard!!! You will find using the keyboard waaay better. Do this via:

Settings > Language and Keyboard > Touch Input > Text Input > Calibration Tool


  • There are 3 types of keyboard available for the Desire built in “full QWERTY”, “Phone keypad” and Compact QWERTY”. Give them a try, one may suit you better. To change do the following:

Settings > Language and Keyboard > Touch Input > Keyboard Type


  • A Class 6 micro sd card is preffered.
  • If you have both WiFi and data connections turned on, your phone will default to using the WiFi connection as long as you are connected to a WiFi network. So no need to turn mobile data off using home WiFi.


Status Icons

phone-status-icons-copy1.jpg

Notification Icons

notification-icons.jpg


Adding New Ringtones/SMS Notifications/Alarms

To add new ringtones or SMS alerts, connect your Desire to USB and mount the device on your PC. Browser to the following folders:

Ringtones: /sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
SMS Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/notifications
Alarm Alerts: /sdcard/media/audio/alarms

Copy your mp3 files into either of the folders above. Then go to:

Ringtone:Settings > sound and display > phone ringtone
SMS: Settings > sound and display > notification sound
Alarms: Set the sound when adding a new alarm.

Then select the ringtone you put in the above folder(s).


Desktop


  • Long press on the search key to bring up the search by voice command. Say "Call <name>" to automatically call the person called that name in your address book
  • Click the Search key while on your desktop to bring up a quick search. You can search your phone and the internet from here. To customise exactly what you can search from here go to:

Settings > Search > Searchable Items


  • On the Desktop press menu and wallpapers to change wallpapers.
  • Long press on the Home key to bring up a list of your most recently used apps, very useful to quckly switch apps and a brilliant example of the benefits of multitasking.
  • Pinch Zoom on your dekstop to bring an overview of all your 7 screens, then simply select the screen you wish to jump to.
  • Press the Home key when on your main (middle) screen to also bring up the 7 screen overview.
  • Press the Home key when on any of the other 6 screes to jump to your main screen
  • Drag your finger to switch between screens you can also use the optical trackball to produce the same functionality.


Explanation of Desktop Items

Widget:
Similar to an application, a widget sits on your desktop providing some sort of functionality. Eg A clock, list of favourite contacts, twitter updates

Program:
A shortcut to any of the apps you have installed on your phone. Eg a shortrcut to your browser, or to facebook.

Shortcut:
Some apps provide shortcuts to features of their application, Eg A Gmail Label, a new task in a to do list app, a 'jump straight to new text' for a specific contact.

Folder:
  • Folder allows you to group program shortcuts on your desktop, keepsthings nice and tidy.
  • Live Folder can be used to hold a list of all your contacts, or perhaps a link to an actual folder.

Add Icons/Widgets/Shortcuts to Desktop

Multiple ways of doing this:


  • Long press on a free area on the desktop and select your choice from the pop up list
  • Click the little plus sign on the bottom right of hte screen, to the right of the Phone text.


Move/Remove Desktop Icons/Widgets/Shortcuts:


  • Long press on the icon, and drag it to the bottom of the screen where you see the 'remove' text. You may also move icons around the screen this way.
  • To move icons to a different desktop, drag and hold the icon to the far left/right of the screen for a few seconds and the screen will scroll.


Browser

You cannot close the browser normally. You can escape from the browser in two ways:


  • Press the back button repeatedly until you eventually leave the browser
  • Press the home button
  • Special 3rd way: Use an app called 'Force Close Button'. This app sits in your notification bar and will close the currently open app upon clicking the button.


Browser Tips


  • Pinch Zoom: Pinch the screen to zoom in/out.
  • Double-Tap: To zoom in/out


Long Press on the screen to bring up the word selection tool.
Then drag either of the green pointers to highlight more or less

Click on the pages to copy the selected text
Click the green upwards arrows to share the selected text
Click the magnifying glass to:
  • Look up the selected text in wikipedia
  • Translate the selected text
  • Look up the selected text in the dictionary


Don't like pages to open in full view?


  • Menu > More > Settings > Untick 'Open pages in overview'

Select the default Zoom of a new page


  • Menu > More > Settings > 'Default zoom'
Click to expand...
HI Can you help.

I have an HTC desire and my sync isn't working on my pc through the software. Any ideas why and have you had the problem.
Also when it did work which was once yesterday it double all my contact up so now i have two of every thing and my phone memorie is now low.

Thanks sorry if its a bit garbled my first time.
 
Job hunting atm so wanted a way to mail my prepared cover letters & CV without having to write them every time.

Found if I save a draft in gmail, & then copy the text I can go straight to 'File Manager', locate my CV on the sd card, long press & choose mail option then gmail, paste my cover letter & add the recipient address then just send. Because it's stored in gmail the text holds its formatting with essentials like bullet points.

Quick, easy, & impresses the hell out of job centre staff :D
 
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