Multicon - Version 1.6, updated 2010-08-29

It took a bit longer then I expected but finally version 1.6.0 of Multicon is out on the market.

There is two things that you can't miss, a new setup window and more widget sizes. You can now add a widget that cover 1x1 (As the old one), 1x2, 1x3 and 1x4 blocks and customize how many icons you want to use there.

Even if you can put 3 in a row it's not recommended if your finger are any thicker then a pencil, but I leave that up to you.

And when you select applications it will cache what it finds so it will not take that long the next time you go there. If you update an application and it change name it will not show up here since it's cached. If this happens there is a menu option (In the first edit screen, not where you pick apps) that can clear the cache for you.

With the new setup screen you can now also set all icons on a widget without leaving between every pick, hope that will speed up your work.

On the HTC Wildfire there is a bug in there HTC Sense that made Multicon lose it's settings during reboot. I tried to fix that and hope it will work for all of you out there with that phone, feel free to report back to support@h9kdroid.com on the progress of that.

I change the way icons are resized since sometimes they got cropped instead. But in the last update I introduced a cache for the icons, and now it will still use any old once until you repick that item.

Now it's time to tell you about the new buttons and what they do, I will here list all of them if you have missed what they do:

Just made a new public release of Multicon. Just made a minor change on the version number to 1.5.2 since I was hoping to get more stuff into this one. Keeping 1.6.0 for later when Im more happy with the results.

As I wrote yesterday I have been sick and haven't been working on it as much as planed but still wanted to push the new buttons out since I got so many requests for it.

I put in switch buttons for Bluetooth, Airplane mode and Autosync. But please keep in mind that I only have access to a phone running 2.2 and have to trust the emulators and API documents that it will work on 1.6 (Feel free to report both negative and positive response on them).

All new permissions are used by the new buttons, if you dont add they are never used to write or change anything. Some of the read access are used anyway but only to see if you have any buttons needed to change state.

A last minute button that made it into this release was for Edit mode that puts all multicon widgets into editmode, sounds like a simple idea but I had totally forgot about it if it wasn't for Joe mailing about it (You deserve some credit here :)

Also renamed Manager Mode into Edit Mode to be a bit more clear what it do, and now when you enter edit mode there is a notification telling you that. That notification can also be used to cancel the editing and putting them back into normal mode by simple clicking on it.

Some behind the scene changes is that now icons are cached. This will help to not get a warning icon for apps stored on your SD card after a reboot. And is also the first step into custom icons that was planed for this release, now only a simple user interface for the customization is needed.

And also change the name back to "Multicon"... The 2 that was added on the last update was a mistake from my side, it's was I have when testing so I can see the difference between latest release version and my working version.

The next version of Multicon was planed to be released this weekend but I have postponed it a bit due to illness.

But today I have been up and done some work and it getting near a stable release version now, so in a few days you will get it.

Its not 100% sure what will make it into this release so I keep it for myself until then. What I can tell you is there will be new buttons as you can see in the screenshot. Im sorry to say that they need some more permissions, I tried to keep them at a minimum but to change the settings I must have them.

Oh, and there is a known bug on wildfire that Im trying to solve. After a reboot you dont have any icons left on any Multicon widget... I got my hands on a wildfire and put it into debug to find out what went on, and it looks like the widgets gets a new ID after the reboot. Right now Im not sure how to fix this so most likely it will not be fixed in the next release. But I'm working on it so in the near future I hope to get it going on the wildfire too.

Ok, I'm still trying to fix everything thats broken but it's hard when the errors only show up on some phones or even for some people... But please do not stop sending your reports, I read them and try to answer them all even if it sometimes take a while for me to go through them. It's the only way I can find out about unknown bugs.

But since it is getting into a stable stage for the most of you now after I rewrote the whole thing it was time to start working on the...

Well, there I have a problem, miniwidget or special function or... I havn't decided on what to call them yet. But when you add stuff to your widgets, check under "Other" and you find a new option called "Wifi on/off". It is what it sounds like, a button to turn your wifi on and off. It will change it's icon when you press it or when you change your connection elsewhere.

To get the Wifi changes to work I needed to add permission for it, hope you don't mind that. And when speaking about permissions, I got a lot of questions about the shortcuts to make direct calls not working as they just pull up the dialer with the number and you have to press "Call". This is not a bug, it's a way to get around the need of adding permission to make outgoing calls since that is a nasty permission and I personally don't like when a program ask for that.

If this new wifi button works I will add more of them, it's not a lot of work to add more but I wanted to release this one and have it tested before I start with the rest of them.

Bluetooth, GPS, Sync and Mobile net is what I have planed for next, but if you got any more ides just drop me a mail and I will see what I can do.

Custom icons is also something I have looked at, right now some of the shortcut icons are custom so no extra work there, just need to sort out how the interface should work.

More widget sizes? Since the x10i only can have one widget it's pointless to use Multicon there, but with custom sizes on both the widget and icons that should be solved. And with custom icons you should be able to put 9 icons into the spot of 1 if your fingers are small enough to hit them :)

Oh, and a last thing, (again) thanks for all the nice words from you all!

One more update on Multicon, the last one for fixing bugs I hope so future releases can start to include new stuff.

The most important thing that I change was the app selector. I got a lot of reports about a painful wait for it to load and thats not how a nice app should work. I have rewritten a big part of it and my hope is that it will be a much better experience now.

The bad part is that on my phone it works nice, but on the other hand I dont have that many apps installed so it was hard to see where it went wrong. But I think I have pinned down the error and corrected it, if not I will get a new try tomorrow.

One more thing got changed, the shortcut icons was still loading the wrong picture sometimes, that have also been rewritten.

Ok, version 1.2 of Multicon has just been deploys on the market.

Edit: Version 1.21 is out, quickfix for shortcut icons.

You will notice the change when selecting what app to have on the widgets. There is now three buttons at the top lables "Apps", "Shortcuts" and "Other". Apps and Shortcuts is what it sound like, your installed apps and shortcut creators.

But if you check under Other you will find only one thing to select, even if you cant see any icon... It is just that, a blank icon. Select "<Blank>" to create an invisible icon that dosnt do anything. Use this to blank out spots if you dont want to use all four spaces in the widget.

Later I will add more stuff under Other, you can call it miniwidgets like turning Wifi on/off etc.

One of the things Im working on is the slow speed on showing you the apps, to be honest I dont have any ide on how to fix it right now but it is something Im looking into.

Just released my first widget, Multicon.

It lets you put four shortcuts in the same space as one normal would use. There is no limit to the number of widgets you can use, other then when your homescreen is full that it...

This is great to use both if you want to flood your screen with apps or trying to keep it as clean as possible.

I copy the instructions for it here, you will also find this information inside the program.

Add the widget

To add a Multicon widget on your homescreen, press any blank or empty area and hold down your finger.

An Add to Home screen window will pop up. From that window, select Widgets.

You'll be presented with a list of all the installed Widgets on your Android device, select Multicon by clicking on it.

Now the widget will appear on your home screen. Press the widget and hold down your finger, now you can drag it to the location on the screen you want it to reside.

Should you decide you want to remove the widget from your home screen, Press it and hold your finger down. You'll notice that the slider that normally brings up all of your installed programs turns into a Trash can. Drag the widget ontop of the Trash can and it will turn red, drop it there and the widget gets deleted.

Multicon widget setup

When you first add a Multicon widget you will see four small default app icons, click any of them and you get a list of all apps installed on your phone.

Select the app you want to make a shortcut for, the icon you pressed will change into an icon for the selected app. You can now start that app by clicking on the icon.

If you later want to change a shortcut you have to start the app Multicon (NOT adding any widgets this time, start it as you do with other apps).

You will now return to the info screen, at the top you got a button that will put all Multicon widgets into Manager mode, you see this as they get a red background. Note that the button is only enabled when you have one or more Multicons on your homescreen.

Now when you press any of your shortcuts it will bring up the app selector instead of starting the app. Reselect what apps you want on your widgets and when you are done just uncheck the checkbox that keeps them in Manager mode.

Note for users with Android 2.2

If you create a shortcut for any app installed on your SDcard, they will get a warning icon when you unmount your card. But they will go back as soon as you remount your card again.

Mattis Riktigt bra spacesaver!! nu slipper man bläddra efter appar. Kanoon!!

Bra Bra app. Får man in allt på en sida. /SGS2

. Cool.

HTC thunderbolt Love it! Such a space saver.

超好用！整個畫面似乎星星粒粒去數…值得下載，也值得一讚！