In this edition of our Tip Roundup, we thought it would be a good idea to present the top tips as rated by you, the users. In case you haven’t noticed, every tip includes a rating area on the bottom that allows you to give anywhere from 1 to 5 stars for that tip. So, please be sure to always rate the usefulness of the tips you read, so we can find the best ones to share in the future. Continue reading after the break to find out which tips took the top honors
Welcome to "Homebrew Week" for PreCentral’s Tip of the day. We will be focusing on some simple Homebrew apps, patches or hacks that will help you add some key functionality to your phone. No advanced knowledge is necessary, as long as you know how to use webOS Quick Install and Preware.
One of the great aspects of webOS is the level of customization that you can make to the base Operating System, without any real coding knowledge on your part. While you can install the SDK to get access and manually tweek various file, tools such as webOS Quick Install and Preware make the job really easy. For this tip, we are going to review a number of (non patch) styling modifications that you can make to your device to really personalize it as your own. Keep reading after the break to learn how
Palm’s Jon Zilber got some time over at HP’s official The Next Bench Blog and used the platform to talk a bit about you, the webOS community. Specifically, Zilber called out homebrew (which may not be the best term for the apps, patches, overclocking, and general white-hat-hackery it’s meant to encompass, but it’s the best we’ve got), writing:
[..] a robust community of developers and fans has evolved around homebrew apps, beta apps, and unofficial system tweaks. Palm generally can’t offer support for these apps, but we do support the community’s ability to create and use them (at their own risk).
We can’t help but compare this to Apple’s official stance that jailbreaking the iPhone violates their end user agreement (though it’s still protected by the DMCA).
Speaking of homebrewers, there has been an annoying bug in the official App Catalog that breaks the automatic update checker for users who have non-Palm-feed apps installed (which is to say it affects developers and people who have installed homebrew apps). From what we can tell it’s an innocent bug and Palm is pushing out a fix at this very moment.
So to sum up: HP / Palm: works together with the homebrew community to make sure everybody has a nice experience. Apple: files a patent for detecting and deactivating jailbroken phones. Just saying.
Source: The Next Bench; More on the App Update bug in our forums and Palm’s forums.
On webOS Homebrew’s Birthday, we asked you what your top patches and tweaks for webOS were. You answered and here they are, in alphabetical order:
That’s how your average PreCentral patcher tweaks up a Pre. Everybody is a little different, though. Any of your favorites that didn’t make the list?
webOS Homebrew Birthday!
Once you get starting down the path of homebrew and patching, it can become pretty addicting to tweak the heck out of your device with your own mix of patches and apps. PreCentral forum member snowdizx put together his list of patches and tweaks that truly make his Pre a power user’s dream.
After the break, find his list of patches and tweaks and settings, all done, we might add, without the need to flash a ROM, unlock a bootloader, or ‘get root’ on the device. Yeah, webOS is truly open even if it’s not opensource.
Since today is the homebrew-aversary, we thought it would be a good time to ask our Power Users: what is the mix of patches and tweaks that make your webOS device yours?
Welcome to the third and last installment of "There’s a Patch for That!" Part 1 and Part 2 have already shown 28 of the top patches. Today we’ll be exploring more of these user patches (tweaks), including Calendar, Camera, Clock, and Email patches.
Patches are modifications that add key features to existing Palm webOS applications. Maybe you wish you could change sounds or add a feature. Fortunately many of our Pre users are also talented developers who didn’t just wish for these fixes. They made them! Note that the Homebrew Apps are separate programs, not patches.
Again, patches can be installed using webOS Quick Install or Preware using these instructions.As always, the usual warnings apply. You’re patching system webOS files, so stuff can break here. Plus the patching system is constantly evolving. For many Pre users, though, the risk is well worth the reward. (See: How to Revive a Pre.)
To remove a patch, click on the same patch again. You can even remove all patches at once before an upgrade or any time you like. Using WebOS Quick Install, click Tools, Tweaks, "Online Repository" tab, and then install the Emergency Patch Recovery (EPR). In Preware, install the Emergency Patch Recovery patch and restart your Pre to remove all patches. For much more see Patches.
And now for today’s patches…
Welcome to the second installment of "There’s a Patch for That." Patches are modifications (tweaks) that add key features to existing Palm applications. For instance, have you wished for message forwarding or landscape mode for messaging, email, or PDF’s? Do you wish the Palm Pre webOS had other key features? Pre users have developed over 60 patches to make these and other wishes a reality!
In There’s a Patch for That (Part 1) we saw 14 of our favorite patches including the On Screen Keyboard, LED Notification, Launcher, and Email patches. Today we will explore patches that customize alerts and notifications, as well as the Messaging, Calendar, Contacts, and Phone Apps. Note that the 250 Homebrew Apps are separate programs, not patches.
Again, patches can be installed using webOS Quick Install (or Preware using these instructions). As always, the usual warnings apply. You’re patching system webOS files, so stuff can break here. Plus the patching system is constantly evolving. For many Pre users, though, the risk is well worth the reward. (See: How to Revive a Pre.)
To remove a patch, click on the same patch again. You can even remove all patches at once before an upgrade or any time you like. Using WebOS Quick Install, click Tools, Tweaks, "Online Repository" tab, and then install the Emergency Patch Recovery (EPR). In Preware, install the Emergency Patch Recovery patch and restart your Pre to remove all patches. For much more see Patches.
Here are more of our favorite patches…
The Palm Pre webOS 1.2.0 and 1.2.1 updates brought users 125 new features and improvements (and some issues). Now it is the Pre user community’s turn to give back. Users have developed dozens of patches (tweaks) including the On Screen Keyboard, landscape modes for Email and Messaging, plus upgrades for the Launcher, Sounds, Calendar, Contacts, and Phone. Patches are modifications that add key features to existing Palm webOS applications. Homebrew Apps are new programs.
The PreCentral forums are abuzz with brainstorming and testing while the patch source code and development are at webOS-internals.org. Patches can be installed using webOS Quick Install or Preware using these instructions. As always, we need to throw the usual warning and provisos up there: you’re patching system webOS files, so stuff can break here. For many Pre users, though, the risk is well worth the reward. (See: How to Revive a Pre.)
To remove a patch, click on the same patch again. You can remove all patches before an upgrade or any time you like. Using WebOS Quick Install, click Tools, Tweaks, "Online Repository" tab, and then install the Emergency Patch Recovery (EPR). In Preware, install the Emergency Patch Recovery patch and restart your Pre to remove all patches.
Here are some of our favorite patches so far.
So the big WebOS Quick Install v2.5 release happened today. Aside from the theming support there were several other important and useful changes.
v2.5 – September 19, 09
– Completely redone patcher code
– Full theming support
– Added/updated many system mods
– Added "Messaging Mods" section
– Added virtual keyboard config settings
Theming is of course a very nice new addition (special thanks to madolen), but as you can see, it’s not the only new feature. The big thing of 2.5, that easily took the most time developing was the new patcher that powers the Tweaks section. It’s far more accurate, much more safe, and best of all has the ability to read standard unified format difference patches (the .patch files people also use with Qulit), though this functionality isn’t exposed for custom patches yet.
What does this mean for the average person? It means I can add new mods and update existing mods to the Tweak section very quickly. When WebOS 1.2 hits, it’ll take far less time to update and become compatible.
And of course, with a new patcher system comes more mods for the Tweaks section! Based on work done by fritos1406, there’s a whole array of Messaging mods to customize it however you’d like; enabling landscape, adding an avatar, adding a character counter, and much more.
There also several updated tweaks, including clipcarl’s iPhone user agent spoof. As well, for those of you out there who use the Virtual-Keyboard, there’s a section for extra configurations like adding haptic feedback and setting a click sound.
So go and try out the new v2.5 (be sure disable all Tweaks from previous versions first), it’s got something for everyone.