Previously on Make Tech Easier,  we showed you how to put a reminder note in your Android notification bar. If you are looking for more uses for your Android notification bar, Bartender lite will let you create application shortcuts in your notification bar.

Download

Start by scanning this QR code or by visiting this link from your Android phone to download Bartender Lite.

How to add an application shortcut

Once the application is installed, you will need to open it from your application drawer. When the application opens, you will see a screen with only a few choices. Adding an application or shortcut is pretty straightforward.You will need to press the + Item button.

A screen will pop up asking what kind of item you want to add. This screen is very similar to the one you see when you are adding a shortcut to one of your home screens.

For this example, I will add an application shortcut. So when Application is selected, you will see a list of all the installed applications on your device. I chose Google Maps.

If you want to add more applications to your notification bar, repeat these steps. Here is what it looks like with a few shortcuts added in the Android notification bar.

Rearranging the shortcuts

When you have everything added to your android notification bar, you may find that you use one application more than another. If you want to move the application up in the order, you can do so from the Bartender Lite screen.

Next to each of the shortcuts, there is an X along with an DOWN and UP button. If you would like to delete a notification bar shortcut, you can press the X. To move the application up on the list, press UP. To move an application down on the list, press DOWN.

Possible uses

Because you are accessing preinstalled shortcuts, you can easily personalize the shortcuts according to your needs.You could set it up for:

• Most called or messaged people
• Maps and directions for a trip
• Apps you need to toggle on and off frequently
• Media players
• Dropbox folders you access a lot
• Browser bookmarks
• Quick access to multiple Gmail labels
• Various settings for your phone functions

Conclusion

While many people may be asking why take up space with an application that isn’t much different than adding more icons to a home page, I think it is more about how you’re using your phone. I tend to use the same applications repeatedly.

I have several applications and shortcuts in my Go Launcher Ex dock. I don’t like to have too many home screens to scroll through (I use 3 home screens), so having quick access to a couple shortcuts in my notification bar is extremely useful. I do not need to add a whole page or rearrange my screens to accommodate a couple new shortcuts.

How do you keep your home screens organized?

image credit: Lee Coursey

After installing the extension, the first thing to do is to press “g” to bring up the gleebox. This will be the main control center. There are several options you can do with the gleebox. You can type any phrase(s) and it will search the current page for links that match your query. You can then scroll through the links to find what you want. If no matching query is found, when you press Enter, it will perform a search with your phrase(s) or bring you to the page if the phrase is an URL.

You can also use the “?” prefix to perform a series of actions. For example, typing “?h” will highlight the H1, H2 and H3 headings and “?img” will highlight linked images. Available options include

• ?h: Select main (h1, h2 & h3) headings
• ?img: Select linked images
• ??: Select text input fields. Hit ENTER to give focus to the selected field.
• ?a: Select all links

More useful features

The best part about gleeBox is the ability to use the “!” prefix to access to plenty of external services. For example, at any page, you can press “g” to bring up the gleeBox and type “!read“. This will transform the existing page to reading mode.

A list of useful commands include:

• !read: Transform the page for a better reading experience using the Readability project
• !shorten: Shorten the URL of the current page using bit.ly
• !tweet: Redirect to twitter.com with the URL of the current page in the text field
• !rss: Open the current page’s RSS feed in Google Reader
• !snap: Take a screenshot of the current page in Chrome
• !share: Share the current page.
• and many more…

Running YubNub or a Quix command

Both YubNub and Quix are web tools that allow you to enter a command line and perform an action. These tools are built into gleeBox so you can work with command lines too. The command comes with a “:” prefix and a dollar sign ($) represents the current URL. Available commands include “:fbshare $” – Share the current page on Facebook, “:wp cricket” – Search Wikipedia for cricket etc. With Quix, you can even create your own command and use it in gleeBox.

Wrapping up

The above mentioned features are not conclusive of what gleeBox is capable of doing. There are more things such as jQuery commands, ESP mode that I did not mention. Will gleeBox replace the mouse completely? No, it won’t. But its usefulness and versatility can indeed speed things up and make you more productive. Try it out and you will know. Don’t forget to check out the user manual too.

gleeBox | gleeBox for Google Chrome | gleeBox for Firefox | gleeBox for Safari

By default, other than the applications and widgets, Android does not come with a way for you to insert shortcuts to anything to the home screen. However, with a little help from the market, we can get this to work easily.

LauncherPro

If you have not tried LauncherPro, you really ought to try it. It is the best home replacement app (in my opinion) in the market, and it is getting better with every update.

In LauncherPro, there is this feature that allows you to add Activity shortcuts to your home screen. This is what we are going to use to add shortcuts to anything in your home screen. In this example, we will show you how to add a shortcut to the “Manage Applications” settings page.

1. Install LauncherPro from the market. (Market link | Appbrain link)
(Note: You don’t have to set it as the default launcher app to use its feature)

2. Press on the home screen to activate the shortcut launcher. Tap on Shortcut

3. Tap on Activities

You will now see all your apps neatly organized in alphabetical order.

4. Scroll down until you see “Settings”. Tap on it to reveal all its activities. Scroll down further until you see the “Manage Application” entry.

5. Tap on it. It will bring you back to the Home screen and prompt you to enter a name for the shortcut.

That’s it. You should now see the shortcut on your home screen.

This is only one simple example. There are plenty of shortcuts that you can create using the “Activities” feature. Things that I have used it for include:

• Shortcut to “new tasks” page for Astrid
• Shortcut to Firefox’s bookmarks
• Shortcut to “Manage Application” setting
• Shortcut to view notes in Catch app
• Shortcut to quickly launch new chat on eBuddy
• And many more…

As you can see, the list is endless.

Any Cut

Alternatively, for those who don’t want to install a full fledge home replacement app just for the shortcut to anything feature, you can also install Any Cut (market link) from the market that provides a similar functionality.

AnyCut has the slight advantage in that it is lightweight and comes with an extra “Create your own shortcut” feature.

One thing I don’t like is that the activities list is not as neatly organized as LauncherPro.

What other ways do you use to create shortcuts to any applications in Android?

The implementation

In this example, we are going to add the links of the various categories (of Make Tech Easier) to the jumplist. You can, of course, change/modify the links to the URL that you want to place.

1. Open your theme file and place the following meta tag in between the <head> and </head> tag. If you are using WordPress, the <head></head> tag is located at the header.php file in your theme folder.

<META name="msapplication-task" content="name=Windows;action-uri=http://maketecheasier.com/category/windows-tips;icon-uri=http://maketecheasier.com/favicon.ico"/>

Things that you need to change:

• “name=xyz”: This is the name of the item that will appear on the jumplist, so make sure you give it a clear name
• “action-url=http://xyz.com”: This is the page that will load when the user clicks on the link.
• “icon-url:http://xyz.com/favicon.ico”: This is the favicon (must be a favicon in ico format) that will appear beside the name

Each meta tag is for one link. So if you have 5 links, you will have to add the meta tag 5 times (and modify the content accordingly). Note that IE 9 only allows you to add up to 5 links.

That’s it. Once you are done adding the tag, simply upload/replace the html file (or header.php in the case of WordPress) to your server. Now open IE9, load your site, drag the tab to the taskbar. Your links should now appear in the jumplist.

More customization

IE 9 also allows you to add tooltips, change the navigation button color, startup url, window size etc. Here are the tags that you need to insert

<meta name="application-name" content="Sample Site Mode Application"/>

<meta name="msapplication-tooltip" content="Start the page in Site Mode"/>

<meta name="msapplication-starturl" content="http://example.com/start.html"/>

<meta name="msapplication-window" content="width=800;height=600"/>

<meta name="msapplication-navbutton-color" content="red"/>

That’s it.

This happened to me recently while trying out Gnome for the first time in a while. I attempted to set the key combo for “Switch workspace” to a combination of Super (aka Windows Key) and an arrow key for left or right. This would allow me to use the same key combo to switch workspaces in all my systems. I was shocked to find that in Gnome, as of the time of this writing, you cannot use Super as a combo key, it only works on its own. Every time I would try to enter “Super + Left Arrow” or “Super + Right Arrow”, it would stop right at Super and not let me create a combo.

Some searching online showed that many others have had this problem, it seems I’m not the only one who wants to use Super in combination with other keys. With that in mind, I decided to share my solution to this problem.

Remapping the Super Key

Chances are, your keyboard has two Super keys. They can be easily spotted, usually in the lower row, and bearing the Windows logo. What we’re going to do is tell Gnome to treat the Super key as something else, so that it doesn’t have to follow the rules Gnome has set for how that key should be used.

Open up your Keyboard options (NOT Keyboard Shortcuts) from the System -> Preferences menu. From that screen, choose the Layout tab. On the Layout page should be an icon for Layout Options.

From within the Layout Options page, choose Alt/Win Key Behavior. From there you can choose to map the Super key to “Meta”, allowing it to bypass normal Super key behavior.

Now that we’ve “tricked” Gnome into thinking the Super key is a different key, we can use it for combinations in the Keyboard Shortcuts screen. You can find Keyboard Shortcuts in the System -> Preferences menu. As I mentioned above, my reason for wanting to set this behavior was so that I could use the same key combo to switch workspaces that I use on all my other systems, which is Super + Left or Right.

Now that we’ve remapped the Super key, Gnome will let it be used in combination with other keys. Anytime we hit that key, Gnome treats it as “Mod4″, which it WILL allow to be used in combinations. Now I’m all set, I can use the same key combo on all the computers I use, no matter which operating system or desktop environment I happen to be running.