Categories

[back2thebeatof84]

Anyone know how to mess around with the whole MobileSlideshow and how it doesnt break up into Camera and Photos? It really pisses me off when I try and add that into pictures and I just get a big QUestion Mark.

[hawaiipoolman]

great app! thanks a million happy new years!!!

[dbrown0690]

First, let me say this is a killer app for me. I live my life in categories. I split my Applications folder in Mac into categories years ago because trying to find that one obscure app that you downloaded last week in amongst 250 other apps is ridiculous. Anyway, I am one of the unfortunates that cannot add programs to my categories without it crashing back to the springboard. I am sure this will be resolved in a future update but wanted to ask if there might be an app that I have installed that is causing this. I have used the BossTool to move my apps to the Media partition, but since you are the author of both, I am sure this isn't the issue. OTW, I will keep trying with each new update. Thanks Bossman for continuing to put out such great utility apps. You rock!

[BigBoss]

Loving this app so far. One suggestion/request? Would it be possible to change the title/icon after the category has been created? Instead of having to delete the whole thing and start over?

This will definitely be added in good time.

Anyway, I am one of the unfortunates that cannot add programs to my categories without it crashing back to the springboard. I am sure this will be resolved in a future update but wanted to ask if there might be an app that I have installed that is causing this.

Is this still happening with 1.21? I have tried very hard to make this happen and cannot. It could be a memory issue. What things do yo have installed? If you really want to have categories but the add button won't work you could always do it the hard way. Just create your category, give it a name and icon. Then quit. Manually create a list.txt file in the /Applications/NEWCATEGORY.app dir and eacy line should have the name of the folder you want in the category with no trailing spaces, no extra lines, and nothing odd in the file.

I would be willing to help you set this up. But I am most interested in trying to debug the add issue. If you could jump in IRC #iphone on efnet when you have some time, I would like to build you some debug versions and try to fix the problem.

[HotStuff2]

Anyone know how to mess around with the whole MobileSlideshow and how it doesnt break up into Camera and Photos? It really pisses me off when I try and add that into pictures and I just get a big QUestion Mark.

I know, that is SO freakin' annoying! The CameraPro app helps a bit though.

markmon, you've done a great job. There's a few things I'd like to see added (which I might have listed before, but I'll probably do my "wish list" again - just not now, as I'm heading out to the club soon for some drinkin'!), but kudos to you. I had been asking about this very type of app a couple months ago; I was bugging Greg Meach to see if he could do it (his "Launchers" were what I was using, but they're gone now!)

Happy New Year!

[BlahBoss]

you've done a great job. There's a few things I'd like to see added (which I might have listed before, but I'll probably do my "wish list" again - just not now, as I'm heading out to the club soon for some drinkin'!), but kudos to you. I had been asking about this very type of app a couple months ago; I was bugging Greg Meach to see if he could do it (his "Launchers" were what I was using, but they're gone now!)

Glad you like it. I do plan to add more. I have a "future plans" section in the change log button link.

(Btw, I am using this BigBoss account from now on instead of the markmon account to eliminate confusion - so send all private correspondence here.)

[BigBoss]

Looks like mods were able to rename my account so please still contact me as _BigBoss_. Sorry about the spam in the thread.

[[email protected]]

Big Boss,

Just a little feedback. I am using Categories on 1.02 firmware with NO PROBLEMS. I love this app. Keep up the great work. I also use Boss Prefs. It also works great. Thanks again.

I have one question. Can I change the background in categories from the blue to a background I have? I use SSH.

[BigBoss]

I have one question. Can I change the background in categories from the blue to a background I have? I use SSH.

Yes! You have two ways to do this:
1) In the config of the main GUI, set "Use Background Image" to "OFF". This uses your summerboard background.
2) In the config, leave "Use Background Image" to "ON" but replace "Default.png" with your 480x320 image you want to use as the background in the apps dir(s). You can have a seperate Default.png in each app dir if you want. In the future I may provide a list of preselected backgrounds like I do with the icons to choose from.

[HotStuff2]

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to add an option to choose a background from the camera roll, or iPhone backgrounds, should it?

Also, noticed these:

1. In every Category, when you click "About", it says:
   
   "This app let's you organize your..."
   
   "'s" is a contraction of "is" or "has", neither of which is correct usage there. "Lets" should have no apostrophe, or the wording should be changed ("...allows you to..."?)
2. Also in about, instead of (c), proper usage of the © symbol should be used instead, per the Form of Notice for Visually Perceptible Copies.
3. I still don't understand why the text for the icons is cut off for some; it shows "NetServi..." for NetServices, and "Preferen..." for Preferences. Is there no way to allow it to display the whole name? Springboard does...
4. Found a bug: add a category, pick an icon for it, then delete the category, then add a new category, use the same name as before, but pick a DIFFERENT icon, and it doesn't show the new icon, it shows the one used before (for the previously deleted category.) If you exit Categories, then go back in and create a new category with the same name as the deleted one, it doesn't do that.

My wish list/enhancements/suggestions:

1. Ability to rename existing categories.
2. Ability to edit from within existing categories; perhaps an "Edit" button in the top right, which would launch Categories automatically, and maybe even directly into editing that particular one?
3. An option in Categories to manually restart Springboard (the bug of it not restarting is still there, and that would make it easier to deal with.)
4. The ability to choose custom icons (I have a folder on my iPhone that I keep spare ones on to move around.) Of course the app would need to tell people to make sure they're no larger than 60x60.
5. The ability to choose backgrounds from the iPhone wallpaper list/camera roll.
6. The ability to choose how many icons per row are displayed (maybe I only want 3, or 2, or whatever...)

Phew...! That's a lot of requests.

[ral67]

Hi BigBoss,

first - thanks very much for a really great App !

I was looking for something like that in order to manage the loads of programs.

Looks like you're constantly working on it - at least it feels every time I refresh sources there is a new version of Categories :-)

If you are looking for enhancement ideas, here's what I would find usefull

- ability to always display the dock in the sub-screens

- provide a button to go back to the main SB folder - preferrably in the upper left corner similar where currently the about button is - similar to other iPhone apps

- some visual hint in the icons or a border to differentiate folder icons from normal programs

keep up the good work

[ronfin44]

jrentzk "I've installed it, it opens, I can add a category. When I choose that, and click 'add', it just goes back to springboard. I restarted the phone, clicked on the new category icon, tried to add from there, but the same thing."

same problem here

this aggravates me to all hell, screwed my icons all up, and wont work, people need to stop posting betas to installer or clearly label them as such so people dont **** there phones up, if you need beta testers ask people they will be glad to beta test a new program, and if it wasnt you who added it to the source who ever put it in there needs to label these things beta thank you

Posts like this are amazing, and irritating. We're all testers. If someone creates an app and you decide to download it, then that makes you a tester. Don't wanna "try" something, then DON'T DOWNLOAD AND TEST!!!

Works for me. Thanks for the app. -fin

[asae]

Hi Markmon! Thanks for the Great Apps!
Works well in my iPhone fw 1.1.2.

A quick question:
1. Is there an easy way to to rename a category rather than delete an create a new one?

cheers, asae

[HotStuff2]

A quick question:
1. Is there an easy way to to rename a category rather than delete an create a new one?

The short answer is no.

[Gom33]

Hi Markmon! Thanks for the Great Apps!
Works well in my iPhone fw 1.1.2.

A quick question:
1. Is there an easy way to to rename a category rather than delete an create a new one?

cheers, asae

i was looking at this and i believe when you make your categories it stores them as apps? try and renaming that to a different app or something... say you have a GAMES category, look under the app folders with finder or something like that... change the GAMES name to a different name like MEDIA or something and see if that works...

[Imahottguy]

@BigBoss: This is probably one of the most useful apps that I've ever come across. Thank you very much for sharing it with us I hope to see more development for this in the future

[asae]

i was looking at this and i believe when you make your categories it stores them as apps? try and renaming that to a different app or something... say you have a GAMES category, look under the app folders with finder or something like that... change the GAMES name to a different name like MEDIA or something and see if that works...

Yup, this is what i had in mind at first as well, so i renamed the (let say) games.app to playgames.app and the string inside the info.plist in the dir, as well as renaming the (fake) games executable inside to become playgames. Then restarted the Springboard.

The renamed category icon showed in the homescreen as intended, but its empty. So, I checked thru the category.app and saw that the playgames category has nothing inside (?). Am not really sure where's the problem...

[luistohe123]

guys....How can you modify the icons of the apps inside a categorie....
Example:....I created a categorie named games...And I put NES and gpSPhone in there.
These 2 apps have a specific (nondefault) icon cause of summerboard....
when i go into the games categorie....the apps have the default icons....

How can you modify the icon of an app that is inside a categorie?
is it putting the icon png in some folder?

[asae]

Category seems to rely on the application's icon inside the application's folder. let say gsPhone, in /Applications/gsPhone.app/ there is this icon.png. Suggest to change that icon. Same goes with NES. I've tried it before and it works.

[BigBoss]

Sorry for the double post, but for whatever reason there are two categories threads so I thought I'd add the info here as well:

I think I finally have found and fixed the display order bug thanks to a few people that sent me their corrupted display order plist files! I have updated categories to v1.40. In addition to the display bug being (hopefully) fixed, I have added some extra display order protections to prevent messing up anyone's phones:

1) Now have a display order plist validate function that checks that the proposed display order categories is going to write is "sound". This means that all the have matching etc.
2) The above check should also prevent saving a 0 byte display order when the system drive is full!
3) The finaly check is done when categories exits. At any time if the display order is bad and you try to exit categories, the back up display order plist will be copied into place. (Of course, if the drive is full, this wont help). Unfortunately, since this runs when the app exits, there is no way to prompt the user that I have found.

Check out my changelog (written for iPhone display from within the categories app):
http://sleepers.net/~iphone/categories/changelog.shtml

Now, to answer some of the questions above:

guys....How can you modify the icons of the apps inside a categorie....
Example:....I created a categorie named games...And I put NES and gpSPhone in there.
These 2 apps have a specific (nondefault) icon cause of summerboard....
when i go into the games categorie....the apps have the default icons....

Did you enable summerboard themes option? It should use the icons from the summerboard theme assuming you're not running 1.0.2 phone. The icons in the categories configuration GUI will not change but the ones when you load the category folder should be those from summerboard.

This is probably one of the most useful apps that I've ever come across. Thank you very much for sharing it with us I hope to see more development for this in the future

Thank you

Is there an easy way to to rename a category rather than delete an create a new one?

I'll add this soon. I originally had it and am not sure where the rename button went

i was looking at this and i believe when you make your categories it stores them as apps? try and renaming that to a different app or something... say you have a GAMES category, look under the app folders with finder or something like that... change the GAMES name to a different name like MEDIA or something and see if that works...

This is very close to what happens. However, it is also a bit more complicated than that. I make the folder in /var/root/Library/Categories and copy the app's files there. (This is the bigger hard drive partition and also the location where I can store config data). Anyways, if your phone is not 1.0.2 *and* you don't have noexec in your fstab for /var partition, then I just create a symbolic link to the new app in the /Applications folder. This saves hard disk space on the small hard disk partition for those that did not move the apps folder.

If you rename the apps folder in /Applications, that probably will work for the display on springboard. But when you load the categories GUI, it will actually see the old folder name because it looks in /var/root/Library/Categories. To further complicate matters, if it finds /var/root/Library/Categories/Games.app, it will expect /Applications/Games.app. This will mean updates will not get properly routed to the proper folder.

In short, do not manually rename the folders. You are better off to just take the 30 seconds involved in deleting and recreating them. Sorry about this.