[General Topics] eaglesteve:
My customization related to wizards and notifications

WHAT I WANT TO ACHIEVE

1) Faster access to KEY information by three different methods. (a) View them on the lock screen, typically from the point when the phone is turned off, (b) View them while using any applications after passing the lockscreen without having to return to the lockscreen. While inside an application, I want the ability to get access to all the information below WITHOUT exiting the current screen, and I want to instantly see them and dismiss them. (c) View them on the first page of my desktop.

The KEY informations for me are things such as:

- is there any missed calls, if so, from who?

- is there any unread SMS, if so, what's the message?

- is there any new mails, if so, ability to quickly delete or read them.

- is there any new tweeter messages?

- is there any posting activities from my facebook friends?

- What calendar appointments do I have?

- Is there any to do items due today, or items which I have not completed?

- What's the time, date, and show me the month view of the calendar so that I can figure out the day of the week for a given date.

- What's my upcoming trips, arrival and departure time again?

- How's my share doing?

- What's the weather forecast for the day?

- notifications from any of applications (such as warning for a police trap coming from the Trapspter application, alerts from facebook application, alerts from game applications, alerts from applications on discount or going free in the app store, alert for missed calls in the VOIP application, alerts from travel applications information user of flight cancellation/delay, alerts from social networking application like Fring for new messages just received, alerts for severe weather such as earthquake/hailstorm/flood etc),which need not even be running in the background.

2) A subset of the above information are so important that I want them REPEATED on the taskbar itself, so that I'm aware of missed calls, unread SMS, unread mails, notifications (for weather warning, trapster, travel cancellation etc) etc without having to access them using any of the three methods mentioned above. Although the arrival of these alerts are already accompanied by pop up message and audio warning, it is still good to be able to see them on the taskbar, if they were missed earlier. This also overcome the problem of iPhone's stock alart system where the most recent alert is the only one user may see. Having them repeated on the taskbar and the InfoShade addresses the deficiency.

3) Faster access to very frequently used applications, starting from the point when the phone is turned off.

HOW I HAVE CONFIGURED MY IPHONE TO MEET THOSE GOALS

1) I install a widget framework/system called Cydget. This allows me to have information similar to my previous post to be presented on the lockscreen. Here is a demo video: For some reason, the demonstration turns on one widget at a time, but please be aware that you can turn on as many widgets as you like simultaneously. The widgets that were turned on are not the ones I choose to use though.

[youtube]AqlzXpBa_64[/youtube].

2) I install only two widgets, ignoring hundreds and hundreds of the others.

I'm love to see sexy animation, but I quickly got sick of it, and find it a waste to devote any pages for such widgets for good reasons. HAVING TOO MANY PAGES OF WIDGETS MAKES ACCESSING THEM MORE CUMBERSOME AND SLOWER, HENCE DEFEATING THE VERY PURPOSE OF WIDGETS.

The first widget that I install onto the Cydget framwork is called LockInfo. It may be of interest to you to know that LockInfo itself is also a widget framework which can be used without Cydget framework.

That means that I can choose whatever widgets I want for my LockInfo. I happen to have chosen these, as shown on this picture:

You may wonder if this is really my lockscreen. I assure you that it is, although I have customized within LockInfo to hide the Unlocking Slide, as well as applying a customization program called LockScreen Clock Hide to remove the standard clock. My philosophy is to provide maximum real estate for my KEY information, hence my customzation decision for page one of my lockscreen.

Note that despite the Unlocking Slide not being visible, I'm still required to slide at the bottom to pass the security before I can use the phone. When I slide on the invisible Unlocking slide, this is what I will see:

So, this meets my objective 1) (a). I want to just press the home key to on the screen, see everything I need to see without even unlocking the phone, then press power button to dim the screen and put the phone back into my pocket. Done, and it makes sense to me to be able to use widget in this way.

The second Cydget-based widget that I install is called LockDock. I think a better name for it is actually "shortcut to my most frequently used program that can be started right from the lockscreen" but that name would be ridiculously long, so let's call it by its given name here. It looks like this: Note that the number of missed calls, unread SMS, unread emails, current temperature, etc are also displayed as info badge on the icon, as it also does on the springboard.

This meets my design objective 3) and allows me a slightly faster way to start my applications in case. One might question the value of this given how efficient it is already though when I have Overboard installed to replace my home screen. But still, it does save a little bit of time, as it is two click of the home key to see this widget.

3) LockInfo has an option to either also display not just on the lockscreen but also on the first page of the desktop. I select that option to meet my design objective 1) (c).

This is what the first page of my desktop look like. You can scroll down to see the rest of the information.

Note that by doing this, my first page of my desktop is no longer rows and lows of application icons but what looks like something more useful.

When used in conjunction with Overboard, the "helicopter view" of all the desktop screen will include this widget page as page 1. Jumping from Overboard to the lockinfo is no different from jumping to any other standard springboard/desktop pages.

4) While inside any application, I SWIPE DOWN the taskbar, exactly like the way the Android user swipe down to use the notification bar, to see the same info. I have deliberately altered the transparency of the info screen (the proper name is called InfoShade) to assure you that I had not exited the application in order to see all my Key info. (Of course, in actual use, this degree of transparancy would make it difficult to read.)

When I'm done, I swipe down again to make the InfoShade go away.

This meets my design objective 1) (b).

5) That's still not enough. What if there is a missed call, new SMS that I fail to see because I did not swipe down to reveal the InfoShade? That's where I need to put on notification icons on the taskbar itself, so that I can be made aware of them, meeting my design objective 2). I install a Cydia application called Status Notifier to have this feature.

This is how it looks like:

WHAT OTHER WIDGETS ARE AVAILABLE?

I counted 63 widgets for the Cydget framework just based on the Repo I now now. There may more be available from other repos. Examples of widgets include currency, newsfeeds, astrology, contacts, facebook, twitter, google search (exactly like in Android), wikisearch, yahoo search, music player, torch light, google map, new year count down, games like tit/tat/toe, weather and many many more.

I will show two interesting ones, dialer and aquarium here to give you a flavour of the kind of Widget possibles: They are more for showing off and act as a fancy wallpaper than for any real purpose in my opinion.

Dialer

[youtube]mjhdDS13_qA[/youtube]

Aquarium

[youtube]isnLhcOyCqQ[/youtube]

There is another widget very similar to LockInfo. It's called Element:

http://www.iphonetechie.com/2010/04...me-screen-is-now-available-in-cydia-for-free/