Android Apps and News

A few people asked me how I made the custom icons for the bookmarks seen in my Watchmen SweeterHome theme. No, it wasn’t any Android code hacking or black magic – it’s Bookmarks2. Using Bookmarks2 is an ideal way to distinguish web shortcuts on an Android home screen. It creates easily-recognizable icons for each bookmark instead of seeing an entire page of identical shortcuts.

Using Bookmarks2 is quite simple.

1. Download Bookmarks 2
2. Long press on a window of the home screen
3. Press “Shortcuts” and then select “Bookmarks2″
4. Choose a bookmark and use the trackball to highlight an image
5. Press select to create an icon

Most websites have favicons (logo displayed in the address bar) that can also be selected by Bookmarks2. I always try to select favicons first because they usually provide a more accurate and crisp image to be highlighted. A similar app, BetterBookmarks, automatically fetches available favicons and creates “iPhone-style desktop shortcuts.”

While we’re on the subject of bookmarks on Android, you can also consider …

Changing Bookmark Display Order

Android’s browser displays the most recently-added bookmarks rather than the most-visited or alphabetical order. Bookmarker allows users to change each bookmark’s position, so users can manually group them by age, content, or whatever system they choose.

Importing Bookmarks from Internet Explorer/Firefox

MyBookmarks lets users import their Internet Explorer or Firefox bookmarks. Users upload their IE/Firefox bookmarks to the a website and that information is then downloaded to the phone. It doesn’t support two way-syncing, but this can be useful to people with a large number of favorites they’d like to copy from the desktop to their Android phone.

Backing up your Bookmarks

Stop manually entering bookmarks every time you reset the phone or clear browser cache. MyBackup can store bookmark data to the SD card that can be reloaded later. If you don’t want to download another app, clear your cache within Browser instead of the Manage Applications function.

1. Open Browser and press the Menu button
2. Select “More” > “Settings”
3. Select “Clear cache” and “Clear History”