Hi All,

Android 14

In search, I can find "Weather". But I can not figure
out how to get its icon on my home screen.

Everything else in search, I just press on it and I
get the option. But not weather.

How do I get this icon on my home screen?

Many thanks,
-T

On 7/4/24 02:14, T wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Android 14
>
> In search, I can find "Weather".  But I can not figure
> out how to get its icon on my home screen.
>
> Everything else in search, I just press on it and I
> get the option.  But not weather.
>
> How do I get this icon on my home screen?
>
> Many thanks,
> -T
>
>

Found it. It is a widget

T wrote on Thu, 4 Jul 2024 02:27:16 -0700 :
>> How do I get this icon on my home screen?
> Found it. It is a widget

Glad you found it. I don't like widgets (too big on my homescreen); but a
lot of apps make themselves into widgets for people to find them easily.

As a result of not using them, I've never really understood widgets.

However, for all to benefit so that people teach each other here on the
Android ng, another way to get an icon to any public "screen" inside any
app is to simply make a one-tap shortcut to the unique name of that screen.

In Android terms, any displayed screen inside any app is called an
Activity. If the Activity is public, then you can make a shortcut to it.

The easiest way to make a shortcut is to use the Muntashirakon App Manager,
which will show you every Activity inside any given app - and if that
Activity is public, then you can just tap on a button inside of
Muntashirakon App Manager to turn that one Activity deep inside any app,
into a one-tap shortcut on your Android homescreen.

Here's an example of me creating a map shortcut to the nearest hospital.
<https://i.postimg.cc/GpGxqFhC/alert03.jpg>

There's a reason I said Muntashirakon App Manager is the best out there.

On 7/4/24 07:45, Andrew wrote:
> T wrote on Thu, 4 Jul 2024 02:27:16 -0700 :
>>> How do I get this icon on my home screen?
>> Found it. It is a widget
>
> Glad you found it. I don't like widgets (too big on my homescreen); but a
> lot of apps make themselves into widgets for people to find them easily.
>
> As a result of not using them, I've never really understood widgets.
>
> However, for all to benefit so that people teach each other here on the
> Android ng, another way to get an icon to any public "screen" inside any
> app is to simply make a one-tap shortcut to the unique name of that screen.
>
> In Android terms, any displayed screen inside any app is called an
> Activity. If the Activity is public, then you can make a shortcut to it.
>
> The easiest way to make a shortcut is to use the Muntashirakon App Manager,
> which will show you every Activity inside any given app - and if that
> Activity is public, then you can just tap on a button inside of
> Muntashirakon App Manager to turn that one Activity deep inside any app,
> into a one-tap shortcut on your Android homescreen.
>
> Here's an example of me creating a map shortcut to the nearest hospital.
> <https://i.postimg.cc/GpGxqFhC/alert03.jpg>
>
> There's a reason I said Muntashirakon App Manager is the best out there.

I know what you mean,. I do not care for widgets either.

In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 5 Jul 2024 22:58:00 -0700, T
<T@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>On 7/4/24 07:45, Andrew wrote:
>> T wrote on Thu, 4 Jul 2024 02:27:16 -0700 :
>>>> How do I get this icon on my home screen?
>>> Found it. It is a widget
>>
>> Glad you found it. I don't like widgets (too big on my homescreen); but a
>> lot of apps make themselves into widgets for people to find them easily.
>>
>> As a result of not using them, I've never really understood widgets.
>>
>> However, for all to benefit so that people teach each other here on the
>> Android ng, another way to get an icon to any public "screen" inside any
>> app is to simply make a one-tap shortcut to the unique name of that screen.
>>
>> In Android terms, any displayed screen inside any app is called an
>> Activity. If the Activity is public, then you can make a shortcut to it.
>>
>> The easiest way to make a shortcut is to use the Muntashirakon App Manager,
>> which will show you every Activity inside any given app - and if that
>> Activity is public, then you can just tap on a button inside of
>> Muntashirakon App Manager to turn that one Activity deep inside any app,
>> into a one-tap shortcut on your Android homescreen.
>>
>> Here's an example of me creating a map shortcut to the nearest hospital.
>> <https://i.postimg.cc/GpGxqFhC/alert03.jpg>
>>
>> There's a reason I said Muntashirakon App Manager is the best out there.
>
>I know what you mean,. I do not care for widgets either.

They are called "short icons" now. Or little people.

micky wrote on Sat, 06 Jul 2024 06:14:02 -0400 :

>>> Here's an example of me creating a map shortcut to the nearest hospital.
>>> <https://i.postimg.cc/GpGxqFhC/alert03.jpg>
>>>
>>> There's a reason I said Muntashirakon App Manager is the best out there.
>>
>>I know what you mean,. I do not care for widgets either.
>
> They are called "short icons" now. Or little people.

Philosophically, I'm not sure why widgets exist, but I think they exist
because people want one-tap access to the "insides" of a given app.

The widget gives them that one-tap access to the "inside" page of a given
app, which is more properly termed an "Activity" in Android terminology.

You can see every Activity in an Android app in many ways - only one of
which is to use the Muntashirakon App Manager - but what Muntashirakon
provides is a button called "Create Shortcut" for each public activity.

Once you tap on that button, a shortcut is placed on the homescreen.

Back to philosophy, it's my opinion that if people knew better how to
create one-tap shortcuts to public Activities, widgets wouldn't be needed.

A caveat is that I haven't tested, one to one, what a widget does that a
one-tap shortcut to a public Activity doesn't do - so there may be extra
special magic in a widget that I'm unaware of (as I never use widgets).

On 2024-07-06 12:14, micky wrote:
> In comp.mobile.android, on Fri, 5 Jul 2024 22:58:00 -0700, T
> <T@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 7/4/24 07:45, Andrew wrote:
>>> T wrote on Thu, 4 Jul 2024 02:27:16 -0700 :
>>>>> How do I get this icon on my home screen?
>>>> Found it. It is a widget
>>>
>>> Glad you found it. I don't like widgets (too big on my homescreen); but a
>>> lot of apps make themselves into widgets for people to find them easily.
>>>
>>> As a result of not using them, I've never really understood widgets.
>>>
>>> However, for all to benefit so that people teach each other here on the
>>> Android ng, another way to get an icon to any public "screen" inside any
>>> app is to simply make a one-tap shortcut to the unique name of that screen.
>>>
>>> In Android terms, any displayed screen inside any app is called an
>>> Activity. If the Activity is public, then you can make a shortcut to it.
>>>
>>> The easiest way to make a shortcut is to use the Muntashirakon App Manager,
>>> which will show you every Activity inside any given app - and if that
>>> Activity is public, then you can just tap on a button inside of
>>> Muntashirakon App Manager to turn that one Activity deep inside any app,
>>> into a one-tap shortcut on your Android homescreen.
>>>
>>> Here's an example of me creating a map shortcut to the nearest hospital.
>>> <https://i.postimg.cc/GpGxqFhC/alert03.jpg>
>>>
>>> There's a reason I said Muntashirakon App Manager is the best out there.
>>
>> I know what you mean,. I do not care for widgets either.
>
> They are called "short icons" now. Or little people.

They are one of the best features in Androids.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On 7/6/2024 6:45 AM, Andrew wrote:

>
> Philosophically, I'm not sure why widgets exist, but I think they exist
> because people want one-tap access to the "insides" of a given app.
>

Widgets were originally designed to present an at-a-glance display of
info, without the need to open up an app.

Think clock, weather, music currently playing, today's agenda, network
connectivity, etc. Imagine how annoying it would be to have to tap &
open up an app every time to get that kind of info.

Regards,

-David

David Oseas wrote on Sat, 6 Jul 2024 08:34:10 -0700 :

>> Philosophically, I'm not sure why widgets exist, but I think they exist
>> because people want one-tap access to the "insides" of a given app.
>
> Widgets were originally designed to present an at-a-glance display of
> info, without the need to open up an app.
>
> Think clock, weather, music currently playing, today's agenda, network
> connectivity, etc. Imagine how annoying it would be to have to tap &
> open up an app every time to get that kind of info.

Thank you for explaining the philosophy of widgets, which I completely
agree with, in that pre-defined widgets allow people to dive deeply into
existing apps (as you described above) to access, in a single tap, an
at-a-glance display.

My only philosophical point is that I can do all that, I think, using
one-tap shortcuts, which are as easy to create as tapping on a button.

For example, if someone wants to dive into an app without climbing the
convoluted stairs to start at the app and then click down into that app to
find the "display" that the user desires, they have, I think, two choices:

1. They can find if that app supplies a widget to do what they want, or,
2. They can just find the display in the app and create a shortcut to it.

While there are many apps which create shortcuts to "displays" deep within
an app, the advantage of the one-tap shortcuts is that they can be created
for every single public activity that exists on any given Android phone.

That's likely many thousands of "display" pages are accessible to the user
via one-tap shortcuts while probably only hundreds of displays are
accessible via widgets.

Still - widgets might do things that Activities don't so I took the
opportunity to open the question just now of the Android newsgroup:
*What does a Widget do that a one-tap shortcut to an Android Activity not do?*
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=53978&group=comp.mobile.android#53978>