General Examples - Advanced Level

Multi-function Star Menu

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This example shows how to set up a star menu for quick access to a lot of functions of your choice. You tell Apt you want a star menu simply by specifying a first item as you would normally, based on a trigger (in this case, Hard Key1), and then following it by a number of lines with the * character in place of the trigger. The first line (about Hrd4) is not relevant ot this example.

The order of the following lines is what determines what goes where: HK2, HK3, HK1, HK4, NavUp, NavDown, NavLeft, NavRight, NavCenter, and after that things get added as buttons on the top of the screen: you can tap on them but you can't use hard keys to get to them.

There are some cool ideas in this example:

  • using the star button on a fast trigger like this Hrd1 press, to make the most of this type of menu. If you set it on a long press, you waste time.
  • using the Back function on the same key as the trigger to be able to just press the key twice quickly to go to the previous app, since it is a very used function (once you get used to it and remember it!).
  • using the up and down Navigation keys for fast scrolling 8 lines at a time (or perhaps even more).
  • using the left and right Navigation keys to quickly nudge the screen brightness up or down to fit the current surroundings. Very practical.
  • using the date on the center to quickly check the date if you forget it all the time like I do.
  • using the fill with Recent function of Apt for the top buttons, so you have quick access to the last 8 apps you used.

Pre-Launch/Exit Do Something In Another App

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In this example, whenever Calc is launched, we first go to the Converter app, copy the contents of the calculation field, then paste it into Calc's calculation field.

When we exit Calc, beforehand we quickly go to Converter and clear
the Calculation field ready for next time.

The last line sends you to Applications no matter what button you used to leave Calc. If you use e.g.
an Apt button assignment to exit calc, you do not need the last line, Apt will go wherever you
were originally going when the Exit macro is finished.

This is just an example of what is possible. Apply to your
own circumstances :-)

Taps and Strokes for Field Manipulation

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These triggers manipulate the 'Value' field in the Converter application. Firstly, the
resource ID of the field was found like this:

  1. go to the App
  2. launch AptMenu (by default with a 2 second press of hard4)
  3. select 'Lst Flds' (list fields)
  4. click on the one with the right value in
  5. return to Apt (via AptMenu again)
  6. use Menu->Edit->PasteID to insert the field's resource ID

Then the triggers were setup by going to the App, using AptMenu:AddTap
and AptMenu:AddStroke in the Converter App.

The two taps defined go to the start and end of the field, an upwastroke
through the field selects the whole contents and then cuts them (i.e. clears
the field).

Quick-Setting Common Alarm (macro example)

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Sometimes you have to set alarms for things that happen occasionally, at a certain time, but at uncertain days - so you can't put them in your Datebook. Stuff that you find out today that you will have to do tomorrow, like drive the kids to school instead of your wife, or whatever.

This example shows how to use a single button press (hard key 2 inside Notepad) to quickly set an alarm for tomorrow at 7:25 AM. It does it's job by using a macro (a sequence of actions connected with a "&" symbol). To understand why these actions were used, you might want to try the sequence manually in Notepad.

The alarm will go off showing your first Note inside Notepad, so you might want to write a relevant reminder message and leave it there at number one position…

Things you will want to adapt to your own purposes:

  • the trigger key; you can use any Apt trigger instead of Hard Key 2 in side Notepad.
  • The time of the alarm! Just change that "725" to whatever suits you.
  • The day of the alarm. It's tomorrow because of that "Rght / 1" on the 6th line of the macro. If you change it to "Rght / 2" the setting will be for the day after tomorrow.
  • What happens in the end. I used an action to launch ScrBtn because it's my launcher. You can use the default launcher "Applications" or some other application.
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