Nokia N9 Home Screen Settings

About Home Screen Settings

Home Screen Settings is a Nokia N9 settings plugin for configuring the home screen through the Settings application. It has the following features:

• Easy to use user interface integrated into the Settings application with translations for 12 languages
• Set home screen orientation locking:
  • Portrait
  • Portrait (also applications)
  • Landscape
  • Unlocked
• Show/hide weather widget on the events view
• Use only white text on the home screen
• Use icon shadows in the applications view
• Set the opacity of the applications view folders
• Set a custom operator name to be shown in the status bar
• Use a custom background:
  • No background image
  • Use the wallpaper as the background image
    • Set blur radius
    • Set brightness
  • Use one background image for all home screen views
    • Set background image
    • Set blur radius
    • Set brightness
  • Use separate background images for each home screen view
    • Set events view background image
    • Set applications view background image
    • Set open applications view background image
    • Set blur radius
    • Set brightness
  • Use animated sine waves with optional glitter as the background
    • Set color scheme
      • Black and white
      • Magenta
      • Cyan
    • Show glitter
    • Set brightness
  • Use animated horizon which changes color based on the time of day as the background
    • Set brightness
  • Use animated star field as the background
    • Set brightness
  • Use animated 3D objects as the background
    • Set object type
      • Cube
      • Diamond
      • Tetrahexahedron
    • Set color scheme
      • Platinum
      • Gold
      • Silver
      • Bronze
    • Set translucency
    • Set brightness
• Improve the folder height in landscape

Harmattan PR1.1 operating system or later is REQUIRED! Installation WILL fail on Harmattan PR1.0.

Usage

To change home screen settings, start Settings, select Applications and then Home screen. This view allows you to select the orientation to which the home screen is locked or to unlock it. It also allows you to select whether you want to hide the weather widget and whether to use only white text on the home screen.

On Harmattan PR1.2 operating system it also allows you to choose whether to use a background on the home screen. Eight background choices are available: No background (default), wallpaper, user selected image, user selected images, sine waves, horizon, starfield and 3D objects. The wallpaper and the user selected image can be blurred and dimmed using the blur radius and brightness sliders to help making the text more readable on top of the wallpaper. The sine wave colors can be chosen to match the device color. The brightness of the dynamic backgrounds can be chosen to help with making the text readable.

After changing some of the settings the home screen needs to be restarted using the dialog requesting to do so. If you want to change multiple settings you should only restart the home screen after changing all of them. Note that if the home screen is restarted three times in a row the phone will reboot since the Harmattan operating system considers there to be a problem with the home screen.

Downloading

The latest version of Home Screen Settings is meegotouchhome-nokia-settings_2.0.2_armel.deb.

If you like Home Screen Settings, please consider a donation to the author.

Uninstalling

Home screen settings can be uninstalled like any other application by starting Settings, selecting Applications, selecting Manage applications, selecting Home screen settings and then Uninstall.

Support and bug reporting

Use at your own risk! There is absolutely no warranty. The author takes no responsibility for problems, loss of data or loss of functionality caused by this application. Also note that this unlocks Harmattan operating system functionality not supported in any way by Nokia. Do not file bugs to Nokia or to the author if you change the default home screen behavior.

Credits

• Home screen rotation itself: MeeGo Touch Homescreen team
• Home screen settings: Vesa Halttunen
• German translation: Oliver Khafagi
• Spanish translation: Adrian Yanes
• Finnish translation: Vesa Halttunen
• Dutch translation: Halit Bal
• Portuguese translation: Tiago João Silva
• Russian translation: Natalia Dobrovolskaya
• Turkish translation: Oytun Eren Şengül
• Vietnamese translation: Hieu Nguyen
• Simplified Chinese translation: 念
• Hungarian translation: Laszlo
• Italian translation: Davide Rossato
• Traditional Chinese translation: Tang Chi Man

Frequently asked questions (FAQ) / Answers to review comments

• Q: [A QUESTION IN SOME OTHER LANGUAGE THAN ENGLISH HERE] A: Sorry, I don't understand. Please send questions in English.
• Q: It seemed great, but when i downloaded it - i couldn't find it in my phone! A: As instructed in the description of the application, start Settings, select Applications and then Home screen.
• Q: How to delete (uninstall) this? A: Like any other application: start Settings, select Applications, select Manage applications, select Home screen settings and then Uninstall.
• Q: Doesn't work properly (folders are red, lags in interface... uninstall didn't help) A: This is NOT a Home Screen Settings problem but a problem caused by an another application.
• Q: It totally ruined my phone on PR1.2. A: No, it didn't. You're seeing a problem caused by an another application.
• Q: The application is buggy. The phone is jerky after installing the application. A: Installing the application has absolutely no impact on the performance of the phone. Using a dynamic background as the background image has a slight impact on home screen performance but not on any other application.
• Q: I have MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, but when I downloaded this app, the only options I have are for Lock Orientation, Hide Weather, and Only White Text. Why am I missing the background, color scheme and brightness options? A: You have MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan PR1.0 or PR1.1. You need MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan PR1.2. Upgrade your operating system.
• Q: Can you add feature : lock web browser portrait/landcape ? A: Version 1.3.0 allows locking Harmattan all applications to portrait. This includes the default browser. Locking to landscape does not make sense since not all applications support landscape. If you're referring to browsers other than the default browser (Firefox or Opera), it's up to those applications to handle orientation as they see fit. If Home Screen Settings does not affect them they do things their own way and there's nothing Home Screen Settings can do about it.
• Q: Some people have said this to allow changing the background but I can't! A: Upgrade your operating system to Harmattan PR1.2 or later and you can.
• Q: Do I need to enable Developer Mode for it to work? A: No.
• Q: Why is the lock screen not unlockable? A: The ways to unlock the orientation of the lock screen require modifying system files, which WILL lead to problems and should not be done. Also, some features just won't look good when unlocked, so it's not supported by Home screen settings.
• Q: Why does the application not work on PR1.1.1? A: Yes, it does.
• Q: I followed the instruction but it's not working, can somebody help? A: Make sure you have Harmattan PR1.1 or later. If you then follow the instructions, it will work.
• Q: Is the phone supposed to reboot if I change the settings three times? A: Yes. Changing the settings requires a restart of the home screen as mentioned in the confirmation dialog. If the home screen is restarted three times the device considers there to be a problem and reboots itself. This is normal.
• Q: Can you tell me how to implement XYZ? A: Please refer to the Harmattan API documentation.
• Q: What is this for? I didn't get the idea. A: This is for allowing the home screen to rotate when you rotate the phone and for configuring other home screen settings such as the background image.