| Gestures |
| Contents |
|---|
| Frequently asked questions |
| Usage |
| Rationale |
How can I show my appreciation for this free application?
Feedback is good and I've have recently put Zap's beer on the Market - buy it to give me a beer!
I want a dark theme and select my own gesture color!
Version 1.1.0 now uses the darker theme which is more in line with more recent versions av Android. This also looks better with the arbitrary gesture colors you can select via the OI Color Picker. Note that a separate application is downloaded from Market when you need this - feel free to uninstall it when you have found a color you like.
I want to call Tasker too!
As of 0.9.7 this is possible. Note that you MUST allow external access in Tasker's preferences for this to work. You also need to name the tasks you need to call. Finally, if you install Tasker after Zap's Gestures the needed permission will not be granted. It is perfectly safe to uninstall and then install again - the gestures are preserved on your SD card.
I want to execute shortcuts too!
As of 0.9.6 there is tentative support for this. Note that the list may be quite long and that some applications have not created unique names for them (for example: one of the "Maps" is in fact "Buzz") so you will need to experiment. Please let me know how it works for you!
I don't like persistent notifications, how can I use something else to start the app?
Since 0.9.3 you can disable the notification and instead use long-press on the search key or the camera button.
My camera button no longer works as it used to!
This is because applications listening on the camera button are tried in order. Currently when this app has enabled the camera button listener (default) it will show the gesture screen and then cancel further actions on the camera button (show the camera on top would not be very useful). You can disable listening to the camera button in the settings. Let me know if you for some reason need some other combination, like starting the gesture screen and ALSO let some other app (presumably not the camera) do its thing too.
My camera button doesn't trigger the app!
Sorry, it might be some other application with higher priority trapping it before I can - or perhaps you are using an older version of Android? Contact me and I'll see what I can do.
The long-press search key doesn't work!
First of all, as far as I know it must be a "real" search key, onscreen search buttons or emulated search keys (such as long-pressing the Menu key on Samsung Galaxy S II) will not work - presumaby since this would involve a double long-press. Sorry, as far as I know there is nothing I can do about that. Second, if you have more than one app installed that listens to the long-press search key you will initially get a list of these - if you decide to make one of these the prefered action, then you will not be able to see the other alternatives until that list changes (add/remove an app that is in the list).
Why do I sometimes get a list of candidates?
When you have drawn a gesture it is matched against everything you have registered. If there is a single match or if the best match is significantly better than the others, then it is automatically selected and used. However, if there is no close match or if you have several similar gestures registered you will get a list of the best ones to select from. You can enable the display of "score" in the settings if you like to see the matching values.
It doesn't work when I pop out my SD card!?!
Yes, this is a known limitation. Currently the gestures are stored in the SD card, but the make it easy top copy them over to a secondary phone and to keep the gestures between installs. If anyone finds this a significant problem, I'll look into making this optional - just drop me a line.
How can I copy the gestures I've created on one phone over to another?
The gestures are stored in a file called "zaps.gestures" at the top level of your (primary) SD card. Simply copy this over to the same place of the other phone to have identical gestures on both (assuming you have the same applications and contacts on them!).
Usage
The idea about this app is to make it easy to do your favourite things at any time - even from inside other apps. To make that possible this app will display a permanent notification. At any time you can select this notification and draw one of your registered gestures to trigger the action of your choice.
To register gestures, press the menu key and select List of Gestures, then add new ones or press-and-hold to delete an existing one.
When adding, you first select what should happen (some of these require further selections), then draw a suitable symbol and finally press Done to save it.
There are also Settings to control what should happen after a successful gesture, how to display the notification and whether to show scores when there are multiple matching candidates. There are menu items for online help (this text) as well as a change log.
Rationale
I used to have a Motorola Milestone which came with an app called "My Signs", but I could not find anything similar enough on Market so I decided to write my own.
If you like this app you may consider sending me some beer money by PayPal.
If you are into composing you may want to try "Zap's abc" on the Market. It uses the abc music notation to create both audio (midi) and traditional music scores (PDF) usable in your Android phone.