Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

I recently had to reset my Umidigi Bison to factory defaults,
fortunately I have very few added apps or other customisations so it
didn't take me long to restore most things.

However I can't get my 'direct dial' icons working again, these were
two buttons on my main page which dialled 'Home' and 'Wife' directly
by just clicking the button.

I have Nova Launcher installed and I seem to rememeber that was
involved somehow, but I can't see how at the moment.

Can anyone help please? (..., it's running Android 11 if that might
be relevant)

It's OK, I found it!

To my mind the way of doing it is backwards....

You have to 'press and hold' on the background to bring up the widgets
menu, then select Contacts in widgets and set the contact phone number
you want the button to dial.

Sorry for the noise.

--
Chris Green
·

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Chris Green wrote:

To my mind the way of doing it is backwards....

You can also do it the "other way around"
within contacts,
press on the person,
click the cog icon,
add to home screen.

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I recently had to reset my Umidigi Bison to factory defaults,
fortunately I have very few added apps or other customisations so it
didn't take me long to restore most things.

However I can't get my 'direct dial' icons working again, these were
two buttons on my main page which dialled 'Home' and 'Wife' directly
by just clicking the button.

I have Nova Launcher installed and I seem to rememeber that was
involved somehow, but I can't see how at the moment.

Can anyone help please? (..., it's running Android 11 if that might
be relevant)

--
Chris Green
·

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Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Chris Green wrote:

To my mind the way of doing it is backwards....

You can also do it the "other way around"
within contacts,
press on the person,
click the cog icon,
add to home screen.

Ah, but that doesn't do direct dial, it just opens up the person's
entry in Contacts (or at least that's what it does for me).

When you do it 'my way' then clicking the button dials the number
straight away.

--
Chris Green
·

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On 4/25/2025 7:53 AM, Chris Green wrote:

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Chris Green wrote:

To my mind the way of doing it is backwards....

You can also do it the "other way around"
within contacts,
press on the person,
click the cog icon,
add to home screen.

Ah, but that doesn't do direct dial, it just opens up the person's
entry in Contacts (or at least that's what it does for me).

When you do it 'my way' then clicking the button dials the number
straight away.

Is there any way to make the icon for the direct access to the contact
smaller?

My wife did it on her phone and while it takes her to the Contact entry.
It is huge. It would be nice if it were smaller like those on the
rest of the screen.

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On Fri, 25 Apr 2025 08:40:21 -0400, knuttle wrote :

Is there any way to make the icon for the direct access to the contact smaller?

My wife did it on her phone and while it takes her to the Contact entry.
It is huge. It would be nice if it were smaller like those on the
rest of the screen.

I never thought about it, but I think there "might" be a difference in how icons sizing works between "widgets" & "shortcuts" (but I'm not sure).

I use the last known good version of the Nova free/adfree launcher myself.
*Last known good version of Nova free/adfree launcher 7.0.57 by TeslaCoil*
<https://tinyurl.com/nova-launcher>
Or, if you don't trust tinyurl's, then here are the direct links to it.
<https://mobile.softpedia.com/apk/nova-launcher/7.0.57/>
<https://filehippo.com/android/download_nova-launcher/7.0.57/>

When I tested (years ago) every free/adfree app launcher for Android, I
found that Nova (by TeslaCoil apps at that time) was, by far, the best.

With the Nova launcher, you can resize *all* shortcuts, but I don't think
that applies to widgets. For widgets, resizing (AFAIK) is app specific,
since a widget is really the app already running (kind of in background).

What we might be able to do is craft a one-tap shortcut to the phone number
if we can figure out the "Intent" syntax, which would be useful to billions
of people (since everyone needs a one-tap dial shortcut from time to time).

"Hey Android, dial this phone number: tel:1.555.123.4567."
(Action: ACTION_DIAL, Data: tel:1.555.123.4567)

The critical piece we need to figure out is how to craft an "Intent" with
the "Action" of "Intent.ACTION_DIAL" and a specific "URI" to the desired
phone number of the format "tel:15551234567".

Maybe I'll test it out since BILLIONS of people could use that tutorial.
But it might take a while as it's not something in my already long todo.

Here's some quick pseudocode though... for what I think needs to be done.
Create Intent
Action: android.intent.action.DIAL
Data URI: tel:15551234567
Package: com.samsung.android.incallui
(or com.android.dialer or com.google.android.dialer)
Class (Activity): com.android.dialer.DialtactsActivity
(or com.google.android.dialer.extensions.GoogleDialtactsActivity)

The beauty of a one-tap shortcut is you can treat it like any other
shortcut. It can be in folders. It can have any icon you like.

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On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 06:41:20 -0000 (UTC), Marion wrote :

The beauty of a one-tap shortcut is you can treat it like any other
shortcut. It can be in folders. It can have any icon you like.

Keeping in mind a WIDGET is completely different from a SHORTCUT,
last night, after testing that out, I wrote up how anyone can easily
create both a one-tap & two-tap shortcut to call a specific phone number.
*How to make custom one-tap shortcuts to phone numbers in Android*
<https://www.novabbs.com/computers/article-flat.php?id=58705&group=comp.mobile.android#58705>

This provides yet another way for a direct-dial icon on your homescreen.
But, given it uses shortcuts, it also enables entire folders of the icons.

Each icon can have the profile photo of the person or entity being dialed.

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