Okay, confessions first: A few other threads exist with requests for help on making shortcuts or writing your own code for shortcuts using AnyCut or BetterCut. None of these have been active or helpful. I am not a developer. I am trying to learn Java, Eclipse, Android SDK, Linux, and AnyCut. I am obviously lost regarding where to start in order to design and develop apps for Android. I hope this post will become a tutorial with tips and tricks for designing shortcuts using AnyCut's "Make Your Own" option. The "Activity" option will allow most shortcuts but I want a better understanding of what to add to the Action, Data, and Type fields to design shortcuts that successfully navigate android OS. Please add examples of Make Your Own shortcuts you have created.
AndroidGuys.com have two blogs about this (supposed to be a 3 part series but must not have been a priority) at Make Your Own AnyCut Shortcuts (Part 1 of 3) | AndroidGuys and Make Your Own AnyCut Shortcuts (Part 2 of 3) | AndroidGuys. They give examples of the Action and Data fields for a shortcut to put a playlist on desktop. Daniel Yankowsky has an article at . "The Make Your Own screen has three fields: Action, Data, and Type. I believe that these line up with the constructor parameters of public Intent(String action, Uri uri, Context packageContext, Class<?> cls). The Action parameter is one of the string consts in the Intent class (such as android.intent.action.VIEW, not Intent.ACTION_VIEW), and the Data parameter should really be called Uri, because it includes the Uri of the item upon which you want to act." Here is a list of common intents: Intents List: Invoking Google Applications on Android Devices | Android Developers That is really about all there is out there. Is there really no other utility for this app?
In case anyone is trying to create a custom shortcut to a file on their SD card, such as a video (3g2, mp4, m4v), image (jpg, png), HTML file, or PDF file, I finally figured out the correct parameters to use in Any Cut, BetterCut, or dg QuickCut: Code (Text): Action: android.intent.action.VIEW Data: content://com.android.htmlfileprovider/sdcard/mymovie.mp4 Type: video/* Code (Text): Action: android.intent.action.VIEW Data: content://com.android.htmlfileprovider/sdcard/myimage.jpg Type: image/* Took me several days scouring the web to figure out why I couldn't just use "file://sdcard/mymovie.mp4" as the URI. Turns out, the phone doesn't want to open a file directly from the SD card because of some kind of security concern running local files. You can also have Astro create a shortcut for you, but the disadvantages are a) it runs Astro in the background every time you click, and b) the shortcuts fail if you uninstall Astro.
What about a shortcut that takes you right to the VPN options? I have only been able to get to Wireless & Networks, I would really like to go right to VPN. Any thoughts?
