xShortcut

xShortcut, short for eXtreme Shortcut, is a handy android app that allows you to quickly create different types of homescreen shortcuts. -- for Android 2.2 and higher.

xShortcut can serve as an Icon Changer and/or a Renamer of your homescreen shortcuts.

The Supported Shortcut Types:
# Application, system setting page, bookmark: e.g. you can change the icon & name for your app shortcuts on homescreen.
# Phone call, SMS, contact, email: e.g. make a quick phone call with a single click on the shortcut.
# Installed 3rd-party shortcuts types: e.g. Evernote, Line, Dropbox, ...
# Custom shortcuts: create your own shortcuts by the Advanced Shortcut Editor (only for users who are familiar with the android Intent spec.)

Extra Feature: Activity Shortcut Capture Mode
This allows you to directly select the active (running) activity as a homescreen shortcut (See NOTE 1). Here, an activity simply refers to a specific window/page within an app, e.g. any settings page within the System Settings (Wi-Fi, Locale, APN, ...).
[Limitation]: If a captured activity contains more than one page (e.g. tab-style UI), the shortcut may not direct you to the page you want. In this case, the shortcut normally directs you to the initial page of the activity -- it depends on the app developer.

Usage:
(a) Start Activity Capture Mode either by tapping the first item in the main function list or by enabling the setting "Sticky Notification"
(b) Move on to the target activity or window
(c) Pull down the status bar and click [Grab Activity] for an attempt to capture the selected window as a shortcut.
(d) Edit, Test and Create the target shortcut.
(See more examples on the web site: http://sites.google.com/site/appschinyang/ )

NOTE 1: Not all of the activities were originally designed to be launched by other applications/launchers. An activity shortcut only makes sense if the target activity is exported and not guarded by permissions. In xShortcut, a Test procedure will be automatically performed while creating shortcut.

NOTE 2: A *DEFAULT* icon size based on the device screen density is used to create homescreen shortcuts. You can try different sizes when the DEFAULT one is not applicable to your device (in Preferences Page).

Known Issues:
# The Activity Capture Mode of xShortcut does not work when enabling "Don't keep activities" under [Settings][Developer options] (only for Android 4.0+).

# Few users reported that xShortcut running on some "custom ROMs" seems unable to create homescreen shortcuts. If this is the case, I have to say sorry because that is not an easy problem I can deal with for you.

# The System Settings program (since android 3.0) has been rewritten, so that the Activity Capture Mode (provided by xShortcut) does not work well for "system settings". One workaround is to manually edit the intent via the Advanced Shortcut Editor provided by xShortcut, or simply use the shortcut type "System Settings".

Developer: appschinyang ( Email: chinyang.x@gmail.com )

* If you want localization for your language and can help out, please email me. Thanks. *

DO NOT request features, report bugs, or ask for assistance in your review. I can't reply to them! Please e-mail me instead.

Keywords: shortcut home launcher intent screen custom icon shortcut-maker