PhotoDialer for Palm Pre FAQ
I am having trouble downloading PhotoDialer. Help!
Many people have reported difficulties downloading or updating PhotoDialer. Unfortunately, the download process is handled entirely by the WebOS system software, so it’s out of our control.
However, the following procedure has been shown to work around the problem. First, delete the PhotoDialer app. (To delete, hold down the orange key, and then tap on the PhotoDialer icon, and then tap “Delete” in the confirmation dialog that appears.) Second, re-install PhotoDialer from the App Catalog. You should not be charged for this, even if you originally installed PhotoDialer during the Beta period when it was free.
You can read more on Chad Scates' blog post on this topic.
How do I delete or reorder my contacts?
To delete or reorder contacts, switch to the list view. Because of limitations in the underlying container frameworks from Palm, the grid view does not currently support these operations. However, the order of the contacts is preserved between list and grid view, so you can switch to list view, delete and reorder contacts, and then switch back to the grid view.
To delete an item in list view, throw the item off the side of the screen to delete it, then tap Delete to confirm the deletion.
To reorder items in list view, tap and hold a contact, drag it, and then lift your finger to drop it. When you have held the contact long enough, you will receive a visual cue that the contact is ready to be dragged.
How do I add a contact?
To add a contact, tap the Add Contact button in the lower left of the screen, or select "Add Contact" from the menu.
If you select a contact and PhotoDialer returns to the screen without adding a contact and without an error message, check your version of webOS. PhotoDialer requires webOS version 1.1 or greater.
Some of my contacts don't have photos. How do I assign a photo for use in PhotoDialer?
If you don't have a photo for a contact, PhotoDialer will display a generic green silhouette with the person's name on it.
However, to make the most use of PhotoDialer, you'll probably want to ensure that all your frequently-used contacts have photos assigned. The easiest way to do this is either to take a picture of that person using the phone's built-in camera, or to edit a picture on your computer and download it to your Palm Pre using the USB cable. Then assign it to the contact by going through the Photos application. See the next answer for more details.
My pictures look fuzzy! How do I make them look better?
Here is the best way we've found to assign crisp, high-resolution images to a contact on the Palm Pre. First, on your computer, use your photo editor of choice (for instance, The GIMP or Adobe Photoshop) to create a good, high-resolution picture of your contact. The picture should be scaled to exactly 320x320 resolution, and saved in jpg format.
Next, connect your Palm Pre to your computer using the USB cable and "USB Device" mode. Copy the picture you have created from your computer to the Palm Pre. We recommend creating a new folder on the device called Contacts.
Next, eject the Palm Pre device on your computer, and disconnect the USB cable. Go into the Photos application on the Palm Pre and find your edited photo. Select the "Assign to contact" option from the menu in the Photos application, and then pick the contact to assign the picture to.
Note that there is an alternate method to assign a picture to a contact by going through the Contacts application. As of the 1.1 software on the Palm Pre, this method does not result in high-resolution images.
How do I add PhotoDialer to my QuickLaunch bar?
Some users prefer to substitute PhotoDialer in place of the Phone application on their QuickLaunch bar, like this:
To do this, first bring up the Launcher. Next, remove the Phone icon from your QuickLaunch bar, in order to make space for PhotoDialer: Press and hold the Phone icon until it is highlighted, and then drag it off the QuickLaunch area and into the Launcher area.
Finally, add the PhotoDialer icon to your QuickLaunch bar: Press and hold the PhotoDialer icon (in the Launcher) until it is highlighted, and then drag it into the QuickLaunch bar.
Can I make PhotoDialer launch faster?
Right now it takes about 4 seconds to launch any app on the Pre. We're hoping Palm will speed this up in a future release of webOS. In the meantime, we recommend you keep PhotoDialer always open, by going into the Preferences and selecting "Leave app open after dialing".
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