True one-handed Launcher operation:

I don’t like the default CLIE Launcher and I can’t wait for new OS 5 compliant launchers. I tried to like the new launcher, but it seems to take too many jog dial turns to find and select a program, and I find it hard to navigate from category to category using the jog dial–it really requires stylus tapping. I REALLY am stuck on the Launcher iii, Launch’em, LauncherX style of launchers. So, what to do? None of the “good” launchers are fully OS 5 complient (yet.) So, why not go back to the “Classic” style.

But wait…don’t use the default settings! In my opinion, by default, the preferences aren’t very friendly: There is no way to easilly change categories short of clicking the dropdown and selecting a category.

-Go into Options and select “Go To Standard view”
-Next, go into “Options” and click “Preferences”
-Check all boxes and change the “Jog Select” dropdown to “PopUp”

Finally, edit the categories and rename them to whatever you want, and use the “Categories” menu item to assign categories.

OK, what does this give you?

Pressing the jog dial cycles you through the categories in the order that the categories are sorted (see bonus tip below to sort otherwise unsortable categories.) The “Unfiled” category is ignored, which is nice because it allows you to “hide” unused or infrequently used programs. Rolling the jog dial brings up a popup list of all apps in that category through which you can scroll and select. Pressing the jog dial on the selected entry in the popup starts the app. Is the popup displayed, but you want to go change categories? Press the “Back” button and it will dismiss the popup allowing you to then press the jog dial to cycle the categories.

Also, pressing and holding “Back” from within any application takes you back to the launcher.

Bonus tip:

Don’t like the way the categories are sorted? Rename the categories by prepending numbers to the names. For example, “Main” becomes “1. Main”, “Games” becomes “2. Games”, etc. Adjust the numbers to your liking, and you can determine the sort order!

It’s not perfect, but I can actually select any app from within any category with just a couple jogs and presses.

More tips coming as I uncover them!

Update:

Even if you don’t enable the “PopUp” function, you can still use the Jog dial to scroll through the apps. Now, this is my preferred setting. If you have an app highlighted and want to go back to selecting a category (because pressing the Jog Dial will launch the app) just press the “Back” button! So simple!