eriksmartt.com/blog

---

Organizing Series 60 application menus

I’ve been using Series 60 phones for several years now, and during that time I’ve developed a few tricks to help work with the phone UI. One of the most important is in organizing my applications so that I know how to find them and can get to them efficiently. To do this, it’s important to know a few key concepts:

1. You can create and rename folders. (One level deep only.)
2. You can move applications around and into folders.
3. The numerical keypad can be used for fast navigation.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The organization and folders in the Series 60 application menu are completely configurable. The default setup is likely to be different across the various phone models and operators, so I like to move things around to better match my needs. I currently have five folders at the root level:

• Media
• Net
• Tools
• Extras
• Games

The layout looks like this:

In the “Media” folder, I keep applications related to imaging and video. In the “Net” folder, I keep web browsers and anything that uses Over The Air (OTA) networking, including Bluetooth. “Tools” contains phone management applications, like “Settings”, “Manager”, and my various file explorers. “Extras” has miscellaneous applications like “Converter” and “Clock”. I also keep a few applications “below the fold” that are important, but rarely used.

When you’re ready to create new folders, make sure you’re at the root level (ie., main menu), then look in the “Options” menu for the “New folder” command:

After selecting “New folder”, you will be prompted to name it:

Once you have your folders named so that they make sense to you, move your applications into the appropriate folder by highlighting them and selecting “Move to folder” from the “Options” menu:

With your applications in the right folders, you can rearrange them using the “Move” command under the “Options” menu. To do this, highlight the item you wish to move, select the “Move” command, then navigate to the location you’d like your item to be and click the d-pad center button to make the move.

Arranging your applications properly becomes even more important once you learn how to use the numerical keypad to navigate the menu. (This is the most important part of the lesson, so grab some coffee if you’re losing focus.)

When you first open a menu screen, selections can be made using the 1-9 keys. The keys map to the application icons like this:

For my setup, that means I can open the Calendar just by pressing the ‘7′ key, or drop into the Games folder just by pressing the ‘9′.

Because of the potential for fast navigation, you should ensure that the items “above the fold” are the most important ones, and you should arrange your applications so that the frequently used ones will be accessible using the number pad. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll find numerical navigation to be much faster.

In addition to simply organizing, I also take things a step further. For each of my folders there is generally one application that I use most often. Therefore, I arrange the items within the folder so that the most important application is in the same numerical key position as the folder itself. For example, I have my “Media” folder in position ‘3′:

Once that folder opens, I have the “Gallery” application also sitting in position ‘3′:

Since the “Gallery” is the application I’m most likely to be opening, that means all I do is press ‘3′ twice to launch it from the main menu. The full key command becomes: ‘menu’-'3′-’3′.

I have my other folders setup this way as well: ‘menu’-'4′-’4′ launches Opera; ‘menu’-'5′-’5′ launches FExplorer; and ‘menu’-'6′-’6′ launches “Converter”. I also have a few that weren’t designed for optimization but have been become a learned pattern. For example, I have the “Clock” application at ‘menu’-'6′-’5′, and my thumb has learned that the Clock is “65″. (During a recent conversation someone complained at how long it took to open the Clock application on Series 60. I said, “It’s only three clicks”, and opened the application on my phone mid-sentence. Yeah, I know… I’m a rock star geek.)

The point of all this is that if you’re using Series 60 and find it cumbersome to navigate between applications, you might find it helpful to take control and adapt the phone to your way of thinking, rather then the other way around. (I’ve also heard that it’s helpful to read the manual, but I haven’t done that either ;-)

---