Blast Pad v2.4
by Daniel Church

Blast Pad is the second incarnation of my quick-and-easy application launcher,
originally titled Launch Pad.  I changed the name because (1) Launch Pad
is already taken, and (2) Blast Pad sounds cooler.  Blast Pad is more powerful
than Launch Pad, because of the two main changes to this version:  first,
the number of onscreen buttons, originally 4, has been changed so that you
can select 4, 9, or 16.  Second, Blast Pad has support for categories, which
means that you can actually put as many programs into your shortcut list
as you want.  Another addition since 1.0 is the Hardware Buttons cue card,
so that if you forget what you set them to, just tap the Magnifying Glass
(the silk-screened Find button) to show you a list of the buttons.

When you first run Blast Pad, it won't do much.  You have to customize your
applications first.  To do that, open the menu and select Preferences.
You'll be told that there are currently 4 onscreen buttons and you are
in category Default.  You may change the number of onscreen buttons to 9 or
16, but be warned that in 16 button mode it'll look a little messy.

There are a couple of aesthetic options as well: checking "Display button
numbers?" at the bottom of the screen will label each onscreen button to
make it easier for you to find what each button is when customizing Blast
Pad.  The "Display" drop-down box gives you three options: "Name" displays
just the name of the application, which was the display mode for versions
of Blast Pad prior to 2.4.  "Icon" displays only the program's icon, which
can make 16-button mode much less cluttered.  "Name+Icon" displays both,
like the Launcher.

Which category you are in determines what each button will do if you press it.
For instance, you might have a games category where every button is bound to
a different game, or a productivity category for when your boss is around.
To create new categories, choose "New..." from the general preferences screen.
Then, select each category and choose each of the Modify XX Buttons choices
to set up Blast Pad.

You can set each button to one of three or four things: an application, a
category, the default, or nothing.  (note that in the default category, you
cannot select "default".)  If the button is set to an application, then
when you press that button, the application will run.  If the button is set
to a category, then pressing the button will change which category you are
in, changing all the button bindings.  If the button is set to "default",
then the button will take on the value that it would in the Default
category.  This allows you to create buttons with global meaning (for
instance, being a category changer) by only setting it in one context.  If
one of the four hardware application buttons is set to "none" (or if it is
set to "default" in the current category and "none" in the default), then
the button will execute the action it would if you pressed it outside Blast
Pad.

Blast Pad is designed to be run from one of the hardware application
buttons, so that you can easily access programs by pressing the Blast Pad
button and then pressing one or two other buttons.  If you don't know how
to set the hardware buttons, go into Prefs (from the Launcher), select
Buttons from the drop-down list at the top right of the screen, and set
one of the buttons to Blast Pad.

If you select "Select category automatically?" from the main preferences
menu and you set one of the hardware application buttons to Blast Pad, then
when you run Blast Pad, if that button is set to switch from the Default
category to another category, then Blast Pad will start up in the new
category instead.  This allows you to assign multiple buttons to Blast Pad
in the Prefs application, each giving you a different menu.  Note that if you
only tap the button very quickly, it will not register, and you will still
start up in Default mode.  This can also happen if your current application
takes a long time to exit and you release the button before Blast Pad has a
chance to read it.  This should not be a problem in most cases, however, and
if it does happen, a second press of the button will get you to the correct
category.

Here are some possible setups for Blast Pad:

Use the Default category only, which will give you 10, 15, or 22 programs
  you can run with two button presses.

Set the hardware buttons to category switching and the onscreen buttons to
  applications, which will give you 28, 63, or (!) 112 programs you can
  run with three button presses.

Set the hardware application buttons to applications, but set the up and down
  arrows to category switching, making each category call the next one and
  so on.  This gives you four applications in easy two-button reach, and
  as many as you want by cycling through the categories with the up/down
  buttons.  In this setup, Blast Pad works somewhat like the Launcher.

Of course, you can set up Blast Pad any way you like.. whatever seems
most comfortable to you.  The whole point of the program was to make it as
customizable as possible, while keeping the goal of easy access to your
favorite programs intact.

Many thanks go to Richard Boss, without whose ideas and support I would not
have had the inspiration to write v2.0.  Also to Peter da Silva, who helped
me with some new features and wrote the Makefile.

And, for the curious, I programmed Blast Pad under Linux with a plain text
editor (MicroEmacs 3.12), built it with prc-tools 2.0 and pilrc 2.5c
using the OS 3.1 SDK, and transferred it using pilot-link 0.9.3 to my
Handspring Visor running PalmOS 3.1.  However, Blast Pad should run on any
PalmOS device running PalmOS 2.0 or later.  Maybe even 1.0.  I don't know.

That's it for now.. if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or
anything really, feel free to email me at dchurch@mbhs.edu.