How to add app shortcuts to HTC EVO status bar
Since the status bar on the HTC EVO is displayed throughout most of the system, you may as well make it do more than what it already does, especially because when you don't have any notifications or ongoing services running, the left side of the bar is just blank space.
Why not use the notifications area to hold some shortcuts to your most used apps? That would make it faster to access them whenever the status bar is present as well as free up space on your main home screen.
Here's how you do it:
- Install Bar Control from Android Market.
- Launch it and choose an app (or setting) you want from the list populated with whatever is on your EVO.
- Select an icon. Actual app icons can't be used, so the developer provides some other ones.
- Repeat as desired.
When you want to go the app, just pull the notification shade down like you normally do and select it from the "Ongoing" section at the top.
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Long pressing the Home button to bring up your 8 most recent apps is better than Bar Control in some ways, but I use the notification shade so much already that it's nice and convenient to have the app shortcuts there.
Two things I don't really like are that you can't use an app's real icon and there's no way to delete just one shortcut; it's all or nothing. Most of the provided icons are fine, though, and my shortcuts don't change often enough for the deletion method to be a major issue.
