This website is no longer being updated as we’ve moved to a new site (https://www.softwyer.com)
This site will remain as a historical account of some of SoftWyer’s earlier forays into Android app development.
If you are looking for our current apps, then head over to the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
These applications are being replaced with a new overhauled version that is Android and iOS compatible. To read about the new version, follow this link to our website.
Please read the important note at the end of this page for details of how we will maintain your data.
The versions described here are considered to be end-of-life
The Collection, Storage and Freezer Android apps use the same underlying technology to allow you to manage ‘collections’ of ‘things’.
The apps are functionally identical but we’ve branded them with their own identities to help give the collection concept more exposure in the Google Play Store.
We are continually developing these apps and you can click the link to see what is new.
The Collection, Storage and Freezer Android apps have not seen as much developer attention as they used to. We haven’t forgotten them, it’s just that we’ve been busy moving onto a reworked version of these applications to support iOS and Android.
Having a common platform will enable us to reach more markets and also help those of you who share collections with mixed phone households.
In conjunction with this, we’ve tweaked our web application a little to support email logins.
Whilst the web version is a ‘read-only’ view of your collections, it can be handy for those people who you would like to see your collections but don’t have an Android phone.
With the web application supporting email logins, it’s now even easier to share your collections. To do this, just:
Note that you will need to subscribe to ‘My Collections’ if you want to share your collection with many people. Alternatively, you can make your collection Public and it can be shared with everyone.
We have an iOS version that is available to a limited number of beta testers. To try this, you will need to need to install Apple’s Test Flight application, which is an App Store for test builds.
If you want to try this, then follow the iOS Collections Test Flight link. The iOS version is currently a read-only view of the collections but we’re steadily adding features and will make it writeable very soon.
The Freezer and Storage apps have a feature that allows collections to be shared between multiple people via the ‘invite’ option.
To see this in action, watch the video below:
What the video shows is an item being scanned by one phone and, when saved, being synchronised to two other phones. The other phones are signed in to the Freezer app with different accounts, but this also works with the same account used on different phones.
Category Searching
You probably know that Contact Lookup Fast on Android can search your contacts, but it can do more than that.
In the video below, we show how you can search for employees of Microsoft by using the organisation category prefix (o:). This quickly pops up the employees, but we notice that one suspicious employee is from Finland, so we modify the search to exclude anyone from Finland* using the exclusion modifier (!).
Having searched, we can then email, sms or send their vCards using the share option. This opens another screen where you can tailor the list to exclude people or change the contact address.
* Technically we should have used the address category (a:!finland) to make sure we only exclude people with addresses in Finland, as without the category prefix CLF would exclude any contact with Finland in any field.
Download
Contact Lookup Fast is available from the Google Play Store.
View Your Contact Events
There are many Android widgets that allow you to view calendar events, some even mix in tasks and the odd one will show Contact events. There are also some dedicated Contact Event viewing applications, but Contact Event widgets seem to be thin on the ground.
Fear not, SoftWyer have created one!
Contact Events
Contact events are the special dates that are associated with individual contacts. The obvious ones are Birthdays and Anniversaries, but with Android and GMail, you can create custom contact events. These can be anything you like, any event linked to a person or organisation that you want to remember; the day you resigned, the date you bought your cat, the day your friend divorced, etc.
The widget is intelligent and will automatically update when a new contact event is created or an existing one is changed.
Android Widget
Contact Lookup Events is a widget for Android OS 4.x and above. Just drag it onto your home screen and it will list all of your Contacts that have events in date order. The events that are happening soonest are shown at the top.
Features
We’re also planning to make a paid version that will allow you to:
Download
Contact Lookup Events is available from the Google Play Store.
Wavey Davey
Yanc received a useful update this week.
Now, instead of dimming, YANC Pro will switch off your phone and, with a wave of your hand, turn it back on again to see the time. After a few seconds it will turn off again.
This is a huge battery saver which means you can leave YANC Pro running in the background, even when you have no external power connected.
Furthermore, it resolves the odd complaint that it’s too bright and the other favourite the buttons don’t dim. Sorted.
Requirements
This new feature requires a device with a proximity sensor to work. Some devices, such as the Nexus 7, do not have proximity sensors.
Download
You can find YANC Pro on the Google Play site.
This post details the advanced search options that are available in Contact Lookup Fast (CLF).
Follow this link for the user guide.
Follow this link for the settings guide.
You can purchase CLF from the Google Play Store
Continue reading “Contact Lookup Fast Search Hints”
Throughout this settings guide we refer to Contact Lookup Fast as CLF.
This post describes the settings used in CLF. You can access the settings by opening the application and selecting the Settings options from the menu or overflow dropdown.
Follow the link for search hints.
Note that not all options are available on all Android OS versions.
Throughout this user guide we refer to Contact Lookup Fast as CLF.
Follow this link for the CLF Settings Guide.
Follow this link for search hints.
You can download CLF from the Google Play Store
To open CLF, just click the application icon, shown on the right, on your Android device.
SoftWyer 