Hack 100. Ensure Your App Is Placed First on the Home Screen

Make sure your program icon gets prominent placement on the Home screen after installation.

To increase the user-friendliness of your application, it's best to have your application highly visible after the installation, whether it's a desktop install or browser (OTA) installation. Ideally, you will have the application icon be the first icon on the BlackBerry Home screen (also known as the Main Ribbon). This commonly sought after solution and is easily overlooked in both the documentation and RIM BlackBerry JDE.

9.8.1. Set the Icon Position

Open your project in the BlackBerry Java Development Environment, and then right-click on it and select Properties from the context menu. Click on the Application tab and look for the label called Ribbon Position by default, this is checked and no icon position is specified (see Figure 9-13). Uncheck the checkbox and specify the position where you want the icon. A 1 indicates position one.

Figure 9-13. Setting icon position

That is it! You can now build and install your application, and the icon will appear in the first position. Note: you may have to clear/reset the simulator filesystem. On real devices, this is not necessary.

9.8.2. Position Collision

When more than one application has the icon position set to the same position, the most recently installed application will take that specified position. For example, if you install Monkey Madness first (assuming it's set to position 1), it will install, unsurprisingly, to position 1, as shown in Figure 9-14.

Figure 9-14. Installing first app with icon set to position 1

But if you install another app that wants position 1, such as Quotestream Wireless [Hack #70], it pushes Monkey Madness over, as shown in Figure 9-15. This is only fair: every application deserves its moment in the sun!

Figure 9-15. Installing another app with icon set to position 1

Jason Lam