All our applications support hotkeys so you can easily launch them using a single keypress from your BlackBerry Home screen. Many applications from RIM and others also support this. Unfortunately, by default, application launching via hotkeys is not enabled. To enable it:
- Launch the Phone App - the easiest way to do this is to press the green phone key (the key immediately to the left of the BlackBerry Menu key)
- Press the Menu key and select Options
- Display the General Options screen
- Set the Dial From Home Screen field to No
- Save the change and exit the Phone App
Note As a result of the above you will no longer be able to dial phone numbers directly from your Home screen. Speed dial keys will still work from your Home screen, but to dial phone numbers directly you will need to run the phone application. Most people find this to be an acceptable trade off in order to gain the advantages of launching applications using hotkeys.
To launch any of our applications from the Home screen press and immediately release its corresponding hotkey listed in the following table:
| Application | Hotkey |
|---|---|
| AreaCode411 | e |
| BizMathica | z |
| BizTrackIt | i |
| DateMathica | h |
| GoTimeIt | g |
Some other useful application launch hotkeys:
| Application | Hotkey |
|---|---|
| Browser | b |
| Calendar | l |
| Contacts | a |
| Messages | m |
| Options | o |
To determine the application launch hotkey for an application, if any:
- Find the application icon on the Home screen or in a folder of the Home screen and highlight it. If the application has a hotkey it will be underlined in the application name, typically displayed at the bottom of the screen.
- Consult the application documentation.
What if more than one application uses the same launch hotkey (e.g. DateMathica and BlackBerry Help both use ‘h’)?
The behavior in this case seems to be undocumented. We’ve tested various operating system versions and found that if you want to make sure your desired application is launched when the hotkey is pressed then you need to:
- Move its icon to the Home screen if it is in a Home screen folder
- Move its icon after all of the icons for the other applications on the Home screen that use the same hotkey. An icon is after another icon if it is either below it on the screen or if it is to the right of it on the same row.
Video Tutorial
eAccess Solutions has published a video tutorial on how to enable and use application launch hotkeys.