Shortcut Creator is an app with which you can create all kinds of shortcuts on your smartphone to, for example, files, folders, apps, contacts and settings. We explain here how creating smartphone shortcuts works with this app.
Many actions on the smartphone feel repetitive. Calling a specific contact for example, or opening a specific folder. Shortcuts make this a bit easier and you can often skip some steps. You put them on a home screen for quick access.
What makes tools like Shortcut Creator even more powerful is that many apps have special 'entries' that you can use. Such as calling a specific contact directly with the telephone dialer, or opening WhatsApp with pre-baked text.
Shortcut Creator itself gives some explanation and a few YouTube videos with examples, but you will still have to find out a lot yourself. That is why we are happy to help you on your way!
Shortcut to folder with photos and 'composite folders'
We'll start with a simple yet practical shortcut to the Photos folder. To do this, open Shortcut Creator and choose File & Folder in the main menu. Browse below File Sources to the location and folder of photos, in many cases the folder DCIM on the internal memory or the external SD card. This will take you to the screen where you can adjust the appearance and behavior of the shortcut.
For example, click on the icon if you want to change it, or enter Name enter a suitable name for the shortcut to be given on the home screen. Below that, you can choose which file manager to open it with. If you have not installed additional file managers from the Play Store, you can also use the built-in file manager.
When you're done, click the plus icon to add it to a home screen (via the option To Launcher) or the play icon to try the shortcut. The plus icon also gives the choice To Collections that allows you to add the shortcut to a personal collection. On your home screens, you can of course also simply group shortcuts into folders, as you may already do for apps.
In the File & Folder menu you will also see the option New Composite Folder. In fact, it allows you to display the (possibly filtered) contents of multiple folders with the built-in file manager.
Suppose you have photos on your device on both the internal memory and the SD card, then you can add both folders, so that all photos are shown in one overview. You can also make handy use of the option for filters, with Add Filter. For example, if you only want to see the videos in those folders, you add a filter by file name (such as 'contains .mp4’). Or with the option MIME type on the type of file (for videos mostly video/mp4).
The most convenient in this case, however, is the choice for Regular Expression, which allows advanced filtering by filename. You do not have to enter that regular expression yourself: tap the arrow behind the input field and you can have a regular expression entered for, for example, well-known archives, documents, images, but also videos, with which all known extensions are immediately included. For video these are for example .mp4 but also .mpg and .mkv). You can also filter by date or file size.
Call contact, use templates
Also very practical is a shortcut to directly call a specific contact person. To do this, choose in the menu Contacts. Then select a contact from the list and set the shortcut. rear Action you can choose what should happen when you press the icon. Depending on the contact information, the options are View Contact (display contact), Show Dialer (display phone dialer) and Call Contact Phone (direct dialing) available.
The latter option requires the installation of Shortcut Executors via the Google Play Store. A special permission is required to call telephone numbers directly and the makers did not want to ask for that permission for the Shortcut Creator app itself, because some people don't want to take that risk.
As an example, we choose Show Dialer that does not require additional permissions. Below you can indicate which telephone number can already be entered in the telephone dialer. Depending on your device, additional options are also available, such as 'calling on the loudspeaker'. If you use this shortcut, you only need to press the green call button in the telephone dialer.
If you regularly send the same text, for example to let them know that you don't have time to answer or are coming home a little later, you can create a handy shortcut for this via Message Template.
You enter the content of the message here. Below that, select the app with which you want to send this. If you choose WhatsApp, for example, this shortcut will first open the chat app in question and the contact selector in it so that you can directly select to whom the text should be sent. In addition to WhatsApp, you can of course also choose another messaging app from the list, or the option Use app chooser so that when using the shortcut you first have to choose an app from the list.
Shortcut to settings and more options
Android has handy quick settings in recent versions that you can swipe down from the top of the screen. In that window you can, for example, switch WiFi on or off or activate airplane mode. In the absence of that, or because you find it more practical, a shortcut on a home screen is also an option.
At Shortcut Creator you can: Settings create shortcuts to an Android settings screen. Tap below Settings Shortcuts on Obtain shortcut and choose the desired settings screen (such as Battery, Sound or Location). This shortcut will then take you directly to that setting. You can also via Settings Activities and under System Actions try to reach even deeper settings screens, or under App Details create a shortcut to the information screen for a specific app.
We haven't discussed all the possibilities of Shortcut Creator yet. For example, you can easily add a shortcut to a specific website. The fastest way to create that shortcut is just from the browser: visit the page, open the share menu and choose share with Create Shortcut. After this, the relevant shortcut is immediately created. And via Command Executor you can create shortcuts that, for example, set the volume or brightness to a certain level, or turn off Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
Trying remains the motto, you may discover even more useful shortcuts yourself!
