How To Create A Web Shortcut or Icon For Your BlackBerry Home Screen

Article by LauraMS (4,484 pts )
Edited & published by Simon Hill (43,643 pts ) on Dec 4, 2008
Related Guides:Blackberry

If you've ever desired to have a shortcut for your favorite website(s) on your BlackBerry home screen, keep reading to find out exactly how you can create one today.

Is It Possible To Have A Web Shortcut Or Icon On Your BlackBerry Home Screen?

BlackBerry users have often asked how they can install a shortcut or icon that will allow them to access their favorite website directly from their BlackBerry home screen. Often, users are told that a shortcut option is not possible. However, thanks to a very smart developer by the name of Jonathan Fisher, we actually can now take a shortcut to our favorite websites by simply clicking on a home screen icon instead of having to launch the BlackBerry browser first.

How To Create A Shortcut Or Icon

Creating a shortcut icon for your BlackBerry is pretty easy once you’ve installed the ShortcutHub available over the air on Jonathan’s site:

http://m.jonathanhfisher.co.uk/webshortcuts

Be aware, however, that not only will you need to install the ShortcutHub on your BlackBerry first, but you will also have to individually create and install a separate shortcut for each website that you would like to access from your BlackBerry home screen. Even if you don’t have a lot of sites you’d like to create shortcuts to, you have the choice of creating just one or up to six shortcut icons for display on your BlackBerry home screen by using the ShortcutHub.

Installing the ShortcutHub and a minimum of one shortcut takes less than a minute. Once the download process is complete, you will then find that an icon for the ShortcutHub and each website you’re planning on creating a shortcut to has already been added to your home screen. By clicking on the ShortcutHub icon, you can configure each website you would like to have connected to each one of the shortcuts you’ve also downloaded. When you’re done installing all of the icons you’d like featured on your BlackBerry home screen, you can then hide the ShortcutHub icon from view by highlighting it, pressing your menu key and selecting the hide option.

Can I Customize An Icon For My BlackBerry Home Screen?

You can also add your own .png image to appear as an icon or you can go with the image that is provided. However, if you’re not going to add your own image, you may want to erase the “http//” text that appears in the icon field within the ShortcutHub. The ShortcutHub directions don’t say that you have to do this, but I found that, without erasing the text, I had trouble getting the icon to actually work. When I erased the text, the installation worked perfectly.

Just keep in mind that you must install the proper amount of shortcuts that you’ll need before trying to add them within the ShortcutHub and enjoy adding up to six new shortcut icons on your BlackBerry for fast and easy access to your favorite websites.

Comments

May 27, 2010 9:06 PM
lahaddatu
webshortcut
I'm having the same problem as shadi & christ S.
pls advice?
Apr 30, 2010 10:26 PM
Christian
storm 2 (9550)
am one using this app on the storm 2? I can not input text, the keyboard appears however it will not recognize that i am touching it. any ideas?
Apr 25, 2010 4:50 PM
roger bose
great! thank you
thanks for your work bud
Apr 12, 2010 7:41 PM
Jay
Any way for this work with web radio station links?
This little blackberry program is great, I downloaded everything and can easily see how it would work...for "http://" sites.

However, I'd like it to point to a "rtsp://" link (web radio - opens up the blackberry media browser for streaming), and when I try to do that it says I still need to input a valid link.

Anybody have a fix? Thanks in advance.
Jan 12, 2010 1:23 PM
Chris Smith
WebShortcuts doesn't open a browser up
On an 8330 Curve, I install the Webshortcuts tool, but when I click the new icon, it thinks for a second and then stops, if I then click over to the browser icon and open it, the page that was tied to the webshortcut is there? Any thoughts? It happens on some 8330's and not others?
Dec 24, 2009 6:19 PM
stlyp
icon pictures
how do u change the icon picuture..do u just type in the file location from your fone? or wat?

Thanks alot to ! preciate this
Sep 12, 2009 11:02 AM
Shadi
Web Link Shortcut
Hey, Love the software and the ability to put your own image in for an icon. I'm having a problem with it. When I click on the icon that I created, I see that it starts my browser and brings it to the right page, but it doesn't actually open the browser window. Once I click on my shortcut, I then have to click on my browser. Any advice?