Hidden iPod touch Settings revealed (including Album Shuffle)

[DerekVOF]

Worked fine for me - uninstalled and reinstalled and everything is good

 

[Zach23]

BlackWolf, the home buttons work perfectly this time.. good job!

 

[BlackWolf]

BlackWolf, the home buttons work perfectly this time.. good job!

yeah, that's what I wanted to hear if there are any apps that I should add to this that could be important on the phone let me know. I may write an how-to on how to add own apps to this tomorrow. glad that it works.

 

[Jim Danner]

do you think it would be enough to just put a confirmation into the uninstallation routine. so when you uninstall it says something like "all settings will remain as they are. if you want to change settings that are not available after uninstall you will have to install advanced prefs again to change them." I think it's not the best solution but ... well, it's a solution I mean it's not actually much settings that remain. its shuffle, carrier text and fake time.

You never know beforehand what users think of it... We'll see!

On the iPhone, the Shuffle settings are restored every time Music Player starts -- so that will not be a problem. As for fake time and the numeric WiFi/Battery values, if they want to remove them they'll just have to reinstall the package, remove them, and re-uninstall. That is such common sense that most users will understand it. (Same with the well-known application Customize: I uninstalled it, but the changes I made with it are still valid.)

Really the only problem was with Fake Carrier, because here the package made a change that it could not undo.

I've installed the package again, and i think it looks good. All the options for the Home button work (I have tried them all). Just three user-friendliness issues:

• The warning message during installation. In the first place, the wording is slightly confusing: instead of "Do you have uninstalled previous versions?", you probably mean "Have you uninstalled all previous versions?". Secondly, there must be a way to avoid asking the user about this. I assume you're afraid to overwrite the backups of original plist files with modified ones from earlier versions of your package. Maybe you could just check if the folder Preferences.app.bak is present, and if it is, give a warning or stop the installation.
• The requirement to have the BSD subsystem. That's very strange, because most packages can install themselves without that. I assume you need the chmod command. Anyway, this would make it unavailable for a number of users.
• The size of the Preferences.app.bak folder (about 1.4 MB on iPhone 1.1.2). This sits there taking up a lot of disk space on a 300 MB system partition, while you actually need only 10 kB for the plists and 5 kB for the English-language strings.

To combine the last two issues, I think it's better to make a backup of /Applications/Preferences.app/*.plist or something like that, and to put only those files back in their original place. This also takes away the need to change any permissions (with chmod): only the folder and the Preferences file have to be executable, and they don't change. I would suggest putting this backup in a subfolder of Preferences.app so it doesn't get deleted by a careless user.

I see you have figured out how to ask the user a "yes/no"-question in Installer. Would this make it possible to give the user the option of restoring the original settings during uninstall? (You'd have to make a backup of com.apple.springboard.plist during installation, of course.)

Overall, it starts looking better and better. Well done!

 

[BlackWolf]

You never know beforehand what users think of it... We'll see!

On the iPhone, the Shuffle settings are restored every time Music Player starts -- so that will not be a problem. As for fake time and the numeric WiFi/Battery values, if they want to remove them they'll just have to reinstall the package, remove them, and re-uninstall. That is such common sense that most users will understand it. (Same with the well-known application Customize: I uninstalled it, but the changes I made with it are still valid.)

Really the only problem was with Fake Carrier, because here the package made a change that it could not undo.

I've installed the package again, and i think it looks good. All the options for the Home button work (I have tried them all). Just three user-friendliness issues:

• The warning message during installation. In the first place, the wording is slightly confusing: instead of "Do you have uninstalled previous versions?", you probably mean "Have you uninstalled all previous versions?". Secondly, there must be a way to avoid asking the user about this. I assume you're afraid to overwrite the backups of original plist files with modified ones from earlier versions of your package. Maybe you could just check if the folder Preferences.app.bak is present, and if it is, give a warning or stop the installation.
• The requirement to have the BSD subsystem. That's very strange, because most packages can install themselves without that. I assume you need the chmod command. Anyway, this would make it unavailable for a number of users.
• The size of the Preferences.app.bak folder (about 1.4 MB on iPhone 1.1.2). This sits there taking up a lot of disk space on a 300 MB system partition, while you actually need only 10 kB for the plists and 5 kB for the English-language strings.

To combine the last two issues, I think it's better to make a backup of /Applications/Preferences.app/*.plist or something like that, and to put only those files back in their original place. This also takes away the need to change any permissions (with chmod): only the folder and the Preferences file have to be executable, and they don't change. I would suggest putting this backup in a subfolder of Preferences.app so it doesn't get deleted by a careless user.

I see you have figured out how to ask the user a "yes/no"-question in Installer. Would this make it possible to give the user the option of restoring the original settings during uninstall? (You'd have to make a backup of com.apple.springboard.plist during installation, of course.)

Overall, it starts looking better and better. Well done!

thanks. well, you're right about the options. since I removed the carrier text it should be no problem anymore.
as for the wording you may be right, my english is not that good since I'm from germany. I will change that.
the BSD subsystem ... well, the problem is that my last installer.xml did not work for a lot of people. I think lots of those problems were cause by wrong filerights, so I have to make sure that they are correctly. Since BSD is used for a lot of packages I just assumed that 90% of the users have it installed anyway. It may not be the best method, but I think it's better this way than if it doesn't work at all for some people or if the preferences get screwed or something, so I believe I will leave the requirement to have BSD installed in. I don't really like it, but I think its just the best way.
As for the package size: I waited for someone to complain about this The funny thing that the required space hasn't actually changed.
Before, I created a backup of the preferences and then I had my zip-file. that zip-file only contained the files I actually changed, so it was about 20kb in size. those files were copied into the preferences.app folder. all other files in the preferences folder remained unchanged.
I noticed that this caused problems for some users. the installer didn't seem to like copying to a location that already existed. so the new system is: the installer creates a backup, then deletes the preferences.app folder. my zip file now contains the complete preferences.app folder (thus making it about 1.5MB in size, which is about 5MB unpacked, which is the same size as the preferences had before) and copies it to the ipod.
so before I had the backup folder and the preferences.app, and now its the same. there are just more files you copy over from my zip files, that's it.

I figured its a little much disk usage, so I'm currently thinking about a method to provide an update to you that copies the backup to the second partition. If I'm able to do this, the preferences.app won't take any space in reality. You download 1.5MB and unpack 5MB, but that's the 5MB the preferences.app already had before. I think I can do it without forcing the user to uninstall again.

 

[Jim Danner]

Just one thing -- in the default 1.1.2 iPhone, the Preferences.app folder is just 1.4 MB. It grows to 5 MB when all the extra languages are added to it. I guess your original source for the folder had done that... My installation (unchanged since jailbreak) has English, German, French and Italian .lproj folders.

 

[BlackWolf]

Just one thing -- in the default 1.1.2 iPhone, the Preferences.app folder is just 1.4 MB. It grows to 5 MB when all the extra languages are added to it. I guess your original source for the folder had done that... My installation (unchanged since jailbreak) has English, German, French and Italian .lproj folders.

alright, I will change that with an update. I put together the iPhone version today and wondered why it only had 4 languages while the touch had like 15 or so. I thought I accidentally deleted them and re-added them. But if it was a mistake, I will delete them with the next update.

 

[celebi23]

Just one thing -- in the default 1.1.2 iPhone, the Preferences.app folder is just 1.4 MB. It grows to 5 MB when all the extra languages are added to it. I guess your original source for the folder had done that... My installation (unchanged since jailbreak) has English, German, French and Italian .lproj folders.

Same thing with me. I've got an iPod Touch 1.1.2. When I installed this, it created the Preferences.app.bak, which was the same size as the default Preferences.app of 5.8MB. When I deleted it, the Preferences app that remained was 1.4MB. The difference in .app size was the fact that there were files missing in the .lproj folders besides the English.lproj folder. Some folders were missing some/ if not all files. That was my only problem with this. It just shocked me a bit at first to see the size difference

 

[F.Gozalo]

Hi there, first, great app! I've just installed the iPhone version, works as advertised. I have one doubt though, where is the wallpaper settings located, I mean, i've read a few pages back and it is supposed to be under the dispay settings, the problem is, in my case, it's not there. Can anyone else check to see if its just me, or somehow that is indeed missing in the iPhone version? Cheers.

Once again, thanks, I really enjoyed it!

 

[RJT]

Legendary, thank you m8.

Edit: I'm getting a "Script Execution Error", anyone?

 

[BlackWolf]

Legendary, thank you m8.

Edit: I'm getting a "Script Execution Error", anyone?

New version
I hope to fix the main script execution error for a lot or all people know (oh man I so hope that). try again all of you and cross your fingers. unfortunatly, you again have to uninstall all previous versions, even 1.2. I'm very sorry for that.
btw: I kicked out unneeded languages from the iphone version so its gotten a lot smaller!

Hi there, first, great app! I've just installed the iPhone version, works as advertised. I have one doubt though, where is the wallpaper settings located, I mean, i've read a few pages back and it is supposed to be under the dispay settings, the problem is, in my case, it's not there. Can anyone else check to see if its just me, or somehow that is indeed missing in the iPhone version? Cheers.

Once again, thanks, I really enjoyed it!

oh I think you're right. can anyone else with an iphone check that? I believe you're right. unfortunatly I have to go now but I will fix that when I get home. Sorry.

 

[RJT]

New version
I hope to fix the main script execution error for a lot or all people know (oh man I so hope that). try again all of you and cross your fingers. unfortunatly, you again have to uninstall all previous versions, even 1.2. I'm very sorry for that.
btw: I kicked out unneeded languages from the iphone version so its gotten a lot smaller!

It installed, but now I don't seem to have any "settings" option at all. The icon has completely disappeared from my touch.

Edit: And I have no option to "uninstall"

 

[F.Gozalo]

New versionoh I think you're right. can anyone else with an iphone check that? I believe you're right. unfortunatly I have to go now but I will fix that when I get home. Sorry.

No problem at all. Once again, many thanks, this is minor compared to the greatness of this app.

Cheers!

 

[RJT]

I'd just really like to know whether or not I can get my regular settings back without doing a full restore/jailbreak again - I really don't feel like losing all the data I have in there right now.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[BlackWolf]

I'd just really like to know whether or not I can get my regular settings back without doing a full restore/jailbreak again - I really don't feel like losing all the data I have in there right now.

Thanks in advance for any help.

did you install 1.3? because this should not happen with 1.3.
do you have mobilefinder installed? if so, use that, otherwise: do you know how to access the touch with SSH?

whichever way you take, move to /private/var/root/Library/Preferences/
there should be a Preferences.app.bak present there. rename it to Preferences.app and then copy or move it to /Applications/
this should bring back your original settings.

I heard some (very few) people complain about their settings disappearing, but I thought that should be impossible with 1.3.
btw: if your settings disappeared after trying to install 1.2, your Preferences.app.bak folder is found in /Applications/
remove /Applications/Preferences.app/ if it exists and then rename your Preferences.app.bak to get your prefs back

Sorry for the trouble!

If anything else fails, download
http://nachdenki.m8an.de/Orig_Preferences.zip and access your touch with SSH and then copy the content of the zip to /Applications/
(those prefs are for ipod touches, if you have an iphone I can upload the settings for that for you)

If the installer keeps screwing some peoples preferences I will remove the Installer installation and get back to manual installation, because if 1.3 doesn't work I can't think of anything why it doesn't and I can't keep this up if it possibly screws your settings.

 

[Damitu]

Help

I downloaded this from the installer and, as someone had mentioned before my
settings dissapeared..!!!

I downloaded the original setting and, SSHed them into my touch...

My settings tab came back after a reset but, there is nothing there....
It will show a blank screen then will shut down by itself..

Can someone PLEASE HELP ME either get my original settings back
or get the extended one....

Thanks for any help on this..

David

 

[BlackWolf]

I downloaded this from the installer and, as someone had mentioned before my
settings dissapeared..!!!

I downloaded the original setting and, SSHed them into my touch...

My settings tab came back after a reset but, there is nothing there....
It will show a blank screen then will shut down by itself..

Can someone PLEASE HELP ME either get my original settings back
or get the extended one....

Thanks for any help on this..

David

if you copied the settings in by hand it's most likely because you havn't set the correct filerights. SSH to /Applications/Preferences.app, mark everything and set its rights to 755 (often called chmod in SSH-programs)

sorry for the trouble.
did this happen with 1.3 or an earlier version?

 

[F.Gozalo]

Hi there BlackWolf. In your next realease of the extended preferences app for the iPhone, can you add the wallpaper settings?! That's all I miss from the original one.

Thanks! Cheers.

 

[Damitu]

Re-Help

I SSHed the whole original preferences into applications..

Yes, it was 1.3

I will go into the file and check that it is all at 755

 

[Damitu]

Whew

Ok, I think that was my problem...

I had originally just set permission on the whole pref's file but, I went
in and individually set them all to 755 and lo and behold my settings are back!!

Thanks for helping a noob...My touch has been jailbroken for a long time and,
I didn't want to have to do it over......

Keep up the good work and, again.

THANKS!!!