Home screen bookmarks

[Odin]

Hey all,
Just curious if anyone knows of a way to dictate what icon appears on the home screen when you bookmark a website on the home screen. I really can't stand the icon looking like a picture of the website. It looks absolutely stupid.
Thanks,
Odin

 

[gamal]

Customize your webclips with icons of your choice

I have been using CUSTOMIZED WEBCLIPS from Soft Use for the iPhone for two years now and it works perfectly on my iPad too. Go to this website ( http://soft-use.com/ ) and follow the instructions for Customized Webclips for the iPhone.

 

[Odin]

Awesome thanks. I'll check it out.

 

[Odin]

Gamal, Do you design your own webclips? I'm not sure what link it is looking for for the web clip.

 

[gamal]

Using Soft Use Webclip Generator

Hey,
Thanks for the tip about soft-use. I've been looking at the directions since you told me about it and I am starting to feel retarded...... Any way you can walk me through the steps on how to do it for google.com? Just as an example?

Thanks!

You are welcome. The first steps are the most important ones and you will need to do them only once and after that they will be always available in your Bookmarks. These steps include creating two bookmarks ( herein referred to as bookmarklets ), one to grab the picture you want to use as an icon and is called Clip Icon Bookmarklet and the other to grab the URL ( foe example Google ) and is called Website URL Bookmarklet. To create these two bookmarklets you have to do it on the iPad or iPhone and go to Soft Use Website and touch the badge titled Clip Icon Bookmarklet and the instructions will walk you through how to create it and save it in your bookmarks. Repeat the same thing with the Website URL Bookmarklet to get its instruction. Once you have these two bookmarklets saved in your bookmarks, you are in business. So, in the example of creating a web icon for Google you will go to your iPad and open Safari and do an image search or logo search for Google. You will get search results with many Google logos. Pick the one you want and go to its original website ( by touching the image location or source next to the image ). Once you are there and you see the image hit the bookmarks icon in Safari and find the Clip Icon Bookmarklet. Once you find it, touch it and you will see that all the images that are on the web page have been placed in the center of the page without text. Touch the image you want and this will automatically take you to a web clip creation screen with the address for the image you want already filled in. Below the box for the image there will be a box for the url. You can fill it in if it is easy or you can copy it and paste it if it is long or you can use the Websie URL Bookmarklet by going to that page and applying that bookmarklet to it. Do not worry about losing the icon creation screen when you go back and forth between pages because Soft Use will always take you back to it. Once both fields are filled in that screen, touch< Create Webclip Icon and now you will see the image you want iconized and you will have a chance at this point to type up a name for it and then press the + sign to add it to your home screen. Even though this all sounds very complicated, it really is not except for the first time and once you get it to work right , it does not take a minute from that point on to create icons for web pages. I hope that it works for you.

Gamal

 

[Odin]

Thanks for the awesome instructions! I was able to figure out how to do it all. Now the only problem is the web clip is not showing up. It is still showing a view of the website from soft-use. I've waited like 30 minutes as they said it could take a little while. Any ideas?

 

[Temp40]

Hey,
Thanks for the tip about soft-use. I've been looking at the directions since you told me about it and I am starting to feel retarded...... Any way you can walk me through the steps on how to do it for google.com? Just as an example?

Thanks!

You are welcome. The first steps are the most important ones and you will need to do them only once and after that they will be always available in your Bookmarks. These steps include creating two bookmarks ( herein referred to as bookmarklets ), one to grab the picture you want to use as an icon and is called Clip Icon Bookmarklet and the other to grab the URL ( foe example Google ) and is called Website URL Bookmarklet. To create these two bookmarklets you have to do it on the iPad or iPhone and go to Soft Use Website and touch the badge titled Clip Icon Bookmarklet and the instructions will walk you through how to create it and save it in your bookmarks. Repeat the same thing with the Website URL Bookmarklet to get its instruction. Once you have these two bookmarklets saved in your bookmarks, you are in business. So, in the example of creating a web icon for Google you will go to your iPad and open Safari and do an image search or logo search for Google. You will get search results with many Google logos. Pick the one you want and go to its original website ( by touching the image location or source next to the image ). Once you are there and you see the image hit the bookmarks icon in Safari and find the Clip Icon Bookmarklet. Once you find it, touch it and you will see that all the images that are on the web page have been placed in the center of the page without text. Touch the image you want and this will automatically take you to a web clip creation screen with the address for the image you want already filled in. Below the box for the image there will be a box for the url. You can fill it in if it is easy or you can copy it and paste it if it is long or you can use the Websie URL Bookmarklet by going to that page and applying that bookmarklet to it. Do not worry about losing the icon creation screen when you go back and forth between pages because Soft Use will always take you back to it. Once both fields are filled in that screen, touch< Create Webclip Icon and now you will see the image you want iconized and you will have a chance at this point to type up a name for it and then press the + sign to add it to your home screen. Even though this all sounds very complicated, it really is not except for the first time and once you get it to work right , it does not take a minute from that point on to create icons for web pages. I hope that it works for you.

Gamal

great info Gamal, thanks for sharing

 

[Odin]

Ipadbuzz, if you get it to work please let me know. I think I am doing everything right. Just not working....

 

[cherhall]

I've found that most sites create an icon when I hit the + to add a link on the home page. When you hit + don't immediately save, wait a little bit and the screenshot will turn into a custom icon for the site. Then save. Only one site that I've tried so far, has not done this.

 

[Odin]

Interesting. I will give it a try. On what sites has that worked for you?

 

[cherhall]

Interesting. I will give it a try. On what sites has that worked for you?

Facebook, Appshopper, World of Warcraft, Best Buy, among others, changed to custom icons. It didn't work for ipadforums unfortunately!

 

[Odin]

I figured out what I was doing wrong. You have to navigate to the site where the image is away from google. I was leaving the top frame from google on the page. I clicked close frame and did it again and it worked no problem with creating the icon. Only problem is I can't get it to go to Google. lol. I will edit this if I figure it out.

EDIT: Ok, think I am good to go. I was just using www.google.com you need to use http:// in front.

Thanks Gamal for posting this incredible website. I will be using this a TON!!!!

 

[gamal]

So glad it worked for you

You are very welcome. I know you will enjoy having beautiful home screens like I had.

Gamal

 

[Odin]

I certainly will. Does the image I use need to remain on the Internet or is it fine once I use it. You could potentially make your own images and host them somewhere for custom icons right?

 

[gamal]

Answer to both questions

The pictures you use do not need to stay on the internet, they are stored on Soft Use server the first time you use them. And you can definitely host your own custom images and use them. What I do for this purpose is very simple. I upload any custom images I want to use to my Picasa web albums ( You must use only a Picasa public album, not an unlisted or password protected album ) and navigate to the desired image and copy its link in Soft Use webclip screen.

Gamal