(Last edited Feb 26, 2008)

The Hardware buttons

The four hardware buttons (Date Book, Contacts/Address Book, Photos, Note Pad) with the 5-way navigator (joystick) button in the center

Depending on your device’s model, the layout of the hardware buttons may differ slightly from what’s on the Zire 71. Especially for the much newer devices, the first hardware button isn’t set as Datebook as a default. So, keep that in mind when you are planning on using a third party application that is specifically designed for and supports the newer devices.

Each of the four hardware buttons located near the bottom of the Palm can immediately launch an application. This can be very handy when you don’t wish to have to turn on the Palm, go to the launcher application and then tap on an application. This is something similar to the Quick Launch task bar in Windows where you click on the icon and it launches. In the Palm, you press the hardware button and the application launches.

The buttons by default are Date Book, Contacts/Address Book, Photos, Note Pad. Pressing on the Date Book button will launch the Date Book application and so on. You can customize the buttons so that you can launch whichever application you want with those same buttons. So, you can set the first button, which normally launches the Date Book application to launch the Expense application instead.

Again, in a previous posting, on the Prefs Application, I have mentioned and shown in the simulation the menus where you can customize the hardware buttons. Please feel free to refer back to that posting for more info.

The 5-way navigator/joystick button allows you to move it left, right, up, down and press in (select). For some games, the ability to move using this button can be very helpful. Even when in a launcher application or menu, you can easily use the 5-way button to move and make selections, rather than tapping with the stylus.

Although each of the hardware buttons have a default application set to them, you can easily change the application that they can launch either via the Prefs Application or using third party applications like ButtonsEx, ButtonLaunch. Please note that ButtonsEx has stated that it supports the newer devices and I have tried it on my Zire 71, finding that it doesn’t really work, especially, when the hardware buttons are not the same on the TX or newer devices and the 5-way navigator functions aren’t working. So, keep that in mind.

I have written a posting that discusses button launch or switching applications. You may find it interesing to check out.

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