Shortly, about the new features in v.3.1.0. The two most important things are: 1) Filtering of the call / message log by type and 2) Selection of the accounts in use.
By filtering the calls and messages by type (you can select what the log should show) it’s really easy to get a clearer overview of, for example, all the missed calls you have. This was a requested feature, and it’s quite useful.
The second feature was also requested, even from the earliest versions of the app, and was even implemented once, but since the account management was introduced in Android 2.1, the solution I came up with for earlier versions of Android didn’t function well on all devices. This time, the feature is implemented only for Android 2.1 and above devices, so everything is “by the book”.
Fast Dialer 3.0.0 supports landscape mode, a request from the ones using it on large-screen phones, which are naturally positioned horizontally, especially while driving. The app comes with nice large buttons, but still, keep your eyes on the road.
Fast Dialer by default searches through both names and numbers. But, it was thoroughly explained to me, that this may cause not only confusion, but also unwanted expenses. Namely, Krakozawr (to whom I’m also grateful for the localization on Belarusian) wrote that often, when he searched by name and pressed the call button, he ended calling a wrong number (for example, an international number, instead of a mobile), because the same contact was found both by name and by (the unwanted for frequent dialing) international number.
Well, yes, this doesn’t happen so often, because most people are used to type three characters in order to find the desired contact. But, when I added an option to turn off the “search by number” (this option is in the Functionality tweaks submenu), suddenly, the search became much faster – as only 2 chars were necessary in order to find the contact you want to dial. And, of course, you’ll be dialing the desired, i.e. the default number.
Well, that’s nice, but should you go deep into the settings in order to be able to search by number again? No 🙂 Just turn on the long forgotten “search all numbers” option via a long press on the blue # button – and quickly find the number you are after. Neat, isn’t it?
Here’s the new version which includes several significant features. First, the optimization of the app’s operation – it now loads and works faster.
Second – themes. Long awaited, at last implemented. Eight new, nice themes. And still, the app weights ~350k, much less than the competitive apps (at least the ones I’ve heard of). Use the poll on the right side to vote for your favourite.
And the third thing I find important are the images for the different phone types. The labels are small, and it takes a moment to read them. With the images its faster and easier to comprehend which number you received a call from, or which number you’d dial when pressing the call button.
With all these fancy stuff, maybe I should rename the app to Nice dialer 🙂
Classic gray
Artificial ice
Console
Gold bars
Seven
Navy blue
Ms Claire
Café au lait
Just one note: have in mind that the size and the colour of the letters on the dialpad can be changed for all themes equally. Also, the red digits’ background in the “Ms Claire” theme means that the “wildcard mode” search is on (and that is available in all themes too).
One thing I was missing in the dialer, was the possibility to access the SMS messages. I never understood why should there be two different logs for the calls and for the messages. Thus, starting from version 2.6.0, Fast Dialer combines these two logs into one.
As expected, blue is for received and green is for sent messages. Enjoy!
any chance to have an option to display the full call log in the dialer and not only the dialed numbers? if we can have this also it could replace the complete dialer
This was a common request – with reason. So, here’s version 2.5 which includes the full call log. There are some other improvements too, like using the number field as a call button, and the button to toggle between the call log and the contacts’ list, translation to Arabic etc. Enjoy.
One of the features many people take for granted on a phone is speed dialing (where you long press on a key to dial a favourite contact). Well, the Android development team didn’t find that’s important and never included it. Therefore, all other phone manufacturers who didn’t agree with this thinking developed their own mechanism for speed dialing, each in its own way. (I tried to get an answer from Motorola, for example, how they implement this nice little feature, and got the non-surprising answer that “Right now, there is no open API to modify or use the speed dial information for any 3rd party app.”)
Hence, in order to have speed dial in Fast Dialer, it was necessary to make it separate from the eventual phone’s implementation. Meaning that you set it and use it only in Fast Dialer. But, that’s not bad, I’d say.
Long pressing a contact’s name opens a context menu with the option to “Set Speed Dial” for that contact. Next you choose the number and to which key to map it. Available are the keys from 2 to 9 (as 1 is for voice mail, and 0 is for the + sign). The screen-shot is the screen where one sets the speed dial numbers.
I saw that in other applications there are up to 98 numbers available for speed dial, but I wonder who will remember which contact is on which position if you have 98 positions available 🙂 On the other hand, two digit number speed dialing means typing 2 digits (the second one with a long press), and on Fast Dialer you can find any contact by name by typing 3 digits (for most of the time).
As not so rarely, not many people were so thrilled with the thing I was – the senior display mode. They requested at least numbers on the keypad. So, here you are: the newest version 2.3.0 of Fast Dialer has four different display modes: normal, dominant (as in dominant second language), senior and junior (as senior + numbers).
Other novelties in this release:
The long time requested “Sort by family name” – available only on Froyo (and above) devices. Well, android is improving, sorting by family name in 2.2, who knows what sophisticated feature will be available next.
Redial. Pressing the hard “Call” key when nothing is typed makes a call to the last dialed number.
Preferred phone number by type (for Eclair and above devices, the older have a default number by default)
Inverse action – tap on the contact name to make a call, tap in the right corner to open the contact details. People claimed that this would be very useful when “on the go”, so here they are. I don’t agree and stick to the default.
Configurable length of the keypad tones.
Enjoy. Here’s a song to go with the Junior display mode:
[youtube w2ci4WAD2zo]
Glad to introduce my favourite new feature: Senior mode. It’s to be found in the “Look and feel” submenu, as it means no change in the functionality, only in the visual aspect of the app.
For me it was always a bit problematic to find my way through the letters, when I was “on the go”. The latest version 2.2.0 provides two solutions for this, one is to set a custom colour for the letters of the second language, which is a very standard way, and the second way is the “Senior mode” which may seem a bit peculiar. It means that the letters of the second language are displayed LARGE, so that they are hard to miss. The numbers are gone, since we all know where they stand – as it is their position that is relevant, not their value. The Latin letters are also gone – since a) many use mostly (or only) the second language, and b) because many know the position of the Latin letters on the dialpad (for example, I wasn’t aware I knew that, until now). I'm fit for the senior mode, obviously.The ones that use no second language, the Latin letters will be displayed LARGE in senior mode. Very cool. But, still, I wasn’t brave enough to set this option per default, you should find it in the menu and try it out.
Please note that the functionality remains the same, even when only the second language letters are displayed, the search is by two alphabets, and by numbers, of course.
Another new thing in this release is – apart from several fixes – usage of the hardware call button. Quite strange that not until several people on the 4PDA.ru forum requested this feature, did I realize that this button could be used for more than just starting the app… So now, when your search yields only one result, pressing the hard call button will call that contact. Otherwise, the number in the dial field will be dialed.
Shortly, about the new features in v.3.1.0. The two most important things are: 1) Filtering of the call / message log by type and 2) Selection of the accounts in use. 
