How to create shortcuts to a certain subset of files

Question

I have a large collection of books on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, organized by topic in many nested folders. I have a certain subset of them (coming from multiple folders) that I expect to refer to frequently, let's call them the "popular" books for convenience.

I'd like to have a single icon I can press on my home screen that will, one way or another, bring up the list of popular books, from where I can select a book to open.

• I want to preserve the organization of the folders, so creating a separate folder containing the popular books is not an option.
• I want to save space, so I don't want to make copies of every popular book and put all the copies in a separate folder.

Given these constraints, there are two approaches I can think of to do what I want.

First way:

1. Get an app "A" that can create shortcuts to individual files, and puts the shortcuts on the home screen.

2. Get an app "B" that can take arbitrary items on the home screen, and bundle them together into a single folder on the home screen.

3. Use A to create shortcuts to all the popular books on the home screen, then use B to bundle them together. Clicking the icon created by B should bring up a list of the popular books that I can then select from.

Second way:

1. Get an app "C" that can create shortcuts to individual files and put them in the file system, like (for example) Windows can - in Windows Explorer, I can right click on any file and choose "Create Shortcut", and the shortcut appears right there next to the file, not on the desktop.

2. Get an app "D" that can create shortcuts to folders in the file system, and puts the shortcuts on the homescreen.

3. Use C to create shortcuts to all the popular books in the file system, move them all to a single folder in the file system, then use D to create a shortcut to that folder on the home screen. Clicking the shortcut created by D should open the folder, which contains links to the popular books (this, presumably, does not have the same space issues as having two copies of every popular book).

So, here are my questions:

• Are there any other approaches you can think of to doing this?
• Do you have any recommendations for apps that would fill the role of B or C? I currently have Linda Manager, and it is only able to do A and D, as far as I can tell. For B, I have looked at Folder Manager, whose purpose is to create folders of apps on the home screen, but (as far as I can tell) it can't see the home screen shortcuts that Linda Manager creates to individual files.
• Are there any issues with either approach I proposed above that might prevent them from working? For example, are shortcuts "in the file system" even possible in Android?

Many thanks for your help.

Answer 1

1. Install Astro File Manager.

2. Long tap homescreen & choose Shortcuts. Then, choose Astro from list. Using it, you can create shortcut of any file on homescreen.

3. Bundle these shortcuts in a homescreen folder using your default launcher. I use in-built folder feature of ADW Launcher EX (my default home launcher).

If your default launcher doesn't have folder feature, you can install Folder Organizer. Using it, you can create folder widget on homescreen. You can put shortcuts in this widget & Astro will help here again as in Step 2.

Answer 2

Both approaches are possible. In fact, you don't need an app "B" as most Android launchers has folders. Most Android launchers doesn't allow you to create a home screen shortcut to a file or folder; however many popular file manager do allows you to do so.

With regards to creating shortcuts in the filesystem, Android is based on Linux, and Linux have symbolic links, which is like Windows' .lnk shortcut, only much better implemented.

Another, much better option is a single app that is specifically designed for your particular use case. Try "EStrongs File Manager" with its plugin "EStrongs Bookmark Manager". Both are free and can be found on the market.