SimpleTap upgrade lost my tiles and configuration, and trash "sponsor" icons

[someotherguy · Accepted solution]

michele654,

I e-mailed you the patch that will fix the issue of missing tiles after upgrade.  Please do let us know whether it resolves the problem on your system or not.  The patch will be integrated into a future version of SimpleTap.

To anyone else that has this problem, please contact me for the patch.

[jkriegel]

Is there a way to use our own image for a tile in SimpleTap 2.0, like there was in SimpleTap 1?  Many websites don't have an icon associated with them, so the tiles are generated with just a generic image that can be hard to discern from other tiles (notwithstanding the helpful editable titles under the tiles).

[michele654]

I tested the patch you sent me, and it did the job. My custom tiles and the regular tiles were all jumbled, and because of the names of the tiles being new, I can't quite get it like I had, but I'll slowly adjust to change. I have the same question as the poster above, I created the batch file to open multiple programs at one time, and that works fine, but it just has the funky gear picture. I would like to set the icon myself. -Michele

[someotherguy]

The product team decided that the option to set a custom icon was too complex for a product called "SimpleTap" so that option went away in 2.0.  In addition to that each tile in SimpleTap 2.0 has a text label beneath it which can be modified, so this also played into the decision not to allow for a custom icon selection within the application.  However I recognize the need to do that, and I'm discussing with the software team whether that option should return in an advanced menu of the next version of SimpleTap.

Outside of the SimpleTap GUI, it is still possible to specify a custom icon as follows:

1.  using Windows explorer, browse to "c:\users\USERNAME\appdata\roaming\lenovo\simpletap"

2.  find the XML file that pertains to the tile you want to modify.  Usually you can figure it out based on the file name.  Then open the XML file with a text editor such as notepad

3.  for website tiles, it's just a matter of changing the entry for <AltImage> and you can point to any image file on your HDD (it does not have to be a BMP).

4.  for EXE/BAT tiles, you have to add an <AltImage> line, please use a website tile for an example of how to do that.

To test the modified tile, you have to exit and reload SimpleTap as follows:

1.  From within SimpleTap, press ctrl-q to exit SimpleTap

2.  Then restart SimpleTap from Start Menu, or else logoff/logon to Windows.

I'm sorry for the difficulty in making a custom image, but it's always a balancing act between keeping a product extremely simple and having enough function for the advanced users such as yourselves.  Please let me know if the above instructions work for you or if you need any clarifications.

[michele654]

Can't change the icon. Here's the process I went through. Created a web page tile, so I could see what I needed. The image for that tile is 35x35 pixels, so I created my image to be 35x35 pixels. It was a gif file. Pulled the AltImage string from the website tile, and added it to my custom tile, updating for the image location. Didn't work. Moved the image to the user/AppData/Roaming/Lenovo/SimpleTap directory and updated the xml file, no go. Renamed the image to the user_Radar Page.bat.xml.gif format that the website tile had. No go. Re-formatted to a bmp file that the website tile image was. No go. Put quotes around the file location since there was a space in the name. No go. Removed the quotes, and the space, in the file name. Still no go. Still, all I see is the gear image associated with batch files. Ideas? -Michele

[michele654]

I get an error trying to post the xml file, so I've emailed you the xml file and the image to look at. Sorry to abuse your private email that way, but I couldn't post it here for some reason. -Michele

[someotherguy]

Anytime you manually modify the XML file you have to stop and restart SimpleTap (using ctrl-q) for the changes to take effect.  Or else log off windows and log back in.  Are you doing that?  Because your files worked for me and I saw your custom icon.

[michele654]

I did stop and start SimpleTap, using Ctrl-q. Frequently. I will try a reboot in a bit, after I do my morning Radar Page work. At least I know that I did it right, and just need to find out why it's not working for me. Thanks.

[mvis]

I also lost my Simpletap - my X220t is less than one day old. The problem is the ThinkVantage that lets you upgrade to Simpletap 2.0. Then the installation wants to delete your old Simpletap version. At first I thought hmm, this is odd. I thought Lenovo is smart enough to install the SImpletap 2 after deleting the original version. But no! So I lost the Simpletap. I think I updated my ThinkVantage then the SImpletap so maybe that's where the problem is.

Now when I tried to recover using Windows, then my ThinkVantage would not execute. So now I have 2 problems. I called Lenovo Service and they could not fix it. Worse thing, the second guy that I called said the first guy may have installed the wrong version of ThinkVantage when he tries to fix the ThinkVantage (it did not get fixed anyway and the blue button never worked). So I asked him how to set back to factory setting. He said press F11 upon bootup. And that's what I did. Now, I am afraid to do the upgrade. I never had this problem on my W500 which I bought about 2 years ago.

[lobon]

Hi Someotherguy,

I also have this exact problem (missing brightness tile in SimpleTap). This is about a month ago and I didn't know why. At that point of time, I had uninstalled SimpleTap totally.  Later, I found that even in the Windows Mobility Center in Control Panel, I also had the brightness tile missing. I can only change brightness thru Fn+key, and cannot change brightness easily when in tablet mode. Any suggestion? My machine is X220T. Many thanks.

For your reference, I believe I have ever tried to trash the brightness tile in an old version of SimpleTap. The brightness tiles then started to be missing i suppose, if i remembered correctly.