Installing Android CM7 Alpha 2.1 (Part 1)

Firstly, this version of Android for the HP Touchpad was developed by the Cyanogenmod team and full credit goes to them and the other developers out there who worked very hard to make this happen in such a short amount of time.

Secondly, this version of Android is still VERY BUGGY. It is not the full release and therefore certain things do not work at 100% and some not at all.

Thirdly, if you are not confident with computers DO NOT DO THIS TUTORIAL as you may very well brick your Touchpad. Neither myself or any of the developers at Cyanogenmod take any resposibility for damaged/bricked devices so consider this a warning.

For those of you that want to go ahead I will make this as easy to follow as I possibly can. I recommend that you read every step twice and then another 3 times until you are fully familiar with what needs to be done. This tutorial, once completed successfully, will allow you to have a dual booting Touchpad with WebOS and Cyanogenmod 7 (Android Gingerbread) given as boot options when you turn the device on. This tutorial also shows how to install Clockworkmod Recovery, which will allow us to install the Android Market and other google apps.

1. THINGS YOU WILL NEED BEFORE STARTING!
DO NOT FORGET TO CHECK YOUR MD5 VALUES AFTER DOWNLOAD TO AVOID BRICKING THE DEVICE!!!

1. Read http://rootzwiki.com/topic/3477-releasealpha2discussion-cyanogenmod-team-touchpad-port/ before you start in case I have forgotten to mention something that the original post did. (I will include the download links from that site here)
2. Download MD5 Checker http://www.softpedia.com/dyn-postdownload.php?p=22900&t=4&i=1 (use this to check the integrity of your downloads against the MD5 value provided)
3. Download the ACME installer http://goo.im/devs/jcsullins/cmtouchpad/testing/ACMEInstaller3md5: b28627584691f88eb119697a43822433
4. Download CM7 http://goo-inside.me...-fullofbugs.zip                                                            md5: 2d3a4f1984c025a07f7cff0d43b3aae1
5. Download Clockwork Recovery http://goo-inside.me...erloin-1012.zip md5: 1308300f38685d44afde730efd9132cc
6. Download Moboot http://code.google.c.../downloads/list
7. Download the WebOS SDK from HP

32 bit windows: https://cdn.downloads.palm.com/sdkdownloads/3.0.2.652/sdkBinaries/HP_webOS_SDK-Win-3.0.2-652-x86.exe
64 bit windows: https://cdn.downloads.palm.com/sdkdownloads/3.0.2.652/sdkBinaries/HP_webOS_SDK-Win-3.0.2-652-x64.exe
I do not have a Mac so I cannot make a tutorial that suits Mac. If you have specific questions please google it and you will more than likely find your answer.

Please continue to Part 2 for installation preparation.

MOVIES!!!!

Hey everyone. As you may know already the Touchpad is limited to playing movies formatted as MP4. We can't really get around this right now effectively with apps or anything on the actual device. I however was pointed towards a windows program which does a fantastic job at converting all types of video formats to MP4 and they come out looking great. The program is called Free Video Converter and is on the site www.any-video-converter.com. I have played around with it and it will convert a full length movie in about 20 to 30 mins depending on the original quality. I converted a 720p movie in about that time.

Give it a try and let me know how you go or if you have found any better programs

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your app suggestions in regards to playing vids on the TP. Here's a list of your suggestions

• Kalemsoft Media Player
• Air playit
• Touchplayer

and on pc

• Handbrake

Daniel

Update

So I've been busy over the last couple of days that's why I haven't got any posts out. I am still working on compiling a list of good webOS apps, which will come eventually. I wanted to post today to tell you that, and also to tell you, in case you hadn't heard yet, that the Cyanogenmod team have apparently been working very hard on getting android over to the HP touchpad. They announced yesterday that they have developed an alpha Android rom for it. This rom IS NOT released but they have announced that they will be releasing the Beta once completed. The only other information given was a video showing the touchpad running this OS and some information which hinted that the device would be able to multi-boot e.g run webOS and Android.

The Rom allows them to boot into Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread but many of the components are barely functional at this point. The touchscreen isn't supported yet, the graphics are a bit dodgy because graphics acceleration is not yet supported, and also the general layout of android is optimized for mobile phone rather than a tablet which would normally run 3.x.x Honeycomb Android.

This is great and exciting news that we've all been waiting for and I can't wait to get an easy to follow tutorial out for all of you to be able to enjoy what is bound to be a great $98 experience. Lets all show our support by donating over at the dev sites like Rootzwiki and Cyanogenmod

Click HERE to view the post on Rootzwiki

Stay Tuned

Daniel

News from the community

Ok people, change of plans. I was going to bring you a list of good apps. I have changed my mind because today I was trawling the web for news on porting android and it turns out that progress has been made.

Soo....
you may have already heard and/or seen the video of someone with android running on a hp touchpad. There was a spoof one and then there was a legit one supposedly (that's what I'm running with because I like to be optimistic :) <---like how I turned the close bracket into a smiley face?? Anyway I found out over at rootzwiki that there is an image dump of a hp touchpad with Android 2.2.1 Head over to rootzwiki to see for yourself.

I have downloaded this dump and had a bit of a look at it (it doesn't look like much to the untrained eye).
One thing I can be sure about is that progress is truly underway. At one point there I thought that the Touchdroid Team had disbanded, but clearly I was wrong. This means that soon we should have a working rom out on the web and available for me to make a tutorial on. Until then, get excited, because I definitely am and it looks weird if I'm the only one.

I will keep trying to get this image on my touchpad and if it works well and is easy enough I'll make a tute for that otherwise we'll just have to wait until a proper rom release is out.

Stay Tuned

Daniel

Tutorial #4 Other cool stuff

So the main stuff is posted already but I thought I'd make a post with a collection of other stuff that you can do with your touchpad. The first thing that you can do is change the theme:

So far the only theme available for touchpad is called Glass Effect suite, and all it really changes is the launcher menu to be transparent a bit. I thought I'd add it here anyway because its something to do while we wait :)

1. Firstly open up your Preware app (which you would have installed in tutorial 2) and wait for it to download the latest repository lists. Secondly we have to turn on the theming repositories. The following short video will show you how to do that.

Excuse the bad filming but basically what you have to do is enable the feeds that contain the themes. Then either look through the themes list for "glass effect theme for touchpad" or search for it in the search bar.

2. Deleting multiple emails at a time
In the email app and in the middle column you have a list of all the emails in the selected inbox. To delete one email you can swipe it to the right and then press delete. This works for one or two emails, but if you have a gigantic inbox then this can become somewhat tedious. There is however a better way to delete multiple emails.

In the middle column down the bottom there is a small icon that looks like a folder - tap on that

This will take you to a batch select mode which looks like this...

The blue highlighted ones are selected. Down the bottom you will notice there is a trash-can icon. This will delete all the emails you have selected.

3. Minimizing app quickly.
To quickly minimize an app simply swipe upwards from below the bottom of the screen onto the screen about an inch. This will minimize your application and take you to the home screen.

4. Closing an application.
To close an application either minimize it using the method above or press the "home" button. Once in the cards view you may simply drag the session you want to close, upwards off the top of the screen.

5. Managing Cards
To manage open cards you may do a few different things. The following video will demonstrate this.

So there you go. A few more things to play with. Tomorrow's tutorial will be a list of useful/good apps from both the hp app catalog and from the homebrew app store.


Until then...

Daniel