The Storm Home Page is a custom template to organize and collect popular websites for easy access from your Storm's browser.  You can set the Storm Home Page as the start page for your browser so that the links appear each time you start the browser application. To use the Storm Home Page as your home page on your Storm, follow the following steps.

1.   Start the Browser application on your phone. Press the Menu key () | Go To... and enter the following address in the location box at the top of the screen: http://stormpage.freehostia.com. Press Enter (twice) to load the page.

(Note: you may need to hit backspace once to delete the default "www" text in the location bar before entering the address.)

2.  Once the page has loaded in your browser, press Menu | Options, and then select Browser Configuration.  In the Browser Configuration screen we need to do three things:

a.  Click the Support Javascript checkbox if its not already checked

b. Change the Start Page option from "Start Page" to "Home Page"

b.  Press the Use Current button at the bottom of the screen

After you press the "Use Current" button, the "Home Page Address" shown should change to the address you entered above.

3.  Press Menu | Save Options, and you are finished. Press the Escape key () until you return to the browser screen.

Changing the Weather Dropdown

The weather dropdown is accessed by clicking the weather icon in the upper-right corner of the page. The weather location is set to Chicago by default, but you can customize this to any location you choose.

Open the weather dropdown and select the "click here to change location" link at the top. The link is small, so you might want to use the Cursor Mode to assist you.  Enter the 5-digit zip code for your location, and then press Save. After a moment, the weather display should show your new location.

 If you get an error message reading "The Zone Forecast is Currently Unavailable" it means that the zip code you entered is not recognized. Please re-enter the zip code, or if that does not work, try a zip code for a nearby area.

Customizing the Template

If you are comfortable doing basic html editing, you are welcome to edit the template to change the folders and sites. To customize the template with your own favorite links, you will need to download the template file, edit the link files, and then host the file on the internet. If you do not know how to edit html files or how to host a webpage on your own hosting service, I do not recommend attempting a customized version at this time. I will endeavor to prepare tutorials on these topics in the future.

Download the template file here: Storm Home Page.  The zip file contains the home page (index.html), the link pages, and a collection of graphics files.  All of these files should be placed in a single folder on your web host.

The folders and site links that appear when the home page is displayed are organized in the xml files contained in the zip. To change the folders and links, you must edit the xml files. This can be done with any text editor such as Notepad.  Please start by reading the file called "template.xml" which is included in the zip.  This example file not only shows you the required structure for creating and editing your own site contents, but also includes a mini-tutorial that explains the options available for customizing your page.

Note: Although the template is free for use, it is not public domain. The template may be used, modified and/or distributed for non-commericial purposes; any  redistribution or republication must be made on a non-commercial medium. Any republication or redistribution of the template must include the following attribution:  "Storm Home Page" original template by Matthew Kleiman (mkleiman@gmail.com).

SD Version for Local Installation

The "sd" version of the Storm Home Page is suitable for use on the Storm's media card. By storing the files on your microSD card, you can get a faster loading page. You can download the zip here: http://mkleiman.googlepages.com/storm_sd.zip.

To use the "sd" version of the page, you need to copy all of the files in the zip into a folder on your microSD card. All files must reside in the same folder. You can use an existing folder (e.g., BlackBerry/documents) or you can make a new folder or subfolder to keep the files separate from your other documents and files.

In order to make the weather drop-down work, you need to do one additional thing. Open the included file "zip.js" and change the zip code to your desired location. This is merely a text file, so you can open it using Notepad or whatever. Save the file, then copy it to your card along with the other files. (Note: this is the only way to change the weather drop-down location in the "sd" version; you cannot change the location on the phone.) If you'd like to disable the weather drop-down, simply set your zip code as "00000".

After copying the files, use the following address format in your browser's "Go To" screen:

file:///SDCard/BlackBerry/documents/homepage/index.html

This example assumes you created a new "homepage" subfolder inside your "documents" folder on the card. Note that there are three (3) forward-slashes after "file:" and not the normal two forward-slashes used in a typical web address.

The "sd" version includes all the same folders and links as the version on freehostia, and should work pretty much the same (albeit slightly faster). Customizers will note that the xml files are gone, replaced by html files for each folder category. Unfortunately this makes it slightly more annoying to customize, but if you know basic html you should have no problem adapting the format.

One last tip: to keep all the site icons and page graphics from showing up in your Picture Gallery, open the Media app and then choose Menu | Options | Exclude Folders. Check the box under Media Card where you stored your home page files. Save and exit. Now when you display "All Pictures" the home page files will be skipped.

Foxmarks Integration

Foxmarks is a free extension (add on) for the Firefox web browser that synchronizes your bookmarks across different computers.  If you use Foxmarks, you can access your computer's Firefox bookmarks from the Storm Home Page. And, the bookmarks automatically update -- if you add or change the bookmarks on your computer, the updates automatically appear on the Storm Home Page.

The Storm Home Page supports Foxmarks in two ways. First, you can have a link to the Foxmarks Mobile website (mobile.foxmarks.com). On this phone-friendly site, you enter your Foxmarks account name and password and you get access to all your Firefox bookmarks. There are options available to control which folders and/or bookmarks appear on the mobile site. However, like many wap sites, the links are tiny and somewhat hard to navigate on the phone.

Second, you can integrate your Foxmarks shared folders directly onto the Storm Home Page. Your shared folders and shared links will appear just like the other folders and site links on the Storm Home Page. So if you have a bookmarks folder called "Blogs" on your computer, you'll have a "Blogs" folder on your Storm Home Page with all the same links. Changes made to the Blogs folder on your computer will automatically appear on the Storm in about 10-20 minutes. You can add up to eight shared Formarks folders to your Storm Home Page, giving you some flexibility to organize your bookmarks collection for your phone.  You will not need a password to access shared folders, but you will need to do a one-time setup on the Storm by entering the Foxmarks "key" for each of your shared folders. 

Getting Your Shared Folder Keys

Start by logging into your Foxmarks account at foxmarks.com. Click on the “My FoxMarks” link at the top of the page. Next, click on the bookmarks folder you want to view on the Storm.

Click Share in the FoxMarks menu, and the “Share Folder” window will appear. Decide if you want to share only the selected folder, or also all of its subfolders (see 1. below).

Finally, scroll to the far right of the RSS feed box and look for the alpha-numeric sequence that comes after "…/folder/rss/" (see 2. above). This sequence of numbers and letters is the "key" for that particular shared folder. Write down the key or copy it somewhere temporarily, as you will need to enter the key on your Storm (including correct capitalization). Repeat this for all the shared folders you want to sync with your Storm (up to eight).

Foxmarks Setup on the Storm

Once you have your keys, open the Storm Home Page on your phone's browser. If you have not changed your Foxmarks settings previously, your main page will look as follows with a link to Foxmarks Moble at the end of the page:

If you simply want to use the Foxmarks Mobile site to access your computer's bookmarks, you do not need to make any changes at all. Click the Foxmarks Mobile button and login with your Foxmark username and password.

If you want to use the shared folders feature, or, if you want to disable Foxmarks entirely, then click on the small "options" icon on the right side of the Foxmarks Mobile button. Note: you may need to maximize the zoom level to click the small icon. This will take you to the Foxmarks Setup page:

The first option will disable Foxmarks and remove the link from the main page entirely. Choose this option if you're not a Foxmarks user and don't want to waste any link space on the main page. To restore Foxmarks support later after disabling, go to http://stormpage.freehostia.com/foxmarks_setup.html and choose one of the other options.

The second option will enable Foxmarks Mobile, which is the default mode. This option places a Foxmarks Mobile link at the bottom of the main page, as shown above.

The third option will enable shared folders integration. When you select this option, a new panel will appear on the page for you to enter your shared folder keys (see below left). Scroll down to enter the keys you collected from the Foxmarks website.

The image above right shows an example of entering three shared folder names and keys (the keys are fake, fyi). Once You've entered your names and keys, press "Save" to store your entries. Now, the main page of the Storm Home Page will show a Foxmarks folder (below left).

Clicking the "Foxmarks" folder link will open a page showing all of your shared folders (above right). Note that there is also a link to the Foxmarks Mobile site, and that the "options" icon is also displayed. As above, use this "options" icon to re-enter the setup page to add, delete or change your shared folders.

Here's how the shared folders look on the Storm. The links displayed come straight from your computer. If you make changes on your computer, its usually takes about 10-25 minutes for Foxmarks to update the links.

Foxmarks With SD Version