Preware gains patching abilities, LED notifications in the mix

Our man jp22382 has pointed out that webOS Internals.org now has its own patches IPKG feed that lets you install webOS patches over the air with minimal fuss, including the LED notifications that Palm didn’t turn on for us in webOS 1.2. To get the patches you’ll have to follow these steps:

• In Preware (installed via webOS Quick Install), select Available Applications and drop down to the IPKG category.
• Select autopatch-feed.
• Click install.
• Close and relaunch Preware.

You’ll now have a new feed in Preware that will provide dozens more patches. Right now not all patches have been updated for compatibility with webOS 1.2, so you should reference webOS Internals’ compatibility table to ensure that what you want to install won’t bork your Pre. You can also see dbSooner's list in our forums as well. Developers are quickly testing and updating patches so that they’ll work with 1.2, and so far most favorites (battery percentage, launcher pages, etc) have already received the 1.2 blessing.

• To install the LED notifications patch, in Preware click on Available Patches, then Screen Lock.
• Select Enables LED Notifications.
• Click install. You’ll have to approve a warning because the patch must run a script to install.

Once you’ve installed the patch, exit Preware and restart your phone - you’ll have to restart the phone every time you want to enable/disable a new patch, though you can install/uninstall multiple patches and restart once to enable/disable them all. To do this, open Device Info (available in Universal Search under ‘reset’), scroll down and click on Reset Options, and then click on Restart. Your phone will turn off and back on.

Once back you’re up and running, open Screen & Lock, scroll down to Notifications and flip “Blink Notifications” from off to on. From here on out, whenever you miss a notification, your phone will blink incessantly but softly until you give it the attention it craves. Sadly, as of yet there is no way to exclude/include apps that can cause the lights to blink, so it’s all or nothing.