TapDiary Home Screen Widget, Now on Android

TapDiary Home Screen Widget, Now on Android

Home screen widgets arrived in v2.0.0, but back then they only worked on iOS. Now you can put a widget on your Android home screen too. One tap on the home screen records, no need to open the app.

Button grid widget

It's a button grid widget that lives on your home screen. It shows several buttons at once, and each cell records on its own, turning your home screen into a small TapDiary.

The number of buttons follows the widget size

Resize the widget and the number of slots follows. Stretch it across the full width of your home screen for a whole row of buttons, or shrink it to a single launcher cell for just the one button you use most.

Pick the buttons and the tap action

The settings screen that appears when you add the widget lets you choose which buttons to show. You can also set what a tap does, button by button: record only, open the app, or add a note. Buttons you want to quietly stack up can just record, and buttons where you'd like to jot down a line can ask for a note. Set each one to match how you use it.

To change it later, touch and hold the widget on your home screen and choose “Change widget settings”.

How to add it

1. Touch and hold an empty area of the home screen
2. Tap “Widgets”
3. Find TapDiary in the list and drag it onto the home screen
4. Pick the buttons to show and the tap action in the settings screen

Good to know

• Widget counts always reflect today. If a button in the app resets weekly, monthly or yearly, its widget count will differ.
• The widget follows your device's theme color (Material You), so it sits naturally on your wallpaper.

How to use the home screen widget

Tracking usually breaks down over timing, not willpower. If you have to open the app, find the button and tap it after the fact, you forget somewhere in between. The home screen widget removes that gap. Whatever you just did, one tap right where you are and it's logged.

Health and body

• Medication tracking: tap as you set the glass back down. When you can't remember whether you took it this morning, the number on the widget tells you how many times you've taken it today.
• Supplements: vitamins, probiotics, omega-3. Make a button for each and stretch the widget wide to see them all at once.
• Water intake: one tap per glass. If your goal is eight glasses a day, the widget count is your progress bar.
• Headaches, cramps, allergies and other symptoms: symptoms are only accurate when you log them the moment they hit. Set the symptom button's tap action to add a note, and the line you write becomes something to show your doctor.
• Blood pressure medication, insulin and anything time-sensitive: the time is saved with the record, so you never have to reconstruct "when did I do that?"

Habits and cutting back

• Quitting smoking: to cut down, first count. A second button for the times you resisted works well too.
• Caffeine: one tap per cup. Compare it with the nights you couldn't sleep and the pattern shows up.
• Drinking: tap only on the days you drink, and the statistics tell you how many days that was this month.
• Stretching, workouts, taking the stairs: the longer the activity, the more the logging has to be over in three seconds.
• Studying, reading, journaling and other daily habits: sitting on the home screen, the widget is its own reminder.

Care and pets

• Baby feeds, diapers and naps: your hands are full and there's no room to open an app. One tap on the home screen is enough.
• Dog walks, meals, medication: with several people in the house, "has someone already done it?" is the constant question. A count of 0 or 1 answers it.
• Calling your parents: the things you keep meaning to do are exactly the ones that change when they sit in plain sight.

Days and moods

• Mood tracking: separate buttons for good days and hard ones, and a month later the statistics read like a mood journal.
• Chores: laundry, airing out the rooms, watering the plants. What matters is when you last did it.
• Work and pomodoros: tap at the end of every focus block and you have how many you got through today.

Start with the one thing you do most often. Too many buttons means time spent choosing, and then it's no better than opening the app. Begin with a single button in a one-cell widget and widen it as the habit settles.

TapDiary's original promise, recording with a single tap, now reaches beyond the app on Android too. Update to the latest version on Google Play.