Help with Profile Pictures

[1414H77]

New to WP 7 from Android and iOS. Gave my wife Samsung Focus Flash and she wants to either:

1) get rid of the profile pictures for each contact, OR

2) stop them from showing on the tiles as they flip on the main screen.

If I try to edit the contact I can change everything but I cannot delete the profile picture tied to each. Also, if I go into the pictures folder and delete the picture the picture tied to the contact it is still there. Short of a phone reset how can I do either 1) or 2) above?

 

[enahs555]

instead of deleting profile pic just change it to a all transparent image then I guess.

 

[1414H77]

Well this is different, never seen anyone who didn't want contact pictures or want to know how to strip away one of the best features of wp7.

A hard reset would probably be the quickest way to do this as well as deleting the contacts from windows live then re-adding them.

Could also just unpin the people tile from the start screen for option number 2.

That's a wife for you... She loves Windows phone otherwise. She has serious vision issues and I think the flashing of the picture is hard on her eyes. The Metro interface is great, though, in general, for serious vision problems because the tiles are large and easy to see.

 

[freestaterocker]

Yeah I would un-pin people hub from the start menu. Another solution is to get the phone chevron unlocked and get the custom phone theme app from wphonehacker, then do a custom people tile. The custom them makes it a static tile. The unlock is a bit techy and will cost $9 for the token, but if she wants a people tile on her start screen that doesn't flip this is the only way I know of.

 

[1414H77]

Yeah I would un-pin people hub from the start menu. Another solution is to get the phone chevron unlocked and get the custom phone theme app from wphonehacker, then do a custom people tile. The custom them makes it a static tile. The unlock is a bit techy and will cost $9 for the token, but if she wants a people tile on her start screen that doesn't flip this is the only way I know of.

Where do you get chevron?

 

[1414H77]

Found it.

 

[1414H77]

oh sorry didn't realize the vision issue.

No sweat. I agree with your view on it. It is hard to believe, though, that a picture assigned to a contact cannot later be easily deleted from that contact.

 

[SolunaKitty]

Yeah I would un-pin people hub from the start menu. Another solution is to get the phone chevron unlocked and get the custom phone theme app from wphonehacker, then do a custom people tile. The custom them makes it a static tile. The unlock is a bit techy and will cost $9 for the token, but if she wants a people tile on her start screen that doesn't flip this is the only way I know of.

When I read about the problem, I immediately thought of this. If you know someone who has a .edu address, you can get your device dev-unlocked for free, but it requires some signing up with Microsoft DreamSpark and the AppHub.

You can read about the tool and find the link to it here.

 

[jimski]

Load a solid image on your phone, like red or black. Go to each contact, tap edit, tap the contacts photo and change the displayed picture to the solid image. Repeat for all contacts. Now your People tile will only show the solid images although it will still sort of cycle through.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

 

[SolunaKitty]

Load a solid image on your phone, like red or black. Go to each contact, tap edit, tap the contacts photo and change the displayed picture to the solid image. Repeat for all contacts. Now your People tile will only show the solid images although it will still sort of cycle through.

Sent from my HTC Surround using Board Express

I was sort of thinking that also. Every contact image should be either black, white (depending on the background color), or the chosen accent color so the animation of flipping just wont show as often... but then there's still the issue of the two tones of accent color as well as the service tiles (I see the Facebook tile occasionally).

Plus, I think it would be best if it were possible to leave the pictures of the people there to make it easier to identify who's calling or one person from another just at a glance.

However, it's certainly a decent solution if she wants to keep the tile on the screen and if she does not want to go through a few hoops to disable the animations.

 

[Blacklac]

So there is no way to remove a contact picture short of deleting and re-entering that contact? I have that same issue, minus the vision situation.

 

[SolunaKitty]

Well, if you have that contact through Facebook or through email, your best solution would be to upload a solid-color image and just change the pictures of those you want. The ones that don't have a profile picture come from my Gmail, the tile is a solid medium dark-gray tile.

If you sync services, I don't know if deleting the contact and manually re-adding will be the best solution, but you can try. Please tell us your results if you do!