Note: We have temporarily disabled the Append Device Variables option and the Append Custom URL Parameters option for this screen. If this is something you need to take advantage of, please contact us. We do plan to re-implement it in the very near future. If you don't understand what this means, ignore this message. ^^This is the notice in red text underneath the Custom URL settings.. I need to know if there is a way to manually append custom URL parameters (such as a pre-defined search query) once I have the source code? Or if the guys at buzztouch could put this feature back in ASAP that would be cool too, either way I'd just like to know how to do it if anyone can help. thanks

Not without doing some programming. If you're up for some hacking around, have a look at CustomUrlViewController.m in the Screen_CustomUrl folder. Look at the initLoad() method and you'll see what it would involve. The soon to be released v1.5 addresses this issue with merge-fields you enter in the control panel.