Develop Bugs

[Q] Removal of Softkeys on Stock Rom

Sorry in advance if this is in the wrong section.
I'm looking to buy the Galaxy Nexus but I truly hate the idea of a softkey bar as I feel there is little point to having such a beautiful screen only to remove some of it with a black bar.
Is there a way to remove them while staying on the stock rom? I already bought HoneyBar for Honeycomb on the 10.1/7+ but the dev appears to have given up on removing the softkey bar for ICS. I know that custom roms on the Galaxy Nexus have the option but I would appreciate any word on this. My only option aside from the Galaxy Nexus is...nothing as no other Verizon 4G LTE phone clicked with me.
I don't hate softkeys however. Button Savior is hands down my favorite app.

Without them there'd be no way of closing/opening/changing apps so they're kinda here to stay

EddyOS said:
Without them there'd be no way of closing/opening/changing apps so they're kinda here to stay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course

Half the time I forget they are part of the screen, they are so much better than the crappy Nexus One buttons

EddyOS said:
Without them there'd be no way of closing/opening/changing apps so they're kinda here to stay
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true! Button savior can replace the soft keys.

z06mike said:
Not true! Button savior can replace the soft keys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fyi: Also LMT is capable of replacing the soft keys and is working on GSN. Gestures -> action:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Custom roms don't have an option to remove the softkeys.

Thank you for the link being posted so quickly. I really appreciate it.
I'm going to go read the GummyNex thread more thoroughly to understand if its softkey option is what I wanted.
Thank you guys again.

In my opinion the soft keys are not a waste of screen real estate because they are only there when having the entire screen is pointless anyway. They go away when watching YouTube, Netflix, videos, looking at images, etc. So the entire screen gets utilized when it really counts.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

Accord281 said:
In my opinion the soft keys are not a waste of screen real estate because they are only there when having the entire screen is pointless anyway. They go away when watching YouTube, Netflix, videos, looking at images, etc. So the entire screen gets utilized when it really counts.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use ADW and hide my notification bar(swipe down to open) and my dock (swipe up to open). The only thing left on my homescreen to hide are the softkeys. I just want them hidden on my homescreen.

Accord281 said:
In my opinion the soft keys are not a waste of screen real estate because they are only there when having the entire screen is pointless anyway. They go away when watching YouTube, Netflix, videos, looking at images, etc. So the entire screen gets utilized when it really counts.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes but what about web browsing, remote desktop to name a couple? shame the soft keys stop you from using the whole screen

It'll happen. I don't think the issue here is removing them completely but hiding them on command like in Honeycomb.
It comes in handy for playing games like emulators and such. Certain apps can hide the bar so it is possible to issue that same command on demand.
I wouldn't hold up a purchase over something so trivial. It WILL happen but Google patched the trick in Honeycomb.
I think an auto hide would be cool then use a gesture to restore them or just use gestures as navigation. Could get ugly in certain apps though.
Maybe have a CM9 toggle...
LTE EX Galaxy Nexus - AOSP KANG
Asus Transformer - 3.2.1 OC/UV

Having a button in the notification bar to hide the buttons would be cool. But seriously must devs will update they're apps to utilize this feature as it goes.
Mx video did recently
Sent from my Google phone

I don't like this trend...

... of apps ignoring the menu key.
I've always preferred the menu - home - back layout Samsung has stuck with. It just feels more natural to me... Now though I'm starting to think the new Android design guidelines are going to pose a big usability problem.
Especially on big phones like the GS3, having to reach to the top of the phone to get at common options is an annoyance at best. Mint is one of the latest apps to implement the new design guidelines that renders the menu button useless.
I hope the development community can come up with a workaround - if they haven't already. Anyone know of efforts to remap or otherwise keep the menu button useful?

Its not really the dev community that controls the design guidelines.. as you know google updates them with each iteration of Android. The problem here is, starting from the Galaxy Nexus, none of Google's phones have come with a menu button. Google believes this is better (for some reason) and so all the design guidelines are trending towards making the menu button obsolete.
Samsung on the other hand is slowly becoming the only manufacturer to persist with the menu button.
From a development perspective, its easy enough to support devices with/without a menu button, with the same piece of code. I feel the main reason big Android apps are moving to the Holo bar menu button is for uniformity like in iOS (which is what Google wants in the first place)

There are roms that let you easily re-assign the menu button. For example, I have menu bound to recent apps (android standard is back, home, recent apps) with long press recent apps as menu for those few cases where apps still use the menu button.
As much as you may like the menu button it is more than on its way out at this point. Despite what samsung has been building their phones with.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using xda premium

50% of the reason I like a physical home button is because for me, it's easier to power up the phone...and more natural, less effort etc. I also go into standby by an upward gesture on my homescreen so on/off is very quick and handy.
The other half is that I have more screen real estate.

pngface said:
Its not really the dev community that controls the design guidelines.. as you know google updates them with each iteration of Android. The problem here is, starting from the Galaxy Nexus, none of Google's phones have come with a menu button. Google believes this is better (for some reason) and so all the design guidelines are trending towards making the menu button obsolete.
Samsung on the other hand is slowly becoming the only manufacturer to persist with the menu button.
From a development perspective, its easy enough to support devices with/without a menu button, with the same piece of code. I feel the main reason big Android apps are moving to the Holo bar menu button is for uniformity like in iOS (which is what Google wants in the first place)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uniformity is huge, have you seen that picture with the buttons of around 10 android popular phones in which none of them have the same buttons/order.
Also, as an ex-galaxy nexus user, I must say that on-screen buttons are FAR better than what we have. The only down side is lost screen space in most apps (some stuff does go full screen). But the customizability of the software buttons is SO NICE. you can change the size of the bar, the colour, what buttons are there, what the icons are. The slide for google now is much more intuitive that long pressing menu. XDA devs have even added the ability to add what ever you want to the google now slide up gesture. (including widgets).
The software bar is simply a modder's wet dream

Sure uniformity is cool, but what's more uniform than a menu key that's just there all the time? I don't even have to think about it; I want settings/options, I press the menu key. This has honestly been one of my favorite design elements of Android. I hate that this is being phased out.
Ah well, nothing I can do about it.

themadproducer said:
50% of the reason I like a physical home button is because for me, it's easier to power up the phone...and more natural, less effort etc. I also go into standby by an upward gesture on my homescreen so on/off is very quick and handy.
The other half is that I have more screen real estate.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you have it set up to sleep with a screen gesture?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

yamahakid said:
How do you have it set up to sleep with a screen gesture?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's 2 parts...but super simple and turbo quick!
I use Go Launcher EX. Many of the custom launchers have Gesture ability. (unlike stock TouchWiz) There are 2 types of gestures in GLex. The one I use is an upward gesture anywhere on any home screen. (you could choose an icon in the dock as well) and it's not the Gesture Pad feature. For me, this works well as I never find myself swiping upwards on the home screen except to initiate SCREEN OFF....although I have requested them to add a 2 finger swipe for extra control.
The 2nd part is an app called "screen off and lock" which I have been using for years. I tell GLex to execute SOAL with an upward gesture on the home screen. Works flawlessly. (GLex has it's own plugin for screen off...but it is laggy)
SOAL also has CRT similar fx and other options. But I just use the clean screen off effect and it's INSTANT. I literally can turn on my S3 with my physical home button, swipe to unlock. then swipe up to lock/screen off in under a second...and keep repeating...no lag. (that's not what I use it for per-say...but just to show that it is fast...all with my thumb in a close proximity area.)

Just got it all set up and I'm loving it so far. Thanks a lot
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

yamahakid said:
Just got it all set up and I'm loving it so far. Thanks a lot
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right on, glad you tried it out.
To me, little things like this make the experience so much better.
Are you using GLex?

themadproducer said:
Right on, glad you tried it out.
To me, little things like this make the experience so much better.
Are you using GLex?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I have an s3, but I flashed a fix that changed my build.prop to gnex so I can run Google wallet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

yamahakid said:
No I have an s3, but I flashed a fix that changed my build.prop to gnex so I can run Google wallet.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ha Ha...no...actually I meant Go Launcher EX? (GLex)
What launcher do you use to perform the swipe?

themadproducer said:
Ha Ha...no...actually I meant Go Launcher EX? (GLex)
What launcher do you use to perform the swipe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha oh I thought you made a typo. I'm using apex launcher.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app

radeon_x said:
... of apps ignoring the menu key.
I've always preferred the menu - home - back layout Samsung has stuck with. It just feels more natural to me... Now though I'm starting to think the new Android design guidelines are going to pose a big usability problem.
Especially on big phones like the GS3, having to reach to the top of the phone to get at common options is an annoyance at best. Mint is one of the latest apps to implement the new design guidelines that renders the menu button useless.
I hope the development community can come up with a workaround - if they haven't already. Anyone know of efforts to remap or otherwise keep the menu button useful?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Video about some of my likes and dislikes about the GS3 overall its the best smartphone I have ever owned .

That's one thing that annoys me about the Android OS not being unified... some apps will ignore the menu, some wont.

[Poll] Pie vs Phone mode vs Phablet vs Tablet modes.

What's your choice and why ?

I like Tablet mode with the buttons, signal, battery and notifications being smallish at the bottom of the screen. Have tried the Pie feature but not really gotten the hang of it.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

I use pie 80% of the time. Phone mode for the rest.
--------------------------------------------------
If I have helped you.... hit that sexy thanks button. ^_^

I have never used the PIE Control, also I have never used tablet or phtablet mode on my Nexus (Never).
But I really like the Tablet UI.

tablet mode because you still get 90% of the screen and still have your status bar and nav bar
pie is a pain to swipe all day especially if you multi task a lot also if your phone is on silent while browsing how would you know of your notifications ?
for me pie is just a feature to show to iphone users

I like tablet but the screen is small for this. so I use pie

I use phablet. Don't like the waste of screen real-estate on phone mode. I have a few apps setup in tablet mode gmail and some others (can't remember which ones). I find pie a little too hard to use all the time although I do set it up for gaming. I am having an issue at the moment where I'm setting to the bottom of the screen but it reverts back whenever I leave and re-enter the game.

Pie. I can't use anything else my screen size seems so small. If my custom ruin doesn't include pie I switch to lmt as quick as I can x)
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

Phone mode. I have tried all the other modes but just didnt see the point. This is a phone. As far as pie controls, I just found it faster to tap a button than to swipe around for the button you want.

I use PIE mostly to reduce screen burn-in.
The most responsive ROMs to include it have been PA and CarbonROM - even though it doesn't show up, it's still active/usable. On CM if it doesn't show it doesn't work, which is much like LMT.
I used LMT on AOKP before I noticed they were being built into ROMs. The best thing about it is the longpress options, among other things. The worst part is that if it gets kicked out of memory, and without any backup nav options enabled, you're stuck with a battery pull on your hands. I was hoping the built-in ones could prevent this.

I stick with Phone mode. I'm not a fan of how small and squished everything looks on Phablet/Tablet modes and while I think PIE looks awesome it just isn't as simple and quick as just using the stock navigation bar for me. That's just my 2 cents though.

i choose pie, because screen looks more simple and larger

Pie all the way.
I love pie because after I disable and hide my status bar ( http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=37466852 ) my phone looks super slick and clean. Plus no one but me can really use it. I also like to use Nova Launcher with gestures and nothing at all on the single homescreen. I even have enough apps hidden to only have two full app pages, at a lower density than normal, but larger icons. I just love a good clean looking phone and pie is one of the easiest steps to take to get there.

Phone mode with pie coming into play only during certain games while using expanded desktop mode.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium

Moop99 said:
I stick with Phone mode. I'm not a fan of how small and squished everything looks on Phablet/Tablet modes and while I think PIE looks awesome it just isn't as simple and quick as just using the stock navigation bar for me. That's just my 2 cents though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
same here. i love the idea of Pie, but until i can get it to come up 100% of the time, its a no go for me. right now it works about 80-90% of the time.

+1 for Phone mode since my phone isn't big enough to be a Tablet and I don't use Pie.

PHONE MODE, yes because with tablet mode everthing will be very tight, yes we can lower the dpi but it will become very small. Phabet is ugly too. PiE was fun but made my navigation slower.
My setup with PA, 280dpi screen space, 240 dpi lockscreen, 240/720p launcher.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Tablet mode: clean look, more screen space, and not as annoying to use as PIE.

[Q] force nav bar position to right hand side in landscape?

Hi,
I'm looking for a mod or app that can force the nav bar to the right hand side of the screen when I go into landscape mode. Effectively I need it to stay where it is in portrait mode.
Not a big issue just annoying that so many pixels are wasted on the narrow dimension.
Thanks

Download the module Phab7 for Xposed Framework, it allows to move the nav bar !
Sent from my Nexus 7

azvlean said:
Download the module Phab7 for Xposed Framework, it allows to move the nav bar !
Sent from my Nexus 7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While that works, it's not exactly ideal because it switches everything to the phone UI, including the notifications shade. Is there another way to force the nav bar to the right side without messing with anything else?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Bump. Anyone have any ideas?

i use the GMD auto hide soft key app, which shifts the nav bar always to the right hand side, when turning the tablet into landscape mode. you need to be rooted to use this. hope it helps, cheers

oXnoX said:
i use the GMD auto hide soft key app, which shifts the nav bar always to the right hand side, when turning the tablet into landscape mode. you need to be rooted to use this. hope it helps, cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, thanks oXnoX, that's better than nothing! :victory:
It seams odd though that there's no app just to do the one thing by itself
Ben

Tablet UI

Yes, I know it's been brought up quite a bit...
This is really bugging me. I had the original Kindle Fire and put ICS on it and loved it. The Honeycomb-style user interface rocks. I bought a Nexus 7 thinking that I'd be able to put it into that mode with KitKat (the point of owning the Nexus # is to have the latest and greatest, right?), but have found myself unable to do so.
Is there any way possible to enable this on 4.4? I'm running into a gap on this discussion; most stopped talking about it about a month ago it seems. AOKP? Do I have to copy and paste the tablet UI code from 4.2 into 4.4?
This is Android. ANYTHING is possible. I know it has the potential to be done.

watsonism said:
Yes, I know it's been brought up quite a bit...
This is really bugging me. I had the original Kindle Fire and put ICS on it and loved it. The Honeycomb-style user interface rocks. I bought a Nexus 7 thinking that I'd be able to put it into that mode with KitKat (the point of owning the Nexus # is to have the latest and greatest, right?), but have found myself unable to do so.
Is there any way possible to enable this on 4.4? I'm running into a gap on this discussion; most stopped talking about it about a month ago it seems. AOKP? Do I have to copy and paste the tablet UI code from 4.2 into 4.4?
This is Android. ANYTHING is possible. I know it has the potential to be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was under the impression that google removed the tablet UI from kitkat altogether.
I thought I wasn't going to like the phablet UI but I got used to it, and now it just makes sense to me on a tablet this size. I say give it a chance, you might grow to like it.

I hate it, i'm forever catching the navbar when typing in landscape or passing the device to a friend because of thin bezel, it'd better located on it's side in the same portrait position next to the shortcuts & apps drawer button.

Q8-V08 said:
I hate it, i'm forever catching the navbar when typing in landscape or passing the device to a friend because of thin bezel, it'd better located on it's side in the same portrait position next to the shortcuts & apps drawer button.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do agree with this. When in landscape it is in the most inconvenient place possible. I would love a way to force it to remain on the right side but I haven't been able to find a solution other than setting the whole tablet into phone UI mode which then messes with the notifications shade.

If you're only problem is the nav bar, try GMD auto hide soft keys. It works great.

purple lady said:
If you're only problem is the nav bar, try GMD auto hide soft keys. It works great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that, not really what I'm looking for. I don't want something that overlays the navbar and hides it when not in use, I want a permanent navbar that just stays on the right side of the screen. With GMD even if I turn auto hide off, it will still hide it when I rotate the screen, and when I swipe to bring it up it always covers part of my dock icons.

Have you tried gravity box xposed module? It gives you the ability to run pie. Or if that's not your thing in navigation bar tweaks it has an always on the bottom feature. It shouldn't be too difficult to make it always on the "short side".Why not ask the Developer in his thread ?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2554049

doop said:
Have you tried gravity box xposed module? It gives you the ability to run pie. Or if that's not your thing in navigation bar tweaks it has an always on the bottom feature. It shouldn't be too difficult to make it always on the "short side".Why not ask the Developer in his thread ?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2554049
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used the pie before on my gnex and it was OK. I might give it a shot. Android is starting to feel quite dumbed down lately...

doop said:
Have you tried gravity box xposed module? It gives you the ability to run pie. Or if that's not your thing in navigation bar tweaks it has an always on the bottom feature. It shouldn't be too difficult to make it always on the "short side".Why not ask the Developer in his thread ?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2554049
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I use GB on all my devices. I use PIE + expanded desktop when I want to game in full screen. The always on bottom tweak isn't what I'm looking for either. I want it to remain on the right in landscape. I appreciate the input though.

_MetalHead_ said:
Yep, I use GB on all my devices. I use PIE + expanded desktop when I want to game in full screen. The always on bottom tweak isn't what I'm looking for either. I want it to remain on the right in landscape. I appreciate the input though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No probs. The part about keeping the navigation on the "short side". I meant on the right (Short Side). It`s worth asking the developer surely

CM10+ and PA had the tablet UI I though and you could pit it on the right hand side. I'm not sure if this applies with the newest KitKat builds though.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app