I've had my Xperia for about 6 months now, and whilst I like it a lot, and it's brought lots of my communication and entertainment together into one device, there's a few things I think would improve it greatly.
One of these things is the screen size, or more specifically the screen size that most programs use. The start/taskbar and bottom bar really annoy me, they take up 15% of the screen! I have a few apps that have the full screen ability (Pocketwit, the panels like Media Panel etc) and I think they look far better than their smaller screened rivals, and also slightly easier/better to use because of the enhanced screen real estate.
We have a Windows key and other relevant buttons, so I don't think it is vital to have that access to the Taskbar up top. I would like to see more developers give the option of toggling to full screen.
Anyone else share this annoyance?!
for bottom bar
http://www.nuerom.com/BlogEngine/page/nueNoBar.aspx
Sweet, thanks dude - 7.5% extra screen space
Related
I was thinking it'd be great (well more like novelty/kinda useful) if there was an application to use our Diamonds as a mini graphics tablet. I think it could work quite well with stylus. The display on the phone wouldn't have to show what is on the computer screen, maybe just plain white or something. The main thing would be to have the four corners of the screen on our phone match up with the for corners of our computer screens.
Just a thought, I don't know anything really about software development. Tell me what you think?
Maybe superfluous, but this is an idea I had for a launcher. This is inspired by the lens-eye feature from the excellent Comic Reader Mobile found on this forum.
- First picture shows standard launcher screen with lots and lots of really small icons. Small enough that hopefully all your programs fit on this screen.
- Second picture shows screen-area that is pressed.
- Third picture shows a lens that enlarges the icons close to where has been pressed.
This way any program in this launcher is 2 quick presses away. No more scrolling, no more having to leave icons out of a category because of space constraints.
Is this worthwhile?
If you want my opinion I think your idea is fast to launch items but slow to find them. I know that after some time playing with it, if you already know where it is you will launch it fast but....
I have another proposal for you . For my app I've done a couple of widgets that I call Bubbles (see attachment). The "flower" is initially closed and if you hold your finger in the middle it opens showing the icons surrounding, then draging your finger and releasing it over the desired icon you launch the app. thsi way if you are capable of grouping the apps into categories (grames, programs, comm, profiles, etc) you can access all those options with only one tap & hold .
I liked it, maybe a round lens with an animation will be more attractive
..sure, with dx 10 effects for your htc phones.
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nice idea, sunra, but menus seems generally better, than today launchers...like quickmenu i.e...
Th3Hunter said:
I liked it, maybe a round lens with an animation will be more attractive
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Click to collapse
Haha, it is certainly not meant to look like this! I had the look and feeling of the lens system of Comic Reader in mind.
APBilbo, your system is really nice. Our systems look alike. I want to ask you if you have any programs where you're not sure in what category you like to place them?
Nothin, could you explain why menu's seem better to you?
it is hard to explain - quick menu revised my today plugins, so i do not need to waste today space, menu is fast method with small mem usage.
i know, htc is promoting its ****ty stuff and many users got it, but there are other options, luckily....
i like claunch, tho(tap on empty space shuffles to next hm, tab"..).
claunch is nice but...
a programm launcher like the scrollbar in manila would be nice... as homeplugin...
it would be nice ... because you can insert lot of programs
8x8 icons with claunch(as line with 18 px height) is not enough?
i said, that i am using many tabs in that 1 line - tap on EMPTY space moves to another one, do i need to see ALL icons at once?
nope.
my rom contains ~60-70 applications i've added to rom, besides system ones, you know
end of OT.
keep loving your manila's, guys...
ehhh.
It's called a ZUI my friend, a Zooming User Interface
To be honest, I like it, but I think only one level of zoom should be required. Too many clicks otherwise.
Chuck in some decent kinetic scrolling for if there were too many items to fit on the screen, and you're on to a winner!
Might have a look-see to see how hard she'll be to whip up a prototype...
Rl Today
here iz my rl today setup hope u like it
Rl today
heres more
I have a concept homescreen replacer where there are no "pages", instead there is one single horizontal scrolling strip, much like a film strip. Think Windows Phone 7, but with widgets, icons, folders etc and horizontal.
Look at the attachment if you dont understand. I would put the image in the post but I cant post outside links yet.
Yes, it is possible to see half a widget, but I thought about it and decided it will be to the user to scroll so it is displayed right.
I have no experience in coding but I am pretty good in graphics like my picture
Tell me what you think
I've been thinking about and attempting to create (with limited success so far.) something similar to your home replacement but Vertical Scroll rather than horizontal. To give you an idea it would look similar to The Zune Launcher or the but also be able to take widgets. Again no snap to screen (cant figure that bit out).
Good luck with this, it would be interesting to see what experiences you gain and what problems you run into. Similar to you I am fantastic with graphics but not too good at coding (not done any since C++)
When I "jailbroke" my ipod ages ago, there was a tweak that was called "smooth scrolling" and it did the exact same thing described here. I think it would be awesome to have a free-scrolling home screen. I am working on a home replacement myself and it features a vertically scrolling home screen where the icons and widgets can be placed anywhere (not snap to a grid). If you would like to help, click on the logo in my signature to be taken to my site to see what I am working on. I could use a hand in graphics, myself. PM me if you're interested
I would prefer something that is like infiniboard for iOS
This would technically allow widgets to stretch past the 1 page limit in LauncherPro, as in, you could have widgets large enough that they cut off, allowing for some GREAT theming and future uses.
hmmm....interested but why vertical? feels a little to Windows Phone to me and i think widgets would work better scrolling horizontally. I looked up smooth scrolling for iOS and yep thats what i want with widgets and gridless.
I just want to subscribe to this and give my two cents:
I think any seamless homescreen app should still have the option at least of enabling a grid for apps and widgets. The idea of this as a functioning homescreen replacement could certainly get me to switch over from ADW, but only if it could satisfy my OCD needs for everything to be lined up juuuust so.
I think this would be a great thing to have, but I also would like to have an option for the widgets & apps to line up on a grid. while it is great to have the seamless scrolling (preferably horizontal & not vertical...maybe there could be an option for that as well) I like things to line up too.
I could definitely make that an option for my home-replacement. I just want to know what people would want out of a home replacement so that I can model mine around the general consensus of what everybody wants. Oh, and why does everybody want vertical scrolling? Because its different. Sure Windows phone 7 has it. But it does it in its own way. Android is know for its open-ness and widgets. The wonder of Android is that anyone can do anything with Android, and its free.
At first I want to say that the idea of a seamless lauchner is brilliant.
I had that idea by myself but I have no experience in programming.
I think I would prefer somewalls original concept with icons that fit into a grid and horizontal scrolling. To me it seems to be more useful on portrait format screens compared to vertical scrolling.
But anyway, I hope the best for you guys.
I think vertically scrolling widgets will work buggy this way. Unless there would be some kind of listener that stops the horizontal scrolling when interacting with a vertically scrolling widget.
Else both ways of scrolling will interfere.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
I like the idea, it's something that I would love to have on my phone! Just one suggestion.. I would like to see both horizontal and vertical scrolling, if it could be developed. As in, the user decides what kind of scrolling he wants, either vertical, horizontal.. or may be both? I don't if it's possible or not, I have no "serious" coding experience, as you may call it since am just in school!
Hey guys,
I've had my Nexus for just over a month now and apart from a few minor issues I'm really enjoying my experience with my Nexus.
BUT: One thing that really p*sses me off is the total waste of screen real estate being the "on screen buttons". I can sort of understand the device having as few as possible buttons is pretty cool but when it starts invading your screen size that is NOT COOL.
I have a few questions for google: Why oh why did you make the background for the navigation buttons black?? Why not transparent? Or transparent with a blur effect? Personally I would prefer just transparent with faint white back, home and app switcher buttons. It would make more of the screen available to see.
If I were to root my device, are these things that i could schange in the System or Framework RES folders? Or would it be much more complicated than that (i.e. changing color hex's in .xml files?)?
Search for how to enable the tablet UI. I had to enlarge the font to make things a bit more comfortable for me, but I really do like the true tablet UI.
sikodemon said:
Hey guys,
I've had my Nexus for just over a month now and apart from a few minor issues I'm really enjoying my experience with my Nexus.
BUT: One thing that really p*sses me off is the total waste of screen real estate being the "on screen buttons". I can sort of understand the device having as few as possible buttons is pretty cool but when it starts invading your screen size that is NOT COOL.
I have a few questions for google: Why oh why did you make the background for the navigation buttons black?? Why not transparent? Or transparent with a blur effect? Personally I would prefer just transparent with faint white back, home and app switcher buttons. It would make more of the screen available to see.
If I were to root my device, are these things that i could schange in the System or Framework RES folders? Or would it be much more complicated than that (i.e. changing color hex's in .xml files?)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can make it smaller.
Here's a guide.http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1844878
Beamed from my Grouper
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
sikodemon said:
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it was carried over from the gnex.
It's black on the gnex to take advantage of the AMOLED screen.
Beamed from Maguro
Hi
sikodemon said:
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Presumably it is because it is dead space. Applications don't/can't expand into that area as it is protected. For example if you had an application open to the maximum behind translucent soft buttons, and that application required you to press something towards its bottom edge, you can't as it is now behind the menu buttons.
Ideally the buttons would be below the display and printed onto the touch screen as they are with my HTC One X, presumably they are not for either cost reasons or flexibility of the design.
Regards
Phil
sikodemon said:
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd guess that it doesn't make sense for it to be transparent because there is nothing under the navbar. Its a part of the screen that is separate from the application, if you allowed the navbar to be imposed over the application and transparent then the bottom part of the screen would be unusable in the application because touching it would activate the navbar buttons rather than the applications.
That said on the launcher it would be easy to just extend the wallpaper over the navbar and make it transparent and in apps you could colour the navbar with the average colour of the application background etc, though of course Apple has a patent waiting for that http://www.phonearena.com/news/Appl...xed-video_id34472?ratelimit=-10&sort=threaded
Not true because you can hide the nav bar on certain roms and that space it was using up is definitely usable. Hey OP I forgot what it's called but there's a launcher somewhere based on nothing but gestures so you don't even need a nav bar and you can use that extra screen space you seem to desperately need.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
sikodemon said:
Hey guys,
I've had my Nexus for just over a month now and apart from a few minor issues I'm really enjoying my experience with my Nexus.
BUT: One thing that really p*sses me off is the total waste of screen real estate being the "on screen buttons". I can sort of understand the device having as few as possible buttons is pretty cool but when it starts invading your screen size that is NOT COOL.
I have a few questions for google: Why oh why did you make the background for the navigation buttons black?? Why not transparent? Or transparent with a blur effect? Personally I would prefer just transparent with faint white back, home and app switcher buttons. It would make more of the screen available to see.
If I were to root my device, are these things that i could schange in the System or Framework RES folders? Or would it be much more complicated than that (i.e. changing color hex's in .xml files?)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agreed with you. Is there anyone that can port Motorola's Transparent Software Buttons, so it will be better?
slick_rick said:
Not true because you can hide the nav bar on certain roms and that space it was using up is definitely usable. Hey OP I forgot what it's called but there's a launcher somewhere based on nothing but gestures so you don't even need a nav bar and you can use that extra screen space you seem to desperately need.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're both right and wrong. The launcher you're thinking of is probably the PIE launcher available on many custom ROMs, as well as its app equivalent (which I believe is called LMT). But your reasoning as far as hiding the navbar is incorrect. If you hide the navbar on a ROM (or even the way it's done in many games and the YouTube app), the navbar disappears, i.e. it's no longer protecting the screen space that it's not using. Making it transparent would do no such thing, and even if you forced an app to use the space beneath the navbar, you'd wind up with three floating navigation items that would probably conflict with an app's bottom navigation.
Pegasus195 said:
I agreed with you. Is there anyone that can port Motorola's Transparent Software Buttons, so it will be better?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to look into custom ROMs, some will allow you to mess around with your navbar icons/actions (the main one I like is the replace Recent Apps with a Last App switcher). Paranoid Android also allows you to change the color (and I believe that includes alpha transparency), including a "chameleon"-style bar that changes color based on the active app's predominant scheme.
Also, to respond to something from earlier: black is better because as a static color, it uses less resources to draw and has the benefit of being power-efficient on AMOLED screens. In addition, while it might look neat, it's pretty well accepted in UI/UX lore that you should keep navigational elements as clearly and visually distinct as possible to make them easier to hit. Shoving white/grey buttons on top of an active-blurred background can create quite a headache.
There's a great example of this in the screenshots of Apple's control center for iOS 7. For some backgrounds, the control center is clearly visible despite the background bleeding through, but on others, you basically can't read the buttons because the blur is too distracting.
So here is the deal, it may seem weired but I was wondrring if it is possible/has already been done before trying to code it.
I would like to make an app to change the screen container size, so as to simulate other screen sizes/aspect ratios.
Some apps like iphonex emulator add an overlay for the iphonex chin on top of the screen, but that actually hides part of the content, whereas I would like to make the device display stuff on a smaller sub-screen.
The end goal would be, for instance to simulate the galaxy S7 (similar footprint, but 16:9 screen and buttons under the screen, and logo on top), the iphone 7 (even bigger bezels) or really anything, if one loooooves bezels you could shrink the screen however you like, and replace the rest with black or static content.
Of course the purpose is more humoristic than useful, but I'd like to know *if* it can be done!