One thing that I find annoying on my Legend is that the screen is small compared to other devices and when I'm in text entering mode, the virtual keyboard comes up and shifts everything else upwards.
In situations like standard text messaging, emailing, internet browser, MSN talk, etc. there is often only a very small amount of room between the top of the keyboard and the top of the screen, where the contents of the app is now displayed. The keyboard takes up half the screen.
I don't see why they don't make the keyboard like 50% - 85% transparent, like a smooth popup which comes over the display instead of shifting it up and cramming it into a tiny space.
People are familiar with QWERTY keyboards, they dont need to see them with 100% opacity on their screen to type with them, especially if they're using something like Swype (Which I am).
I'm not really sure whether it would be possible to make a transparent keyboard app, since it might be hardcoded that any text input system shifts everything up.. I'm not sure. But I just think it's a sort of logical idea... thoughts?
Blindtype
bcpk said:
Blindtype
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Yes I'll look into that.
it'd be cool if swype would make their keyboard transparent too
You could theme it yourself.
Related
Has anybody messed with the lcd density in their build.prop folder? I saw this thread, http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/164880-froyo-resolution-tweak.html, over at androidforums and was wondering if anybody else has tried this?
ill try it out right now sec
EDIT: yeah it does work, it increases the resolution size thereby making things smaller on your screen proportionally. our screens are rather tiny anyway though.
i tried it out at a ridiculous 130 which made things super small i may try out 140 for giggles. it does make things harder to use (and read) considering the size of screen objects is responsible for more than legibility like a desktop (a caveat of touch screens -- ease of use and interaction is based on ability to easily touch objects in the ui. make them too small and you lose a bit of your ease of use).
either way, its a neat little thing to mess with if you'd like to see what other res may look like on your eris' screen.
RE-edit: 140 is fine w/ launcher pro and icon drawing but it makes certain things super blurry or misaligned so you're not really getting the proper res up/down effect. google reader @ 140 renders horribly so the problem goes a bit beyond color banding like the original post over there says. going the other way to 165 also blurs stuff up. It's probably because our ui elements aren't necessarily vector or anything like that. mostly they are pngs which this density setting appears to resize on the fly causing some nasty image quality degradation. im sure someone else could chime in on this w/ a bit more knowledge. purely conjecture
Eh, dirty hack. I use more icons widget so I have tons of free space. It makes widgets weird too.
However I am really interested in that game he posted a screeny of.
Anyone?
Hungry Man said:
However I am really interested in that game he posted a screeny of.
Anyone?
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Click to collapse
That game is Galcon... I'm addicted to it. Been playing the flash version on the web for a year or more now. It was only on iphone until about last month.
Thanks for the great tip. Perfect for internet browsing.
by the way, if you use this in sense the buttons at the bottom become unaligned and text under widgets and icons move. From what I've seen it works perfect in launcherpro.
homewmt said:
Thanks for the great tip. Perfect for internet browsing.
by the way, if you use this in sense the buttons at the bottom become unaligned and text under widgets and icons move. From what I've seen it works perfect in launcherpro.
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Click to collapse
yes, it works great in launcher pro, expect if you use folders. When you try to open a folder it crashes. ADW doesn't have this issue with its folders.. but not a big deal otherwise.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
This is a thread for those coming from an AOSP ROM like Vanilla Android or CyanogenMod or even from other OEM overlays like Sense. What would you say are the good and LG features?
For me, good:
Heads up display implantation of incoming calls when screen is on that ensures you don't break your workflow.
Little hovering window to show a call is in loudspeaker in the background with the time on it
Though almost standardised, having call controls in the notification drawer
Bad:
Auto expanded notifications
Unable to disable the clips tray
Unable to remove toggles from within the drawer
Battery percentage being to the left of the battery
Unable to customise lockscreen
Implementation of software navigation keys breaks functions like hiding the keyboard
Customisation of the share intent with everything being ticked all the time
I only had my phone for half a day, but already some software feature I really like:
"Clip Tray" (Multi-clipboard).
Double-knock to wake and go to sleep (I don't use knock-code, haven't tried it yet)
And something I really don't like:
Keyboard sluggishness. When I type (using flow), it's always 1 or 2 words behind... I'm going to replace it quickly with Google keyboard or SwiftKey
Protagoras said:
I only had my phone for half a day, but already some software feature I really like:
"Clip Tray" (Multi-clipboard).
Double-knock to wake and go to sleep (I don't use knock-code, haven't tried it yet)
And something I really don't like:
Keyboard sluggishness. When I type (using flow), it's always 1 or 2 words behind... I'm going to replace it quickly with Google keyboard or SwiftKey
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree with you about the keyboard... I hate it. I was using s4 with keyboard ported from s5. Is sluggish and i keep typing space more often..
Sent from my LG-D855 using XDA Free mobile app
I've noticed that the keyboard is sluggish with more than one language selected.
I really like the keyboard. Haven't tried swipe input on it yet. Overall i'm really impressed by the UI. Its got great flat icons, beautiful selection of wallpapers and lots of options to customise.
Knock on and knock code are great. Clip tray is a very useful feature and the popup reply notifications for the messaging app are really handy and have stopped me from using Hangouts as my main SMS app.
The downsides so far are no search on server within the email app and no option to show the weather on the smart notice widget without turning on GPS. Also for some reason LG took out the wireless storage feature from the G2 which was very useful. They should have kept it.
Bad:
When adding contacts, the default option is to add to "Phone" with no way of changing it.
Oversharpening of text. More obvious on certain fonts with black text on white background.
Camera options are way too limited.
Overall I'm quite happy with the software. Looks pretty good and some of the added features are quite useful.
The infinity screen is amazing to look at, and mods or substratum theme to hide navigation bar make it look super clean.
But it absolutely interferes with the typing experience.
Keyboard is located too low and reaching for keys at the bottom row like space bar, enter key, number pads require your thumbs to stretch more than natural finger placements.
I wish keyboard is placed a bit higher. Hate to say this... But like the one in iPhone X. But thankfully I heard Android is very customizable. Does anyone know if this is possible? I mainly use Google keyboard but I don't care what keyboard supports it.
Thanks all
binnkim said:
The infinity screen is amazing to look at, and mods or substratum theme to hide navigation bar make it look super clean.
But it absolutely interferes with the typing experience.
Keyboard is located too low and reaching for keys at the bottom row like space bar, enter key, number pads require your thumbs to stretch more than natural finger placements.
I wish keyboard is placed a bit higher. Hate to say this... But like the one in iPhone X. But thankfully I heard Android is very customizable. Does anyone know if this is possible? I mainly use Google keyboard but I don't care what keyboard supports it.
Thanks all
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Click to collapse
Found out Samsung keyboard has that option.. nevermind but not too perfectly.
Does anyone know how to raise the height of the keyboard in gboard so the bottom of it doesn't sit right at the bottom of the phone? I use both an iPhone and the OnePlus and vastly prefer the way iOS handles the keyboard by mimicking a bezel so your hands are more evenly distributing the weight of the phone while typing.
macfan406 said:
Does anyone know how to raise the height of the keyboard in gboard so the bottom of it doesn't sit right at the bottom of the phone? I use both an iPhone and the OnePlus and vastly prefer the way iOS handles the keyboard by mimicking a bezel so your hands are more evenly distributing the weight of the phone while typing.
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Click to collapse
Go to Gboard settings - preferences - keyboard height
Caltinpla said:
Go to Gboard settings - preferences - keyboard height
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Click to collapse
I think that adjusts vertical height. I'm looking for a buffer between the bottom of the keyboard and the bottom of the phone so the keyboard is higher up on the display.
Something that would resemble this
macfan406 said:
I think that adjusts vertical height. I'm looking for a buffer between the bottom of the keyboard and the bottom of the phone so the keyboard is higher up on the display.
Something that would resemble this
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Click to collapse
Man I wish we could do this as well. The only thing you can do I think is turn on the navbar and I don't want to do that because I love the gestures.
You can move gboard up to create a buffer. But it's not full size unfortunately
Reuben_skelz92 said:
You can move gboard up to create a buffer. But it's not full size unfortunately
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I knew about this feature too but it sucks because it's not full size and I have fat thumbs haha. It would be nice for the buffer like op states. Is there a way to request features if we're not on the beta program?
Doubt there's too much they can do if you don't want a nav bar. I could imagine it would be more Google's side with gboard
I'm ok with not having Gboard. I just want a keyboard that behaves like my Xs Max. I swap phones often to get a good sense on how to use both iOS and Android, and if I could get this to work properly, it would make my OP6T experience that much better.