Database Users

Switching between apps? Multitasking?

So with all this talk about Hero's ability to multitask I just wanted to ask how people leverage this ability.
Unless I'm missing something if I want to go from a browser session to my playing music app I have to go via the home screen. Similarly if I want to switch from say Google Maps to Google Mail then I need to go via the home screen and the app's icon.
This is no different to how the iPhone handles things except that the apps on the Hero continue to run in the background.
Am I missing some technique for 'TAB'ing' between running apps? Palm's Pre has got the 'cards' and the floaty shortcut menu thing.
To be honest if there is no ability to switch DIRECTLY to a running app from another running app then the whole multitasking thing is a bit pointless (Widgets not withstanding)
I'm new to Android so I'm hoping that I'm just missing something.

I have a G1 but if you hold down the home key you can switch between running apps and I imagine that works as well on the hero.
Also, you can use an app such as "task switcher" or "bar control" found in the android market to switch between applications without having to go through the home screen with a few more options than the home key thing.
HTH

Holding down the home key only displays 6 recently opened apps not ones that are running. Thats what it does on the Hero anyway. It also brings you back to the home screen and out of whatever app you were in when you held it down.
It seems that the Palm Pre is currently the only handset that truly enables multitasking app switching.
I'm somewhat disappointed in the Hero in this regard.

To be fair, the whole concept of multitasking doesn't really address in what way you would be switching from app to app. The major thing is the ability of the phone to keep two, three or ten apps running at the same time, doing their stuff in the background. This is what the iPhone doesn't have and Android does. This is the "competitive edge".
If you install "Advanced Task Manager", it will put itself in the notification drawer for two-click activation. I think I'd enable it, if there was a setting to make all apps behave this way. A sort of "show all running apps in the notification drawer" feature (or the apps I select).
Notice you can switch to all running apps from Advanced Task Manager, but that makes for a total of four clicks, moving from one app to another. It's a bit cumbersome.

Pressing and holding Home should IMHO bring up the recent apps list to allow switching WITHOUT returning Home first.
Maybe a bug or a bad decision UI wise.

@joemax
That would sort me out. Having it behave like that would be really useful.

Commantalb looked promising in the Market - very nice effect when bringing apps list up too
BUT, it cannot be envoked unless you press and hold HOME and then select Commantalb.
If it were a background process that changed the default HOME button behaviour - to launch itself, it would be very cool.

ShiroEd said:
To be honest if there is no ability to switch DIRECTLY to a running app from another running app then the whole multitasking thing is a bit pointless (Widgets not withstanding)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok -here's a real world example.
I use MyTracks when out walking. Since the Hero can multitask, I can start MyTracks recording, then as I'm walking do anything else with my phone that I want and not be artificially limited to a select few apps. This is something that I do regularly.
From my perspective, the lack of a true task switcher is largely immaterial to me, but the fact that the apps are still running, even when not active, is.
Regards,
Dave

joemax said:
Pressing and holding Home should IMHO bring up the recent apps list to allow switching WITHOUT returning Home first.
Maybe a bug or a bad decision UI wise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can happily report that this is exactly what it does with the new ROM. Yipee!!

It does indeed
Posted as such on another thread.
The new firmware is very good IMHO.

ShiroEd said:
I can happily report that this is exactly what it does with the new ROM. Yipee!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GOD ALLMIGHTY IN THE HEAVEN!!! THERE IS STILL A GOD!!!
I didn't know this untill now... and it god damn works... WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
We love you HTC...

Oh damn... a double post... :-(

My experience with CM10 so far XD (and maybe a feature wishlist)

First of all, how awesome is this forum !!!
I consider myself a pretty "upright" forum user as in I usually read the pinned, "read this first", Q&A, and search before I make new posts. Whenever I come upon people who don't do that, I kinda frown to my computer screen but beyond that seems like nothing much can be done? The "Here are the similar threads we found:" section is just pure brilliance.
Sorry about the rambling but I will start with a tiny background story first.
So once upon a time, I got warned thru my gmail that my account apparently was "compromised". After I did some preliminary verification to make sure they are not spams, I decided to try the google "2-step verification" process. And I bet most of you knew what comes next: I keep getting bad password popups. After some hours of frustrating struggle, I fixed my gmail on my phone. But Gtalk would not let me do that 1-time psasword verification thing, and thus my play store won't work. (God really who designed them to be linked!? I did not launch Gtalk once in my life.) Before this happened, I was happy with my stock launcher from Samsung and always have the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" motto. In the end, I decided it is "certified broken" and I thought this might be a good time to look into upgrading to Jelly Bean.
hm.. i think i'm making this post unnecessary long so I will just cut through the chase. I never thought "stock" stuff would come in any quality. But amazingly in my first day experience of CM10, I am already missing a bunch of features that I used to take for granted. I have no desire to go back to the last launcher (as this in theory should be a step up overall, i believe). So if anyone have tips for me to how to get these features back, I would very much like some pointers! Thanks in advance.
Just some clarification in case this matter: I bought my phone unlocked in Hong Kong. So there is no service-provider-associated stuff that came with the stock launcher I got.
EDIT: I used the 11-02 nightly build of CM10 and its corresponding Gapp package.
1) Contact list
+ Improved: To my amaze, my chinese contacts got sorted by their pronunciation in english! The original stock launcher lumped all of them in the end of the list.
- What I missed: Slide left on names will message the contact and slide right will call them.
# What I tried: Of course my first solution is to search on App store to find a replacement. For some reasons, only two (with good rating) showed up. Did the search got dumber? Or it got smarter but just not doing what I want?
Go Contacts: I think i remember trying it and personally not a big fan of the GO packages. I didn't give it a second try.
Contants+ with a penguin icon: There's a function that lets you "Hold" on a contact to call them. This is very much inferior to the slidings : ( I need recommendations for contact list app.
2) App drawer
+ I like how the widgets got attached to the horizontal pages. Much nicer option than Homescreen-> menu and keep scrolling through the 1x4 area LOL. I love widgets and I have a lot of them. Yes it was painful.
- You can't custom organize the drawer. You can sort by Name or Install Date and that's it. I used to organize them by functionality. I have over 160 apps on my phone. I don't use all of them all the time but I would say I use close to 70% of them at least once in a while. So while my homescreen is really reserved for Widgets, App drawer is where I launch my less-used apps. I really like the "menu -> edit" function in my old launcher. I can create new page, move the apps around and even uninstall the app right there (with a minus sign on the top right corner of the app icon. Yes I didn't use to understand why one would even need uninstaller app from the store). Please don't hate me if you really just rather sort by Name.
# Funny the problem this time is not about how I can't find a suitable app from the play store to do a better job with the drawer. It's that I CAN'T move the original app drawer icon of the launcher from the bottom middle area. I imagine there's probably a way to replace it but it's obviously not a readily available option or I am missing something.
3) Task manager?
+ I think it's just recent launched apps (or apps in the background) now. It's in a way good that it goes beyond the last 6. Not that I find that old limit bothering really.
- Where's my task manager? I'm a bit OCD when it comes to ram usage and processes/services. Oh how i missed the Hold home button -> recent app screen with a task manager button -> Kill all task. LOL It's not much but it shows just enough: total ram usage, running apps, processes, and even storage space. Scratch that, it's actually very much.
# Right now I am resort to Auto Memory Manager with a blue fish icon. It's sufficient. But I can't access it anywhere.
4) Misc. stuff that I missed and would like help to find them. Note: these have nothing to do with the launcher.
- I used to have this "Windy Weather" live wall paper (or what i believed it was called). There were some wind turbines running on a grass field. It reflects the current weather. I scour the store and I couldn't find anything remotely like that besides having to go back to the GO family or you have to pay. I know it's not recommended but I tried titanium back up to restore it from my old system - no luck.
- Ap news widget. The widget was 2x4. It does not refreshes on its own and only do so with a tiny refresh button on the bottom right corner. It cycles through headlines with pictures that fully stretches the whole 2x4 window (beautifully). Can't find it in the store.
- Pinch on the home screen zooms out and gives you a quick view of all 7(now 5, but I can live with that) pages of home screen.
- That's all for now. I think I am still missing a few things I wanted to mention but I forgot what they are at the moment
anyway, sorry about some of the ranting. Here are some features i like:
+ File Manager is awesome.
+ Camera is great as well. And I love the quick browse gallery. It's weird that the actual gallery don't even have to pinch function while they put it here.
+ The pull down menu is clean. I kinda missed the "auto-rotation" quick set. But it's minor. I usually don't allow auto rotation anyway. I also like the setting button in there. But I used it so much I have to put a short cut on the home screen anyway.
+ The animation when you turn off the screen is COOL
+ The lock screen which gives you direct access to the camera is very convenient as well.

There is no sammy like app with swipe unfortunately.(edit :didnt know ex dialer has it sry_
Try apex launcher,nova launcher,adw ex launcher(i prefer this at the moment,pletora of settings)
autorotation ,play with toggle settings in system settings menu.
Don't bother with ram,free ram is wasted ram.
That windmill wallpaper i think go has something similar to it but i dont use it as it is a huge battery hogger .I just use a plain wallpaper.
I suggest u stay playing a bit with the lockscreen/system settings

Hi, i use ex dialer and it have slide right to call and slide left to sms.
Cheers!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

For dialer I recommend Dialer Ex from Play. I also missed the swipe to call & message function from Sammy roms. This app does it(it also has other great features like theme support etc.!)
Sent from my premium potato

1) ExDialer. You will never look back. You can customize it to your taste and it has the features you ask.
2) You need to use another launcher for that, but in my case I got accustomed to search for apps instead of looking for icons. It's easier and can be done from everywhere in your launcher if you click and hold the Menu key. You can also have folders in the Home screen, that's also a nice way to organize. Why I ended doing this? Because other launchers have too many options.
3) You shouldn't care about running apps. You can kill them by pressing Menu key on the Home and selecting manage apps. There, in "Running" you have the apps that are currently working on the background, the memory they use and you can eventually kill them. I'm against that unless you have an issue with an app (like Media Scanner going rogue).
4) GO Weather. You can download it from the web if it's not on the store and side-load it. But I have it available. I can't help you with the news widget as I never found one useful enough to my usage patterns. I don't think the default launcher can show you all Home screens at once.

Thanks for all the help guys. You are quick to reply : )

android manages ram efficiently u dont need to free ram if u still want to have a kill apps button on recent apps its part of aokp and if u want to have it on cm10 try pacman rom

[Q] voice to text and other woes

I imagine that this, like my other problems with my n4, is likely to be the result of my tinkering more than the phone itself... But seeing as I'm not terribly skilled, and I don't as much time as I'd like to fiddle around with my phone... I'm reaching out to the hive mind.
One of the problems thats annoying me the most right now is the voice to text button on the google keyboard. Namely it isn't doing anything. No error message, no change to the helpful microphone shaped circular button waiting to convert my dulcet tones into words... nothing.
To be honest I'm not entirely sure when this began, because its not a feature that I used frequently, unless alone in my car at a stoplight or something and I want to slam out a quick text. The mic still works fine, and gNow has no problem triggering and responding to me - it just seems as though the action is never triggered by the button.
I'm currently running KK, bootloader unlocked, rooted, xposed framework, gravity box, and a few other smaller modules (dictionary blacklist for example). Minimal rooted applications such as titanium and tasker, but nothing fancy is being done with them (didn't deepfreeze any system apps or set up any related tasks). The keyboard app is the google one with only small tweaks that are built in like the blue trail and shorter longpress time. I have offline voice to text set up, and this issue is present on wifi or network regardless.
Any tips? has anyone had this problem before? can anyone point me to a potential culprit or a way of finding one?

How to clear recently used apps

Am I crazy or does Marshmallow not have a way of clearing all the recently used apps that come up when you hit the square button? I realize 6.0 does a great job of managing power when many apps are open, but I'd just like to keep things a bit tidier when hitting that button so I can more easily switch between recently used apps.

Lollipop didn't have it either. I used Gravity Box to add a clear all button, but it and Xposed aren't available for 6.0 yet.
I keep mine cleared out and close any apps that are open before I shut my screen off. One thing that can help is turning off tabs as apps in the Chrome settings. That merges all the Chrome tabs into one slide so the list isn't as cluttered.

fury683 said:
Lollipop didn't have it either. I used Gravity Box to add a clear all button, but it and Xposed aren't available for 6.0 yet.
I keep mine cleared out and close any apps that are open before I shut my screen off. One thing that can help is turning off tabs as apps in the Chrome settings. That merges all the Chrome tabs into one slide so the list isn't as cluttered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's weird. I guess CM12.1 had a clear button in LP-- is what I was used to. Seems like a no-brainer to offer the ability to clear that list out considering how quick it can fill up.

Finally made the switch from iPhone but now need some assistance!

I am a long time iPhone user and finally made the switch over to Android. I got fed up with the minute upgrades and the 3steps behind in the technology advances from* android.* With the iPhone 7 being ridiculous* minor updates and only the better camera coming to the PLUS version, that was my sign to leave.
I never would of been with Apple for soon if there wasn't a JB. JB opened the doors to customizing but it seems with all the new IOS releases these days its getting harder n harder to accomplish.
I got used to the simplicity of Apple and now need some assistance with my transition over to Android, specifically Samsung. I called Samsung, after they couldn't answer my questions told me to go to the best buy kiosk for Samsung to get help. I went there with some questions and had the guy searching on the Internet the whole time not knowing the answers. HaHa
So what better way to get support then from XDA.
I finally got* answers to some questions I had after tons of online research but still have some minor ones.
------ INTRO ENDED------
Memos & Task Dilemma. Backing up to Google.
I have a Samsung device, Galaxy s7 edge to be exact.
I am trying to keep everything simple and backed up to one cloud service, my Google account. I am able to get my calendar and contacts backed up to Google but having an issue with Memos and Tasks.
Can someone recommend a good Notes/Memo application that backs up to google?
Correct me if I am wrong but the native Memo application that comes on Samsung will only backup to Samsung cloud services.
As well as tasks that are created within the calendar. Not events but Tasks that u want to show in calendar with a simple reminder.
I tried google keep.* That seems good for quick notes and Reminders/Tasks but the tasks do not show up in your calendar.
I am trying to emulate a simple design* of calendar events* and Tasks in one logical area all backed to the same cloud service and Memos also backed up to the same cloud service.
With iPhone, I could create events and Tasks with Siri into native apps and* 3rd party calendars would input the calendar events and Tasks into their own, all being backed up to I cloud.
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* Is there a free, AdFree way to add simple text boxes to photos. It seems I can't do that natively on this Samsung device so I was hoping for a good recommendation on a 3rd party application.
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* Is there an easy way to scroll back to the top of the page after u scroll all the way down? With iPhone u just tap menu bar.
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* For the edge users. Is there a way to setup a default initial startup edge screen. It seems it only opens up to where u left off last.
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* Anyone know of a way to be able to change tracks that r playing with Spotify application via the volume buttons with a push notifications hold? Might need root for that. Just checking. Miss that function with JB iPhone.
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* On the computer u can filter search results on Google play by rating but I do not see that present on the Google play app, unless I am missing something.
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* Is there an UNDO method on Android for when typing and erasing too much or cuting wrong text? With iPhone u shake device and it would undo last action.
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* Can u recommend a good simple clean design keyboard?* I have been using the default one but the predictive correction is just horrible. I am not sure if it gets better over time but boy it auto corrects to wrong words.
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* I am using the Native messaging application and when I receive a group message r just a message with pictures, I see NO SUBJECT showing on the screen where all messages are shown. The senders do not have show subject line enabled on their iPhone on messaging settings.
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* Svoice vs Google voice, is it just a personal preference?
I can create a task with Svoice but not google voice it seems.
Svoice drags speed wise.
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* Do I need to close out all running apps or download one of these 3rd party apps to clear up cache n RAM?
With iPhone IOS it did a pretty good job of running the system clean n smooth. This android works good at times and sluggish at other times. That is why I am not sure if I need to be doing things to keep all working smooth.
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* Is there a way to get the date to show in menu bar?
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Thanks in advance for those who took the time to read this and provide educational feedback. I hope the answers received will help other users in the same situation.
Sorry for mis types, like I mentioned I am not having a good keyboard experience. HaHa
Posted from Samsung device.

Google keep does show up on your calendar and gmail
Depends on your browser, I use opera browser where if you scroll to the bottom most page an arrow pops up on the screen to go to the top, it has to be a huge page
I dunno about the edge, havnt ever played with edge screen
If you are using a custom ROM based on cyanogen it it is very possible, you can hold the volume button to seek tracks. Try it go to settings search for buttons and see in the sub section volume buttons.
As far as I know, we cannot filter search by rating in the app
Swype keyboard, google keyboard, CHROOMA keyboard, are good keyboards.
There is no subject line in the google messaging app
Google voice is way better, can create remainders. Alarms etc
After some use, when you open a lot of apps go to the recents menu and click on clear all, that would clear the ram.
Menu bar?
Pls reply if any problem