Thoughts on the Interface and questions about an Idea - Nook Color Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this or not, so I apologize in advance if I'm posting in the wrong place and for asking (potentially) stupid questions because I am not a developer by any means.
I just got my Nook Color two days ago or so, and in that time I've loaded several different roms and tried various things to get a general feel for what works for me. I keep finding myself up against the wall between wanting the system tray at the bottom and buttons of Ice Cream Sandwich, and wanting the bar at the top like the default in Gingerbread and Froyo. Both have options that simply make sense to me and it seem that I am forced to choose between the one or the other.
My question is this:
Is it possible to have two bars (one on the top and one on the bottom) at all times and still allow for the launcher to be changed, so people can add what ever home replacement they prefer? I'm thinking of something like the Gnome 2.x desktop, with the top bar having the system tray to be dragged down, the clock and whatever icons would normally live there, then a bottom bar containing only the necessary buttons for menu and back at opposite sides of the bar.
Is this possible, or does Android have built in assumptions that there is only one bar which can be at the bottom or the top but you only get one?
Otherwise, what would it take to do this? Would it be possible to simply edit a few files as a novice and get this, or are we talking about such drastic changes it would break everything?
--bornagainpenguin

Okay, now I'm really confused...
I was talking about this to a friend of mine who is also tech savvy, and he gave me a puzzled look, pulled out his new phone with Ice Cream sandwich and showed me that by default, ICS came exactly like I was asking about!
This is a randomly googled image of what I saw:
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I went ahead and downloaded the latest version of the nightly CM9 builds and noticed that in the settings it talks about a "combined bar" which I assume is the default method is being used by all the current Nook Color CM9 roms. Is there a way to go back to the default split system bars method? Better yet, is there a way to get this on Gingerbread?
Hopefully by adding a screenshot of what I am looking for in general I am being more clear and someone can give me a response. If I am still not being clear, please let me know what information I need to add.
Thanks.
--bornagainpenguin

That is Phone GUI, I believe, while the Nook uses the Tablet. I believe that you can have it switch to Phone GUI by increasing the resolution. The problem is that at this point, the Phone GUI overrides the soft keys, which you'll need since the Nook doesn't have the hardware buttons. Leapinlar made a patch, maybe you'll like it. Read the description, the soft keys are customized.
Leapinlar's Softkey Patch
If you want the ICS soft keys in Gingerbread, MRG666 added the ICS soft keys to his CM7.2 ROM awhile back. Install the latest build or search his thread for info. Might take a little play in the settings, but I think you can make the above happen with a little work.
MiRaGe CM7.2 KANG

Thank you very much!
I'll definitely try out the patch, to see if that is what will work for me. I'll also give Kang another look. I remember one of the roms being what I wanted but I couldn't remember which one it was.
--bornagainpenguin
EDIT: Well I tested out the patch by Leapinlar, which seems to do pretty much what I'm looking for. The only thing is I'm not a hundred percent sure I think any of the ICS builds are really ready yet. I'm still planning to give that patch a try with the MIUI ICS and see if it makes an improvement or not.
I just spent the day reading through all 99 pages of the MiRaGe CM7.2 KANG thread (it was actually 98 pages when I started, lol) and I did not really see this addressed there. I am planning on asking directly in case I missed it somehow. The closest thing I saw was some discussion about the themes for the buttons and possibly being able to use older builds to get larger buttons. Not exactly what I'm looking for....

Related

YES there is a solution to get the time back in the topbar!

The battery icon in the topbar of new ROMs bothers a lot of people on this forum! Levenum has posted in his topic in the 'development & hacking' section a (partial) solution to our problem! His program works! But covers also the volume indicator For now: congrats to Levenum!!!
screenshot:
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topic with cabfile in first post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=45084&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0[/url][/img]
Wow that's great. However, I am sure that most don't want to do an addition by subtraction. Hopefully, somehow this can be tweaked even further to just cover the battery and not anything else.
Yeah.. moreover.. I think most people want to get rid of the battery and put the standard time back there, rather than essentially 'skin' the taskbar by slapping a clock on top. You may also wonder what happens, for example, when using MagicButton - does it cover up the Magic Button bar if it's set to "entire taskbar" ?
it works also well with MagicButton.......
Works for me No problems with Magic Button so far.. ..the time is nicely hidden when "Cover Full Title Bar" is selected
ZeBoxx said:
Yeah.. moreover.. I think most people want to get rid of the battery and put the standard time back there, rather than essentially 'skin' the taskbar by slapping a clock on top. You may also wonder what happens, for example, when using MagicButton - does it cover up the Magic Button bar if it's set to "entire taskbar" ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For as long as there is no other BETTER solution to the taskbar time problem, I think this is the best way for now. You're free to develop a tool yourself but i'm verry gratefull to Levenum!
wooo, calm down I'm sure it is the best solution for now, and I'd be happy to use it if I were on the AKU2 rom and it doesn't interfere with other things too much
definitely can't knock people for trying. we need more of that. for me losing the volume icon isn't that big of a deal but what does this cab actually do?
Ok, something wierd is going on here.
I just successfully installed the custom 2.17 ROM on my MDA. I expected to have this problem you've all been refering to about the clock, but I'm not. Mine is still there, same as it has always been. So is the volume indicator.
The only thing I'm missing is the battery icon in the lower right hand of the screen.
Is my phone the devil?
Great work! BTW, you can still edit your volume settings if you click on the "clock" in the top bar, you just don't see its current status. For now its the best and at least someone has tried.
The work IS appreciated!
HagbardCelineII said:
Is my phone the devil?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe - try placing a post in the following thread (wouldn't want this one to go off-topic, eh?) with the name of the ROM you installed and whatnot:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=45784 - Any way to remove the batt icon on top?
juiceppc said:
what does this cab actually do?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See the original thread mentioned in the first post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/viewtopic.php?t=45084
Summary: It adds a Today Item which lists both date (on the left) and time (on the right) -including Swatch @Internet time- using a custom string (e.g. "hh:mmtt" = "09:48am"). In later versions, an option to place a clock on the Taskbar (the top bar) was added. This clock simply 'overlays' on whatever may be there otherwise, which would typically be the new AKU2 ROM's battery indicator icon, and for most people the volume icon. Work is currently underway to make that Taskbar clock only appear when the Today screen is active, and have users be able to define the horizontal position of the clock - both to alleviate the issue of overlapping icons that /are/ desired.

Wheel-2-Unlock is UNDER DEVELOPEMENT!!!

EDIT: UNDER DEVELOPEMENT AND WILL BE RELEASED WHEN READY! KEEP AN EYE ON THIS THREAD!!!!
Here's an idea... when you turn your phone off, it locks... when you turn it on, you must roll your thumb/finger to the right around the wheel of the diamond to unlock it...
as you wheel around, the white line around the circle begins to fill from the top, moving rightward around...
sorry for the poor image quality, i just threw it together as a thought.
I hope a developer can throw this together, prolly isn't hard at all and would really be cool for the diamond. Better graphics and glowing line ofcourse.
its simple and utilizes the unique hardware of the diamond, and also the pro.
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anyone like?
anyone down to try and create it?
Wish i could, but i have no idea where to start. i'm in the dark here.
to clear up any confusion that may come up, the lights on the wheel itself don't need to light up as you wheel around... only the circle on the screen.
as you would pass a point on the wheel, another section of the ring on the screen would fill in.
Sounds like a good idea. Hope someone have the time to make it.
im sure that 'wheel-2-unlock' is one of the features of the TouchXperience ROM but it would take a long time for this rom to be released i guess.
TouchXperience is a ROM? Not just a cab installation?
http://www.touchxperience.com/en/touchxperience.html
I really want this app....I miss many calls...
sounds good, i hope someone can do it
Ok guys, i got a good man to try and put this together... he's farther along than he thought and will be releasing something when he feels its ready to meet the world!
Sounds like a good idea - I posted something very like it in the AnswerKeys Disabler thread a few weeks ago!
Glad someone has the skills to make it happen!
subscribed to the thread
Actually there IS such programm already: http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=83359&st=125&start=125
Maybe you should contact the author and try to develop together?)
Addicteddddd said:
subscribed to the thread
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
me too, (and now just lengthing my post to be > 10 characters )
baskalex said:
Actually there IS such programm already: http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=83359&st=125&start=125
Maybe you should contact the author and try to develop together?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i just DL'd that file on there and it wouldn't load on the phone... Prolly a difference in english device and whatever language that is device...
I'm not the primary developer cuz i don't know how to do so yet, but my boy on another forum is the one working on it... lets see what he comes up with.
i'll run it by him if he wants to talk to that R2U dev
hello
what about first version.
Im waiting forward.
lamdami said:
I really want this app....I miss many calls...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use S2U2 its the same function you miss no calls anymore when use.
grtzzz
CapacitiveFingerLock
I am working on such an idea already for a week or so:
CapacitiveFingerLock.
It will have another locking/unlocking mechanism on top of StylusLock, as described in this post:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=2681112&postcount=62
Because I am now on a business trip in America, I had not much time to work on the program. But I haven proven already that it works. I have to remove some stuff from the proven program, and integrate it with my already existing StylusLock. The goal is that it does NOT cost extra battery power and CPU and is really simple to use.
The reason to add this, is to have it possible to lock and unlock "one handed". The StylusLock approach cannot be done "one handed", e.g. on a bike. Also some people do not like to operate with the StylusLock. The combination with this new CapacitiveFingerLock and existing StylusLock will suit more people. And sometimes people will use the Stylus, so they will get the right behaviour depended on the usage.
Good idea, as I do not use any locks or such applications, but this one sounds nice. Just remember that this app should not conflict with, or somehow overcover and incomming call
ZuinigeRijder said:
I am working on such an idea already for a week or so:
CapacitiveFingerLock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Woohoo, I've been asking for such a thing for weeks now. Do you have a working version already?
That would be awesome.
Definitely MUCH MUCH better than SensorLock and all the - no need to mention - rest!
Especially because SensorLock is still buggy as hell!

[REQ] Notification Bar / Calendar Widget

Hello all
Just wanted to thank this community as a whole for all the great work they've done. I'm in love with my N1, rooted with CM and all the good stuff I found on this forum.
After tinkering around with my N1 for quite some time a potentially neat idea occurred to me (hope this is the right spot for it). I use my phone primarily for business use and general functionality. At the same time I tend to nitpick about ease-of-use, convenience and simplicity. My idea (alleging it doesn't already exist) is basically an advanced google calendar widget embedded into the notifications drop down. Obviously, this would turn primary use of the drop down into the said calender, but with the convenience to be able to pull it up in a second while allowing for more effective multi tasking.
I'm not a new to the developers world, but am as far as the Android OS goes. I was hoping a few experienced hands might see this as a nice little challenge. At the same time, for the willing, I would not mind at all attempting this challenge on my own (obviously with some much needed assistance ).
Sorry for the long post, and I look forward to hearing constructive feedback.
Thanks in advance!
Are you thinking more along the lines of something that lists upcoming events, or rather an actual calendar image? I'm not if the latter can be accomplished, but would definitely be willing to start working on something.
Hi!
Welcome to the forums!
typica1cat said:
basically an advanced google calendar widget embedded into the notifications drop down. Obviously, this would turn primary use of the drop down into the said calender, but with the convenience to be able to pull it up in a second while allowing for more effective multi tasking.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you looking for something like this?
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/net.jimblackler.quickcalendar/
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If not, can you elaborate on what you mean by an 'embedded calendar widget' in the notifications window?
.
You could add a calendar shortcut to the dock using one of the new launchers...
Paul22000 said:
...Are you looking for something like this?
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/net.jimblackler.quickcalendar/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That´s nice, thanx!
Thanks guy, I certainly appreciate all the responses and the warm welcome. Initially I wanted calender functionality inside the notifications drop down because it can be pulled up at anytime without having to switch to any other programs. Often times while writing emails I like to cross check my schedule mid proposal. Two applications/widgets I switch between are the "Pure Grid Calender" and the "Android Agenda Widget". I'm probably going too far here but this would be amazing: Upon touching the top bar initially, it switched to the notifications and the bar lowers a bit (all before actually sliding the menu down). If upon touching the bar, it slid down (that same amount) but with two options, one for notifications and one for calender. you could then slide your finger to the left or right to choose which drop down you want, and proceeded to slide it down and the chosen menu would then appear full screen.
This is probably impossible lol, i have a wild imagination. I can do a better mock-up after work with illustrations if indeed that was too wordy.
typica1cat said:
If upon touching the bar, it slid down (that same amount) but with two options, one for notifications and one for calender. you could then slide your finger to the left or right to choose which drop down you want, and proceeded to slide it down and the chosen menu would then appear full screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah I see. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to override/replace touching the status bar. You can put things in it, but having 'two' of them with left/right swipe I don't think is user-replaceable.
However, there ARE apps that let you put any shortcut you want in the Notifications Tray:
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.miromind.bartenderlite/
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.schwimmer.android.barcontrol/
I think your thinking of something along the lines of SBSettings for the iphone os?
@ paul Thank you for that information, if nothing else thats very useful.
@ zKilla: i am not familiar with iphone at all, i made the bold move to go straight into the world of android . But after doing some research that seems like it would be a great compromise.. only problem is if its even feasible to build into the N1
Also if any devs know where i could start poking my nose around, perhaps i figure this out on my own, lord knows itll take a few years tho ha

Am I the only one with these UI glitches on 2.1 ROMs?

Hi,
Since I've updated to 2.1 that I've been noticing that user interfaces with tabs are not looking so good as they used to.
I don't know if this is just me or everyone using 2.1 ROMs... I want to understand if this is a problem in my ROM (and all other 2.1 ROMs I've tested) or if it's a general problem and if anyone knows of a fix cause they look bad compared to the previous ones.
Here's a screenshot from Cupcake 1.5:
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"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Here's a screenshot from Eclair 2.1:
You can clearly see that there's a problem in the separator between the tabs and the rest of the content and also on the tabs labels text color, which is barely readable...
No one else notices this?
I noticed, but I didn't know if they looked better on the old Sense...
But yeah, again, except for the fact that we now have the 2.1 backend, the update really sucked. I don't like the glossy icons with lense flair effect (uagh, that ugly blue guitar player icon in the music player), random crashes (well, sense restarts to be accurate), UI glitches when switching between landscape and portrait mode.
You'd think with over half a year's time and countless delays they should be able to give us some proper software, that at least on the surface looks good.
Have you ever checked adb logcat while sense is running? Oh the plethora of error messages coming form that software...
Sense sucks, really annoying that we had to wait so long for the official 2.1 rom when all I wanted was a clean 2.1 without any of htc's junk. CMH rules period
This really bothered me and I'm the process of fixing the framework graphics...
I'm really close to fixing the graphics, so far so good and everything's working. I'm just not sure where can I change the color of the text labels in the tabs... Any ideas?
EDIT: Nevermind, just found it, I'll post a topic with the a patch in the dev section when I'm finished with this. I'll just a little more thing to try to fix before that...
I know that you have found a patch, but is there a chance you are using basic-Sense ROMs? If you use a full-Sense ROM you should not have this problem...?
Andyt95 said:
I know that you have found a patch, but is there a chance you are using basic-Sense ROMs? If you use a full-Sense ROM you should not have this problem...?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have no idea what you mean by basic/full Sense ROMs...
I'm using my own cooked ROM based on the official RUU and I didn't do any changes for this to happen. But just to make sure, I installed a clean ROM without any changes but root and the problem was still there.
The things I changed for this to look better cannot happen on their own, so I don't understand how can this be a problem for some and not everyone (if that's indeed the case).

Qucik dev question

Hey everyone, right now I am working on a rom for the D2 and I had it all going great and was just about to release it to the community until I came across a pretty major bug with the text color. I fixed that bug with the help of another developer but after fixing the bug I came across a string of other bugs which weren't there before.
Most of the bugs were easily fixable except for a few and one of them I couldn't fix by myself.
The bug is that whenever I am in the settings.apk I cannot access most of the options because it force closes constantly which also results in reboots when I am trying to turn on wifi, gps, etc. It is usable but annoyingly slow. My idea was to just replace the settings.apk and settingsprovider.apk with new/stock ones and I am doing that right now and am going to flash that rom really soon but I am not sure if that will work, any ideas?
Also my logcat looks like this:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
and just keeps updating the status of the phone position multiple times a second. When I logcat other roms they never constantly update the screen position and I was thinking that this probably sucks the battery dry , does anyone know how to make it update the screen position less often?
Finally I must've misplaced some file in the framework-res.apk and now whenever I try to change the volume of either the ringer or some media the bar that shows how loud it is goes all crazy and turns into a spinner *shown bellow*.
Any help with any of these problems would be great.
Thanks a lot,
ljbaumer
p.s. the rom should be released in a BETA in probably a week once these bugs are fixed and I make a few more changes to the look and speed.
Cool... is this rom based on anouther??? Is it blur or non blur??? Good luck if you need any help hit me up
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
It's based off of gummyjar but with a lot of changes and tons of stuff from other roms.
It is completely non-blur.
I might include a few pieces of MIUI in it (because I am going to do my best to try and port MIUI over to the D2 from the Droid after this rom).
ljbaumer said:
It's based off of gummyjar but with a lot of changes and tons of stuff from other roms.
It is completely non-blur.
I might include a few pieces of MIUI in it (because I am going to do my best to try and port MIUI over to the D2 from the Droid after this rom).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cool just make sure you give credit to everyones app etc... that you use
If you are really interested in doing this right, I can help you setup your build envirement so you can build your own apps... this is something I have offered since releasing GummyJAR but to date only droid2169 has taken me up on it....
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Yeah I definitely will credit everyone!
(I think I PMed you a while back about building my rom from gummyjar but I may have not...)
I hate people who steal work from other people without writing credits.
It would be great if you could help me set up an environment to build apps.
thanks,
ljbaumer
The sound progress issue is linked to progress_horizontal.xml in framework-res/res/drawable. Make sure you have that file edited correctly.
sonnysekhon said:
The sound progress issue is linked to progress_horizontal.xml in framework-res/res/drawable. Make sure you have that file edited correctly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks,
I didn't do any editing to that file.... Should i just replace it with a stock progress_horizontal.xml from a fresh framework-res.apk and see if that fixes it?
ljbaumer said:
Thanks,
I didn't do any editing to that file.... Should i just replace it with a stock progress_horizontal.xml from a fresh framework-res.apk and see if that fixes it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can try that. Or use the one from my theme to get the white color.
sonnysekhon said:
Yes, you can try that. Or use the one from my theme to get the white color.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, I 'bricked' my phone so I had to SBF and now I am stock again, so I am just rooting over. I'll use the file from your theme so I can get the white one (which looks tight) and then I think I am just going to resync with gummyjar and start over because I just got a new computer for Christmas and I'll just save my system/app and framework-res.apk so that I won't have to do that much editing over again.
thanks,
ljbaumer

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