[Q] Custom Background on Metro UI - Windows 8 General

How can we change the Metro UI's background on Windows 8 Developer Preview (not the Consumer Preview) and should it get this feature on the final version?

AlpyzDX said:
How can we change the Metro UI's background on Windows 8 Developer Preview (not the Consumer Preview) and should it get this feature on the final version?
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I think the problem lies with the fact that the background is a vector image and not a raster image, that is probably even generated on the fly because the start screen can be infinitely long. Thus a raster image would be awkward as it wouldn't be able to scroll along with it unless it was tiled. Also the default backgrounds (in consumer preview, my memory is bad and I can't remember what the state was in the developer preview) are very subtle backgrounds for the reason that they are not supposed to distract from the tiles.
Also, why are you still using the developer preview?

I couldn't install the Consumer Preview, because of the internet didn't work on my Windows 8 Developer Preview Virtual Machine. That is why. And thanks for you to make me learn something new (not trying to be rude, if I was, then I'm sorry.).

moved to general

Related

animation

Is there such a way that I could get transaction animation in switching between apps like other os?
Yes by using Cyanogen Mod 7 in Android
The OP said "like in other OS's" so I believe they already knew they could do this with Android. They are asking about Windows Mobile.
So,why not give him an option rather than criticising my reply.... ?
Marct77 said:
So,why not give him an option rather than criticising my reply.... ?
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I was just pointing it out is all, in case you had missed it. I don't know of any app or tweaks that will give them what they want is why I did not give an option if I did I would have. I was not criticizing your response though please do not take it that way.
lololol.....
if you are talking about windows mobile, i THINK (really can't remember for sure) that the task switcher i used back in the windows mobile days (called "task facade") did some rudimentary animation when switching between running apps. however, i don't think it had any capability to apply the same animation effects when LAUNCHING an application from the quick links or from the start menu.
another option to consider within the windows mobile world is using "advanced config" to enable "menu animation" and "window animation" provided by windows mobile itself. i think these animations are typically disabled by default because they are kind of jerky and slow on most windows mobile phones, probably because the windows mobile UI is not hardware accelerated (to the best of my knowledge).
Ha I had forgot about Task Facade, I guess thatcis because I never got it to work lol. Here fiscal link to a page where you can check out and download thecl cab files for both Task Facade and 3D Alt Tab which are two animation type apps to change between running apps. Sorry I had forgot about both of them. Never got 3D Alt Tab working either, but both look cool.
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/users/downloads/page/3
@T-Macgnolia - Explanation accepted,no worries..
There are animations with Winstart,which is a Windows Start menu replacement,
but only as you open various folders and such like.
http://www.xda-developers.com/windows-mobile/animated-new-start-menu-for-wm-winstart/
http://youtu.be/-qAxhD-k3ak

share your views on windows 8

well i installed windows 8 devloper preview and I must say that it sucks big time .
dont want to comment more as going to uninstall it ,for those who want to test it dont do it stay happy with windows 7
I disagree. Makes for a new look, boots faster, internet explorer 10 is great. Its brought a7 year old PC back to life even more so than windows 7. Just needs a little bit more work. By the time the release date rolls around it should be much
More polished
What's a signature?
I think it's rough around the edges, but that Metro is the future of computing interfaces . When you've used Metro on a touchscreen, there's *nothing* better
I disagree too.
On my W500, it flies compared to Win7. As a WP7 user, I am into the metro look and style, it works well on a tablet. I installed on a spare laptop and the experience is diminished purely by having to use that horrible horizontal scroll bar at the bottom...god I hope that is gone by beta.
I thought that pinning apps to the metro screen (do we call that the start screen now?) would be as simple as press-hold on a app/program in the apps list...but that doesnt bring up a 'pin it' pop-up. You have to navigate to the prog file in explorer...another thing that should be as intuitive as the phone but isn't.
As a replacement for the traditional desktop, metro takes some getting used to. No quick way to switch apps...you can swipe open apps in from the left, but you have to scroll through them all to get to the one you want. I would have expected a long press to bring you to a page of all open apps (same as back key on WP7?) but I can't find such a feature, yet.
And I still haven't figure out how to exit those open metro apps. Maybe I need to rely on Win8 app management, like WP7 to close when the mem gets full?
The W500 has a windows hard key on the front, and that does fast switching from metro to desktop...I think it must be more clunky if you don't have that available.
Also, when placing a cursor in a text field, I get a little graphic of a keyboard popping up, which I have to press to actually get the keyboard...I would have expected to get the keyboard straight away if I enter a text field.
And another thing on the keyboard, if I want to minimise it it, I have to go to the language button in the bottom right, where you can switch language and there is a small down arrow to click to minimise. Not exactly friendly when you want to minimise the keys to see more screen real estate.
Let us remember it is a developer preview, a shell to allow devs to see how their metro apps will work. This isn't a day-to-day OS yet, I am sure there is much more glittery goodness to follow.
But I like what I see so far.
Thumbs up
I have to agree. I love the new setup. I don't have a windows phone, but I have thought for a while that it was certainly the best layout option for smartphones.
Certainly, there are some bugs, and it's in desperate need of more apps, but that's the point. The iso wasn't really put up to be played with. It was put up so that we can make apps for it. Not to mention the thought of having a fully function (i.e. I can program on it) tablet is awesome. I'm not much for these consumption devices that are the current tablet offerings.
Especially for pre-beta software, I feel that this is a really strong showing. And I'm digging the updated VS 2011. Minor changes and all, but it's definitely a little speedier as well.
Windows 8
Performence of Winodws8 is awesome but the tablet layout on doesn't sound Good.Tablet is Tablet & PC is PC.There are alot of differences between them.You can't make tablet layout comfortable on PC that M$ shuld know.
Anyway i liked this Windows 8 Layout
twisticles said:
I disagree too.
On my W500, it flies compared to Win7. As a WP7 user, I am into the metro look and style, it works well on a tablet. I installed on a spare laptop and the experience is diminished purely by having to use that horrible horizontal scroll bar at the bottom...god I hope that is gone by beta.
I thought that pinning apps to the metro screen (do we call that the start screen now?) would be as simple as press-hold on a app/program in the apps list...but that doesnt bring up a 'pin it' pop-up. You have to navigate to the prog file in explorer...another thing that should be as intuitive as the phone but isn't.
As a replacement for the traditional desktop, metro takes some getting used to. No quick way to switch apps...you can swipe open apps in from the left, but you have to scroll through them all to get to the one you want. I would have expected a long press to bring you to a page of all open apps (same as back key on WP7?) but I can't find such a feature, yet.
And I still haven't figure out how to exit those open metro apps. Maybe I need to rely on Win8 app management, like WP7 to close when the mem gets full?
The W500 has a windows hard key on the front, and that does fast switching from metro to desktop...I think it must be more clunky if you don't have that available.
Aflso, when placing a cursor in a text field, I get a little graphic of a keyboard popping up, which I have to press to actually get the keyboard...I would have expected to get the keyboard straight away if I enter a text field.
IAnd another thing on the keyboard, if I want to minimise it it, I have to go to the language button in the bottom right, where you can switch language and there is a small down arrow to click to minimise. Not exactly friendly when you want to minimise the keys to see more screen real estate.
Let us remember it is a developer preview, a shell to allow devs to see how their metro apps will work. This isn't a day-to-day OS yet, I am sure there is much more glittery goodness to follow.
But I like what I see so far.
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if this is the developer preview I cannot wait till final seriously. its just that good ❤ ? and emotes works w00t
well my comment is on devloper preview not the final build as definately it will come up with lots of stuff and changes so i mean to wait for the final release .
to get a proper hand on it
I'm quite pleased with it overall..
I like the new start screen, the ribbon is useful in explorer, I like the new task manager.. and the performance is fantastic.
With some polish and the new features they showed us (that this build doesn't have) I think Windows 8 will be in very good shape for launch.
I actually prefer the metro IE 10 to the desktop version.. it makes for a much more pleasant reading experience for reading articles on the web, etc and it's really fast.
Can't really say it sucks cause it's only in dev preview. There are more things will be done.
Love the Metro UI, Ribbons, Charms and the cloud integration.
Not to forget the performance and features/tool available for developers.
I really wonder windows 8 will bi good or bad, win 7 was very good because of it is a fix version of vista, but win 8 will be very new and must have erros, important point is to make them fix fast

sefe

[redacted]
Some cool ideas there. A few comments (posted here because I don't see a way to leave feedback on the site):
1) I'd put the Charms bar on press-and-hold of a button, probably Search (which doesn't currently have any Hold action assigned). Double-tapping is an action that literally nothing else on the Windows Phone OS uses, and especially a button that is sometimes capacitive and sometimes physical (depending on phone model) it's not something I advocate adding now. I like the idea a lot, though, especially for its tie-in with Win8. One thing to add to the Charms bar though: as on Win8 (where it shows a bunch of status info when you open Charms), the Status Bar at the top of the screen should be always visible when showing Charms.
2) There's already a way to get to the task switcher; while it's OK to have multiple methods for achieving the same goal, it seems like there might be something more useful to do than duplicating functionality through a more round-about approach.
3) There should be a more visible cue about the notifications center. Either have something drop down from the top (perhaps a "you have <X> notifications" bar with an appbar-like pull indicator?) or add a button specifically for notifications (two-level Charms bar? Move it to the right edge of the screen? Not sure how best to handle that).
4) I know the whole "swipe down to close an app" thing is very commonly requested, and comes from WebOS, and vaguely resembles Win8, and... I still don't know if I want it. Closing an app is pretty close to literally never needed; backgrounded apps are not generally allowed to use any system resources (they may hold onto some RAM, but the system will take it from them if a foreground app needs it). Closing an app the "usual" way - by switching to it if needed, and then tapping Back until it goes away - also works, although it's more actions. My biggest concern would be that right now, it's not really possible to ever do the wrong thing on the task switcher view. Closing an app, though, is a destructive behavior - you lose the app's current state - and is something that would need to be carefully implemented to make sure it never happens by accident... or perhaps make it optional entirely.
5) The Xbox Music feature looks pretty good, although the drop-down switch between Albums/Songs/Artists/etc. might be a bit too... background. Also, the really basic problems of the new UI - things like songs getting duplicated when they exist both on the phone/SD card and on the "Music Cloud" - really need to be addressed. Highlighting the Search thing - I know you mentioned it earlier with global search, but it's good to have more focused search capabilities too - as the current lack of Search in the music app is a Problem.
6) "Windows and Windows Phone share the same store" is way, way more complex than anybody might be realizing. Leaving aside the fact that most Windows Store apps aren't written for the resolution or aspect ratio of Windows Phone and would therefore possibly look kind of crappy if they were usable at all, and the fact that app models of the two OSes are pretty different (for example, Windows Store apps are allowed to request filesystem access and are required to implement the Settings charm, while WP apps have neither of those things), the APIs are just different. WP8 can use a sort-of-subset of WinRT (the API for Win8 apps) but it's not the same thing (and Win8 can't run WP7 apps at all, not even close). Finally, there's the issue that even the most powerful WP8 are half as powerful as even the lowest-end WRT tablets, and that's going to make a lot of things that perform fine on things like Surface RT be unacceptably slow on a Lumia 920 and impossible to run on anything with lower specs.
7) IE11 is coming for sure. The sync feature would definitely be nice. I'd also like to see some version of (desktop) IE's feed reader (shared with desktop Outlook) get integrated into WP8.
8) Integration with photo services, in the same way as other parts of the phone are integrated with Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and so on... that is an excellent idea. Come to think of it, Facebook pictures are already integrated (a feature I never really use) so adding others should definitely be possible. It would be cool if apps could integrate that kind of stuff without explicit OS support, but that may be aiming too high.
Thanks for the good feedback!
Hmmm, concept by who?
that'd be me.
The sync of bookmarks from Desktop IE to WP IE has already been confirmed for a future version of WP. They didn't say which one exactlly so it might take until WP Blue.
I personally don't like the idea of having the icons in the settings - at least not at the end, just looks kinda weird. Perhaps it would work better if you put them in front and aligned them properly on a grid.
Camera settings actually return back to the defaults when you relaunch the Camera App (and didn't save your changes as defaults).
As for the charms bar - I like the idea of a universal sharing and search feature but I don't particularily like the implementation of it with the charms bar on Win8 and I really don't see it work well on WP.
I like it but MS always let's its users down and dismisses the best ideas and concepts. WP will go now where higher that where it currently is now because of MS's ignorance. The next 2 updates for Luminas that includes the Amber and the GR2 or whatever its called don't really bring much to WP at all; who cares about another clock on the screen or data sense? Or more camera tricks...? Really now!!
@sinister1: Does that post really help? Come on, there's no value in just being negative everywhere.
Also, you call Microsoft "ignorant", but I guarantee that they know far, far more about the smartphone market than you do. If you want to be persuasive, you need to come up with arguments that have more substance to them than effectively just calling MS names.
@KlausWidraw: I think I'm with StevieBallz on the suggestion to have the Settings icons be left-aligned; they do make the items easier to identify, but having a consistent horizontal position to look for them at would help. That said, the ability to re-order the options would be huge; I use some all the time (like Cellular, which is annoyingly just off the bottom of my screen) and others not at all (like "lock screen", "tap+send", or "theme") once I've set them up initially, and would like them out of the way to make room for the options that I care about.
GDR2/Amber as well as GDR1 before it and GDR3 after it are mere maintenance releases. No one expects an Update from Android 4.2.0 to 4.2.1 or 4.2.2 to bring major new functionality. No one expects updates from iOS 6.0 to 6.1 to bring major new features. Somehow everyone (contrary to all reporting on those topics) expects those maintenance releases in WP to do just that. Really new functionality will only arrive with WP8.1/Blue and this has been known pretty much since the WP Blue name first appeared in leaks.
GDRs mainly serve the purpose of fixing some bugs and enabling new hardware functionality that is required for device launches. It has been the same with WP7. There were updates like Tango that served to enable LTE. GDR2 now mainly serves to enable the new capabilities that Nokia required for their Lumia 925 and Eos Camera phones and to keep Google Mail usable. GDR1 was mainly bugfixes, GDR3 will enable new hardware like even higher resolution screens.
Amber then is bundled with the GDR2 update rollout but IS NOT a WP update. It is a device specific capability update like we have seen them by all OEMs in the past.
If there are two things I would change about WP (from a user perspective) those are:
1) A clock tile that updates real time, like the HTC one (srsly want one).
2) Battery saver profiles that let me choose what i want to remain active (bluetooth, wifi, mobile data, background tasks)
That's about it.
From a developer point of view, things are very, very different xD
GoodDayToDie said:
@sinister1: Does that post really help? Come on, there's no value in just being negative everywhere.
Also, you call Microsoft "ignorant", but I guarantee that they know far, far more about the smartphone market than you do. If you want to be persuasive, you need to come up with arguments that have more substance to them than effectively just calling MS names.
@KlausWidraw: I think I'm with StevieBallz on the suggestion to have the Settings icons be left-aligned; they do make the items easier to identify, but having a consistent horizontal position to look for them at would help. That said, the ability to re-order the options would be huge; I use some all the time (like Cellular, which is annoyingly just off the bottom of my screen) and others not at all (like "lock screen", "tap+send", or "theme") once I've set them up initially, and would like them out of the way to make room for the options that I care about.
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Sorry for being so negative but this is really how I feel and what's wrong with that? I know that not everyone will agree with my views or me with views of others but my negative feed back is feed back just like positive feed back is also feed back. I'm pretty sure that you have your gripes with other things.
I'm just feed up that devs come up with some of the brightest ideas and MS simply ignores them. Tell me what is so hard for them to open the OS just a little more for people to be creative? Seriously? Now the truth is the best substance. And of course if you still don't agree with me that's okay; I won't hold it against you because those are your opinions and the way you feel. Please don't take any of my rants personal as all they are, my personal opinions.
sinister1 said:
I'm just feed up that devs come up with some of the brightest ideas and MS simply ignores them. Tell me what is so hard for them to open the OS just a little more for people to be creative? Seriously?
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I have to agree with you on this one. There are some understandable things for security's sake, but its ridiculous how complicated it is to customize Windows Phone 8 or even WP7. With WP7, you could only have a static lockscreen (ignoring LockWidgets from WPH) and couldn't set a custom text notification sound (besides MS' and HTC's.) I could add a custom ringtone, but it was a pain to do, period. With WP8, its a tad easier. You can just copy and paste ringtones, lock screens are customizable, and alarm can be customized as well, as well as the battery percentage can be pinned to the lockscreen/start screen. But compared to the other 3 platforms (Andriod, iOS, and now discontinued Symbian) could virtually anything could be changed. I remember when the 7.8 Beta was out and there were swapped fonts in the roms. Its something that no one had even thought about modifying until it was an issue.
I do have to say the native apps ability is appreciated, but it seems that Interop is still an issue (except I have no idea how problematic it still is). I do have to say I don't know much of whats been going on, due to jumping ship getting Verizon's Trophy late in the game (like when I first signed up here) and then finally moved to WP8 with their 928. So I'm kinda in the dark as to what has been added from the GDR1, Nokia's supposed Amber update, whats in GDR2, future FM support, ect. I really just wish that MS would be a little more verbal about whats in WP8's updates. They were bad with WP7 and they aren't any better now.
Another feature that MS is completely missing is Xbox Video. Seems stupid for them to say their experience is coherent between all their devices when its clearly not.
Can u guys tell me ....which phones will get windows 8.1 update .????
Sent from my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app
Some people don't like customization.
Customization comes with the cost of performance. I had an android with "customization" and whenever i "customized it" it became really, really, really slow.
In order to even have customization working, the system has to waist a lot of CPU cycles on stuff like checking 1000000000000000 settings to figure out what it should render next, swap a gazillion artifacts from storage to memory etc etc.
I want my phone to do what I tell it to do. I don't give a damn about more customization than it already has, and so are 99% of all windows phone users, whom increase in numbers day by day.
If you are going to give feedback disguised as QQ, then you should head over to microsoft's site and make your voice actually count. You complaining here all day, on a freeking developer/hacker forums, will not help!
Windows 8.1 blue will probably loosen up the developers a bit, if they are going to implement all our suggestions. Which will come for all windows phone 8 phones.
@mcosmin: The conecpt the you trade performance for customization really isn't true. Yes, the phone could eke out a trivial amount of better performance by hardcoding its UI styles, but they don't do that. Things like accent colors, background colors, text styles, etc. are all stored in the registry; you don't have to modify a single line of system code to modify or create themes of your own, and they'll run just as fast. Other forms of customization, such as replacing some of the builtin libraries with custom ones, might be slower in certain circumstances, but only if the custom library either added new features (not just new customizations, but actual functionality that wasn't present before) or is simply very poorly coded. The first of those is a tradeoff, the second is easily fixed if people just share their source code.
@sinister1: It's not that I don't agree with you - I do, in fact, and frequently quite vociferously - I just don't see what value you're adding to this conversation by proclaiming it. This thread is to discuss mockups of UI changes to WP8, not to complain about OS lockdown in WP8 and Microsoft's apparent unwillingness to implement some requested changes.
GoodDayToDie said:
@mscosmin: The conecpt the you trade performance for customization really isn't true. Yes, the phone could eke out a trivial amount of better performance by hardcoding its UI styles, but they don't do that. Things like accent colors, background colors, text styles, etc. are all stored in the registry; you don't have to modify a single line of system code to modify or create themes of your own, and they'll run just as fast. Other forms of customization, such as replacing some of the builtin libraries with custom ones, might be slower in certain circumstances, but only if the custom library either added new features (not just new customizations, but actual functionality that wasn't present before) or is simply very poorly coded. The first of those is a tradeoff, the second is easily fixed if people just share their source code.
@sinister1: It's not that I don't agree with you - I do, in fact, and frequently quite vociferously - I just don't see what value you're adding to this conversation by proclaiming it. This thread is to discuss mockups of UI changes to WP8, not to complain about OS lockdown in WP8 and Microsoft's apparent unwillingness to implement some requested changes.
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And how many people do you think will be able to do proper customization? Windows Phone shouldn't be Android with squares instead of rounded edge widgets.
And solid colors like the ones WP uses will always be faster than a image on the background, or some sort of gradients or whatever they they propose to have around the phone.
How many people will do "proper" customization? As many as want to. Who are you to say what is or is not "proper" for how I want my phone to look?
Of all the things wrong with Android (the battery drain due to background services not exiting automatically, the more stuttery UI on all but the highest-end phones due to poorer optimization, the ability for malicious apps to send premium SMS completely invisibly to the user, etc.) you choose to pick on the customizations? Nobody is suggesting that we want Android with WP-like tiles; in that case we would have bought Android phones and installed one of the several Metro-style home screen customizations. On the other hand, if I want a Windows Phone with "rounded edge widgets" and am willing to put in the effort to develop them, I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed to.
WP uses the graphics processor for its UI. Those "solid colors" are just textures like any other. A gradient, an image, a partially translucent image... they're all the same to the GPU. The performance cost would be unmeasurably small.
GoodDayToDie said:
How many people will do "proper" customization? As many as want to. Who are you to say what is or is not "proper" for how I want my phone to look?
Of all the things wrong with Android (the battery drain due to background services not exiting automatically, the more stuttery UI on all but the highest-end phones due to poorer optimization, the ability for malicious apps to send premium SMS completely invisibly to the user, etc.) you choose to pick on the customizations? Nobody is suggesting that we want Android with WP-like tiles; in that case we would have bought Android phones and installed one of the several Metro-style home screen customizations. On the other hand, if I want a Windows Phone with "rounded edge widgets" and am willing to put in the effort to develop them, I see no reason I shouldn't be allowed to.
WP uses the graphics processor for its UI. Those "solid colors" are just textures like any other. A gradient, an image, a partially translucent image... they're all the same to the GPU. The performance cost would be unmeasurably small.
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It's not about the GPU.
It's about the CPU. The more complex the image is, the bigger the size, the more time wasted for CPU to process it.
Add to that the fact it needs to purge/load from memory several times a day (in the case of a background wallpaper for startscreen), and the performance loss and battery drain is suddenly no longer unmeasurably small.
You're talking about a difference of microseconds. Not milliseconds, microseconds. Several times a day. And telling me that this is *not* below the noise threshold of any measurement system we have today, never mind human perception?!?
Also, consider people who use apps (with their own tiles, not just system tiles that are mostly blank and therefore rendered as mostly a solid color) on their lock screen. You know, the whole "meet <person>" advertising campaign Microsoft has been running for this OS? Those app tiles take just as long for the CPU to decode and send the texture to the GPU as the customized tiles we're talking about here...
Except, customized tiles aren't even the point. If you don't want to customize your tiles because saving a few millionths of a second per day - a saving which will never amount to a whole second over your entire lifetime, much less that of the phone - you don't have to. The rest of us want features; customization is merely one of those features. It gets a lot of discussion because:
A) It's an obvious feature to have. MS advertises personalization. People like being able to change how things look, be it their clothing or their front yard or their Windows background. For some reason, though, they can't change their Windows Phone background.
B) It's really, really simple to implement. I mean, there are tons of third party apps, some rather sophisticated, to do this. Microsoft doesn't have to jump through the crazy hoops that we did, and they have the documentation on how the OS works as well.
c) It really does not affect performance. There's no cost. Look at the custom themes and custom system tray icons and so forth on WP7, and try telling me with a straight face the percentage by which it impacts performance to use them.
GoodDayToDie said:
You're talking about a difference of microseconds. Not milliseconds, microseconds. Several times a day. And telling me that this is *not* below the noise threshold of any measurement system we have today, never mind human perception?!?
Also, consider people who use apps (with their own tiles, not just system tiles that are mostly blank and therefore rendered as mostly a solid color) on their lock screen. You know, the whole "meet <person>" advertising campaign Microsoft has been running for this OS? Those app tiles take just as long for the CPU to decode and send the texture to the GPU as the customized tiles we're talking about here...
Except, customized tiles aren't even the point. If you don't want to customize your tiles because saving a few millionths of a second per day - a saving which will never amount to a whole second over your entire lifetime, much less that of the phone - you don't have to. The rest of us want features; customization is merely one of those features. It gets a lot of discussion because:
A) It's an obvious feature to have. MS advertises personalization. People like being able to change how things look, be it their clothing or their front yard or their Windows background. For some reason, though, they can't change their Windows Phone background.
B) It's really, really simple to implement. I mean, there are tons of third party apps, some rather sophisticated, to do this. Microsoft doesn't have to jump through the crazy hoops that we did, and they have the documentation on how the OS works as well.
c) It really does not affect performance. There's no cost. Look at the custom themes and custom system tray icons and so forth on WP7, and try telling me with a straight face the percentage by which it impacts performance to use them.
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Don't compare the WP7 theme mods and stuff like that which were made by hackers that knew what they were doing.
If Microsoft allows this officially on the marketplace, it will be flooded by poor apps.
Anyway, we seem to not be talking about the same thing. We should let it rest.

Nougat Screenshots

anyone who did the nougat update, can you post some screenshots? i am debating whether to do the upgrade or leave well enough alone. one post mentioned that th recent apps window was sub-standard. any other good and bad?
mark2573 said:
anyone who did the nougat update, can you post some screenshots? i am debating whether to do the upgrade or leave well enough alone. one post mentioned that th recent apps window was sub-standard. any other good and bad?
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Yeah, I'm curious as well..i want to know if this update is going to be worth it
I did update to Nougat. My use is very limited but I find battery timing much improved and multi window is way better.
first of all - if you're satisfied with your device as it is don't update! It (unfortunately) doesn't get any better. They removed two important features - at least for me. There are no floating apps anymore - so if you want to use the small version of (for example) the google play music player while you're browsing you will have to use the splitscreen with dramatically decreased space for your browser left. So basically this means less convenience for you. The other thing is the (absolutely) useless "recent apps" view. In the past the whole screen was used by displaying the apps as tiles - now you only see them in the (for big tablet screens) useless card view.
Sorry - i always hate it when something really good just gets abandoned and replaced by something far inferior
I also found out, that manufacturers of 10"+ Tablets are encouraged to implement the native Android N freeform mode - so why has lenovo left this out of their update? I hope it gets back on the device with a later update.
P.S.: Android 7.0 CDD states that:
Device implementations with screen size xlarge SHOULD support freeform mode.
In the parlance of this CDD, there appear to be three levels of endorsement: SHOULD, STRONLY ENCOURAGED, and MUST. SHOULD is the weakest of the three, but it is still an endorsement.
NiffStipples said:
first of all - if you're satisfied with your device as it is don't update! It (unfortunately) doesn't get any better. They removed two important features - at least for me. There are no floating apps anymore - so if you want to use the small version of (for example) the google play music player while you're browsing you will have to use the splitscreen with dramatically decreased space for your browser left. So basically this means less convenience for you. The other thing is the (absolutely) useless "recent apps" view. In the past the whole screen was used by displaying the apps as tiles - now you only see them in the (for big tablet screens) useless card view.
Sorry - i always hate it when something really good just gets abandoned and replaced by something far inferior
I also found out, that manufacturers of 10"+ Tablets are encouraged to implement the native Android N freeform mode - so why has lenovo left this out of their update? I hope it gets back on the device with a later update.
P.S.: Android 7.0 CDD states that:
Device implementations with screen size xlarge SHOULD support freeform mode.
In the parlance of this CDD, there appear to be three levels of endorsement: SHOULD, STRONLY ENCOURAGED, and MUST. SHOULD is the weakest of the three, but it is still an endorsement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks buddy. I think I'm better off skipping this update.
Wrong, wrong, wrong
NiffStipples said:
first of all - if you're satisfied with your device as it is don't update! It (unfortunately) doesn't get any better. They removed two important features - at least for me. There are no floating apps anymore - so if you want to use the small version of (for example) the google play music player while you're browsing you will have to use the splitscreen with dramatically decreased space for your browser left. So basically this means less convenience for you. The other thing is the (absolutely) useless "recent apps" view. In the past the whole screen was used by displaying the apps as tiles - now you only see them in the (for big tablet screens) useless card view.
Sorry - i always hate it when something really good just gets abandoned and replaced by something far inferior
I also found out, that manufacturers of 10"+ Tablets are encouraged to implement the native Android N freeform mode - so why has lenovo left this out of their update? I hope it gets back on the device with a later update.
P.S.: Android 7.0 CDD states that:
Device implementations with screen size xlarge SHOULD support freeform mode.
In the parlance of this CDD, there appear to be three levels of endorsement: SHOULD, STRONLY ENCOURAGED, and MUST. SHOULD is the weakest of the three, but it is still an endorsement.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, updates are really important for android devices in general. And especially for manufacturers like Lenovo which is known to let their product outdated pretty early. Personally, I'm impressed this time they updated to Android N even before schedule, and I'm hoping they continue releasing updates not to let this amazing product die.
As for the features you talk about:
1) floating windows in freeform is natively supported in android N and just need to be enabled in developer options (one of the last entries under App category). You can install "Taskbar" app to launch all of your apps in window mode by using the native method, and resize them as you like by dragging on the bottom-right corner (which previously was not possible).
2) It is true that Task manager with tiles view was a more clean way to switch between apps on this device, but the needing of double-pressing the TAB button when alt-tabbing beween apps, always made it uneffective and uncomfortable to me. Now ALT-TAB switch between apps just flawlessly as in a standard computer. Hence, i'm really happy with that.
3) I find overall performance have gotten slightly better with the recent N update: i can notice that in the UI and in games too! other users on other threads are talking about a slightly better battery performance too, so it seems like they optimized the hardware support somehow.
morrolinux said:
First of all, updates are really important for android devices in general. And especially for manufacturers like Lenovo which is known to let their product outdated pretty early. Personally, I'm impressed this time they updated to Android N even before schedule, and I'm hoping they continue releasing updates not to let this amazing product die.
As for the features you talk about:
1) floating windows in freeform is natively supported in android N and just need to be enabled in developer options (one of the last entries under App category). You can install "Taskbar" app to launch all of your apps in window mode by using the native method, and resize them as you like by dragging on the bottom-right corner (which previously was not possible).
2) It is true that Task manager with tiles view was a more clean way to switch between apps on this device, but the needing of double-pressing the TAB button when alt-tabbing beween apps, always made it uneffective and uncomfortable to me. Now ALT-TAB switch between apps just flawlessly as in a standard computer. Hence, i'm really happy with that.
3) I find overall performance have gotten slightly better with the recent N update: i can notice that in the UI and in games too! other users on other threads are talking about a slightly better battery performance too, so it seems like they optimized the hardware support somehow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the suggestion of taskbar - i've already tried it before and imho it's just not that convenient as a rom included solution. Beside the fact that you would have to use an unnecessary extra app for a native android function, it's not really intuitive in it's handling - but i have to admit, that every user will see that different depending on their needs My question is just why lenovo hasn't implemented this standard feature in a neat and handy way?
Speaking of different user needs/requirements - i've personally never used the Alt-Tab combi on my tab. In my daily use i use it most of the time in tent mode without the keyboard.
As to the performance - i didn't really noticed a change here. But in my opinion it was already really snappy before the update so maybe i can't rate that improvement. Maybe the animations between app switches got nicer but it's possible that i deactivated them before the update by myself - so nevermind
Guys, can somebody upload Noughat update otapackage?
I do not have a device but i need this to borrow graphic drivers.
After update to Nougat, battery drain in idle status doesn`t happen anymore. After a day idle, it takes only like 1-2% of battery. At least it is worth to me.

****ty OneUI or Android 9 (or both) ?

I didn't see reports on ergonomics, possibility of this new device.
I previously had a S6 edge+ with android 6 or 7 I think that offers much more options it seems to me..
For example, I could select the general background for the messages... gone here. I don't see neither the option of selecting different sound call for a particular contact. Idem for the general notifications, one sound and that's all.
What did you notice on your end ?
Just for the fun, I'll be compiling the list of bugs/inconsistencies of this new mobile.
- Apply a dark theme or use the stock one + night mode
- open Duo (google/android (apple) facetime)
Baam... the UI is white.
So is the whole point of this thread to complain about the phone? I have a suggestion, return it for another and shutup.
charlene17 said:
Just for the fun, I'll be compiling the list of bugs/inconsistencies of this new mobile.
- Apply a dark theme or use the stock one + night mode
- open Duo (google/android (apple) facetime)
Baam... the UI is white.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If this is your idea of fun you need an actual hobby or a different phone.
Are you actually complaining about OneUI and Pie?
Saying Android 6 or 7 was better?
You're obviously not aware of the fact that messaging apps have absolutely nothing to do with your Android version, you're free to extract and install apps from your S6 edge.
Android Pie is the first version or Android that attempted to implement a system-wide dark mode, there's no contest and I assume you're not very familiar with tech if you are creating an argument between old and new.
If you want to report bugs about anything to it through the Samsung members app, they're paid to check them, we are not and nothing will solve your problems here.

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