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Update: I installed Spare Parts, as mentioned by appelflap later in this thread, disabled compatibility mode, then followed the directions in this post, and I have a working status bar, good resolution, and in a better place in most cases.
Update: Check out appelflap's APK that makes this whole process a lot easier. Note that some users are reporting a black screen after using the file, so be prepared in case you have to use adb shell to put your original build.prop file in place. If you do not want to risk it, Notepad++ makes for an easy edit once you pull the file to your PC. If you have fallen prey to the black screen problem, lpsi2000 found a solution that uses an update.zip approach.
In the /system/build.prop file, I changed this line:
ro.sf.lcd_density=240
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to this:
ro.sf.lcd_density=160
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Click to collapse
This is a setting that Google normally recommends if you have a larger screen (like Dell's Streak), but the side effect of using it on the 800x480 screen of the captivate is that everything is smaller.
With this, menus have smaller text (more options on screen), in-app buttons are smaller, and it just has the same feeling of being on a PC and moving from a low resolution LCD monitor to a high resolution LCD monitor.
There are a couple of glitches so far. It appears that some apps want to render in the previous resolution. For example, Skyfire and Root Explorer would not render in full screen, Android Market renders full screen but the search is in the old resolution, and the status bar is slightly garbled but still usable. Also, the dial pad is smaller (as you would expect showing a picture made for a low res display on a high res display) but the rest of the phone app is fine. The camera app fills the screen just like it did before.
With this setting, I really feel like I'm getting some use out of the high resolution display on this phone.
The apps that are rending in the low res mode of the original setting seem to be pulling their setting from somewhere else. Does anybody have an idea where that setting may be? After trying this, I can't imagine going back to what almost seems like an "accessibility mode".
I've only used LauncherPro with this setting, so no idea how the Samsung launcher looks. I attached screenshots of what some things look like. I can put some game screenshots in another post if anybody is interested. 3D games look sharper to me in this mode, but I have no scientific way of testing if it is because it is rendering in higher res or if my own excitement is clouding my vision.
Update: I suspect the missing setting is found in the /system.prop file. It has the ro.sf.lcd_density=240 setting. I tried changing it to 160, but it keeps going back to 240 after a reboot of the phone. Any ideas how to make this stick?
Warning:: TWLauncher does not play well with these changes. Make sure to have LauncherPro set up as your default launcher before trying this.
So you're pulling it off the cappy then editing putting back....do you need to change permissions?
The way that I pulled it out to edit on my PC was with this:
adb pull /system/build.prop
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You will need root access in order to put the changed file back. What I did was
adb push build.prop /sdcard
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I then used Root Explorer to copy the build.prop from /sdcard to /system. I didn't change any permissions other than just copying the file and rebooting.
Wow man that's pretty cool, it's got a few little glitches but nothing serious. One of the things I wish I could so though is make my Beautiful widgets clock go all the way across the top. I'm not sure if this is a placebo effect (I donno if that's possible since this should have nothing to do with it) but it seems like my soft buttons respond more often....I'm prolly nuts but it doesn't seem like I need to push....push...%$^&*^ PUSH.....and back to home.
I'm hoping someone will have a great idea on how to keep the /system.prop file from updating itself on boot. I'm thinking that if we can get the ro.sf.lcd_density=240 setting to stick to 160 after a reboot, that might fix the few instances where an app won't render full screen.
I've tried chmod 666 system.prop and chown root.root system.prop but it still gets returned to normal after rebooting.
Wow I'm excited to test this out. Couldn't we get someone to code this into the startup script theoretically?
Edit: Tried it out. Really really nice. If only we could get the rest of the apps to work the right way... right res.
One thing also that's cool is in launcherpro you can add more columns to the drawer so you can fit an insane amount of apps on screen.
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Also out of curiosity, have you tried any other DPI like 200? Our does it need to be either or to keep it proportional?
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Lower resolution works as well. Here are some comparisons. 160, 240, 320. 200, since someone asked.
wow, this could REALLY be nice.. Just need to fix everything, but like others have said no HUGE things that cause it to be unusable, but I would love to see everything correct.
Also out of curiosity, have you tried any other DPI like 200? Our does it need to be either or to keep it proportional?
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No, the only reason I chose 160 was because it is listed as "MDPI" in the Android SDK. (We were using "HDPI" with 240.)
I only figured it was a "supported" number, so I started there, but most any number will do. You can see a chart where it recommends certain numbers based on resolution or screen size, but I think these recommendations are to cover everybody, which includes folks who can't (easily) see small text or icons.
The chart that shows Google's recommendations is here.
reading around, it seems that the files need to be put back to read only.
phlunkie said:
reading around, it seems that the files need to be put back to read only.
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I thought so also, but you don't need to. All I'm doing is copying it with root explorer to sd, then using astro to edit the line and root explorer to put it back. Reboot and your GTG. Everything works fine.
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So the settings are sticking after a reboot? I will have to try this when I get home.
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phlunkie said:
So the settings are sticking after a reboot? I will have to try this when I get home.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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After I edited the build.prop and the build.prop.bak files in the /system directory it works fine after reboot. A problem that I have is that TouchWiz force closes after editing the files.
Using this on SGS made:
- notification bar unreadable (kindof text overlap@240160 setting).
- Launcher pro works.
- Market scales nice.
- big list's buttons are now nice
//edit: changed to 200 - seems to be great compromise.
@up
Bad practice. U shouldnt have edited ur build.prop.bak file, becouse it is actually a backup of original build.prop, made by RootExplorer (guess). In case u want to revert to original content, u just delete edited file and delete .bak from this one.
xan said:
Using this on SGS made:
- notification bar unreadable (kindof text [email protected] setting).
- Launcher pro works.
- Market scales nice.
- big list's buttons are now nice
//edit: changed to 200 - seems to be great compromise.
@up
Bad practice. U shouldnt have edited ur build.prop.bak file, becouse it is actually a backup of original build.prop, made by RootExplorer (guess). In case u want to revert to original content, u just delete edited file and delete .bak from this one.
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Any pics? Love to see the difference.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Here they are.
I'm trying to figure out how to make those other applications also use the full screen when at a different resolution. I tried the method here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=739647
to run a script that rewrites the /system.prop file, and it didn't fix anything, so either that is not where the applications are getting the property from, or we need to rewrite the file earlier in the boot process.
Are you sure those apps are graphically able to scale? Maybe touchwiz does not take scaling into account (at least with native apps) because the screens are all 4 inches.
Recently changed my dpi to 200 and unticked compatability in spare tools. Question is the apps that dont automatically scale is there a way to manually make them fit the screen? Cant live without my full screen papertoss but dont want to go back to the ugly large 240 dpi
I'd bump this because I can't find the answer anywhere, maybe my search terms suck.
I noticed the same annoying thing.
BUMP, for an answer...
Sent from my HTC HD2 using XDA App
Im confused ... I use 200 DPI and all my apps do rescale perfectly full screen after spare parts compatibility un-check and a reboot. Even paper toss... Only thing i noticed with papertoss was that I had to uninstall it and download it again from the market...
bigblanko09 said:
Im confused ... I use 200 DPI and all my apps do rescale perfectly full screen after spare parts compatibility un-check and a reboot. Even paper toss... Only thing i noticed with papertoss was that I had to uninstall it and download it again from the market...
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Some apps are simply developed with 240 dpi in mind. Typically, it appears that they use Android APIs to draw bitmaps unscaled. Even though the Spare Parts setting allows them to "see" the higher logical resolution, the bitmaps are not scaled correctly.
Most of these apps can still be used (or played). There's not much to do except making the app developers aware of this problem.
Here are some apps with issues:
- Abduction
- GOTO lock screen
- Hyperactive Ninja
- Hello Kids
- Tower Bloxx
- Mini Shot Basketball
I'm not entirely sure if someone has already said this or if anyone knows how to do it, but I have and its really useful !
Basically you can drop the Density of the screen and give it a larger appearance. Best way to do this in my opinion, is to grab yourself a copy of Droid Explorer, browse into the system folder in your root, save a copy of Build.prop to the desktop, open it with notepad, find LCD DENSITY=240 or whatever it is and change the value to 180, replace the build.prop in Droid explorer with the one from your desktop and reboot your device
If you don't like it you can always go back in and change it back ^^
Sorry for the noobish question. But I am not quite sure I understand what this does. Could you explain just a wee bit? Even better if you could post before and after screenshots.
Cheers....
Uhm, Nothing new I'm afraid. There are already some apps in the market that let you do just this.
xpstyle36 said:
I'm not entirely sure if someone has already said this or if anyone knows how to do it, but I have and its really useful !
Basically you can drop the Density of the screen and give it a larger appearance. Best way to do this in my opinion, is to grab yourself a copy of Droid Explorer, browse into the system folder in your root, save a copy of Build.prop to the desktop, open it with notepad, find LCD DENSITY=240 or whatever it is and change the value to 180, replace the build.prop in Droid explorer with the one from your desktop and reboot your device
If you don't like it you can always go back in and change it back ^^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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Its Changing the resolution of the screen so that everything is slightly bigger (or smaller) by editing the value.
Thank you for the info!
EDIT - Sorry I posted this too late! A mod can remove it if you want...
Oooooooh. Got it.
But IMHO I dont see why I (or anyone else for that matter) would personally want to do something like that. Unless, it just for kicks.
It's not changing the resolution. It's changing the dpi settings.
Why is this in the dev forum?
Rawat said:
Why is this in the dev forum?
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For the same reason Samsung went with Rfs : unknown
There is an app on the market. LCDDensity it is.
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Is this still being applied after restarting your phone?
The point of it is to have a larger viewing area, which is great for things like viewing webpages or documents but it can break games and certain designed UI's (like touchwiz)
Having ADW + Density change looks good though.
Pff. Changing this value kills too much apps (like LauncherPro, Simi Clock and others).
So, changing this value renders most of your apps unusable.
Not working for me anyhow.
ps. I do not like the changed settings either, the screen feels like having a blur on it. (tried 100 and 180 as values).
jbrugger said:
Pff. Changing this value kills too much apps (like LauncherPro, Simi Clock and others).
So, changing this value renders most of your apps unusable.
Not working for me anyhow.
ps. I do not like the changed settings either, the screen feels like having a blur on it. (tried 100 and 180 as values).
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Thanks for all the feedback sorry i was un-aware that there was an app for this ^^ also if you go to the Android Market and grab "Spare Parts" and turn off Compatibility mode, 99% of apps will scale fine to the change
Seems not to be a good idea on my galaxy s. Everything resizes and loks cool except the build-in apps:agenda, calculator, dailer, mp3player cdmode. Those apps did not change resolution ;(
But still i have to admit: density of 200 looks much better than 240
Cool app, stupid samsung apps!
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Hello.
Im currently using Cognition V1.31, this rom includes the new Market.
What happens when I changed the DPI is that some apps wont install trough market, it says that my device is not supported. (The install button isnt present)
If I delete the new Market, and replace it with the old market everything works again.
Apps that wouldn't install using new market and DPI is, Skype and Lookout
Anyone else that have the same issues?
Yeah, Im having this problem with a lot of apps. I didn't know it was because of the DPI change, i thought it was just the new market that was having these problems?
Set dpi to 240, install apps and then set dpi back to desired custom dpi
For me it happens also with old market app.
Keeping the old market until its fixed.
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App incompatibility with custom dpi = Android bug?
I'm on an Evo, but have the same problem. I spoke to the developer of one affected app, (AutoKiller,) and to the best of their knowledge the incompatibility issue is not related to their code.
The problem is also evident at market.android.com, which identifies many apps as incompatible as of late, when using custom dpi scaling.
After picking through the manifest files of a handful of apps, I've found no relation between the apps that exhibit this problem, or even anything that sets them apart from apps that will still install normally. AutoKiller even specifies in the manifest that any density screen should be supported. Additionally, there is no apparent connection to the target and required SDK versions.
I'm about ready to call this an Android bug, maybe a Market bug, even. The Android Dev Guide page on "Supporting Multiple Screens" implies that valid ranges for an hdpi display are between 200 and 279. I tested this range on my Evo and found that not a single framework resource breaks within it. Immediately outside this range - i.e. 199 or 280 - certain screen elements fail to display properly.
Honestly, it's getting annoying really fast. If I have some more time to look into it later, I may file a bug at Google Code. At the very least, the cause of this "incompatibility" nonsense should be documented in the Android Dev Guide, so that it can be anticipated, understood, and avoided when appropriate.
(I can't post links yet, so find the "Supporting Multiple Screens" document @ developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html if interested.)
Im running on an Xperia Play with a DPI of 200 (Default: 240) and cant download essential apps that have said bug (Ex. Facebook). Hopefully we find a solution.
I thought I was the only one with this problem. I just recently started using Gingermod asop rom and everything was working perfect until I changed DPI and tried to update some apps.
doesnt do anything with the dpi but.
http://amip.tools-for.net/wiki/android/marketaccess
It's not a bug, it's a feature. The market checks your device resolution against what the dev reported to work. If it's too high the app might not work at all or draw incorrectly. Some apps have HD versions which work with higher DPI's check those out.
GIR said:
It's not a bug, it's a feature. The market checks your device resolution against what the dev reported to work. If it's too high the app might not work at all or draw incorrectly. Some apps have HD versions which work with higher DPI's check those out.
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Devs I have spoken to report that they have NOT intended for this to happen. Additionally, I have yet to find a single APK which suffers from this problem and has DPI constraints defined within its AndroidManifest.xml.
I have ripped apart over half a dozen apps trying to find the cause of this, and as a matter of fact, the first one I opened up explicitly specifies compatibility with ANY screen density.
Feature? That's not what it's called when even the devs don't have control over it.
(For clarity, an optional declaration in an application's AndroidManifest.xml is what determines screen density constraints, if any. By default, applications willingly install and run on any screen density for which they have fitting resources. From the dev's standpoint, these densities are not measured in exact pixels, but instead in named ranges (ldpi, mdpi, hdpi, and xhdpi.) When outfitted with resources that match the screen density range, the system scales resources at runtime to meet its exact needs. For more information about how Android handles screen density, please review the article I referenced before.)
You guys are on the right track.
Custom dpi (lcd density) seems to cause the "incompatible" problem with the new market.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1196417
Going back to 240 dpi and clearing market data makes everything work as it should.
You can then go back to your custom dpi, but most users are reporting the problem comes back after a while.
Thanks for the heads-up - I had no idea it would have been from the DPI setting.
It would be great if there were a way to spoof density, so the market always identifies at 240dpi, (or appropriate.) Switching and rebooting all the time sucks. Anyone with some smali skills want to try hard-coding it into the new Market.apk? I will be trying, but I've had zero luck with APK modding thus far
Sent from gingerbread-evo-deck
Google is apparently aware of the problem and considering what to do about it. Post: "Anyone with different LCD density and Market issue, look here"
In the meantime, I have found that doing a soft-reversion to 240 with LCDDensity For Root when I want to run updates is not too much hassle.
thanks bazofia
bazofia said:
Set dpi to 240, install apps and then set dpi back to desired custom dpi
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Click to collapse
Thanks man!
Check out this thread, worked for me:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1839871
Just download one of the attached files and flash in CWM.
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Dear all,
I am having problem with the font size of message thread view since updating to Gingerbread, the font size is now quite big.
Is there any way to decrease it?
PS: I search the forum and try to find settings in the phone, but could not get one solutions.
Thanks you in advance.
Fantisto
I was also looking for some settings on this but with no luck, maybe just install Handcent and be done with it eh XD
I think the font size is standard among their current devices, for better visibility
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It can only be done by decompiling the apk and changing some xml values.
If anyone is interested, I can do it pretty easily.
Just send me the apk.
If u've got root you can make everything on ur phone smaller.
Edit /system/build.prop
Change ro.sf.lcd_density=240 to
ro.sf.lcd_density=200
It may cause some graphical glighes in badly programmed apps that expect the same screen size including some of the android pop up boxes and some stock SE apps. For example gaps may appear or not all the screen is used but most apps work fine and its def worth it for me at least.
Everything (font) seems to be fine besides message threadview... It cannot fit many message in one screen...
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