Database Users

Uncontrollable Orientation Behaviour

When applications that are GPU accelerated are switched to full screen, the screen orientation always switches back to default (with the Asus on the Transformer logo on top). This is regardless of the orientation you have set.
For example:
A)
1.) You have rotated your screen upside down
2.) you run Angry Birds
3.) the screen switches back to standard default orientation
B)
1.) You have rotated your screen upside down
2.) launch youtube
3.) play a video
4.) switch to full screen
5.) the screen automatically switches back to standard default orientation
I have upgraded to 3.1 recently and don't seem to remember this being an issue before with 3.0.1 before.
Is anyone else also having this issue?

ok, is anyone with 3.1 NOT having this issue?

I get the same thing happening, and I think I would go as far as to say that it's actually intentional behavior on the part of Asus and Google to make the orientation revert like that. It makes more sense for fullscreen video to default to that orientation so as to ensure that it's consistent with the proper docking position, which is with the docking port on the bottom. Most people who watch fullscreen video for any extended period of time are probably going to dock the device.
Why do you turn the tablet upside down in the first place? I understand that having the ability to rotate 270 degrees is sometimes helpful for games and multi-user applications, I just don't see how using the tablet in its default orientation would pose a problem.

I'm typing on phone so briefly, the reason I need the transformer to be upside is due to the design of the variable angle stand of the official asus transformer skin case.
The case stands by folding in a scalene triangular fashion.
20 degrees above horizontal requires upside down.
75 degrees above horizontal requires right side up.
So most of the time when you use it in your lap, you want only 20 degrees

Applications are allowed to overide the orientation. This is true for most media players. It'll force the screen into the default landscape mode. App controlled so not honeycomb issue
Sent from my Transformer TF101

Sounds like a bit of a design oversight on the part of Asus.
Now as far as fixing it, you only have a few options. While you do have the ability to disable auto rotation on the screen, that's going to cause the tablet to simply default to the 0 degrees landscape orientation. What you need on top of that is a way to manually set your orientation, and so far I've never seen an app or ROM that does that. That's not to say it's impossible, just that I've never seen it done. The other option is to buy the keyboard dock, but that's a little excessive unless you really think you need it.

This is due to the fact that the dev of the app has forced it to lock in that orientation (landscape right side up, there's an app called androsensor that will give you more info). There was another thread concerning the same topic in themes and apps section. Your best bet is to email the app developer when you run into this.
One example is airport mania, if you were holding the device upside down and launched the game, it would force it to run right side up. I sent them am email with a description of what is happening and that the official sleeve (although I don't have one but felt it was with mentioning) is designed so the device is upside down with camera at bottom and charge port at top. Got a reply within the day and an update in the market within 3.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

klau1 said:
Uncontrollable Orientation Behaviour
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To much beer, not enough sex

There is an option to lock the orientation in the settings. So once it is upsied down you can lock the orientation and it shouldn't change.
I am not with my TF right now to test this though.

no, that doesn't work.
I don't recall this being a problem prior to the 3.1 update. Having to purposely ask each developer to change the orientation when none was necessary before is simply unacceptable.
Having bought something as simple as a case with it's multi-angle feature, one expects it to work out of the box.

As far as I knew, apps like Moboplayer always stayed in the default landscape orientation during video playback

I don't use Moboplayer much, but as far as I can recall, the Youtube app worked upside down in full screen before.
Can someone with 3.0 confirm?

Anyway to force landscape 90° clockwise instead counterclock?

So far many apps are pretty lax in whether you hold the fire landscape with usb port on right or left. I was holding it to the left since I had it and had no problems.
Now I have a case like a book flap and I prefer the flap ontop hanging back,.usb port on the left. Couple.of.apps force it upside down, having to hold it the other way looks and feels stupid now. Anyone know if there's an app or what.exactly would control that? The kernel?

+1
//Tapatalk.KindleFire//

Found an app, Orientation Control
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.coinsoft.android.orientcontrol&hl=en
This has an override to force the landscape the other way. Only problem I've seen is if you have it set to autorotate like default, then those apps will still rotate counterclock. If you set this to forced, it will do it clockwise but lock and disable the auto rotate.
So an extra step if you know youll be using something for a while and worth manually setting and locking the setting.

my display is stuck in landscape now since yesterday while i was trying to install swiftkey x. i never actually got it installed so i cannot say it is the cause of having the display stuck. i was also tinkering around in nook colour tools, but cannot seem to find anything nook colour tools' settings that fixes my problem.
any feedback is appreciated.

Horizontal upside down

I really like having my tablet upside down which is fine for dolphins for pad and some others, but video players and games revert the orientation back to right side up. I thought that locking the rotation would keep it upside down but it doesn't work. Does anyone know a way to lock it or is it thor rom?

You can try running a different rom, but I believe the result will be the same.
Some apps, are programmed to run at a certain orientation.
Also note, that Thor's rom, the last I looked, currently the display lock button is inoperable, but I believe there is a software setting for it in the menus.

Yeah I meant the software toggle. Is there some way to toggle inverting the screen, so making the app think down is up?

nstong said:
Yeah I meant the software toggle. Is there some way to toggle inverting the screen, so making the app think down is up?
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What is the benefit to doing this?

so I can watch videos in the oriention where the docking prt is facing up. That's what I'm looking to do, just trying to figure out how.

2 things you can try:
1) Apparently MoboPlayer has an orientation lock setting somewhere. I haven't used it but people in the TF forums are trying to do the same thing as you are.
2) There is an app in the market that can force orientation. I've heard it works but again have not tried it: It is called Orientation Control.

Orientation lock works!! Had to go through all the steps of typing orientation in market (and spend 1.50). I think just ssumed it would something complicated. Thanks

Glad I could help

Most important app! Dock4Droid

After using the Fire TV for a while I figured I would share my most inportant app. Its an app that I never really cared about using on other devices, but could not live without it on the Fire TV. Dock4Droid is awesome on the fire TV. Not only does it make multitasking funtional, but it gives you the ability to uninstall apps from anywhere. If you have an app open, just click the gear and the app info will popup and let you uninstall it. So you can uninstall several apps withing seconds without having to go all the to the actuall setting menu. If you have the app store apk that shows all your apps on the home screen you can simply open the app, hit the gear, delete the app, delete cache/data, and move on to another app. You can keep apps and shortcuts permanantly on the dock, so if you wanna do a fast reboot from anywhere, you can. It makes using multiple apps super fast. I have mine set to open apps with two finger so all I have to do is just put the cursor near the app and let go of the mouse button and it opens. I do not use the dock background, cause it looks horrible, but the color mist background looks great, and can be set to any color. The only problem is that it causes an artifact along the top and left side when the cusor passes over, but I have found that all apps that can be opened from an activation area do the same on the fire TV. Sidebar, Fancy Switcher etc all cause the same square artifact. Anyway, just thought I would share incase someone was looking for something to make their Fire TV a little easier to navigate through. Feel free to share other apps that are important to use on the Fire TV. No games or entertainment apps, just apps that make using the Fire TV easier or better.

porkenhimer said:
After using the Fire TV for a while I figured I would share my most inportant app. Its an app that I never really cared about using on other devices, but could not live without it on the Fire TV. Dock4Droid is awesome on the fire TV. Not only does it make multitasking funtional, but it gives you the ability to uninstall apps from anywhere. If you have an app open, just click the gear and the app info will popup and let you uninstall it. So you can uninstall several apps withing seconds without having to go all the to the actuall setting menu. If you have the app store apk that shows all your apps on the home screen you can simply open the app, hit the gear, delete the app, delete cache/data, and move on to another app. You can keep apps and shortcuts permanantly on the dock, so if you wanna do a fast reboot from anywhere, you can. It makes using multiple apps super fast. I have mine set to open apps with two finger so all I have to do is just put the cursor near the app and let go of the mouse button and it opens. I do not use the dock background, cause it looks horrible, but the color mist background looks great, and can be set to any color. The only problem is that it causes an artifact along the top and left side when the cusor passes over, but I have found that all apps that can be opened from an activation area do the same on the fire TV. Sidebar, Fancy Switcher etc all cause the same square artifact. Anyway, just thought I would share incase someone was looking for something to make their Fire TV a little easier to navigate through. Feel free to share other apps that are important to use on the Fire TV. No games or entertainment apps, just apps that make using the Fire TV easier or better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice find, porkenhimer. What are you using for a mouse? I own Dock4Droid, used it on my Samsung tablet for quite a while.
Would it work on the Fire stick?
Thanks.

I am actually using an offbrand keyboard with touchpad that I got new on ebay for around $5. To be honest this cheap ugly keyboard/touchpad has worked better than anything else I have used on the fire TV. This $5 keyboard has more features and runs better than my $50 dollar keyboard. Not bad for a cheap chinese made keyboard. I use it exclusively for the Fire TV now and it combined with Dock4Droid make my Fire TV amazing. I rarely use the remote unless I am using Kodi. With Dock4Droid I can just go from app to app without ever needing to go to the homescreen too ofton. Plus I can force close apps from anywhere with Dock4Droid, so if an app is acting up there is no need to go all the way to the manage apps screen I can just close it instantly with Dock4Droid. I can be watching something in Kodi and need to look something up on google, I just popup Dock4Droid and open the browser while Kodi still plays in the baackgroud for me to listen, which is nice., cause I do not have to use the home button. I am pretty sure it will work on the stick too.

porkenhimer said:
I am actually using an offbrand keyboard with touchpad that I got new on ebay for around $5. To be honest this cheap ugly keyboard/touchpad has worked better than anything else I have used on the fire TV. This $5 keyboard has more features and runs better than my $50 dollar keyboard. Not bad for a cheap chinese made keyboard. I use it exclusively for the Fire TV now and it combined with Dock4Droid make my Fire TV amazing. I rarely use the remote unless I am using Kodi. With Dock4Droid I can just go from app to app without ever needing to go to the homescreen too ofton. Plus I can force close apps from anywhere with Dock4Droid, so if an app is acting up there is no need to go all the way to the manage apps screen I can just close it instantly with Dock4Droid. I can be watching something in Kodi and need to look something up on google, I just popup Dock4Droid and open the browser while Kodi still plays in the baackgroud for me to listen, which is nice., cause I do not have to use the home button. I am pretty sure it will work on the stick too.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply, porkenhimer, I really appreciate it.

I can't figure out how to get to the configuration options. I'm only able to get to the screen to turn it on and off.

Just go to manage all apps and open Dock4Droid.

I can open it but there is only around 4 options. I can't find any of the configuration options as shown in the YouTube video. There's a part at the bottom that shows Launchers, but it's empty.

Jedis said:
I can open it but there is only around 4 options. I can't find any of the configuration options as shown in the YouTube video. There's a part at the bottom that shows Launchers, but it's empty.
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Check your inbox on here, cause I sent instructions to you.

I gave it a try. I guess if you are using a keyboard with mouse mode all the time it is handy. It would be more useful if the app bar would stay active after being clicked. I can only figure out how to select an item from the bar by keeping the mouse button pushed and scrolling around to highlight the app icon and letting go.
Unless I missed a setting somewhere ... I dont see how to be able to use the app without using both hands and multi-touch.

mscroggi said:
I gave it a try. I guess if you are using a keyboard with mouse mode all the time it is handy. It would be more useful if the app bar would stay active after being clicked. I can only figure out how to select an item from the bar by keeping the mouse button pushed and scrolling around to highlight the app icon and letting go.
Unless I missed a setting somewhere ... I dont see how to be able to use the app without using both hands and multi-touch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you have it set to open apps with a finger up swipe then all you have to do is put the cursor anywhere in the area of an app that shows the label and let go of the mouse button. You do not really need to do a finger up swipe to open apps, just put the cursor in any apps area and let go of the button. The app that shows a label will be the app that opens. Also to get the dock to stay on screen all you have to do is set it to open apps with one click or two clicks and when you activate Dock4Droid it willl stay up til you click once or twice on the app. Some other settings I have set is making the icons 12pix, cause the icons become sharper the smaller they are. I also have my activation area set to the bottom at 100% with the smallest width and invisible, cause that way it does not interfere with anything else on the screen. All I have to do is put my cursor in the bottom right corner and press the mouse and it activates.

porkenhimer said:
If you have it set to open apps with a finger up swipe then all you have to do is put the cursor anywhere in the area of an app that shows the label and let go of the mouse button. You do not really need to do a finger up swipe to open apps, just put the cursor in any apps area and let go of the button. The app that shows a label will be the app that opens. Also to get the dock to stay on screen all you have to do is set it to open apps with one click or two clicks and when you activate Dock4Droid it willl stay up til you click once or twice on the app. Some other settings I have set is making the icons 12pix, cause the icons become sharper the smaller they are. I also have my activation area set to the bottom at 100% with the smallest width and invisible, cause that way it does not interfere with anything else on the screen. All I have to do is put my cursor in the bottom right corner and press the mouse and it activates.
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Click to collapse
Hmm Are you running this on a stick? I finally got it to basicallly work.. I was never able to get the bar to show without clicking the mouse and moving the cursor at the same time. My issues had to do with which keyboard I was using .. There were a bunch of settings I could not get to. I could scroll down a poage.. but no further... doing alt->down would bounce me to the bottom page, but I was never able to get to the pages inbetween. My ipazzport has a <<<<>>>>> bar on the touchpad that would let me get to the settings between the top page and the bottom page.. I was able to get some things set and then go back to my other keyboard. My normal keyboard mini BT keyboard has mouse buttons on the left and right side.. which makes the multi touch thing fairly easy. I will play with it and see how I like it over time.. On the surface, I think maybe the firedtv app might be a better fit for me.. as I dont always use the keyboard.

Jacksmyname said:
Nice find, porkenhimer. What are you using for a mouse? I own Dock4Droid, used it on my Samsung tablet for quite a while.
Would it work on the Fire stick?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
check out the FAVI Wireless Keyboard/Touchpad! This thing is great. I think someone posted a thread on it. Great reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/FAVI-FE02RF-BL-Wireless-Keyboard-SmartStick/dp/B0090BTY8Y

​
mscroggi said:
Hmm Are you running this on a stick? I finally got it to basicallly work.. I was never able to get the bar to show without clicking the mouse and moving the cursor at the same time. My issues had to do with which keyboard I was using .. There were a bunch of settings I could not get to. I could scroll down a poage.. but no further... doing alt->down would bounce me to the bottom page, but I was never able to get to the pages inbetween. My ipazzport has a <<<<>>>>> bar on the touchpad that would let me get to the settings between the top page and the bottom page.. I was able to get some things set and then go back to my other keyboard. My normal keyboard mini BT keyboard has mouse buttons on the left and right side.. which makes the multi touch thing fairly easy. I will play with it and see how I like it over time.. On the surface, I think maybe the firedtv app might be a better fit for me.. as I dont always use the keyboard.
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Click to collapse
All you have to do is hold the mouse button down while moving your finger up or down on the touchpad to move from the bottom or top of the screen. Also, there is a setting to make apps open with one or two clicks, if you set them to open with one or two clicks then you only have to click the activation area and the dock will popup and stay up til you click an app once or twice.

Amazon Music (and other players) that only support portrait mode... how do you navigate?

I love running apps natively on my Atoto S8 head unit, but music apps like Amazon Music and Spotify are designed to work in portrait mode only apparently.
The UI is wonky in landscape, forced to fill a screen in ways it was not designed to, and leaving some UI elements inaccessible. Has anyone found any workarounds?
I found that Amazon was the worst, with the tiny little play/pause button almost impossible to hit while driving with any kind of accuracy. I discovered "car mode" which helps tremendously within that app, however you get a very limited set of options (no way to pull up all your playlists to find) unless you go back to "not car mode". I see there's the ability to speak your commands with Alexa, so that could be cool, but trying that gives me a screen to click to enable Alexa, WITH THE "NEXT" BUTTON OFF THE BOTTOM OF THE DISPLAY WHERE I CAN'T CLICK IT. So I'm stuck without that, too.
This is so silly, I don't understand why more of these apps aren't designed with a landscape option in mind. But meanwhile, I'm wondering if there's some way around this I'm missing. Is there an option to make portrait apps letterboxed in the middle of the screen? Not ideal, but at least I can do things like enable Alexa and then go back to stretching to widescreen. Or is there a hacked/modified version of these apps for car units? Perhaps a widget or something that can plugin and give you control?
I've seen some car launchers seem to give you basic AVRCP controls and even album art, I'm wondering if this can be taken a step further and possibly have a companion UI app for different oriented screens? Or do we just live with this and rely on using Android Auto for all that?
I like native apps better than AA.