Hi all,
I have owned my Nexus 4 for about 4 months now, and while I love the ability to customize my experience, I am always looking at ways of customizing that streamline things instead of adding more functionality. Rather than having 12 ways to do one thing at all times, I'd rather have the single best way to do 12 things at my disposal. I don't need HALO, the notification shade, and a notification widget all running at once to inform me about new notifications. When I look at the ROM scene on XDA, it seems like people are really interested in adding things to the standard android experience, but nobody seems to be working on trimming the unnecessary features away while adding things that work better/look and feel more elegant. I don't just mean debloated GApps packages, I mean ROMs that use Android's customizability do things better than Google intended.
To give a personal example, I am running stock Android on the Matr1x kernel with the Xposed framework installed to enable Pie Controls so I don't waste screen space, change the battery indicator to a circle/percentage, quick settings to get easy access to torch, settings, wifi, etc in the notification shade, and unicon to enable custom icons in the Google Experience Launcher so all my icons are uniform. This way I have as much information as possible easily accessible at all times, and my phone has a standardized look throughout. However, I feel like I am sticking it all together with tape and strings, and I am still stuck with some of stock android's bloat. It would be great if there were some people out there who shared a similar desire for streamlining the Android experience. Do any of you at XDA have any advice for me as I look for such a ROM, or is this about as good as it's going to get? If I could code I'd just do it myself .
Anyway, thanks for your time!
Downloaded7 said:
Hi all,
I have owned my Nexus 4 for about 4 months now, and while I love the ability to customize my experience, I am always looking at ways of customizing that streamline things instead of adding more functionality. Rather than having 12 ways to do one thing at all times, I'd rather have the single best way to do 12 things at my disposal. I don't need HALO, the notification shade, and a notification widget all running at once to inform me about new notifications. When I look at the ROM scene on XDA, it seems like people are really interested in adding things to the standard android experience, but nobody seems to be working on trimming the unnecessary features away while adding things that work better/look and feel more elegant. I don't just mean debloated GApps packages, I mean ROMs that use Android's customizability do things better than Google intended.
To give a personal example, I am running stock Android on the Matr1x kernel with the Xposed framework installed to enable Pie Controls so I don't waste screen space, change the battery indicator to a circle/percentage, quick settings to get easy access to torch, settings, wifi, etc in the notification shade, and unicon to enable custom icons in the Google Experience Launcher so all my icons are uniform. This way I have as much information as possible easily accessible at all times, and my phone has a standardized look throughout. However, I feel like I am sticking it all together with tape and strings, and I am still stuck with some of stock android's bloat. It would be great if there were some people out there who shared a similar desire for streamlining the Android experience. Do any of you at XDA have any advice for me as I look for such a ROM, or is this about as good as it's going to get? If I could code I'd just do it myself .
Anyway, thanks for your time!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Plus one for this. Are you running KitKat 4.4.2?
4.4.1 at the moment as I haven't found the time to flash the update manually. Glad to see someone else gets where I am coming from .
Related
Is it possible to create, save and switch between different sets of home screens and setting.
HTC Sense has "Scenes" that allows this, even my old Nokia E71 had two profiles that allowed for a completely different home screen and settings.
Is there anyway of doing this with the Nexus 4?
I would like to have a set of home screens and settings with the stuff I use at work, then be able to switch to another profile that has different home screens and settings for the road trips, and another for home.
I have seen apps that allow for all the settings to be switched, but have not had any luck with changing the home screen.
-BEGIN RANT-:crying:
Am I the only one that desires to customize my phone for completely different segments of my life and be able to switch between them with ease?
OK really, I need to learn to develop this stuff, because there are many basic tasks I thought would be standard issue by now on these little computers we carry with us, but not.
:angel:-END OD RANT-
So my Nexus 4 should be arriving today, so i guess I will start to play with it. I read about installing separate launchers and switching between them with Tasker.
Can more then one instance of a single app, like a launcher, be installed by changing something in some setting once I am rooted?
Any thought, ideas to give me another direction to search?
any good "learn everything there is to know about android development in one day" classes or books?
cjunk said:
-BEGIN RANT-:crying:
Am I the only one that desires to customize my phone for completely different segments of my life and be able to switch between them with ease?
OK really, I need to learn to develop this stuff, because there are many basic tasks I thought would be standard issue by now on these little computers we carry with us, but not.
:angel:-END OD RANT-
So my Nexus 4 should be arriving today, so i guess I will start to play with it. I read about installing separate launchers and switching between them with Tasker.
Can more then one instance of a single app, like a launcher, be installed by changing something in some setting once I am rooted?
Any thought, ideas to give me another direction to search?
any good "learn everything there is to know about android development in one day" classes or books?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most custom ROMs have profiles for just this. You can easily switch between them by pulling down the notification bar and clicking on a quick tile. I know for sure that carbon does this and assume most of the major releases will as well.
Carbonized and francofied N4
Chameleon Launcher allows this.
Thanks for the suggestions.
ingenious247 said:
Chameleon Launcher allows this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems to, but it seems to be not very reliable at the moment from what I read. It is also a big change from the standard android feel I like.
I still might give it a try though, I like that they are trying something different. Looks almost like a windows/android warp
Cuzz1369 said:
Most custom ROMs have profiles for just this. You can easily switch between them by pulling down the notification bar and clicking on a quick tile. I know for sure that carbon does this and assume most of the major releases will as well.
Carbonized and francofied N4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have seen roms and launchers that promote their "profiles" feature, but all them do not seem to go as far as allowing me to save a whole set of home screen configurations, then change from one set to the other with ease. They seem to be just a collection of settings like volumes, sounds, radios on/off and such.
I will look into carbon to see if it can indeed do this.
I find it hard to actually find a detailed listing of what different roms can do. most of the info is just how to install, bugs and more technical development stuff.
My new baby was sitting all bundled up on the table when I got home today. I haven't even had a chance to turn her on yet. still admiring the curves
cjunk said:
Thanks for the suggestions.
It seems to, but it seems to be not very reliable at the moment from what I read. It is also a big change from the standard android feel I like.
I still might give it a try though, I like that they are trying something different. Looks almost like a windows/android warp
I have seen roms and launchers that promote their "profiles" feature, but all them do not seem to go as far as allowing me to save a whole set of home screen configurations, then change from one set to the other with ease. They seem to be just a collection of settings like volumes, sounds, radios on/off and such.
I will look into carbon to see if it can indeed do this.
I find it hard to actually find a detailed listing of what different roms can do. most of the info is just how to install, bugs and more technical development stuff.
My new baby was sitting all bundled up on the table when I got home today. I haven't even had a chance to turn her on yet. still admiring the curves
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure you'll be happ. Best phone I've ever had. And you are right about the profiles being mostly setting. Carbon is like that too. The only work around I can think of is a launcher. I use nova it is rock solid. You can back up the configuration and restore in less than a minute.
Carbonized and francofied N4
Some background on my focus on romes. I want to choose one that I intend to stick with from the start, that supports people who love powerful, technological design and functionality for things, like how i got a new rom after being unrooted and unflashed for years with this phone, because my provider had decided I didn't need Advanced Security settings, and so I had no access to a Smart Lockscreen that I wanted to try out. I like having the ability to configure my ui as I see fit. I've been using LineageOS, but it recently got broken when I tried to uninstall substratum, and discovered it had never created an overlays.xml file, and that the recovery zips substratum provided didn't work, leaving me in a permanent bootloop that not even reflashing lineage fixed.
I was massively interested in AllianRom because of the pitch:
"AllianceROM intends to give the user what THEY want. Tired of flashing Roms and having to ask for little changes to suit your taste? Tired of having to manually change colors of the toggles or the battery or move your clock or make statusbar transparent or any of the other multitude of other little color and style tweaks that Android users love? Tired of flashing AROMA installer for every little change you want to make? Tired of having to add your favourite images everytime a new rom comes out?"
However, that one is discontinued, and it sounds like there were extensive steps that needed to be taken to keep things like GPS from being broken. Is there a rom that compares to this one? I value very "techie" roms that give the users the option to change the design of things like the status bar, windows, whatever, and are geared towards the functionality of phones.
Try the latest Resurrection Remix that just came out with 7.1.2. It is well maintained and has the most adjustments the user can utilize.
So now that the cricket vareint has root, what are some edits we should make in a custom rom for it? I am new to developing so bear with me, but when my rom comes into production it's going to be called the people's rom. I am only starting with the basis of it to be extremely user friendly and customizable, probably using smart launcher as the default? give me some ideas, other developers help me make it happen!
I've found a few neat hacks, for example you can remove or rename /system/vendor/overlay and it will remove a bunch of cricket branding, however it may cause unintended side effects, I haven't really noticed any issues but ymmv.
Also if you look around someone has modified maxxaudio to not require the boom key, if you flash that you won't have to hit the boom key to increase audio quality.
In the root thread I started someone posted how to enable WiFi hotspot as well, I would include that.
I'm planning on doing some ui tweaks, will post here if I manage to do anything useful. Main thing I want to do is hide the brightness slider in the notification drawer and bake in the status bar brightness control you can get with gravitybox. Also I want to enable the stock Android power menu, but IDK how far I'll get with that.
One more thing, I'd just stick with the stock launcher or one that's very lightweight when it comes to filesize, since it's not difficult to install them off the play store and not everyone will like smart launcher
Hello,
I want to start by excusing myself for asking such a question. Probably some will tell me to just start trying ROM's. To those I would say that I don't want to spend days trying different ROM's when others have the answers already.
I like to customize my phone and I was very happy with my setup (OxygenOS, Magisk, Xposed, GravityBox, Flat Style Bar Indicators) until my several apps (including banking) started disliking Xposed. So now I am only left with OxygenOS, Magisk and a very limited number of customizations. This made me think about the possibility of getting back in the game of using a custom ROM, most probably LineageOS, which I used and liked for many years on my previous phones.
As I was saying, I don't want to waste too much time blindly trying a custom ROM a day, but ask you guys:
Did you feel that when you've switched to a custom ROM you missed something from Oxygen OS? Did you find any functionality that was only working well or correctly in OxygenOS?
I am asking this knowing that for example with smartphones from other OEM's the camera might give worse shots with custom ROM's.
Thanks!
Just have a look at rom video review thread and the thread for similar questions I mentioned both here https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-5/help/rom-using-t3791697/post76543724
VoLTE and WiFi Calling support is probably better on OOS right now. Custom ROMs on some devices are behind the curve on this.
you'll loose oos camera .. not a big deal specially if u use gcam but still i feel like stock cam is more reliable
Yes, 3gb of ram seems to be the limit on any lineage or aosp rom. Even with a build prop edit of more background tasks and light oom killing or none and keeping ram management light my phone would refuse to hold background apps past about 8-10 no matter how many fresh installs or updates the rom went through.
Request one of our many gracious and wonderful developers to port a Samsung Nougat ROM for our beloved P905. I understand that porting a One UI based ROM would be very tough because of the deep changes. I hope porting a Nougat ROM from one of the many Samsung Nougat tablets would be a tad more do-able.
I once again acknowledge that our developers have their own lives to lead and priorities in life and are doing us a favor by spending their valuable time to develop ports and Lineage OS based latest android builds for our aging dinosaur.
A Samsung Nougat based ROM would be wonderful for the P905.
chudu1 said:
Request one of our many gracious and wonderful developers to port a Samsung Nougat ROM for our beloved P905. I understand that porting a One UI based ROM would be very tough because of the deep changes. I hope porting a Nougat ROM from one of the many Samsung Nougat tablets would be a tad more do-able.
I once again acknowledge that our developers have their own lives to lead and priorities in life and are doing us a favor by spending their valuable time to develop ports and Lineage OS based latest android builds for our aging dinosaur.
A Samsung Nougat based ROM would be wonderful for the P905.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Chudu.
What are the Samsung specific features that you're looking for when it comes to One UI or Touchwiz?
Hi shardsx,
By Samsung specific features, I mean mainly the Samsung Touchwiz/Grace UI and the myriad of settings and customization features unique to Samsung firmware.
And as a possible bonus, if the ported ROM is from another S-pen supported tablet/phone, then the included S-pen features would be the icing on the cake.
Developers like Valeria1978 have developed Lineage0S for this aging tablet based on Android 10 and it feels so much lighter on the resources. But inevitably, I find myself going back to the Note 7 ported ROM because I miss the stock Samsung firmware look and features.
chudu1 said:
Hi shardsx,
By Samsung specific features, I mean mainly the Samsung Touchwiz/Grace UI and the myriad of settings and customization features unique to Samsung firmware.
And as a possible bonus, if the ported ROM is from another S-pen supported tablet/phone, then the included S-pen features would be the icing on the cake.
Developers like Valeria1978 have developed Lineage0S for this aging tablet based on Android 10 and it feels so much lighter on the resources. But inevitably, I find myself going back to the Note 7 ported ROM because I miss the stock Samsung firmware look and features.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately it appears that the best path forward is to go with the Lineage OS builds from Valera1978. There hasn't been any other developers taking up the mantle with the P905, so we're only here at Android 10 by the good graces of Valera and his work. This is why I was curious to see if there was something specific to Touchwiz ROMs that appeal to you which could be mimicked in software but allow you to continue using the latest Lineage builds. For example, there's online praise of SPenCommand which is a 3rd party app (outside of Google Play) that recreates TouchWiz's S-Pen functionality for Lineage and AOSP ROMs, (note that I haven't personally purchased or used this software). LectureNotes, which I do use, is a very good note-taking alternative to S-Notes.
Since knowledge emerged on how to fix the S-Pen palm rejection that has been broken since Lineage 15.1, Lineage 17.1 has been my daily driver and working pretty well. I would have liked to stick to Lineage 16.1 as I find it more stable and polished than 17.1 but I cannot get a successful compile of Valera's 16.1 ROM to boot on my tablet.
If anyone can figure that out, I can probably provide a Lineage 16.1 build that:
- enables S-Pen palm rejection
- enables Bluetooth pairing of PS4 DualShock4 controller without the associated nasty input lag
I fully agree with you. I have not tried the Spencommand software, but now that you have mentioned it, I will try to find it and use it.
Apart from the comparative lack of customizability, there are 3 reasons which I find irksome about the 17.1 build.
First is the rotation bug. After a while, the tablet simply gets stuck in portrait mode and only a reboot gets the landscape mode working again.
Secondly, I need to swipe at least 3 or 4 times in order to pull down the quick settings and notification shade and it is extremely slow while it opens out.
Thirdly, I use my P905 a lot for making calls and in spite of trying everything, I'm unable to hear the voice of the person on the other line when on voice calls. I'm forced to use a Bluetooth speaker which is not always convenient.
chudu1 said:
I fully agree with you. I have not tried the Spencommand software, but now that you have mentioned it, I will try to find it and use it.
Apart from the comparative lack of customizability, there are 3 reasons which I find irksome about the 17.1 build.
First is the rotation bug. After a while, the tablet simply gets stuck in portrait mode and only a reboot gets the landscape mode working again.
Secondly, I need to swipe at least 3 or 4 times in order to pull down the quick settings and notification shade and it is extremely slow while it opens out.
Thirdly, I use my P905 a lot for making calls and in spite of trying everything, I'm unable to hear the voice of the person on the other line when on voice calls. I'm forced to use a Bluetooth speaker which is not always convenient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The telephony aspect of this tablet is something that I am unable to provide any alternatives. My carrier appears to be incompatible with my tablet so I never looked into this at all.
In terms of the rotation bug, I use an app called Ultimate Rotation Control and manually rotate using its Notification widget. This bug exists with all versions of Lineage OS and this was the only workaround I've found which consistently works.
For the notification shade, this is one area that I think Lineage 16.1 offers a smoother experience. I found that certain apps like Youtube, TunedIn Radio, or any apps that utilizes a background image for its notification card will cause the notification shade to lag. Once an affecting app generates a notification card that causes the stuttering behavior, there's no way to recover other than to reboot. Even if the affecting app is closed, the notification shade continues to be slow and stuttery. The only workaround I've found is to disable all notifications for the affecting apps and then reboot.
In terms of quickly pulling down the notification shade with everything expanded in one go, there is an option in Lineage OS in the Settings app, under System > Status Bar -> Quick Pulldown. Enabling this option will allow a single swipe from the status bar to display a fully expanded notification shade with all the toggles and cards expanded.
I know the biggest problem for you is the telephony and call volume. Unfortunately nothing I have said is going to help with that. I hope perhaps Valera or a new developer may be able to help you. At least I hope my words would help anyone else with similar problems who happens to stumble upon this post.
Lastly, I'd like to share that to get the experience of a fullsize keyboard similar to Touchwiz, Hacker's Keyboard is probably as close as you can get with so little developers producing keyboards that are appropriate for tablets of this size.
Thank you so much for all this information. I will definitely try out the spencommand apk and hacker's keyboard.
chudu1 said:
Thank you so much for all this information. I will definitely try out the spencommand apk and hacker's keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Chudu,
I'm afraid to report bad news. I tried SPenCommand downloaded from the developer's page but it doesn't seem to launch on my device using Lineage OS 17.1. If you are going to try and switch ROMs to try this software, please be aware of this potential snag.
Hi shardsx,
Can you provide me a link to the download page? I'll try it out on my weekly off and see if I'm able to launch it.
chudu1 said:
Hi shardsx,
Can you provide me a link to the download page? I'll try it out on my weekly off and see if I'm able to launch it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The developer of this app is called @emandt. He had a thread about this app here at XDA.
His website is http://www.emandt.net/Android/SPenCommand/Website/. On this page you can find the download links. This is a paid app hosted outside the Google Store and relies on an in-app purchase to unlock. As I mentioned, this app seems to instantaneously close on me so it seems to do nothing. The author seems to have last updated this app to support Android Oreo or Lineage 15.