Related
Having written StylusLock I wanted an additional lock/unlock method. Although StylusLock works great, I wanted some extra features:
* to have it possible to lock and unlock "one handed". The StylusLock approach cannot be done "one handed", e.g. on a bike.
* Also some people do not like to operate with the StylusLock (always).
* The combination with this new CapacitiveFingerLock and existing StylusLock will suit more people.
* And sometimes people will use the Stylus, so they will get the right behaviour depended on the usage pattern
* Still the goal is to let it consume almost no CPU and battery and KISS to operate
I discovered with StylusLock that when the TouchPanel and Hardware keys are locked, still the Zoom function works in e.g. Opera.
You can try yourself, using StylusLock:
1. Start Opera
2. Lock the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro with StylusLock
3. TouchPanel and all hardware keys are locked
4. Try to Zoom in/Zoom out in Opera, this still works with the NavWheel
5. Also the Ok button seems to react
I figured out via Scott Seligman and Koushik Dutta how to programmatically access the Capacative Touchpads. You can read also more here: [REF]Capacitive touchpad apps
So this idea is implemented in CapacativeFingerLock. But I am not using the NavWheel idea, but just uses the Capacative hardware area for locking/unlocking. The idea is again simple and clever. When you softly touch the area where the hardware keys are located (so do not press the keys, just gently touch them), the up/down and position area can be detected. I programmed that when the same area is touched gently 3 times within a second (without touching another area), the lock status is toggled.
I made a proof of concept program (just copy the exe inside the zip file attachment to your phone and just execute it), which shows how it is going to work. Just play around with softly touching the hardware panel, to see what happens.
If am working on integrating CapacativeFingerLock with StylusLock, to have a working "real locking" application. The Proof of Concept program just shows that it is possible.
Reserved for future use
Another one for future use.
very nice concept....now i noticed you posted a link of this thread in the wheel to unlock thread...would there be a way to possibly implement a config tool that lets you choose say, touch 3 times softly, or run your finger around the circle?
Malik05 said:
very nice concept....now i noticed you posted a link of this thread in the wheel to unlock thread...would there be a way to possibly implement a config tool that lets you choose say, touch 3 times softly, or run your finger around the circle?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In principle this can be done. But because the NavWheel is also used for other purposes (Zoom In/Out), I have chosen not to use the NavWheel, but the 3 times gently touching. In this way there is no interference with other existing applications.
I'll try that, it seems like no one cares aboyt the capacitive touch pad, it seems like an amazing thing that we've got that is so neglected. I hope to give some positive feedback later, but first I have some rom flashing to play with!
Thanks for the work, there must be so many possible implementations for this, I hope this is just the beginning of something much bigger.
How about a simple tap to launch app?
i went ahead and installed it, and it works very well...Will there be a (pretty) GUI to show that it was unlocked?
Also the diamond does have multi touch on that pad area, which enables a "trace" of the movement of your touch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Owgcos_KY
Since the nav sensor wont be so ideal, how about sliding your finger from the top of the pad to the bottom (lets say, place your finger on the back button, and gently moving it down to initiate unlock, with a GUI on the screen following your movement, as you go closer to the bottom, the color changes from lets say, red, to green...with incremental color changes in between)
Instead of 3 taps, why not a swipe between the home and back keys, which seems much more natural.
Surur
surur said:
Instead of 3 taps, why not a swipe between the home and back keys, which seems much more natural.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I imagine it is just harder to implement for a proof of concept.
Personally I think there are enough ways to lock the diamond, whether you swipe the screen or 1cm below it is not a revolution, but if swiping the capacitive touch pad could be made to launch desired apps from selected gestures, that would be a revolution, like dynamo3 or hibernate or even standby. I think a lot of people here would want that over another locking solution. Good will intended!
Just tried it.
This is very cool very very cool
Thanks for time invested in such a cool development.
surur said:
Instead of 3 taps, why not a swipe between the home and back keys, which seems much more natural.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Swiping is not so easy one handed. Touching gently 3 times is much easier one handed, holding your Touch Diamond or Touch Pro firmly and touching with your thumb.
However, I can imagine other sort of applications which can use the swiping for other sort of operations. Both are possible with the programming API I made.
uniqueboy said:
I imagine it is just harder to implement for a proof of concept.
Personally I think there are enough ways to lock the diamond, whether you swipe the screen or 1cm below it is not a revolution, but if swiping the capacitive touch pad could be made to launch desired apps from selected gestures, that would be a revolution, like dynamo3 or hibernate or even standby. I think a lot of people here would want that over another locking solution. Good will intended!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am going to share the source code. I have written it in C#. And others can get ideas and take over some of the source code for their own application. At the end we profit all of it.
ZuinigeRijder said:
I am going to share the source code. I have written it in C#. And others can get ideas and take over some of the source code for their own application. At the end we profit all of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like your style, that is the the kind of development attitude that keeps here!
ZuinigeRijder said:
Swiping is not so easy one handed. Touching gently 3 times is much easier one handed, holding your Touch Diamond or Touch Pro firmly and touching with your thumb.
However, I can imagine other sort of applications which can use the swiping for other sort of operations. Both are possible with the programming API I made.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are open to other ideas, I would love the area from the back to home key to be a scroll bar when the device is in landscape mode. Grabbing the narrow on-screen scroll bar can be tricky, and the Touch Pro lacks the scroll wheel of the HTC Kaiser.
Surur
Have been looking into this myself as well. The only code I found was managed C#. Do you think we can use this in our native C code? Looks promising though!
ZuinigeRijder said:
Having written StylusLock I wanted an additional lock/unlock method. Although StylusLock works great, I wanted some extra features:
* to have it possible to lock and unlock "one handed". The StylusLock approach cannot be done "one handed", e.g. on a bike.
* Also some people do not like to operate with the StylusLock (always).
* The combination with this new CapacitiveFingerLock and existing StylusLock will suit more people.
* And sometimes people will use the Stylus, so they will get the right behaviour depended on the usage pattern
* Still the goal is to let it consume almost no CPU and battery and KISS to operate
I discovered with StylusLock that when the TouchPanel and Hardware keys are locked, still the Zoom function works in e.g. Opera.
You can try yourself, using StylusLock:
1. Start Opera
2. Lock the Touch Diamond or Touch Pro with StylusLock
3. TouchPanel and all hardware keys are locked
4. Try to Zoom in/Zoom out in Opera, this still works with the NavWheel
5. Also the Ok button seems to react
I figured out via Scott Seligman and Koushik Dutta how to programmatically access the Capacative Touchpads. You can read also more here: [REF]Capacitive touchpad apps
So this idea is implemented in CapacativeFingerLock. But I am not using the NavWheel idea, but just uses the Capacative hardware area for locking/unlocking. The idea is again simple and clever. When you softly touch the area where the hardware keys are located (so do not press the keys, just gently touch them), the up/down and position area can be detected. I programmed that when the same area is touched gently 3 times within a second (without touching another area), the lock status is toggled.
I made a proof of concept program (just copy the exe inside the zip file attachment to your phone and just execute it), which shows how it is going to work. Just play around with softly touching the hardware panel, to see what happens.
If am working on integrating CapacativeFingerLock with StylusLock, to have a working "real locking" application. The Proof of Concept program just shows that it is possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A while ago I posted about the Windows Messages received by the form for capacitive touch events. Is that what you ended up using to figure out where on panel is being touched? Mind posting some code so I can add it to the Sensors assembly?
Great idea. Defienetly it will be my way of locking device. StylusLock works nice but can't be operated by one hand so its useless for me. SensorLock uses battery and i've drop my phone already unlocking it.
surur said:
If you are open to other ideas, I would love the area from the back to home key to be a scroll bar when the device is in landscape mode. Grabbing the narrow on-screen scroll bar can be tricky, and the Touch Pro lacks the scroll wheel of the HTC Kaiser.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This can be surely done, programmatically. But I do not know if you can control the scrolling of other applications. The latter seems to me difficult?
Anyway, when a lot of applications are going to use gestures using the capacative areas, there will be going conflicts (different programs reacting differently on different gestures).
For the locking application I want to made, I see also some different gestures possibilities:
- 3 taps for locking/unlocking
- swipe left to right for Power off
- swipe right to left for starting a configured application
And I am sure I can come up with other gestures and actions....
drvdijk said:
Have been looking into this myself as well. The only code I found was managed C#. Do you think we can use this in our native C code? Looks promising though!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I started with C++ and had also a working Proof Of Concept. However, because I am new to Windows Mobile Programming, I also wanted to use C# as next project. I have developed programs in a lot of languages (also in C++ and C#), but I like C# more. And I wanted to do this now for Windows Mobile, to get experience with this. Note that the C# sample is using only .NET 2.0, so you do not need .NET 3.5.
You can find a C++ sensortest program, which was available on Scott's weblog:
http://scottandmichelle.net/scott/cestuff/sensortest.zip
ZuinigeRijder said:
This can be surely done, programmatically. But I do not know if you can control the scrolling of other applications. The latter seems to me difficult?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont know if you can manipulate the scroll bar of another application directly (though this would be ideal) but at the least maybe a page down keystroke could be sent to the active window.
Surur
i've searched for ways to open up other rotation angles as well as autorotation for any and all apps under the sun. most people suggest bsbtweaks and it really does do the job, but only rotates to the allowed 270degrees angle (thats -90degrees). effectively, it just adds the window class to the list of window classes that the built in HTC g-sensor mechanism will give respect to.
so i looked some more and found "changescreen" to fit the bill. after setting up exceptions, it works quite well to allow all other applications (except for the exceptions which include sense) to rotate to 90degrees, 180degrees (this looks way cool some times!), and the usual 270degrees.
HOWEVER, the point of this new thread is to discuss something that seems to be quite an attractive option if it can be made to work 100%. i've noticed that the onscreen landscape keyboard is MUCH more usable in the 90degrees rotation. this is because those damned cursor keys take up 0.5 inch of space that is balanced out by the hardware keys on the other side, thus placing the rest of the keyboard SQUARELY in the middle of your thumbs! contrast this with the experience on the default 270degrees rotation where the cursor keys and hardware keys end up on the same side, forcing the user to stretch out the right hand thumb to reach the middle of the keyboard.
the amazing thing is that keyboard really works 99% properly in the 90degrees orientation. the 1% catch? the little preview squares that appear while tapping a key seem to be using a buggy rotation matrix when the screen is in this angle! effectively, this makes the preview squares upside down and on the wrong side of the center line of the keyboard!
so for me, TWO things would make life much sweeter on the HD2:
1. keyboard preview squares should appear right side up and on the correct area near the tapped key in 90degree rotation.
2. i would also like to DISABLE the 270degree rotation altogether and force the HTC g-sensor mechanism to think that the 90degree rotation is DEFAULT. i know i can achieve this partially using "changescreen" but sense will still rotate ONLY in the 270degree direction in the album and music tab. with this tweak, one can rely on the built in mechanism and also be able to enjoy the keyboard in the more comfortable 90degree rotation.
any 1337 h4x0r222 with some 1337 suggestions/tweaks?
some updates...
first, there is another anomaly i didn't notice before pertaining to the thumb friendly scroller that pops up when touching a scroll bar. this popup scroller is also being drawn upside down and on the wrong side of the screen in 90degree rotation.
other updates include:
1. tried toggling HKLM\System\GDI\Rotation\LandscapeMode from 0 to 4, followed by soft reset, no joy!
2. tried toggling HKLM\System\GDI\Rotation\LandscapeFixed from 1 to 0, followed by soft reset...the right handed and left handed options in Screen under Settings->System become available but the g-sensor autorotate doesn't seem to respect the choice set here, so no joy!
was just wondering, i rarely catch myself using it, atleast.
Taking pictures, going through screens. But it's most practical use for me is usually selecting small links in web pages when I'm too lazy to zoom in.
I use it every day for:
-Recovery
-Answering / ending calls
-Selecting text / moving cursor / other text functions
There are plenty of other things I use it for, but less frequently.
That goofy little track pad is one of the features I miss most on my Tbolt. Instead, I get HTC's standard arrows to do the same job, and it sucks and doesn't work in Clockwork. I used it for editing text mostly. I wish you could adjust it's sensitivity like on a BlackBerry. I came from a BlackBerry so it felt very natural and useful. For many tasks, it simply the fastest, easiest way to get the job done. I gave up the case I was using on it for a while so I could use it more effectively.
I use it for Recovery
I'm constantly using it for stuff like navigating recovery and clicking on links in the browser. I got big hands and constantly click wrong links even when zoomed in, so the track pad is a life saver.
That is what's keeping me from getting another phone! Ha ha
I use it for recovery, track advance for music, cursor, taking pictures, you name it.. Very useful to me.
I used it for text fields and recovery. There was also one game that had a trackpad control scheme.
Moving around in text is all i use it for.
loonatik78 said:
I wish you could adjust it's sensitivity like on a BlackBerry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With the right kernel, you can:
chad0989 said:
As for the OJ, you can adjust settings at /sys/devices/platform/curcial_oj
There's lots of settings but the easiest way is to increase normal_th and sensitivity will go down
just:
echo 4 > /sys/devices/platform/curcial_oj/normal_th
and replace 4 with whatever value you want. Higher value = less sensitive. You'll have to put it in a script in /etc/init.d if you want to set it on boot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
byrong said:
With the right kernel, you can:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wish I would have know that a year ago, but I was all over Ziggy's kernels. My girlfriend hardly messes with it so I'm not going to screw with it. Thank you for the post though.
I love my trackpad. It's keeping me on this phone. No other phone feels right without it and I constantly search for it on any phone I use.
Sent from my ADR6300 using xda premium
I use to use it all the time, but CM7 never got the driver working quite right for it, with out gingersource at least.
copy pasting
byrong said:
-Answering / ending calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had no idea you could do it this way. Saves more trouble than waiting for the screen to turn on and then end the call.
I mostly use it for moving the cursor, it's a huge help because a lot of times it just doesn't go exactly where I want it to go when I press the touch screen- so I move it over 1 or 2 characters via trackball. I use this pretty frequently too.
Mostly for Recovery navigation and selection, but for cursor movement, too. And before the proximity sensor worked right, for the answer/end call thing, too. But now it seems to always know when to turn the screen on or off, even in the dark... That's with MIUI.us.
POQbum said:
I had no idea you could do it this way. Saves more trouble than waiting for the screen to turn on and then end the call.
I mostly use it for moving the cursor, it's a huge help because a lot of times it just doesn't go exactly where I want it to go when I press the touch screen- so I move it over 1 or 2 characters via trackball. I use this pretty frequently too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. I LOVE the trackball and use it all the time for moving the cursor and copy/paste. I am reluctant to get a new phone without one.
I use it a good bit - flipping through screens, moving cursor - but gained some new tips in this thread!
I use it ALL the time to move the cursor because I make typos all the time in portrait mode. I guess my fingers are too big for the screen keyboard.
When I switch to my iPhone, I am constantly looking for the trackpad when I make a typo. Trackpad is much better than iPhone's crappy magnifier.
I use it to move the cursor to edit something I mis-swyped. That's about it.
I have found all kinds of widgets for controlling brightness, but they all have one disadvantage - you have to first go to the home screen and then click on the widget. I really want a way to control brightness from any application without having to leave the application to go back to the home screen. The CM9 based rom I'm using (Paranoid Android) actually has something like this ... but I don't like it for two reasons. The first is that it takes two taps to bring up the brightness slider. (One tap to open the notification window, and a second tape to bring up the toggle screen). The 2nd reason (and more significant) is that the slider is quite small and for me it does not feel very responsive or easy to control. The brightness slider control from some of the widgets I have tried are much easier to use.
Ideally I could bring up a brightness widget by long pressing on the physical home button. Currently this long press on my note will bring up the recently used apps, but this function is already served by a soft button provided by CM9. I've read that the ADWlauncherEX will allow you to reprogram the function of the long press - although installing and learning how to use a launcher seems like overkill, especially since I have a rom that already includes quite a sophisticated launcher.
I found an app that would bring up a brightness slider when you clicked on the vol up or down buttons. This worked well for brightness although was a major drag when all I wanted to do was adjust the volume. I also found an application that would allow you to call an app or a widget in response to a double or triple click of the volume buttons. That seemed ideal because it would give me quick access to a brightness control without interfering with the main use of the volume rocker. Unfortunately that application seems to have been discontinued (why!) and I couldn't even seem to find an old verison of that.
Another idea would be to reassign one of the soft keys provided by CM9. Since these soft keys merely duplicate the functions of the existing galaxy note keys (the physical home button and the two buttons on either side of it). Unfortunately I have yet to find an application that can remap one of those buttons. Another idea would be to add another soft button near the 3 soft buttons that are already there. (Are their any applications that can do that?)
And finally I figured that brightness could be controlled via screen gestures. I did find some applications that claimed to be able to do this, although I couldn't get them to work on my Note.
If you know of any application or method that can provide a brightness control button, please let me know as this is the only remaining aspect of the note's user interface that is still driving me nuts.
Thanks
~Paul
Wasn't there a feature in CyanogenMod 7 that would allow to change brightness via sliding sideways in notification area? Too bad it never worked for me in any of the phones I tried CM7 in. I understood it should have worked with no slider? Just sliding your finger accross the notifications area? That would be better than a slider imo.
I've not used paranoid android, I'm using the RC of CM9 and that does have status bar brightness control. To turn it on you go to system, then Status bar and there is a tick box. Maybe that is still included in PA if it is CM9 based? It lets you control the brightness from anywhere just by swiping left and right on the status bar.
It is not as nice as the notification tray slider you can find in AOKP roms, and there used to be a mod for CM9 that did this, but it no longer works, but it is better than nothing.
Ekreed said:
I've not used paranoid android, I'm using the RC of CM9 and that does have status bar brightness control. To turn it on you go to system, then Status bar and there is a tick box. It lets you control the brightness from anywhere just by swiping left and right on the status bar.
It is not as nice as the notification tray slider you can find in AOKP roms, and there used to be a mod for CM9 that did this, but it no longer works, but it is better than nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly what I meant.
I use QBright it works great.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...Bright&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd
John.
hi bro,
i m using switchpro widget. u can put the widget inside notification bar. and can set the brightness level.
Tinderbox (UK) said:
I use QBright it works great.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...Bright&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip John. Qbright certainly has one of the best brightness slider bars I've seen and the configurable buttons are great. However I have to say I'm somewhat mystified about how you use it. Qbright says you can activate it by long pressing on the search button. Search button? Do we have such a thing? On either side of the physical home button I only have the menu and back buttons. By long pressing the menu button I do get the search menu ... but it doesn't bring up Qbright. There is also a "Google" button at the top of the launcher. Pressing on that also brings up the search menu, but again it can't bring up Qbright. I'm running Paranoid Android. Maybe that's the problem. Does the stock ICS have a search button?
Thanks
~Paul
To edit the setting.
Open the QBright app and then press the hard menu button left of the home key.
John.
Tinderbox (UK) said:
To edit the setting.
Open the QBright app and then press the hard menu button left of the home key.
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Tinderbox. Thanks for your reply but I think you seriously misinterpreted my question. I mentioned that I like that the Qbright buttons are configurable so I obviously found the preferences menu. But I was asking how you bring up the Qbright widget (other than clicking on its icon from the home screen of course). The documentation suggests this can be done by "long pressing on the search button". (There is no preference item related to this). I couldn't bring up the Qbright widget by long pressing on anything, so I'm wondering how you do this. If you actually have to go back to the home screen to start the widget, that would greatly detract from the beauty of the widget (which I'm sure is why they put the search long press capability into Qbright). But as I indicated in my previous message, it seems that the galaxy note does not have a dedicated search button, so this feature may not work. There are so many ways one could start such a widget I'm somewhat amazed that no one has figured out how to do it. (Or maybe they have and I am just in the dark or very confused). One way would be to long press on the back button. As far as I know, this currently does nothing so there would be no drawback what so ever. Perhaps a long press on the volume up or down button could also work for such a thing. Or an extra item could be added to the menu that appears when you press the power button. Or since I have a CM9 derived rom, it gives me three more soft keys (back, home, and recent apps). A long press on any of those could be used to bring up the widget. Or even a regular press on the first two could be used since they are duplicates for buttons I already have elsewhere.
Is this a valid question, or am I out in left field somewhere?
~Paul
I once accidentally set my brightness so low that I couldn't see the screen AT ALL.
I found myself really wishing there was some foolproof way to reset the screen to 100% brightness.
For example, rebooting the phone auto-resets the brightness to 100% or something.
I also tried using tasker so some obscure combination like volume+home could also reset the brightness.
I don't recall how I managed to reset my phone - i couldn't see anything. I think I just flailed about on it.
- Frank
Paul...i am lookingforthis too...qbright should have an option to change that... So you can ise the long oress menu button for us note users wjo dont havr a search butto
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app
Try kimi's.15 toggles. Gives you 15toggles in the notification bar, brightness being one of them. Need to flash it via recovery though.
Can i flash that in temprary cwn? I have a stock rom with the temp.cwm root.method
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app
I think it should beok to flash via temp cwm. Ask in the kim's thread just to be sure.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rubberbigpepper.DisplayBrightness&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInJ1YmJlcmJpZ3BlcHBlci5EaXNwbGF5QnJpZ2h0bmVzcyJd
I use this you can put it anywhere on the screen.
Download Slider Widget and add it to home screen.
Alexanderbooth said:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rubberbigpepper.DisplayBrightness&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInJ1YmJlcmJpZ3BlcHBlci5EaXNwbGF5QnJpZ2h0bmVzcyJd
I use this you can put it anywhere on the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At first I thought that might be the answer, but I ran into two problems with it. The main one was that I would accidently change the brightness pretty often when I was just trying to click on an icon for instance. (Unless I made the slider very thin ... but then it was too hard to grab the slider). The other problem was that some of my full screen applications would force themselves on top and the slider would not activate.
Someone in another thread suggested what I now feel is the ultimate solution:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by aalupatti View Post
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....home2shortcut
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh my gosh!!! You weren't kidding. Such an application does really exist
This solves all my problems with the galaxy note.
I can't believe this was so hard to find. I can't imagine that anyone would uninstall this application after trying it. It's like getting 3 extra hardware buttons for free!
I'm using:
- Home,Home to bring up Qbright.
- Home,Back to bring up papyrus (you never know when you need to scribble a note)
- Home,Menu to bring up a toggle widget (haven't decided which one yet, although I'm sure it will be easier to use than the built in PA one).
Thanks a million.
~Paul
Paul what is this app called the link doesnt work
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app
asf58967 said:
Paul what is this app called the link doesnt work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Type in "Home2 Shortcut" into the play store. Or you could probably type in the author's name which is "Hideki Kato".
~Paul
You can adjust the brightness on most Note ROMs by deactivating auto brightness and tap + hold on the statusbar and slide the finger.
Left = Decrease the brightness
Right = Increase the brightness
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
Hi!
I'd like to know if anybody actually uses Samsung's features in order to help using the phone with one hand?
I myself make only use of the (not convincingly thought through) gesture which allows me to shrink the screen.
The assistant menu:
quite customisable, but much too big and slow for my taste.
Side key panel:
the other way round, quite comfortable to use, but nearly no customisation at all.
All in all I'd say lots of options, but not really thought through. What do you think?
Like you, I find the side key panel quite useful- eliminates the thumb stretching for the "back" button.
One handed input is also turned on & is mildly helpful for the dialer. Seemed to help a bit with continuous input on the keyboard as well, but ended up switching back to the stock Google keyboard I've grown so accustomed to.
Long pressing the recents key to bring up menus is also nice, though not specific to the Note 4.
Sometimes I use the shrink screen function that's when I'm to lazy to move my other hand haha
Sent from my SM-N910F using XDA Free mobile app
It's not just laziness. Sometimes you really need to do other things with your other hand (old school multi-tasking).
Holmegaard said:
Like you, I find the side key panel quite useful- eliminates the thumb stretching for the "back" button.
One handed input is also turned on & is mildly helpful for the dialer. Seemed to help a bit with continuous input on the keyboard as well, but ended up switching back to the stock Google keyboard I've grown so accustomed to.
Long pressing the recents key to bring up menus is also nice, though not specific to the Note 4.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with everything you said. Still: I'm not too convinced from what the side key panel offers. If you could customise the side key panel the same way as the assistant menu, I'd totally go for it.
macmobile said:
I agree with everything you said. Still: I'm not too convinced from what the side key panel offers. If you could customise the side key panel the same way as the assistant menu, I'd totally go for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I seem to remember that there should be an app that mimics the one you can find in Ios. Anyway, there are several very good apps I use for 'one handed mode':
- button savior non root (you can find in in the google play store) which gives you back, home, recent, screen lock and lets you start both the dialer and the camera;
- lmt launcher (see at xda) which works very well if you are rooted and lacks some little features if you are not. You just have to remove tue superuser permission from the manifest file (which you can do with apk permission remover) and turn on accessibility and it'll work almost as a charm. I mean, it does not only allow you to mimic the hardware keys, it can start any app and any activity which does not require root. If you are rooted, it can do virtually anything;
- as a good replacement of lmt launcher, you can test pie control by Coolace (always in the google play store).
I mostly keep the note 4 in my left hand (though I am right handed) just because my 2 years experience with the note 2 has got me accustomed to writing with my right hand, while keeping the smartphone with the left one... so that I currently feel uncomfortable while holding the note with my dominant hand So, I feel the need to have virtual keys on the right side, since reaching the back button on the right side is not so easy (though my hands are normally sized) and the above mentioned apps are the most useful I have found.
Funny, you actually named some very important apps I already use on my phone except for the lmt launcher. Could be that I thought there isn't anything to gain from if you're not rooted. Going to give it a try though. Thank you! Still I don't get it, why Samsung's Touchwiz doesn't offer better solutions? They could do it so easily.
No doubt macmobile, some customization options would be nice. The big phone trend isn't going away, so I'm hoping that more options for easing one-handed use are in the pipeline. Samsung would do well to lead the way, given their investment in the "phablet" space.
macmobile said:
Funny, you actually named some very important apps I already use on my phone except for the lmt launcher. Could be that I thought there isn't anything to gain from if you're not rooted. Going to give it a try though. Thank you! Still I don't get it, why Samsung's Touchwiz doesn't offer better solutions? They could do it so easily.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I rooted every single phone or tablet before buying a Note 4 and now, though I miss the fun of flashing rom and mods, I think this phone has too many sensors which wouldn't be supported by an AOSP rom, while custom touchwiz roms aren't worth for me to give up to knox. Not much for the warranty loss, but more for the loss of the knox enviroment itself. So, since I don't want to root, I have got to look for work-arounds and I think there are many good apps.
Back on topic, imho Samsung has so far designed the best implementation for one hand usage, though it could be better. If you look at the nexus 6, it's just a big phone and the Iphone itself is just a (good) 5.5" phone which doesn't pay particular attention to single hand usage.
I agree with you both that phablets are very likely here to stay and that the current UI for single hand usage is at very early stage.
I just received the Note 4 with lollipop pre installed.
The one-handed operation (that I was using woth my note 3) has disappeared from settings!!!!!
WHY????
how to get it back?
Settings/Display and Wallpaper/One-handed operation
Samsung screwed one thing about One handed operation: there is no separate setting for dialing keyboard and QWERTY keyboard, just like it was on my previous Note II.
I wish I could set smaller dialpad, but retain full QWERTY, which is not the option any more.
When set one handed operation ON, samsung keyboard is just too small to me.