Database Users

Fascinate MIUI User Guide

Fascinate MIUI User Guide
NOTE: All features may not be available yet. Still Alpha
With the release of Fascinate MIUI I thought I would share my User Guide I wrote for the Droid. It will help keep UI questions out of the Development Thread. Feel free to post in this thread with questions and for support. I am not always available but I will try and keep up.
This guide will highlight the differences that the MIUI launcher and apps bring to your experience, and help with settings so your phone works the way you want.
I am not an expert with this or any ROM(or the English language for that matter), but I thought it might be useful to have a guide to save thread posts from redundancy.
HOME SCREENS
(1) There is no App Drawer. Your apps are on your home screens(seemingly random) to the right of the clock screen. When you download a new app the shortcut will be found furthest to the right
(2) Launcher Dock can be populated up to six shortcuts by drag and drop. No custom shortcuts will drop here, but folders will! (hello app drawer)
(3) Edit Mode(long press on screen, or select from MENU). This will allow you to customize your home pages.
While in edit mode pressing the MENU button will bring up the add button for custom shortcuts, widgets, folders, and wallpapers.
Widget dropdown and wallpaper options are also accessible via buttons in the upper right and left hand corners of the screen.
(4) Folders are drag and drop(easiest in edit mode) Rename by selecting folder then press pen and paper button in top left. You can also sort your apps by dl order, alphabetically, or frequent use.
(5) Widgets- one of the coolest things about this launcher is the ability to add all of your widgets in one session. Simply drag widget from dropdown menu to desired thumbnail screen, you may have to adjust on screen placement later. Then grab the next one and repeat until you are done, AWESOME.
(6) Adding and removing home screens. You can view your homescreens in thumbnail fashion by tapping twice on the home button or pinching on the screen.
Once here you may add, move(drag and drop),remove(if it is empty)screens. I haven’t heard if there is a limit, but I think I read that someone had 20 or so.
The last screen you were at before entering this mode will be highlighted.
The defaut home screen will have just the home button highlighted. Just tap the little home button on the thumbnail to switch the default.
(7) Deleting Apps. Since there is no app drawer, when you drag a shortcut to the trash can it is going to ask if you would like to uninstall.
You may not uninstall system apps in this manner.
OTHER SETTINGS AND FEATURES
(8) Contacts – You may select custom ringtones for each contact if desired.
Swiping across a contact in the list will give an option to Delete.
In order to use the Favorite Contact widget that is included you need to add favorite contacts by pressing add to favorites button when you open the contact.
(9) Notification Bar - If you hadn’t noticed there is a scrollable toolbar at the bottom of the notification pulldown. It contains all of the power control widget functions plus a few more.
The CPU button, Lit= lowers cpu speed when screen is off to reduce background app power consumption. Unlit = business as usual.
(10) Battery- Settings/Battery/ Battery indicator style gives 3 options for your battery status Graphically,Percentage, Top-Bar. Select your preference.
Power Saving Mode w/ many options for saving battery. When PSM is set to auto, and your battery gets below the selected threshhold, selected functions will not be available.
There is also an option to disable auto PSM.
Low battery alarm is percentage adjustable.
(11) Lock screen - You may change the wallpaper for the lockscreen in the same menu as normal wallpaper, select lockscreen wallpaper gallery to pick image from your SD card.
There are notification counters for Phone calls and Text messages. long pressing on the phone or texting icons will preview the missed calls or texts.
Unlocking with these icons will open directly to those apps.
For now the text notifications are tied to the MIUI MMS app. You must open the messages with that app to clear the notifications. The icon can be directed to handcent or other messaging app but notifications still come from MIUI MMS.(Edit:At least one user is reporting using ChompMMS and has lockscreen notifications working)
New locksreen music controls! Double tap lock icon, or play something and return to lock sreen.
(12) Task Killer - MIUI has a built in task killer. Long pressing on the home button brings up recent apps like normal, but has a button for task killing in the lower left, and a shortcut to App Manager on the lower right.
(13) Return to call button - You can leave the call screen to do other tasks, including browsing the web (WiFi only), during a call.
When you leave the call screen a button appears across the top of your screen that will return to the call screen so you can hang up.
(14) *228 Phone activation, reprogramming can be reached by dialing *228+.
(15) Settings Menu MIUI completely redid the settings menu, giving you four tabs at the bottom. Each tab has its own menu of settings, browse around to familiarize yourself with where your most used settings are located. You can now access settings for Gmail, MMS, GTalk, Calendar, and Browser, right from the main settings Menu. Just select Programs tab. (Why didn't I think of this.....oh yeah, I'm a building contractor)
(16) Themes MIUI changes the game once again with the addition of built-in themeing. In the settings menu press Personal tab/ Theme Manager or click on the Theme Manager Icon from the launcher. There are a couple preloaded. To add theme, dl, and move to MIUI/Themes on your SD card.
MIUI Theming allows for you to mix and match theme catagories. You select a System Style which will be the base for your personal theme. From there you can add features of other themes you have in your themes folder including, icons, fonts, text style, boot animation and boot audio.
(17) Screenshots Hold down on the menu button and press volume down to take a screenshot. Pics are in the MIUI folder on your SD card.
(18) MIUI Backup MIUI comes with its own backup utility. This allows you to backup and restore both apps and settings, including Launcher layout. Its a very simple backup utility. This only works for MIUI roms.
(19) Do Not Disturb mode MIUI now has support for blacklist/whitelist communication filtering. Settings/personal/DNDmode
(20) MMS Font color/ Background editor In MMS settings select themes and you will be presented with a menu that will allow you to change font color and backgrounds for your Conversation and In-Message screens. You may also select from several general MMS Themes.
(21) Personal Password Protection You can password protect Folders, dialer, SMS/MMS, and DNDMode.
Settings/Personal/ Security and Privacy Settings
(22) Visitor Mode Hides your call log and MMS msgs if you are letting someone use your phone or just showing it off. Long press power button, select Visitor Mode.
(23) MMS Favorites Tab Long pressing on a text message pops up a menu where you can forward, add to favorites, copy, get details, or delete. Selecting Favorites will add message to your Favorites Tab.
(24)MIUI Global Search App MIUI has added thier own search app. There is a widget. You can also access it by long pressing home to bring up recent apps and app killer then swipe right, notice the page dots at the top. Odd placement if you ask me, but there it is.
(25) Launcher Settings There are Launcher settings in the personal settings tab.
Keep in memory should always be on, and will prevent redraws.
Hi-res Graphics can be disabled and smooths out the launcher considerably, without any noticeable difference in appearance.
New Transitions settings in Launcher Settings=Sweet
(26) File Explorer has some nice features including a wireless sync for your PC. No need to plug in to access your SD. Just type the ftp address in the address bar of My Computer and you are in!
MMS/SMS Incorrect Timestamp Correction In MMS Settings/Advanced, Turn off Sort SMS by date (toggle left)
This is all I can think of for now. If there is something other features you would like to see added, or find an error in my post, post below and I will check periodically and update. Thanks

[Q] Custom quick settings tiles (as in slimroms): How do you get those?

Hello,
I'm using Slimkat 4.4.4.8269 since its release. It has a neat feature called the custom tiles which is the feature that keeps me on that rom because I was unable to find a similar function in another ROM.
The Slimroms custom tiles basically lets you set unlimited "custom" tiles in the quicksettings which you can set with apps, os functions or whatever. They take a second action for a long press and they can cycle through multiple apps on that one tiles.
This is basically a quickstarter for apps. The thing that makes this marvelous is actually that opening an app doesn't get that app into the foreground, that statusbar stays in the foreground such that I can open a second and third, etc. app through very few taps.
An example what I use this for: My worst but not rare case here:
Navigation+speedcam warner+mozilla stumbler(wifi and cell existance to gps mapper)+openwlanmap.org (wifi to gps mapper)+openbmap.org (wifi and cell to gps mapper).
The best approach is to use a directory on the homescreen, if my launcher supported it. This way i don't have to search in the app drawer.
So I would open the directory, start app 1, press home screen, start app 2 and so on.
Until i started the 5 apps, I have done (swipes and presses+ app-open-taps combined) 15 actions.
Using custom tiles as slimkat offers it in the status bar I swipe to open the quick settings and then open my apps, 1 swipe+5 taps=6 actions.
This is for me much faster and allows me to pay much less attention to my phone while starting what I want.
However, I would like to update to Lollipop or M, anyways, go with CM most likely but that feature isn't there. I found out that the GravityBox with the xposed framework offers some kind of similar features but it only features 2 custom apps, currently I have a bit more than 20 in my status bar.
I could use "Tasker" for this approach as well, but actually that configuration is rather weird and static to one action/app (condition) which I first have to fulfill. That approach fails if one of the apps is already started and I only want to start one app especially if that meets Taskers condition. I end up using the app drawer and search for my app.
This post pretty much covers the configuration and outcome of the custom tile in Slimroms in two pictures:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/google-nexus-5/orig-development/rom-slimkat-hammerhead-stable-5-0-t2511512/post51495728#post51495728
Have you seen any other ROM with decent updates (that seems to be only CM for the hlte at the point of writing) or way to accomplish something similar? It doesn't need to be in the statusbar, even though that is quite easy to access.
Parts of my post I took from my post to a CM feature request at JIRA:
https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/CYAN-2227?jql=text%20~%20%22custom%20tiles%22
Thanks in advance!

Try Layers, http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s4/themes-apps/systemui-overlays-5-0-t3025183

Thanks for the reply. I think layers is some sort of theming app overlaying the normal icons with other colors. This is something new to me and interesting, but not what I wanted in this thread.
I found something that goes a bit in that direction: Hangars. It displays some appbar in the notification area. Upon opening an app the area disappears and I would have to open the notification area again. Still better than the homelauncher and its folders.
Something I tested previously going into the same direction is the PIE control as well as some sidelaunchers like omnirom and such. Still the custom tiles allow a faster operation.

If anyone is interested in those, you could vote for this as well:
https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/CYAN-2227, It enclosed this feature.
From time to time I changed to CM or something like it, but return very quickly to my custom quick tiles as they are irreplacible and other roms waste time and I can hardly operate them blindly like slimkat.

Just heads up, Google finally may have thought those tiles to be useful and they were added in Marshmallow. You can only go there using the System UI tuner (google for it, if you don't know what it is. You'll need another app to configure those nicely, like custom quick settings. Due a bug you can't add more than 18 tiles in total, but if you like it and don't need more go ahead. Right now I have 40+ and they're in color.
So far I can't think of changing from the lovely slimkat.

Windowed Apps in Lollipop ROMs = byebye TW; here's how

I'm not sure if this has been pointed out already, but I have found a reddit thread which gives instructions on how to do just that.
I'm running Temasek's android 5.1.1 with the 5.1.x Xposed framework(by romracer) and I'm in complete bliss, I've been freed from the Touchwiz lag wagon!
It's not perfect, some splitscreen bugs here and there, but floating windows are very useable; resizable, moveable, minimizeable.
The Touchwiz alternative isn't perfect either,so...yeah..
The AOSP alternative is actually faster and smoother then on Touchwiz.
My essential apps are perfectly* able to be floated or splitted, these include:
-Chrome, Youtube, Password manager, Note taking, Calculator, email, messaging, office, file explorer, pdf reader.
*most apps are floatable via the recent app screen, however the apps that refuse this action can be forced to comply (float on app open).
Here's the original link: https://www.reddit.com/r/nexus6/comments/2wh9vw/multiwindow_for_the_nexus_6_thanks_to_xposed/ only use the mentioned version ofcourse.
Do's and dont's:
-Don't fiddle around with the 'xHaloFloatingWindow>SystemUI Modes' and/or ',, ,, ,,>Status Taskbars', as it may cause System UI to crash constantly (even if you disable xposed, rooted apps keep crashing).
-more to come.
Some quick settings and tips:
-Set/keep the ',, ,, ,,>Popup Behavior>Whitelist/Backlist options' to default if you wish.
-To force apps into floating mode, add an app to ',, ,, ,,>Popup Behavior>Whitelist Apps'.
-MultiWindowSlidebar is only useful for apps which have been forced into floating mode, any other apps added will be opened in fullscreen (these apps will need to be floated via the recent apps menu).
-unfortunately some apps refuse to open floated(via recents) once they're already opened the normal way, which makes it impossible to open them floated unless you forcefully do so.
Forcing them may or may not be useful. However you don't have to; if you kill the app(via app info screen) and the killed app still shows in recents, you can reopen it in floated(the app is restarted in floated that way, through recents).
There is an even quicker way to achieve this, and I discovered it by accident.
If you're on Tamesek's rom, go to 'settings>Tamesek spare parts>app bar'
Enable it, add you're apps in it.
If you now long press an app in the app bar it'll open in a floating window(some apps must be closed before they can be floated;just close them via recents).
The app bar has in effect replaced my multiwindowsidebar app.
-more to come
Functionality loss compared to touchwiz and/or decrease in reliability:
-no 4 way split screen, only 2 way.
-no app bubbles (these however can be turned on and showed in the notification bar, if you've set the right setting).
-Apps floated via recent's do not get a 'bubble' in the notif. bar if they get minimized. However you can reopen the apps in recents and the apps will reopen themselfs as floated.
-It's not as easy to snap 2 app's side by side.
-Some apps crash/misbehave whereas on TW they wouldn't have.
-Some apps misbehave when forced into float, but do not when it's floated from recents.
Vice versa.
-Split screen divider bar doesn't always show up>Can't resize on the fly.
-Status bar causes some floated apps te misbehave; I use gmd gestures to quickly hide/unhide the bar.
Analyse the relevant behaviors to adapt to them.
-more to come.
All the fluidity of AOSP bundled with most of the functionality of TouchWiz, I highly recommend you try out his instructions. You won't be disappointed, though you will be needing some patience.
Let me know how it went and share your experiences.
-V

Help finish my launcher

back in 2014 i started on a ui design i called symetiumos, i was able to find a team to make it into a launcher but i ended up getting scammed by them they simply left me with it in a very broken unusable state, i released the launcher on the playstore and despite it being broken the response has been overwhelming, so far it has nearly 5 stars and over 300 downloads, i am looking for someone that can help me finish the launcher and fix it's bugs
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.symetium.ui.launcher&hl=en
this is a full list of everything thats remaining some things can be skipped such as automatic appsorting or the modes system (modes system works by combining two identical settings screens into one, it's like backing up your settings on a random launcher, my launcher would have two settings screens one for portrait one for landscape it would use each depending on orientation it's like a launcher that has portrait and landscape settings for grid, but my launcher has it for the entire settings screen, so if you set the color layer to red in portrait and green in landscape then it will be green when you flip the phone, because the launcher changes to a new settings screen in landscape, it's like if you kept backups of multiple settings configs then have the launcher flip between them, each mode uses two settings screens identical ones only difference being what the user adjusts them to.
the main bugs are
1.full appdrawer needs to be replaced or repaired it lags, the icons in it are offcentered, the full appdrawer button needs to be 4 dots, it should be pullable down right now you need to press the x to close it you should be able to pull it down like any other appdrawer, if you set it to disabled then the button should not be visible any more.
2.the "system" category needs to be removed it lags and it shouldn't be there, the team added it based on a guess.
3.when scrolling through apps the dockmenu can close itself this is a bug
4.you should be able to scroll all around the dockmenu so when you get to the end category it scrolls back to the homescreen like you'd expect and vice versa meaning if you scrolling the other side you will enter the dockmenu from the last category rather than first, right now it blinks out rather than scrolling
5.homescreen appdock needs work right now it's pretty limited you can't set any icons or even what the current icons do, it also needs a button to enable or disable it
6.a menu needs to be made for customization of categories
7.homescreen needs the standard pinch menu to get to the launcher settings button, wallpaper button etc
8.launcher needs a general settings section with the following options
enable/disable navigationbar (this simply enables or disables the navigationbar in the current mode and orientation)
enable disable statusbar (this simply enables or disables the stock android statusbar in the current mode and orientation)
enable disable persistent statusbar (this makes it easy or difficult to reveal the statusbar, right now it's difficult and you can't do anything about it)
enable disable persistent navigationbar (this makes it easy or difficult to reveal the navigationbar, right now it's difficult and you can't do anything about it)
9.the launcher should not resize itself depending on dpi all sizes should be available on any device and any dpi, the launcher needs a "dockmenu size" option under dockmenu where the user can set any size that is available through different dpi's, size settings needs to work for the custom statusbar as well, the dock has many more size options through dpi changes rather than the size options in settings so add all these options in settings and prevent it from resizing itself depending on dpi
automatic dpi resizing can be ok if it chooses a setting from the settings menu, just like when windows chooses a resolution thats recommended) the user should be able to have any size they want on any device regardless of dpi, if automatic then it should simply choose a size thats available in the settings.
10.color layer bugs not filling properly and the dock glitching out sometimes where the home icon dissappears and the dot no longer works.
these are the most of whats broken.
full list of whats remaining is below, if anyone wants to help me finish my launcher please let me know.
http://textuploader.com/d4bol!

Wish List for [email protected]

------Please Read Complete------
Features request:
• Activity, quick settings, Shortcut:
1: A custom quick setting tile to Trigger Power menu(not just reboot but whole menu like what KEYCODE 26 does but long press as a tap)(I know it can be done from navigation bar but it decreases my qs tiles rows from 3 to 2 and navigation bar misbehaves with my configurations) and a Screenshot tile also.
2: Every activity Should be Available as a shortcut for Home Screen. Activity Launcher(F-droid) App does Similar.
• Backgrounds:
3: Only keep gradient/ hue and Solid Colours in BG App when offline and rest should be available at some LineageOS repository via internet to BG App when online. This will:
a) Much reduction in App size as BG app only had Wallpapers in Image Format rest all were code when i checked inside app. b) More Choice to users. c) These are just bloat for users who use their own BG collection or Gallery Images as BG.
•Calender:
4: Please Bring back Year View to the calendar app.
5: I think Calendar App is useless for people without GMS as we cannot add events to the app or we have to download an add-on(Offline Calendar) with a weak security structure, so isn't it better if it is implemented natively in the system as People with GMS would also not oppose this.
•Launcher:
6: Application Lock is useless without covering AOSP Package Manager(For non-GMS only) and system settings from QS.
•Snap:
7: RAW(DNG) support would be a game changer.
•System:
8: Option in system settings to manually change Standard Output (here, Audio)to Speaker, earpiece or audio jack(if connected).
•KeyBoard:
9: AOSP Keyboard should follow system theme(both default and Black and not dark blue) and also accent.
10: Adding Key Boarders like GBoard(not swiftkey) will be very impressive and prevent me from using GBoard as i dont like GMS.
•Calculator:
11: Orders of Magnitude converter for Calculator App.
•AudioFX:
12: Divide AudioFX into two sections, Basic and Advanced where basic is like how AudioFX is currently present and Advanced is with 10 band equalizer and L-R controller.
Questions:
Q1: What is the use of that option "Left Shortcut also Unlocks" in Lock screen preferences?
Q2: Why don't Lineage OS support all the DPI(from Low to xxx High). If yes then why do many preferences break with DPI change.
Q3: Why was the option to clear cache of all installed applications from storage section of settings removed?
Problems:
P1: Style only work for Primary User in multi user mode.
P2: Changing Accent in any user changes accent of Primary user and keep Default on rest all Users always.
P3: Navigation bar and Launcher rows and columns also get disturbed with Setting up Multi User.
• Note: Multi user in above sentences is not Work Profile or Restricted profile but a separate user from Settings>System>Multi Users.
• Setup: 270 DPI(640 as smallest width in developer Options) in primary user and default on rest(2 excluding primary) and navigation bar activated on Primary user but not on rest.
NOTE: Sorry if my Language hurt anyone especially Hardworking Creators and contributors to LOS but this was my suggestion for improvement.

Please make Pixel 3a XL an official supported device.. (Bonito)

Yes
------Please Read Complete------
Features request:
• Activity, quick settings, Shortcut:
1: A custom quick setting tile to Trigger Power menu(not just reboot but whole menu like what KEYCODE 26 does but long press as a tap)(I know it can be done from navigation bar but it decreases my qs tiles rows from 3 to 2 and navigation bar misbehaves with my configurations) and a Screenshot tile also.
2: Every activity Should be Available as a shortcut for Home Screen. Activity Launcher(F-droid) App does Similar.
• Backgrounds:
3: Only keep gradient/ hue and Solid Colours in BG App when offline and rest should be available at some LineageOS repository via internet to BG App when online. This will:
a) Much reduction in App size as BG app only had Wallpapers in Image Format rest all were code when i checked inside app. b) More Choice to users. c) These are just bloat for users who use their own BG collection or Gallery Images as BG.
•Calender:
4: Please Bring back Year View to the calendar app.
5: I think Calendar App is useless for people without GMS as we cannot add events to the app or we have to download an add-on(Offline Calendar) with a weak security structure, so isn't it better if it is implemented natively in the system as People with GMS would also not oppose this.
•Launcher:
6: Application Lock is useless without covering AOSP Package Manager(For non-GMS only) and system settings from QS.
•Snap:
7: RAW(DNG) support would be a game changer.
•System:
8: Option in system settings to manually change Standard Output (here, Audio)to Speaker, earpiece or audio jack(if connected).
•KeyBoard:
9: AOSP Keyboard should follow system theme(both default and Black and not dark blue) and also accent.
10: Adding Key Boarders like GBoard(not swiftkey) will be very impressive and prevent me from using GBoard as i dont like GMS.
•Calculator:
11: Orders of Magnitude converter for Calculator App.
•AudioFX:
12: Divide AudioFX into two sections, Basic and Advanced where basic is like how AudioFX is currently present and Advanced is with 10 band equalizer and L-R controller.
Questions:
Q1: What is the use of that option "Left Shortcut also Unlocks" in Lock screen preferences?
Q2: Why don't Lineage OS support all the DPI(from Low to xxx High). If yes then why do many preferences break with DPI change.
Q3: Why was the option to clear cache of all installed applications from storage section of settings removed?
Problems:
P1: Style only work for Primary User in multi user mode.
P2: Changing Accent in any user changes accent of Primary user and keep Default on rest all Users always.
P3: Navigation bar and Launcher rows and columns also get disturbed with Setting up Multi User.
• Note: Multi user in above sentences is not Work Profile or Restricted profile but a separate user from Settings>System>Multi Users.
• Setup: 270 DPI(640 as smallest width in developer Options) in primary user and default on rest(2 excluding primary) and navigation bar activated on Primary user but not on rest.
NOTE: Sorry if my Language hurt anyone especially Hardworking Creators and contributors to LOS but this was my suggestion for improvement.

Important one for me:
- Enable Call Recording for all countries (Why the hell do the developers even care about recording laws? Let the users decide what they want to do with their devices!)
- Provide option to automatically start call recording.
Nice to have:
- Full screen alarm clock (for swiping to snooze or terminate the alarm)
Reason for that: If someone swipes the notification away, the alarm sound continues and you have no way to terminate it except by rebooting the phone.

Vanta-Chan said:
Important one for me:
- Enable Call Recording for all countries (Why the hell do the developers even care about recording laws? Let the users decide what they want to do with their devices!)
- Provide option to automatically start call recording.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 for that!