Database Users

I crave a brightness button

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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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

[Q] Possible to move soft keys yet?

I have seen several posts with this question, but none with answers. Has anyone found a way to move the soft keys to one side or another? I keep hitting them when I type (did it while typing this ironically). Never did make sense to me to have a touch sensitive home button right underneath one of the most often used buttons on the typing board. In any case, I have scoured the net looking for an answer and can't find one. Any know if I missed it somewhere? Thanks in advance.

Try a tablet mod ROM, it has the navigation keys bunched up in the bottom left corner. Hope this helps.

Where?
Appreciate the info. Where do I find that one? I have seen a lot of different ROMs for N7, but nothing denoted as "tablet ROM" and none that have mentioned moving the soft keys as a feature.

sikagoon7 said:
You can also. Change the DPI to 160 and achieve the same effect. Tablet UI on Nexus 7
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda premium
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Sorry for the n00b questions, but this is my first tablet...where do I change that? I have looked though the settings and have not seen a place to do that. I am running a rooted but (almost) stock ROM. (Manually loaded 4.1.2) And will that change the rest of the viewing area?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1788518 remember to select tab mode during the installation

Lazarus there is alternatives as well. Team EOS rom allows you to completely hide the softkey interface. I eventually went with gmd gesture control which allows you to hide/show the keys at the flick of your hand, as well as much, much more.
Try the lite version here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goodmooddroid.gesturecontroldemo
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

toidimaet said:
Lazarus there is alternatives as well. Team EOS rom allows you to completely hide the softkey interface. I eventually went with gmd gesture control which allows you to hide/show the keys at the flick of your hand, as well as much, much more.
Try the lite version here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.goodmooddroid.gesturecontroldemo/QUOTE]
This looks like an awesome little app. But I don't see where to hide the nav bar. Is that one of the Pro features? (It is a sweet little app either way.)
Billchen0014 said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1788518 remember to select tab mode during the installation
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This sends me back to JB 4.1.1 though doesn't it? I have already upgraded to 4.1.2 (Though at this point I could not tell you what the difference is other than home screen rotation.) I didn't know 4.1.1 well enough to know it. Only had the tablet a few days.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Might be, it definitely is available in the pro version though.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

[Q] Nexus 4 Virtual Buttons

First I tried to find some thing like this but I didn't manage to find any posts similar .. the only thing I found is to make your nexus 4 Full Screen.
# What I need is disable virtual buttons ONLY from Home Screen as it have no point in my viewpoint .. make Lock Screen full screen with no black blank space .. and keep the virtual button everywhere else*
im28.gulfup.com/ZIzg1.jpg
im15.gulfup.com/AHzE2.jpg
# Is it possible to make virtual button background transparent as in Motorola*
im15.gulfup.com/oXGy3.jpg
* sorry that I can't post image due to xda restrictions for new users under 10 posts :/

As of now, I don't think it is possible. I would just wait for ROMs to start coming out and hopefully one of the devs will be able to implement such a feature.

full screen toggle apk + LMT 1.5 seems to be working for me.. you have to be rooted to utilize these features

konfuzed said:
full screen toggle apk + LMT 1.5 seems to be working for me.. you have to be rooted to utilize these features
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Nice ass

mulletcutter said:
Nice ass
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Click to collapse
lol I agree

Neither of those apps are working for my phone, at least not gestures. When I hit disable navbar, nothing happens, though it did request root.
What input did you select in LMT?
Edit: Never used these apps before, but I'm assuming the nav removal works as I didn't try rebooting. I did reboot after setting up LMT though, and it still never worked.

I use lmt and full screen and its fine.... but can anyone solve this? its really strange.. touch is fine... but once you put navigations buttons back... they simple dont work.. anyone have a final solution? thanks.

How do you handle the lower software keys bar ?

Since the lower software keys bar takes up a lot of the screen space (making this a 4.8" device, instead of 5.2", for most practices), I was wondering how people handle this. There is an option to "auto hide" the key bar (by 3rd party app), but then I wonder how much productivity are we going to miss (by having to tap twice in order to press "BACK", instead of once). Another possibility is to use gesture control to entirely replace that key bar, but the problem with that (at least with my Galaxy S2) is that sometimes it work, and sometimes it doesn't work, I can't make it reliable.
How do you handle it with your G2 ?

Download the auto hide soft keys app & see for yourself. Its not bad.

PIE ? Try it using the LMT Launcher.

tiguy99 said:
Download the auto hide soft keys app & see for yourself. Its not bad.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did it. When I use a "tap" for trigger, I find it very easy to access, but I also find myself sometimes accidentally launching it...
When I use "swipe" for trigger, it will not launch by mistake, but it is also much slower to launch...
I wish there was a way to keep the original key bar, but just make it smaller. If the height would have been half, or even third of what it is now, it would still be very easy to operate. I don't understand why it was programmed for pig fingers.

I used a mod to make the nav buttons "Tiny". So now I have a 5" screen and I'm good with that.

Can you please tell us how you did this?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app

Hide all the way swipe up to see them and then bye bye

mrstarzan said:
Can you please tell us how you did this?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2457634
I don't think it works on T-Mobile

+1 for the tiny mod

I played some more with "GMD Gesture Control", and I have to say it's starting to look more promising...
I've created the following gestures:
Down-Right (anywhere on the screen) = HOME (just to clarify the gesture: I swipe down, then immediately right)
Left-Down (anywhere on the screen) = Back
Up-Right (anywhere on the screen) = Menu
Right-Down (anywhere on the screen) = Recent apps
I find this much more comfortable than even my Galaxy S2 hardware buttons...(since the hardware buttons are at the bottom of the device, but the gesture work everywhere on the screen).
The possible problems of this approach:
1. It might interfere with other screen swipes (though apart from games, I had no interference as of yet).
2. I have no clue what this does (if at all) to battery life...

Noam23 said:
I played some more with "GMD Gesture Control", and I have to say it's starting to look more promising...
I've created the following gestures:
Down-Right (anywhere on the screen) = HOME (just to clarify the gesture: I swipe down, then immediately right)
Left-Down (anywhere on the screen) = Back
Up-Right (anywhere on the screen) = Menu
Right-Down (anywhere on the screen) = Recent apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, upon some more testing, I did find interference using these gestures, especially when browsing internet (you tend to unintentionally make these gestures when panning windows).
So I've added another "security layer", and the gestures look like this now:
Down-Right-Up (anywhere on the screen) = HOME (just to clarify the gesture: I swipe down, then right, then up)
Left-Down-Right (anywhere on the screen) = Back
Up-Right-Down (anywhere on the screen) = Menu
Right-Down-Left (anywhere on the screen) = Recent apps
So far, so good...

Tried auto hide soft keys pro, works perfectly. Use LMT. launcher. loving my screen.
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app

chiballer20 said:
Tried auto hide soft keys pro, works perfectly. Use LMT. launcher. loving my screen.
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app
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Click to collapse
Do u need to be rooted for this?

LMT requires root, as does auto hide soft keys. If you're going to root anyway, I'd recommend using the qemu.hw.mainkeys=1 build.prop edit to hide them, however, as it doesn't require another service to be running.
---------- Post added at 05:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:14 PM ----------
And I can't recommend LMT enough. So powerful/flexible.

qemu.hw.mainkeys=1 build.prop
where can i get that?

It's just a line you add to your build.prop file. It makes the OS think you have hardware nav keys

Yes, it's a bit of a problem that both Auto hide and gesture control requires root.
I'm going to enter a 24 months contract on the G2, and so I really want to keep those 24 months of warranty...
If I root, have a problem, then un-root, will I get warranty ?

Noam23 said:
Yes, it's a bit of a problem that both Auto hide and gesture control requires root.
I'm going to enter a 24 months contract on the G2, and so I really want to keep those 24 months of warranty...
If I root, have a problem, then un-root, will I get warranty ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The manufacturer's warranty is only for one year or if you have your carrier's insurance then it doesn't really matter if its rooted cuz I've never had issues returning rooted phones to the carriers insurance.
Sent from my LG-D801 using xda app-developers app

xdabbeb said:
It's just a line you add to your build.prop file. It makes the OS think you have hardware nav keys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does this mean that the soft keys will be hidden but the screen will still register the space supposedly occupied by the buttons like invisible but functional buttons? That would be awesome.
Sent from my LG-D802 using xda app-developers app

Sepulture said:
Does this mean that the soft keys will be hidden but the screen will still register the space supposedly occupied by the buttons like invisible but functional buttons? That would be awesome.
Sent from my LG-D802 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did it a couple hours ago.
The screen does not register them at all. Your OS now thinks you have full 1920x1080 to use instead of stock 1778x1080 or whatever it is. The buildprop method is the BEST. First off you don't have to pay for any pro app crap, and also there is no other apps running - it is just a mod that you can undo.
LMT + prop tweak = perfect phone for me.

NEXUS 4 soft bottom keys PROBLEMS (video)

Hi
I have a big problem with my touch screen on the bottom, I can not use the back and home buttons because do not work, I had to install an alternate application to use this bottons at the top of the screen, i installed like 3 differents ROM and still i have this crazy problem, i need some help because i dont know what to do.:
Link: http://youtu.be/44G40JfDPZo
Link: http://youtu.be/44G40JfDPZo

Its a hardware problem i guess.Go to the service center.

Another option is to install GravityBox and enable Pie and disable bottom navigation buttons with LG Pie support. I did it like that. But u need time to adopt to Pie option, after a while it gets under a skin and bottom nav bar is useless
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Free mobile app