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Hey guys,
I've had my Nexus for just over a month now and apart from a few minor issues I'm really enjoying my experience with my Nexus.
BUT: One thing that really p*sses me off is the total waste of screen real estate being the "on screen buttons". I can sort of understand the device having as few as possible buttons is pretty cool but when it starts invading your screen size that is NOT COOL.
I have a few questions for google: Why oh why did you make the background for the navigation buttons black?? Why not transparent? Or transparent with a blur effect? Personally I would prefer just transparent with faint white back, home and app switcher buttons. It would make more of the screen available to see.
If I were to root my device, are these things that i could schange in the System or Framework RES folders? Or would it be much more complicated than that (i.e. changing color hex's in .xml files?)?
Search for how to enable the tablet UI. I had to enlarge the font to make things a bit more comfortable for me, but I really do like the true tablet UI.
sikodemon said:
Hey guys,
I've had my Nexus for just over a month now and apart from a few minor issues I'm really enjoying my experience with my Nexus.
BUT: One thing that really p*sses me off is the total waste of screen real estate being the "on screen buttons". I can sort of understand the device having as few as possible buttons is pretty cool but when it starts invading your screen size that is NOT COOL.
I have a few questions for google: Why oh why did you make the background for the navigation buttons black?? Why not transparent? Or transparent with a blur effect? Personally I would prefer just transparent with faint white back, home and app switcher buttons. It would make more of the screen available to see.
If I were to root my device, are these things that i could schange in the System or Framework RES folders? Or would it be much more complicated than that (i.e. changing color hex's in .xml files?)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can make it smaller.
Here's a guide.http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1844878
Beamed from my Grouper
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
sikodemon said:
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
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Maybe it was carried over from the gnex.
It's black on the gnex to take advantage of the AMOLED screen.
Beamed from Maguro
Hi
sikodemon said:
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Presumably it is because it is dead space. Applications don't/can't expand into that area as it is protected. For example if you had an application open to the maximum behind translucent soft buttons, and that application required you to press something towards its bottom edge, you can't as it is now behind the menu buttons.
Ideally the buttons would be below the display and printed onto the touch screen as they are with my HTC One X, presumably they are not for either cost reasons or flexibility of the design.
Regards
Phil
sikodemon said:
Hmm, nearly, but I still don't understand why the navbar background color has to be black, I just really don't get what the advantage is. It would just make so much more sense if it were see through.
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Click to collapse
I'd guess that it doesn't make sense for it to be transparent because there is nothing under the navbar. Its a part of the screen that is separate from the application, if you allowed the navbar to be imposed over the application and transparent then the bottom part of the screen would be unusable in the application because touching it would activate the navbar buttons rather than the applications.
That said on the launcher it would be easy to just extend the wallpaper over the navbar and make it transparent and in apps you could colour the navbar with the average colour of the application background etc, though of course Apple has a patent waiting for that http://www.phonearena.com/news/Appl...xed-video_id34472?ratelimit=-10&sort=threaded
Not true because you can hide the nav bar on certain roms and that space it was using up is definitely usable. Hey OP I forgot what it's called but there's a launcher somewhere based on nothing but gestures so you don't even need a nav bar and you can use that extra screen space you seem to desperately need.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
sikodemon said:
Hey guys,
I've had my Nexus for just over a month now and apart from a few minor issues I'm really enjoying my experience with my Nexus.
BUT: One thing that really p*sses me off is the total waste of screen real estate being the "on screen buttons". I can sort of understand the device having as few as possible buttons is pretty cool but when it starts invading your screen size that is NOT COOL.
I have a few questions for google: Why oh why did you make the background for the navigation buttons black?? Why not transparent? Or transparent with a blur effect? Personally I would prefer just transparent with faint white back, home and app switcher buttons. It would make more of the screen available to see.
If I were to root my device, are these things that i could schange in the System or Framework RES folders? Or would it be much more complicated than that (i.e. changing color hex's in .xml files?)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agreed with you. Is there anyone that can port Motorola's Transparent Software Buttons, so it will be better?
slick_rick said:
Not true because you can hide the nav bar on certain roms and that space it was using up is definitely usable. Hey OP I forgot what it's called but there's a launcher somewhere based on nothing but gestures so you don't even need a nav bar and you can use that extra screen space you seem to desperately need.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're both right and wrong. The launcher you're thinking of is probably the PIE launcher available on many custom ROMs, as well as its app equivalent (which I believe is called LMT). But your reasoning as far as hiding the navbar is incorrect. If you hide the navbar on a ROM (or even the way it's done in many games and the YouTube app), the navbar disappears, i.e. it's no longer protecting the screen space that it's not using. Making it transparent would do no such thing, and even if you forced an app to use the space beneath the navbar, you'd wind up with three floating navigation items that would probably conflict with an app's bottom navigation.
Pegasus195 said:
I agreed with you. Is there anyone that can port Motorola's Transparent Software Buttons, so it will be better?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want to look into custom ROMs, some will allow you to mess around with your navbar icons/actions (the main one I like is the replace Recent Apps with a Last App switcher). Paranoid Android also allows you to change the color (and I believe that includes alpha transparency), including a "chameleon"-style bar that changes color based on the active app's predominant scheme.
Also, to respond to something from earlier: black is better because as a static color, it uses less resources to draw and has the benefit of being power-efficient on AMOLED screens. In addition, while it might look neat, it's pretty well accepted in UI/UX lore that you should keep navigational elements as clearly and visually distinct as possible to make them easier to hit. Shoving white/grey buttons on top of an active-blurred background can create quite a headache.
There's a great example of this in the screenshots of Apple's control center for iOS 7. For some backgrounds, the control center is clearly visible despite the background bleeding through, but on others, you basically can't read the buttons because the blur is too distracting.
I've seen numerous people ask about this but it's always either ignored or put down. I just want to understand once and for all, since I constantly see screenshots of folks running Omnirom that have the white accents as opposed to blue throughout the system theme. I'm pretty sure some screenshots from the Omnirom developers themselves I've seen even have this. Though all nightlies I've downloaded have had the blue so I'm incredibly confused. I prefer the consistent white. Can someone clear this up for me?
gkassee37 said:
I've seen numerous people ask about this but it's always either ignored or put down. I just want to understand once and for all, since I constantly see screenshots of folks running Omnirom that have the white accents as opposed to blue throughout the system theme. I'm pretty sure some screenshots from the Omnirom developers themselves I've seen even have this. Though all nightlies I've downloaded have had the blue so I'm incredibly confused. I prefer the consistent white. Can someone clear this up for me?
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Click to collapse
Statusbar and such are white. Things that use the "default" Holo themes (Settings is a good example of this) will still be blue. This is by design from Google - same as their own official firmwares.
Changing these aspects will also impact any app running on the system, and as a result, we will *not* be changing the default configuration Google implemented here.
At some point we'll bring back theme engine support (not necessarily the classic T-Mobile theme engine, we're considering the ChameleonOS theme engine as an alternative) that allows the defaults to be overridden, but until then, we can't risk that changing the defaults will have unintended consequences (such as the app breakage that resulted from Samsung mucking with the system themes on some of their devices.)
@gkassee37 -- I really, really dislike that blue. Always have, for some reason.
I wish it was as easy as just globally replacing one hex code with another. It's pretty much a "one-liner" to do -- just one command typed at a terminal. Arguably not a trivial command line to craft, but still not a complex task.
While I'm an "in the code" kind of guy, I totally respect the work of the better "themers" out there as there are so many things they need to check and make sure all are still usable, not just looking good.
Let's say that you did just replace all the ugly blue codes with shiny, bright white.
What happens if you have an element on a white background?
How do you tell that it is "on" or "active" or what have you? All of a sudden, it just disappears.
What if it isn't even in the "system" or a system app? You've got some third-party app that is depending on a core widget of some sort and is rendering it on a white background...
To do it right, you really have to look at each element in the UI and make sure that you have done something reasonable. I'll let the Google folks do that if it means that the OmniROM team can focus on a stable, fast, and usable ROM for my phone.
as much as I hate that blue.
jeffsf said:
@gkassee37 -- I really, really dislike that blue. Always have, for some reason.
I wish it was as easy as just globally replacing one hex code with another. It's pretty much a "one-liner" to do -- just one command typed at a terminal. Arguably not a trivial command line to craft, but still not a complex task.
While I'm an "in the code" kind of guy, I totally respect the work of the better "themers" out there as there are so many things they need to check and make sure all are still usable, not just looking good.
Let's say that you did just replace all the ugly blue codes with shiny, bright white.
What happens if you have an element on a white background?
How do you tell that it is "on" or "active" or what have you? All of a sudden, it just disappears.
What if it isn't even in the "system" or a system app? You've got some third-party app that is depending on a core widget of some sort and is rendering it on a white background...
To do it right, you really have to look at each element in the UI and make sure that you have done something reasonable. I'll let the Google folks do that if it means that the OmniROM team can focus on a stable, fast, and usable ROM for my phone.
as much as I hate that blue.
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Click to collapse
Yup. That's pretty much it. A number of those blue items are highly likely to get rendered against white by an app. End result could be really nasty. (Many of the themes out there break horribly with some apps... And from memory, the "all white" themes have a bad habit of being the most likely to break.)
This is a thread for those coming from an AOSP ROM like Vanilla Android or CyanogenMod or even from other OEM overlays like Sense. What would you say are the good and LG features?
For me, good:
Heads up display implantation of incoming calls when screen is on that ensures you don't break your workflow.
Little hovering window to show a call is in loudspeaker in the background with the time on it
Though almost standardised, having call controls in the notification drawer
Bad:
Auto expanded notifications
Unable to disable the clips tray
Unable to remove toggles from within the drawer
Battery percentage being to the left of the battery
Unable to customise lockscreen
Implementation of software navigation keys breaks functions like hiding the keyboard
Customisation of the share intent with everything being ticked all the time
I only had my phone for half a day, but already some software feature I really like:
"Clip Tray" (Multi-clipboard).
Double-knock to wake and go to sleep (I don't use knock-code, haven't tried it yet)
And something I really don't like:
Keyboard sluggishness. When I type (using flow), it's always 1 or 2 words behind... I'm going to replace it quickly with Google keyboard or SwiftKey
Protagoras said:
I only had my phone for half a day, but already some software feature I really like:
"Clip Tray" (Multi-clipboard).
Double-knock to wake and go to sleep (I don't use knock-code, haven't tried it yet)
And something I really don't like:
Keyboard sluggishness. When I type (using flow), it's always 1 or 2 words behind... I'm going to replace it quickly with Google keyboard or SwiftKey
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree with you about the keyboard... I hate it. I was using s4 with keyboard ported from s5. Is sluggish and i keep typing space more often..
Sent from my LG-D855 using XDA Free mobile app
I've noticed that the keyboard is sluggish with more than one language selected.
I really like the keyboard. Haven't tried swipe input on it yet. Overall i'm really impressed by the UI. Its got great flat icons, beautiful selection of wallpapers and lots of options to customise.
Knock on and knock code are great. Clip tray is a very useful feature and the popup reply notifications for the messaging app are really handy and have stopped me from using Hangouts as my main SMS app.
The downsides so far are no search on server within the email app and no option to show the weather on the smart notice widget without turning on GPS. Also for some reason LG took out the wireless storage feature from the G2 which was very useful. They should have kept it.
Bad:
When adding contacts, the default option is to add to "Phone" with no way of changing it.
Oversharpening of text. More obvious on certain fonts with black text on white background.
Camera options are way too limited.
Overall I'm quite happy with the software. Looks pretty good and some of the added features are quite useful.
Greetings people,
As TW Lollipop has landed, most of the devs have been trying to brew ROMs for the people, and unfortunately there is no control as what MODS should be included, i have found it terribly difficult to choose a ROM as it didnt feel normal to use mods that made no sense (or at least have a minority audience).
Particularly,what annoys me a lot, is dealing with the mods that change the visual space available, now there is no need to blame devs here at all, but rather Sammy should be here to blame for just trying to make a normal UI into a complex useless UI in to their own, and they have effed it up with the new Notifications Drawer.
While i noticed a lot of devs have found options/parameters to change the view of the notification drawer, a lot of ROMs include a very annoying feature called Quicklaunch, however im pretty sure a lot of people like it. While Quicklaunch in my personal opinion sucks, it looks way better compared to S-Finder and Quick Launch buttons. I personally lack any kind programming/scripting skills, but luckily, thanks to a nice dev called @alfaroolg with a similar taste, he brewed it for me straight away.
This is what i planned on seeing:
Remove S-Finder and Quick Connect
Remove 3minit Quicklaunch
Remove the Brightness Bar
Currently, im on @g00h s Note 4 Port, which makes me believe that the Brightness Bar is not removable anymore as i could not find the setting on either the Display settings or Notification Panel editor, HOWEVER, the brightness bar disappears if under 5% battery so you cant push the brightness up, and to my surprise, found out sammy screwed up adopting to the Lollipop rules.
This is how it looks without S-Finder/QuickConnect and Quicklaunch: First Pic
This is what happens with the same configuration, under 5% battery after the Brightness Bar disappears: Second Pic
And to my surprise, if there are any Notifications going on, things return well: Third Pic
Is this a general issue Sammy mustve skipped? quite an eye catcher. Also, the area where the brightness bar disappears, usually Notifications get the place, and the first Notification is not Swipeable, i end up clicking the notification rather then removing it, and it can result in very unpleasant moments.
Hey folks!
I've recently updated to Oreo and realized that if I change the icons through the samsung theme store the preinstalled apps(maps,chrome,drive,playstore..) has that same rounded cornered touchwiz crap look and arent changing. On nougat this wasnt a problem,I changed to another icon pack and if the app wasnt themed it would go back to app's default icon. I cant even force the app's default icon(like youtube staying in an ugly white bubble).
Also, I tried turning off icon frames,without luck.The mentioned apps stayed the same
Any advice?
Apperently google apps don't change the frame
That are the beautiful "Adaptive Icons", another great idea of Google. All developers have to include different shapes of icons now, and Google itself is lazy af and just puts a white border around them to match the shape of the other icons. Can only be changed in custom launchers with icon packs unfortunatly...
Gfhoihoi72 said:
That are the beautiful "Adaptive Icons", another great idea of Google. All developers have to include different shapes of icons now, and Google itself is lazy af and just puts a white border around them to match the shape of the other icons. Can only be changed in custom launchers with icon packs unfortunatly...
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the explanation.
Hopefuly Google will provide the correct icon pack (same for LinkedIn I've noticed). Those white frames look very bad
I was having the same issue. In past used "Icon Changer". This also stopped working. Strongly recommend using "Adapticon" play store. Can add widgets that act as app shortcuts. On home screen and in dock. I think it will do the trick.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.damianpiwowarski.adapticons[/URL]
Wait, you mean it doesn't just work like it used to? That feels like a step backwards.
mskvsk said:
Wait, you mean it doesn't just work like it used to? That feels like a step backwards.
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Technically adaptive icons are supposed to come with built in functionality for notification badges too (vs the add ons that Nova could do if you let it, this would be native to the OS) and that was going to be "their advantage" but yeah, they're so ugly.
Everyone I've seen likes the unique shapes that Android app icons could have. It gave them personality AND it was easier to find an app by sight then it is now. Before you could quickly pick out a well-known app just from its outline. Now we've lost that ability with the loss of icon shapes.
Stupid move on Google's part.