Had my Touch Pro2 for about a week now, and I'm loving it (coming from a TyTN II) I've found a ROM I like, set it up the way I want it, and I'm very happy apart from a couple of little niggles. It's so fast and smooth compared to my old phone!! And the screen is gorgeous
Anyway, I've been a member of these fantastic forums for a long time now, and I don't ask many questions, since usually I can find the answers I am looking for (I like figuring things out for myself!) but I have searched and searched for an answer to these questions to no avail.
So, here goes:
1. Is there any way to disable the transparency of the task bar and soft key bar on the start menu? It annoys me having the background show through. I'm a bit of a perfectionist and don't like the fact that it's the ONLY place where it happens, I'd like a consistent experience Why on earth did Microsoft decide to do this? If it's going to be transparent then apply it everywhere! It looks a little weird since the ROM I am using (which is awesome, btw ) has custom task bar icons, and little squares show up around them when the task bar goes transparent. I guess I'm just being picky but if anyone knows a reg tweak or some other way of doing this that would be great!
2. Has anybody found any way to change tracks in WMP without taking the device out of your pocket? On my old phone, when using WMP's Toggle Screen feature, I could feel for and use the DPad in my pocket to change tracks and volume without the device waking up. On the TP2 I can change the volume using the volume keys but changing tracks causes it to wake up and go crazy in my pocket! (I've used advanced keyboard config to assign the windows key and back key to DPad left and right, since I find having both hardware and software buttons in WM6.5.X a little pointless). If I lock the phone, then the volume keys still work, which is very useful, but obviously non of the other keys do so no track changing.
I know there is a program that allows you to use the voice command button on the HTC headphones to change tracks on the HTC music tab, but I have to use custom headphones because my ears are a funny shape and normal headphones don't stay in xD Also I don't like the music tab, it seems slow and doesn't show all the album art properly. I actually like WMP, it's always worked fine for me, don't know why everyone hates it so much BTW I've disabled the standard 6.5 lockscreen and am just using the soft key unlock like in 6.1
Sorry for the epic long post and thanks in advance!
Recently moved away from IOS JailBreak to Android, and can't say im used to the new FileSystem! I am trying to map keys specifically while the lockscreen is active. Most of my searches are littered w/ the global keylayout method. I noticed how the camera app remaps vol and pwr hard buttons (to zooming and controls lock respectively), while lockscreen nulls the 4 touch keys but keeps the global hard buttons, except camera. IOS JB had "activator". It is able to set button and gesture actions for the lock screen, home screen, while an app was active, and global (across the other 3). I dont need the full "activator", just wish to do lockscreen specific remappings to better utilize unused keys that otherwise have a good function. Anyone know a good FS mod shortcut or does the lockscreen.apk it's self need to be altered to achive this?
You can simply pull the key mapping file off the phone itself and edit it in notepad, save it, and send it back on. You need root though, I believe. Follow this guide and mix it up yourself! There are many tutorials on how to do this, if this certain one isn't too helpful. This one specifically is for the G1 but the steps should be very similar.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551344
Post #4 of http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1046761. Epic specific button mapping file.
Thanks, but those are, what I refer to as, the global keylayout, because it affects the phone's lockscreen, homescreen, and where ever else applicable. For Example, I am trying to mod the lockscreen camera buttons to control music, but it goes back to the camera buttons @ homescreen. I would also like to set the 4 touch buttons that are normally blocked on the lockscreen to do Media stuff as well. The keylayout overtakes too much. I'm lookin a bit more into the filesystem to day, might look into the AOSP work for better insight. Still open to any suggestions on where 2 look.
Hello, I am sorry I didn't have time to read everything so I might have overlooked this information
I have just flashed my HTC TP2 with the EnergyRom and after setting up my wallpapaer i also did a reskin of the taskbar and softmenu keys and I hate the way it looks now and no matter what I do from the personalization folder ( whichever wallpaper i choose ) it wont be like before when it had a background and some gloss over it
Is there any way to reset the theme on this rom ? or to get the taskbar and softkey buttons to have a gloss over like before ?
Well, stating the obvious here but a reflash will certainly get you back to how it looked in the beginning.
I rather I leave it the way it is then to reflash ... was hoping for some setting somewhere
Without knowing which EnergyROM version you have, I can't tell you what the default theme is. However, if you unskin your taskbar and softkeys, you should be able to go to Settings -> Home -> Appearance menu and select from the different themes on your device (one of which will be the default Energy theme for your particular version).
If that doesn't work, PIMBackup your contacts, messages, etc. and do a hard reset (you don't have to reflash).
In case you don't know how to hard reset, turn the phone off. Hold down the Send and End buttons (phone cradle icons), and then push the power button and hold it down as well. Keep pressing all three buttons until you see a message about restoring your device. Press the Volume Up rocker key to reset, and again to boot when the reset is done. THIS WILL ERASE ALL INFORMATION ON YOUR PHONE and take it back to a "first boot" state - that's why I recommend you backup anything important first.
Hope this helps.
-Mark
Thank you very much that helped a lot
I found the theme menu under start - > settings -> today
But I wouldn't of think to search there if not for your post, thank you very much.
thanks first i have the same problem but in this moment i use android on sd XD
I love everything about the One series, wish they'd used software buttons like ICS is supposed to have.
e.g. on most legacy apps, we'll now have a whole bar just to show the menu button. Thus you have a row for the menu button, and below it another for the capacitive ones. With soft-keys, they get combined and you have more screen space.
Plus software can modify the button bar to put other details and buttons, change orientation etc. Soft-keys are simply better.
ECrispy said:
I love everything about the One series, wish they'd used software buttons like ICS is supposed to have.
e.g. on most legacy apps, we'll now have a whole bar just to show the menu button. Thus you have a row for the menu button, and below it another for the capacitive ones. With soft-keys, they get combined and you have more screen space.
Plus software can modify the button bar to put other details and buttons, change orientation etc. Soft-keys are simply better.
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Couldn't disagree more. Legacy apps will be updated over time; physical buttons don't need anywhere near as much power to backlight as an LCD display, and require essentially no processing power to operate. By placing the buttons on the screen, you're requiring an inefficient LCD backlight to light those buttons, wasting processing power on rendering the screen, and not to mention that since those on-screen buttons can't be disabled, you're permanently wasting valuable LCD real-estate (and hence forcing a non-standard screen aspect ratio, since LCD panels are an off-the-shelf part and aren't typically designed to add extra menu bar pixels to the standard aspect.)
This will in not too long provide a better aspect ratio and more on-screen real estate in well-coded apps, doesn't sacrifice any screen real estate over a screen that always has the menu bar because it lacks physical buttons, and it will measurably improve battery life over a display providing the same real estate for apps *plus* a full-time LCD menu bar.
It's a big win, as far as I'm concerned, that is largely misunderstood so far by people not thinking about the bigger picture.
Software buttons can be disabled for more screen real estate.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
joshnichols189 said:
Software buttons can be disabled for more screen real estate.
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They certainly can't in ICS on tablets, I must admit I haven't tried an ICS phone yet.
Of course they can be disabled, e.g in video playback they go away. And there are ICS api's developers can call to modify the buttons. There are custom rom's that features such as search button to the button bar, which isn't possible with hard buttons of course.
ECrispy said:
...e.g in video playback they go away...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't know about on a phone but on a tablet they don't go away they are just replaced with very small dot. So the bar is still there and you still lose the screen space.
I really like hardware buttons, I don't like the "menu" bar but as you said this is for legacy apps so the pressure should be put on the app developers to update their apps inline with ICS.
Like said prev, hardware buttons give more screen, correct aspect ratios, use less power, and in the long run the menu button will become redundant.
ECrispy said:
Of course they can be disabled, e.g in video playback they go away. And there are ICS api's developers can call to modify the buttons. There are custom rom's that features such as search button to the button bar, which isn't possible with hard buttons of course.
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They certainly don't "go away" on ICS tablets. The bar is still there, the buttons are just replaced with less-distracting dots.
I love the physical touch buttons on the bottom, rather have them than touch screen ones anyday
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA
Google themselves have said that Android is moving in a direction where there should be no physical buttons. e.g. lets say Jellybean removes/adds a button, now some phones will need to be redesigned for it, just like they had to remove search & menu when moving to ICS. But a phone with software buttons doesn't need to change the hardware. It's more future proof.
I think this kind of change will take a while but eventually it will happen. There are still many people who prefer hw buttons and HTC wanted to accomodate them I guess.
I don't have an ICS tablet, I'd guess the reason is there is enough space on a tablet screen so they don't go away.
I prefer hardware buttons, BUT:
If using soft button means that the phone actually gets smaller,
i choose soft buttons.
ECrispy said:
But a phone with software buttons doesn't need to change the hardware. It's more future proof.
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Frankly, future-proofing is meaningless for as long as Google requires that end users go through a carrier and/or a manufacturer to get updates, and in the process guarantees that almost all Android products will be abandoned by the wayside before they've even stopped being sold (and the few that get updates will get them late, if ever.)
I just don't understand why they had to abandon the menu button, it was perfect...
I don't understand why we need a multitask button when you could just keep home pressed for the same result.
I didn't use a GN so won't comment on the software buttons much, I think it could really work if they added options for it in default ics so people who don't use custom roms and such could deal with them as they wish.
as for the menu bar on htc one.. it will eventually have a option to hide it (a V arrow on the bar)
it did in a previous software version but I guess they forgot to add it in the final build
and if you wanted it back all you had to do is keep multitask button pressed
@OP: drop by GNexus forum, there's quite some guys not happy with the screen size they loose with softbuttons. There's even an option on AKOP ROM to disable softbar.
I'm quite happy with hard buttons on One X, I just find stupid the solution HTC found to replace the menu button.
Disabling the soft buttons on the Galaxy Nexus is a commonly requested feature because tons of app developers haven't yet updated their apps to hide them while in full screen, not because of some half-baked idea that the loss of that extra 84 pixels of height somehow detracts from the user experience. Furthermore, the loss of screen real estate doesn't mean anything when 99% of the current apps are configured for the old 5:3 aspect ratio. Lots of old games look funky when you disable the soft buttons, because all the OS does is stretch it to fit.
Soft buttons are better because nobody can make up their minds on the design of the UI, so you might as well just leave it open to customization. Don't blame Google, blame the app developers.
HTC listened...
Maybe HTC listened to the majority of the HTC users and followed through with hardware buttons or maybe it is an HTC thing to keep hardware buttons as to Apple with their Home button.
I just want my search button back... that was perhaps the one (and only )good addition the US carriers made to their devices. IMO.
I can't find the article but an HTC executive was quoted as saying it's necessary to support Sense.
I'm happy they did it. The buttons on the galaxy nexus look like crap, the black isn't black enough to use it for passive buttons.
H-Cim said:
I'm happy they did it. The buttons on the galaxy nexus look like crap, the black isn't black enough to use it for passive buttons.
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The.majority of GN roms alow you to change both the brightness and colour of the on-screen buttons so that isn't an issue for most people. I actually prefer them, particularly as you can add or change the configuration of the buttons easily.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
So, I want my menu button to open up menus again, and not the "overflow" menu. What are my options? Do I have to re-install 10.2 and the 0813 gapps and prevent any of the google apps from updating by backing up their apks and resigning them with ZipSigner? Will the unofficially signed apps even work properly anymore? Is there any way to map the menu button to the "navigation drawer" / "hamburger button?" I've tried searching but haven't found any help.
The first time I tried to hit the button one handed was also the first time I really dropped my S3 (small hands). It finally put a crack in my bezel. I was so proud of that bezel! I know that I can swipe from the bezel to the right to open up the "navigation drawer," but I can only get this to work about a third of the time, and only in Google's own apps. Might as well be the charm bar in Win 8. None of the third party apps I use seem to incorporate this swiping feature either, which is why I'd rather enable the overflow three dot display, and remap the menu button. None of the options in the buttons menu in CM are anything I'd use. I just don't get it. They want to get rid of the menu button because devs hide everything there, but to facilitate it they hide everything off screen in a drawer that I have to use two hands to open?
I wish Google didn't dictate that the Action Bar and on-screen navigation controls are the way "things must be." Especially with no consideration to those of us on legacy devices. I rather like having buttons on the bottom of the phone that don't take up screen real estate. I'd like it even more if the buttons were physical like they were on my Evo 4G, and not capacitive. I even miss the old four button layout. I used all four of them all of the time. Why not have physical + per app customizable on screen buttons? Get the best of both worlds? "Because Matias Duarte has not deemed it so." Sounds like Jonathan Ive or Steven Sinofsky.... If I wanted to be told how to use my phone, I would have bought an iPhone or a Lumia....
On a side note, I am less than enthusiastic about the changes Google has been making with the apps. The fonts got bigger in everything, but especially annoyed me in the Play Store. Whitespace, WHITESPACE EVERYWHERE! So now I only see 5 apps at once, rather than the 8-9 that was in the ICS store. Why have a phone with a huge screen if we're going to make everything giant? And so many apps are following these "best practices." Then again, I detest mobile sites and set my useragent to desktop. I guess I just feel that if I'm carrying a computer in my pocket, it should feel like a computer.