Develop Bugs

No arrow keys?

Just got a G2 and fired up addictinggames.com to test the flash out. Then I realized that there are no arrow keys to control the games. Seems like a waste to have 2.2 out of the box and not be able to use all the features. Any work arounds?

ransu said:
Just got a G2 and fired up addictinggames.com to test the flash out. Then I realized that there are no arrow keys to control the games. Seems like a waste to have 2.2 out of the box and not be able to use all the features. Any work arounds?
On that note I could have done without the programmable quick keys that you can't program anything useful for.
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Does the optical pad do directional control?

Yeah the trackpad works as directional, but its no good for games where you have to hold down a particular direction.

The G1 doesn't have any arrow keys, neither does the Nexus One or the Vibrant. What makes you think a phone comes with arrow keys?

Err most qwerty phones do have arrow keys. Also this is one of the few full flash supporting ones. You'd expect arrow keys. I was surprised.
No worries. PM me a list of games you want to play and I'll add them to my "Flash Game Packs" (I'm optimizing flash games for on screen controls)

I'm sure someone somewhere has written a small app that would allow you to assign directional keys to any keys on your keypad.

maybe assign IJKL as a D-pad while holding down shift and alt at the same time. so you could use your left hand to activate it and right hand to move. lol

any updates?
coming from a lg eve is really upsetting not to have arrow keys!

Look through the forums for hardware button remapping. It is fairly simple.

No buttons on GN: no ports of other ROMs?

Would this be the case? I enjoy having good selection of ROMs with different looks
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Can't see why that would be the case, unless you're thinking about Gingerbread roms, which would make no sense.

FISKER_Q said:
Can't see why that would be the case, unless you're thinking about Gingerbread roms, which would make no sense.
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I know its a dumb question but would htc and samsung etc make phones with no buttons? I believe you can use ics with physical buttons as shown on nexus s.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

jay_993 said:
Would this be the case? I enjoy having good selection of ROMs with different looks
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Well why would you want a Gingerbread ROM ported to the Galaxy Nexus? That's the only way you'd have an issue.
Once custom ROMs are based on 4.0, it'll already have the hooks to run with on-screen buttons and not hardware buttons. That's part of ICS, not just this particular release.
Problem solved...

jay_993 said:
I know its a dumb question but would htc and samsung etc make phones with no buttons? I believe you can use ics with physical buttons as shown on nexus s.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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Yeah, but all ICS releases will be made for phones with no buttons, unless you're anticipating someone building ROMs on Android 2.3 for some reason.
Any custom ROM that comes out will be ICS based, so there's really no reason to worry. The ONLY one that might be in some trouble at first is MIUI, but I'm sure some intrepid dev out there will fix it.

SomeGuyDude said:
Yeah, but all ICS releases will be made for phones with no buttons, unless you're anticipating someone building ROMs on Android 2.3 for some reason.
Any custom ROM that comes out will be ICS based, so there's really no reason to worry. The ONLY one that might be in some trouble at first is MIUI, but I'm sure some intrepid dev out there will fix it.
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I doubt ICS releases will assume phones have no buttons. The emulator in the SDK for ICS is still button-based. I think the ICS base software will be agnostic to the button arrangement, and then vendor-specific hardware drivers will then determine whether virtual buttons or physical buttons are used to interface with the OS.

Chirality said:
I doubt ICS releases will assume phones have no buttons. The emulator in the SDK for ICS is still button-based. I think the ICS base software will be agnostic to the button arrangement, and then vendor-specific hardware drivers will then determine whether virtual buttons or physical buttons are used to interface with the OS.
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Well of course the emulator will be button based, as you can't touch the screen of your laptop
But yes, I get your point. The idea is the manufacturer chooses whether to use buttons or not. I think they'd be stupid to include buttons though, when the soft buttons will obviously make the experience much better.

jay_993 said:
Would this be the case? I enjoy having good selection of ROMs with different looks
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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ICS will work if you have or don't have physical buttons.
http://gizmodo.com/5853298/will-your-android-phones-buttons-still-work-with-ice-cream-sandwich

I think the focus is ports such as MIUI... but either they'll include the hooks for the buttons or 3rd party controls... or custom launchers like the ICS launchers we have now.
Not to worry
G2x - 2.3.7 CM7
Transformer - 3.2 Revolver OC/UV

martonikaj said:
Well of course the emulator will be button based, as you can't touch the screen of your laptop
But yes, I get your point. The idea is the manufacturer chooses whether to use buttons or not. I think they'd be stupid to include buttons though, when the soft buttons will obviously make the experience much better.
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You didn't really think through your point...
If you can't simulate touchscreen input on the emulator, how are you going to perform all those touch-based actions in Android on the emulator? Did you think that on the emulator, you press buttons to do everything?
The answer is that with the emulator, you use mouse presses to simulate touchscreen input. Which means that, if the softkeys are a standard, always-present part of ICS, then in the emulator for ICS those softkeys would be on the screen. However they are not, which means ICS works just fine with hardware buttons, and hides the softkeys when they are present.

Chirality said:
You didn't really think through your point...
If you can't simulate touchscreen input on the emulator, how are you going to perform all those touch-based actions in Android on the emulator? Did you think that on the emulator, you press buttons to do everything?
The answer is that with the emulator, you use mouse presses to simulate touchscreen input. Which means that, if the softkeys are a standard, always-present part of ICS, then in the emulator for ICS those softkeys would be on the screen. However they are not, which means ICS works just fine with hardware buttons, and hides the softkeys when they are present.
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I was making a joke about it. Easy tiger.
They're just simply running 4.0 in the old emulator so the emulator interface is the same whether you're running a 2.3 or 4.0 AVD.

martonikaj said:
I was making a joke about it. Easy tiger.
They're just simply running 4.0 in the old emulator so the emulator interface is the same whether you're running a 2.3 or 4.0 AVD.
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I thought you might have been making a joke, so I wasn't overly critical, but tone doesn't come across well over the web...
Sure, they reused the old emulator interface. But that already tells you everything you need to know. If ICS doesn't work with physical buttons, then they would either need to revamp the emulator, disable the physical buttons and put on-screen buttons on the emulator display, or just leave the physical buttons there, but they would do nothing and on-screen buttons would be displayed. The fact that the emulator works without change, already tells you that ICS supports physical buttons and can hide the on-screen buttons when they are not needed.

Chirality said:
I thought you might have been making a joke, so I wasn't overly critical, but tone doesn't come across well over the web...
Sure, they reused the old emulator interface. But that already tells you everything you need to know. If ICS doesn't work with physical buttons, then they would either need to revamp the emulator, disable the physical buttons and put on-screen buttons on the emulator display, or just leave the physical buttons there, but they would do nothing and on-screen buttons would be displayed. The fact that the emulator works without change, already tells you that ICS supports physical buttons and can hide the on-screen buttons when they are not needed.
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Oh I'm 100% sure ICS is set up to work with either on-screen or hardware buttons. Its pretty well exemplified by the SDK ports of ICS running just fine on a Nexus S with hardware buttons, and the fact that manufacturers are saying old phones (pre GN) are getting ICS upgrades. I think Goog would be stupid to make it only work on all-screen phones.
All I was saying is that I think manufacturers would be dumb to make new phones with hardware buttons and ICS, as the software buttons work so much better. Just as we saw with honeycomb, a few tablets used a hardware home key or something like that, but most just used on-screen buttons.

Most likely we will see more phones with hardware based buttons in the future. The button-less design will be standard for high-end phones but on the smaller phones with smaller screens where the size of software buttons will take up to much space. I think that the option to use hardware buttons will stay as an options for years to come.

martonikaj said:
Oh I'm 100% sure ICS is set up to work with either on-screen or hardware buttons. Its pretty well exemplified by the SDK ports of ICS running just fine on a Nexus S with hardware buttons, and the fact that manufacturers are saying old phones (pre GN) are getting ICS upgrades. I think Goog would be stupid to make it only work on all-screen phones.
All I was saying is that I think manufacturers would be dumb to make new phones with hardware buttons and ICS, as the software buttons work so much better. Just as we saw with honeycomb, a few tablets used a hardware home key or something like that, but most just used on-screen buttons.
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How exactly do software buttons work better? I would much prefer hardware buttons with real tactile feedback because it's much harder to accidentally press them.

Chirality said:
How exactly do software buttons work better? I would much prefer hardware buttons with real tactile feedback because it's much harder to accidentally press them.
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Well for one they're dynamic, meaning they can adapt to whatever changes in lighting, orientation, etc.
They can also be changed after the fact, for example if Google decides that there should be a search button instead of, or in addition to, the button(s), then they will adapt it on the software side.
Failure of the buttons is also dependant on the touch sensor failing, and not just wear and tear from the user, i know the trackball on my Nexus One was becoming increasingly frustrating because of that.
Lastly as for the con that it's easier to accidentally press, i disagree. I can't speak for Google's implementation, but there are a variety of software options to prevent stuff like that from happening.
For example the already existing capacative buttons cannot be activated unless you actually click on them, or atleast that's how it is on my phone, yes the touch required is otherwise light, but could likewise be adjusted in the software.

FISKER_Q said:
Well for one they're dynamic, meaning they can adapt to whatever changes in lighting, orientation, etc.
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There are no advantages to this. If you have hardware buttons with real tactile feedback, you can press them in your pocket without looking at it. You don't need fancy virtual buttons that change icons and dim, all you need are real, physical buttons.
FISKER_Q said:
They can also be changed after the fact, for example if Google decides that there should be a search button instead of, or in addition to, the button(s), then they will adapt it on the software side.
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While this is a potential pro, the chances of this happening are slim to none. For this to work, Android would have to truly do away with physical buttons and make software buttons an integral part of the platform. Physical buttons and virtual buttons remain viable options for the platform, which means that the platform can't make changes to the button specification at will.
FISKER_Q said:
Failure of the buttons is also dependant on the touch sensor failing, and not just wear and tear from the user, i know the trackball on my Nexus One was becoming increasingly frustrating because of that.
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I'd like to see some statistics to back up the claim that physical buttons fail before touchscreens do.
FISKER_Q said:
Lastly as for the con that it's easier to accidentally press, i disagree. I can't speak for Google's implementation, but there are a variety of software options to prevent stuff like that from happening.
For example the already existing capacative buttons cannot be activated unless you actually click on them, or atleast that's how it is on my phone, yes the touch required is otherwise light, but could likewise be adjusted in the software.
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Touchpanel makers have been trying for years to master the technology to prevent accidental presses, but none of them work as well as a real button that you have to depress to activate. I think if you were honest with yourself you'd agree with this, any reasonable person would.

Lil Jones said:
Most likely we will see more phones with hardware based buttons in the future. The button-less design will be standard for high-end phones but on the smaller phones with smaller screens where the size of software buttons will take up to much space. I think that the option to use hardware buttons will stay as an options for years to come.
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Not sure if you're thinking this through. When you remove the hardware buttons, the screen gets larger. The net real-estate you have for screen+buttons stays the same, but now the buttons can change/move.
Chirality said:
How exactly do software buttons work better? I would much prefer hardware buttons with real tactile feedback because it's much harder to accidentally press them.
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When you don't need the buttons (games, videos, camera, etc.) they go away. Leaving you with MORE screen then you had before.
Software buttons can dynamically change. They get brighter or dimmer with the screen, they rotate with the phone, and the buttons can change (add or remove menu button for legacy apps) depending on where in the OS you are.
Not to mention that with ICS software buttons, the positioning is standardized. No more rearranging of the buttons from android device to android device and manufacturer to manufacturer.
---------- Post added at 12:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:01 PM ----------
Chirality said:
There are no advantages to this. If you have hardware buttons with real tactile feedback, you can press them in your pocket without looking at it. You don't need fancy virtual buttons that change icons and dim, all you need are real, physical buttons.
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why do you need to press the home/menu/back/search buttons on your phone in your pocket?
While this is a potential pro, the chances of this happening are slim to none. For this to work, Android would have to truly do away with physical buttons and make software buttons an integral part of the platform. Physical buttons and virtual buttons remain viable options for the platform, which means that the platform can't make changes to the button specification at will.
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Its pretty clear that ICS is moving Android towards a buttonless design. When the Nexus comes out with no physical buttons, I think they're sending a pretty serious message about what they want manufacturers to do and what Google sees as the future of Android.

martonikaj said:
When you don't need the buttons (games, videos, camera, etc.) they go away. Leaving you with MORE screen then you had before.
Software buttons can dynamically change. They get brighter or dimmer with the screen, they rotate with the phone, and the buttons can change (add or remove menu button for legacy apps) depending on where in the OS you are.
Not to mention that with ICS software buttons, the positioning is standardized. No more rearranging of the buttons from android device to android device and manufacturer to manufacturer.
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I sense there is some conceptual confusion here. Both you and FISKER_Q said something about on-screen buttons being dynamic and can change with what the software is doing. Let's clarify things a bit.
We are actually talking about two different kinds of buttons here. The first kind are the button widgets displayed on the screen, they can have different appearances and functions and appear and disappear depending on what the software is doing. Let's call them dynamic buttons. The second kind are buttons that are always present and always do the same thing. Let's call them static buttons.
Obviously a touchscreen mobile device needs dynamic buttons, they are an integral part of the current UI paradigm. But does it need static buttons? Well...it needs at least one, the power button. Without it, you won't be able to turn the phone on. But does it need a second one? The answer is yes, it needs a home button. Without it you won't be able to return from a full screen application that wasn't designed with an exit function. This is why the iPhone has a giant button underneath the screen. And in fact, in ICS, the three virtual buttons only go away during video playback. They are still there, possibly dimmed, during any games or other apps. And this is only because the video playback app is a standard part of the OS, so it's safe to let that app hide the home button until a user taps the screen. Imagine if any app could hide the home button. Then you can write a malicious app that hides the home button and doesn't let you exit the app, forcing you to restart your phone.
So we established that a mobile device needs at least a second static button. Now the question becomes, given that you need this button to be always present and always doing the same thing, why make it into a dynamic, virtual button? Why do you need it to dim, change orientation, change function, move around? You want this button to be static, predictable, easy to locate. Users should be able to press this button without any graphic indicating what and where it is. This is why I said physical buttons can be pressed in your pocket without looking at it: not because you would ever need to do that, but because with a physical button, particularly as few as 1 to 3, they are so easy to locate and press that you don't even need any lights or graphics indicating where they are.
Obviously Android realizes the necessity of at least two static buttons, that's why they designed the home button to behave the way it does on ICS, where it is treated differently from other buttons. Now it is the decision of the Android designers to include not just one, but three static buttons as a standard part of the system. But here we are not concerned with this design choice, what we are concerned with is the fact that there needs to be at least one of these static buttons besides the power button, and the properties that these buttons must have. Given these properties, why should these static buttons be dynamic, be able to dim, be able to change orientation, be able to change function based on context? Why shouldn't they simply be physical buttons that can always be easily located, easily pressed, and difficult to trigger accidentally?

Chirality said:
Obviously a touchscreen mobile device needs dynamic buttons, they are an integral part of the current UI paradigm. But does it need static buttons? Well...it needs at least one, the power button. Without it, you won't be able to turn the phone on. But does it need a second one? The answer is yes, it needs a home button. Without it you won't be able to return from a full screen application that wasn't designed with an exit function. This is why the iPhone has a giant button underneath the screen. And in fact, in ICS, the three virtual buttons only go away during video playback. They are still there, possibly dimmed, during any games or other apps. And this is only because the video playback app is a standard part of the OS, so it's safe to let that app hide the home button until a user taps the screen. Imagine if any app could hide the home button. Then you can write a malicious app that hides the home button and doesn't let you exit the app, forcing you to restart your phone.
So we established that a mobile device needs at least a second static button. Now the question becomes, given that you need this button to be always present and always doing the same thing, why make it into a dynamic, virtual button? Why do you need it to dim, change orientation, change function, move around? You want this button to be static, predictable, easy to locate. Users should be able to press this button without any graphic indicating what and where it is. This is why I said physical buttons can be pressed in your pocket without looking at it: not because you would ever need to do that, but because with a physical button, particularly as few as 1 to 3, they are so easy to locate and press that you don't even need any lights or graphics indicating where they are.
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No, we didn't establish anything. You established that you think the phone needs a 2nd static button. And why? Because you're worried about malware taking over the buttons? You can write a malicious app now that disables your hardware home button (or any other button, for that matter) too. How is that ANY different? Just because its hardware doesn't mean that it doesn't link to software at some point. If you think about it, Android already has software buttons, they're just linked to hardware switches on the front of the phone....
Obviously Android realizes the necessity of at least two static buttons, that's why they designed the home button to behave the way it does on ICS, where it is treated differently from other buttons. Now it is the decision of the Android designers to include not just one, but three static buttons as a standard part of the system. But here we are not concerned with this design choice, what we are concerned with is the fact that there needs to be at least one of these static buttons besides the power button, and the properties that these buttons must have. Given these properties, why should these static buttons be dynamic, be able to dim, be able to change orientation, be able to change function based on context? Why shouldn't they simply be physical buttons that can always be easily located, easily pressed, and difficult to trigger accidentally?
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No, android actually hasn't realized the necessity for at least 2 buttons. Its actually quite the opposite. They've gone from wanting 5 static buttons, to ICS+Galaxy Nexus only having 1, the power button. The home button will always be in the same place when you need it, it is just able to disappear in full-screen apps to allow them to use the full real estate of the phone's front panel (and not just movies. Books, games, web pages, etc.).
You make it sound like because the software buttons are able to rotate with the phone or fade out during watching a movie or reading a book that they won't come back when you need them in the exact same spot when you're done with the full-screen task. It is just as easy for a user to remember where a software button is as it is to know where a hardware button is. Software just brings more consistency across the platform, where software buttons will always be in the same spot.

[THINK TANK] Gesture bar instead of soft key bar

I've been realizing lately how amazing android really is and customizable it is with this phone. Off topic but I kinda hated the fact. Of a recent app button and the fact that I lost the menu button (honestly the most used button on all my other phones). The devs here realized it and gave me the ability to have my menu button, get my search button back, and make recent apps come up by holding the home button. Got to love them. Shout out to our fantastic devs.
Now the point of this thread was just I wanted to know how you guys thought about a gesture bar instead of having buttons. So swipe on the bar to go back, maybe swipe up to go home etc? Just trying to think of creative ideas on how to use this huge screen and since everything is virtual, why can't this be possible. What you guys think?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

nice idea, kind of like the microsoft touch mouse. I would like to see someone make that possible and see how it works out.

Shaquiel Harris said:
Now the point of this thread was just I wanted to know how you guys thought about a gesture bar instead of having buttons. So swipe on the bar to go back, maybe swipe up to go home etc? Just trying to think of creative ideas on how to use this huge screen and since everything is virtual, why can't this be possible. What you guys think?
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As a technical exercise it sounds like a very good idea, but I know for one I wouldn't use it. Dolphin HD has had gesture support for such a long time and I used it as my main web browser on my Desire but I didn't ever use the gesture support.
Even my HD2 running WM 6.5.x had an app that allowed you to launch any app/program by configuring a gesture, but again I didn't use it.
I guess it's just easier to place my thumb than to move about when holding the phone in one hand. Is this an idea you were thinking of implementing yourself, or are you looking for someone to pick the idea up and run with it?

Kalavere said:
As a technical exercise it sounds like a very good idea, but I know for one I wouldn't use it. Dolphin HD has had gesture support for such a long time and I used it as my main web browser on my Desire but I didn't ever use the gesture support.
Even my HD2 running WM 6.5.x had an app that allowed you to launch any app/program by configuring a gesture, but again I didn't use it.
I guess it's just easier to place my thumb than to move about when holding the phone in one hand. Is this an idea you were thinking of implementing yourself, or are you looking for someone to pick the idea up and run with it?
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Are you talking about lmt? Fyi: it's now also available for android/gsn...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1330150
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Shaquiel Harris said:
I lost the menu button (honestly the most used button on all my other phones).
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You never lost the menu button, it's just not on screen 100% of the time anymore, where it would just waste space otherwise.

I think its great idea!
Another few things that would be cool to see would be, resizing the Navigation Bar to be maybe a little thinner, and being able to slide the nav bar left or right, to reveal a icons to launch other apps, and maybe swiping down to hide the navbar all together.
Like you said being able to customize android and change every aspect of it is what makes this OS so awesome.

You guys ever use gesture area on webOS phones? Much better than using back key, would be a great idea. It also used visual feedback so a white line would go in the swipe direction. Currently the only phone using something similar to this is the N9 probably, which has swiping through the sides of screen to control apps.

I was just thinking about WebOS when reading this as well. Would be nice.

Just having the soft keys area as a gesture area? cool!
Maybe you could customize your gestures?
A big thing to me would be the ability to have a fully loaded package and be able to switch between stock softkeys, added search/menu softkeys, and gestures. Everything customizeable by user rather than through flashing?

menu bar like in windows 8
I think gesture is pretty good, but i`d like to see menu bar(home, recent, etc) like in win8: it is hidden until you swype from bottom-outside up, than it become unhidden. see any wideo with windows 8 tablert, you`ll see what i mean.

MrBIMC said:
I think gesture is pretty good, but i`d like to see menu bar(home, recent, etc) like in win8: it is hidden until you swype from bottom-outside up, than it become unhidden. see any wideo with windows 8 tablert, you`ll see what i mean.
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That would get annoying pretty quickly. I don't want to have to add extra steps to navigate my phone. Back, home and recent app are buttons you use all the time, why add a barrier to get to em? More screen real estate isn't worth the extra hassle.

Enhanced said:
That would get annoying pretty quickly. I don't want to have to add extra steps to navigate my phone. Back, home and recent app are buttons you use all the time, why add a barrier to get to em? More screen real estate isn't worth the extra hassle.
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How about navigational controls similar to the quick controls in the stock browser? Touch the bottom edge of the screen and out pops a semi-radial menu that can contain: back, home, recent apps, menu, search and can be used to add quick shortcuts to your most used apps like messaging, contacts, browser, etc., or app specific commands, like say refresh for browser, check mail for, well, email, and so on. Touching the edge requires less effort and movement as compared to swiping up or down.

I came to Android from webOS after HP shot themselves in the foot several times and one of the things I miss most is the gesture bar you had at the bottom of the screen. With the advent of the soft button area in ICS I see a real option to enable the area to work in a similar fashion. Hell yes!
The webOS gestures were:
A single swipe up would show you your running apps.
Swiping 2 fingers up would show you the launcher (app drawer).
A leftward swipe would go back.
A full swipe across the entire area going either right or left would take you to the next or previous running app.
Besides the wireless charging, the gesture area was one of the webOS killer features you very quickly learned to take for-granted. So long as gesture detection was implemented well I don't see why you couldn't have the soft buttons as they are now and gestures all working at the same time.

Call me old fashioned, but I also don't like the gestures idea.
Dolphin is just about the only program on android that I have tried to use gestures with, and it's not the sort of feature i'd personally like integrated into my phone.
That said, customizing how different people can use their phones, within the same operating system, so two people can use the exact same phone in two totally different ways, is the way to go

j.go said:
How about navigational controls similar to the quick controls in the stock browser? Touch the bottom edge of the screen and out pops a semi-radial menu that can contain: back, home, recent apps, menu, search and can be used to add quick shortcuts to your most used apps like messaging, contacts, browser, etc., or app specific commands, like say refresh for browser, check mail for, well, email, and so on. Touching the edge requires less effort and movement as compared to swiping up or down.
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Click to collapse
I like your idea of having the pie control from the stock browser available all over android. I had the idea a while back but was just too lazy to implement it. Today I did a small working prototype and I think I will add the pie control feature to my gesture app "LMT"...

good idea but put ot optionaly! maybe it is not practical ! iwould rather hidden button ! like Video player amaing full screen with hidden buttons !!

Huntlaar said:
good idea but put ot optionaly! maybe it is not practical ! iwould rather hidden button ! like Video player amaing full screen with hidden buttons !!
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If implemented properly, you might be able to do away with the bottom bar and take advantage of the full screen. You can't see it with the nexus browser, but if you have a tablet running ICS and enable browser quick controls, the app hides the tabs and address bar, instantly adding an inch of usable screen real estate at the top.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

The big nasty problem with having hidden buttons or, for that matter, any trigger point area(s) on the devices main screen is you'll always end up triggering something when you didn't want to or it interferes with a ui element in one or more apps e.g. game scroll bars / buttons. I've tried plenty and they all interfered with one app or another to the point I stopped using them.
The quick controls idea is fine but you're still having to watch what you're doing. The beauty of gestures in webOS was that you wouldn't have to take your eyes of what you were doing to find a button - your finger just flicked below the screen content while your eyes looked towards what you were going to do next.
I realise it's hard to imagine if you've never done it before but (weak analogy approaching...) think of it like walking up a thin and narrow set of steps as opposed to thick wide ones while trying to read a book. On the narrow steps you have to look down to hit the next step thus breaking the flow of your reading. While on the bigger wider ones you can carry on reading as the step is big enough your foot can find it without taking your eyes of your book.
Anyroad, IMHO, gestures need to be out of the way of app content so as not to interfere with app usage patterns and shouldn't require the user to take their eyes off what they're doing.

[Q] switch back and menu buttons

Hi there guys, I'd like to know if there's any way to switch the back and menu buttons on the arc??
and I don't mean physically but logically, as in making the back button work as if it were the menu...
Thanks

Just curious, but why?

phoenix_rizzen said:
Just curious, but why?
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It's not really for me, a friend of mine has one and doesn't like the button sequence... She's used to the way that it was on her Xperia X10...

rmourar said:
It's not really for me, a friend of mine has one and doesn't like the button sequence... She's used to the way that it was on her Xperia X10...
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That's fair enough. Was just curious, as out of all the button layouts I've seen on phones, the "Back, Home, Menu" layout is the only one that makes sense (to me).
"Back" buttons in apps always point to the left, and are near the left side of the screen, so it makes sense to put the "Back" button on the left.
The "Menu" button acts like the right-mouse button in desktop OSes, bringing up context menus, so it makes sense to put the "Menu" button on the right.
Which just leaves the middle for the "Home" button.
Maybe if you explain it like that to her, it'll "click" and she won't need them moved.

i had same issue, when i switched from x10 to arc s, but probably after 2 weeks i got used to it, and now if i take any x10 in my hands that looks weird to me

phoenix_rizzen said:
That's fair enough. Was just curious, as out of all the button layouts I've seen on phones, the "Back, Home, Menu" layout is the only one that makes sense (to me).
"Back" buttons in apps always point to the left, and are near the left side of the screen, so it makes sense to put the "Back" button on the left.
The "Menu" button acts like the right-mouse button in desktop OSes, bringing up context menus, so it makes sense to put the "Menu" button on the right.
Which just leaves the middle for the "Home" button.
Maybe if you explain it like that to her, it'll "click" and she won't need them moved.
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So, you have NO solution, just an annoying opinion, and in fact, you're telling her she's stupid. MMMMMkay. I'm sure you didn't intend to be like that, but that's how you come across. Tragic.

Why did HTC choose physical buttons?

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...
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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