I find there are a number times when navigation is problematic on WP7, caused by a few design issues:
- there being a back button but no forward button
- apps always start from home page when loaded from the home screen
- IE relies on the hardware back button and you can lose your navigation history if you leave IE, go back in and try to navigate back.
I think most WP7 users will know what I'm talking about.
My question is - do people think the Mango update with multitasking will solve this? I can't see enough detail in the online demos to be sure, but I would hope that it does get around these issues.
I'm sure that with Mango's fast app switcher (the new tap-and-hold back button) you will have much more flexibility than today.
But, I'm not sure what you mean by "you lose your navigation history" in IE. Even if I back out of IE, when I go back in, tap the favorites icon, and flick to the History pivot, I still see all of the pages I visited in the list. Maybe I am doing something different, or else I am misunderstanding your problem.
i think he meant...
1: go browse using ie, and visit several pages by following links
2: press windows key to go back to homescreen
3: launch ie again (through its tile, not the back button)
4: history gone. you'll be back to the last page you were visiting, but that's it. if you press the back button, it'll take you out of ie and into the homescreen.
this annoys me as well.
Website A,
click link to B,
check emails,
return to IE (via back button),
on website B,
want to go back to A: not possible via back button
It is unintuitive to open favorites(!) then change to history only to go one site backwards.
Yep that's the scenario exactly.
I checked what Android does because it has a very similar setup of a hardware back button. However, they get it right and the solution is very simple.
On Android when you go back into the browser, the hardware back button takes you back through browser history until there is no more history. Then the next press takes you back in the application screen history. I only tried it quickly but it seems to solve the problem that WP7 exhibits.
I think the only foolproof option is like iOS where the back button is onscreen and part of the application. The downside is that it clutters up the display a lot. When I use an iPhone now the actual screen space for the application seems very small.
BlitterTwisted said:
- apps always start from home page when loaded from the home screen
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That's changing in Mango. Developers will be able to allow users to pin pages in their app to the home screen not just the app itself.
The example shown at MIX11 was that if we create a News app which has a world news page, a country specific news page and a financial page (for example); the user could then pin the financial page to the start screen.
There is no limit on the amount of tiles per app, so the user could chose to pin all three pages to their start screen. Clicking on any of these tiles would take them straight to the page of interest not the main page.
Of course, this requires app developers to implement the new tiles in their app (but it's not difficult).
Casey
That is interesting, although you're talking more about linking within an app, where sometimes the issue is more about remembering state i.e. reloading an app and it being back on the page you were on.
To be fair, support for this on iOS is patchy, some apps do it and some don't. And the MS guidelines specifically say that the app must restart from home when loaded from a tile. I wonder if this was in preparation for the multitasking features, although I will still like to be able to use a tile to launch an already-running (tombstoned) app and have it take me back to where I was when I left it. From what I've seen of Android, it does this.
Not sure what everyone is complaining about the back button and IE since it's actually pretty consistent with desktop browser experience. When you close your browser and open it up again, you don't get to press back.
digger1985 said:
Not sure what everyone is complaining about the back button and IE since it's actually pretty consistent with desktop browser experience. When you close your browser and open it up again, you don't get to press back.
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that's the point. in your phone you don't close your brower (by pressing back back until you're at the homescreen, you just press the middle button to pull up the home screen). in my desktop I can have 10 browers open, and still open my e-mail without disturbing my browers.
Mestiphal said:
that's the point. in your phone you don't close your brower (by pressing back back until you're at the homescreen, you just press the middle button to pull up the home screen). in my desktop I can have 10 browers open, and still open my e-mail without disturbing my browers.
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Do I remember correctly that tabbed browsing is coming with IE9/Mango, and said tabs will be in the multitasking screen? I guess it could very well start working more like you described?
We will see in 2 days hopefully.
dtboos said:
Do I remember correctly that tabbed browsing is coming with IE9/Mango, and said tabs will be in the multitasking screen? I guess it could very well start working more like you described?
We will see in 2 days hopefully.
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That's interesting actually if they do that I can see it helping. Proving that when returning to a browser page, you can still use the back button to work the browser rather than just jumping back to where you were before.
If they're gonna carry on with the back button doing special stuff in the browser, they need to implement the Android trick of the back button going back through browser history until the start, then going back through application screen history.
Related
Yesterday I was doing some exploring, on foot, using Google Maps on my TP2. What I would do was check Google Maps, get a satellite lock, plan the next few minutes' walking, then press the power button to put it in "sleep" mode. A few minutes later I'd repeat the procedure - take the phone out, press the power button to wake it up, go back into Google Maps, etc.
The problem was that when I put the phone in sleep mode, Google Maps was the active application, in the foreground; but when waking up again, Google Maps had been pushed into the background, and the phone was displaying the TouchFlo home tab instead. That meant that every single time I did this I had to go into the task manager and bring Google Maps back to the foreground again.
Is there a way to get the phone to automatically bring up whichever application was running when it was switched into sleep mode and not default back to the home screen?
This is one of my biggest gripes about the Touch Flo.
It just get's in the way of so many things.
Does this happen only if you manually put it into sleep mode, or does it also happen if the screen goes dark on it's own?
This is my biggest gripe. I want to stay in the application I left when the phone went into sleep mode. The funny part is the application is running for a split second right before TF default back to the home screen. Massively irritating. I like TF and all but I want to start the app I was running right when I put the phone in sleep / suspend. It's BS.
So, this explains why the phone defaults back to the home screen when I am in the middle of a call. It is not just that the phone wants to always be on the homescreen, but that the Touch Flo specifically forces its way "in front" of anything else that is running.
That gives me even more of a reason to want to upgrade from the T-Mobile ROM that my phone came with. I like Touch Flo actually but this has become so irritating that I would happily give it up so I can call my voicemail and enter passwords/delete messages without having to open the phone five times per call...
pinhead said:
So, this explains why the phone defaults back to the home screen when I am in the middle of a call.
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That's starting to annoy me as well.
I've had this problem for a while, but I'm pretty much fed up with it to this point that I've decided to ask about it. I don't know if this is restricted to the TP2, but I'd imagine it's probably a Windows 6 problem more than the device.
The issue is that when I play any full screen application (one that covers the top and bottom menu bars), typically games, sometimes it loses it's status as the active window but still remains in front of everything else. This means that where ever I pres on the screen, it will select whatever is behind the game and therefore gives me no ability to select the game itself.
This is most prominent with the keyboard button in the bottom bar. It's not uncommon for me to have to press something on the edge of the screen in one of these applications only to have the keyboard pop up and garble all of the graphics. Once this occurs, there is no real easy way to go back. I have to open up task manager and either close the full screen app or activate it again. Another time this becomes a big issue is if I'm on the program tab of TF3D (which frequently you are after you've opened an app) and basically anywhere I press just starts opening applications left and right.
Does anyone know why this occurs and is there a fix for it?
Searched, didn't find answer. Is there any way to toggle between two apps I'm using without going through multiple steps? I'm currently having to hit the home button, go to advanced task killer, selecting the app that is open that I want to go back to and selecting switch to.
I would rather have something like using alt-tab on a windows desktop of laptop. Even better would be like wktask for windows mobile where it shows the open apps at the top left of the screen and I just tap on the icon for the app I want to go back to and it goes right back to the screen I was on previously in that app.
just hold the home button until the 6 recent app list pops up?
Oh, recent apps, can't believe I didn't think of that. Thanks.
Another option is Multitask Manager. It lists all running apps, as well as recently closed apps. You can set it up to where long-pressing the find button will activate the app.
MultiTask Manager
I think recent apps is perfect. Don't want to make it more complicated. Quick, easy, and simple without adding another app. Although is there an advantage over advanced task killer? I guess I was overthinking the problem and looking for a better software solution when I already had discovered the hard button option, just never used it when I needed it and forgot about it.
Hi All,
One thing that has consistently irritated me about the new SenseUI is what I see as an inconsistent "Back" button in the contact app to exit the application! It goes completely against the general established way in winmo devices to exit an application. The general practice in the windows world to use the 'x' at the top to come out of an application. That is just plain intuitive when using a winmo device.
In the SenseUI contacts app, there is no 'X' at the top right corner !! why?? However bad and dated the UI is of windows is, going against the general UI rules of the OS makes using an app even more confusing and plain frustrating.. Especially for the contact app which is one of the more (if not most) heavily used app if not the most.
Also all the ROMs seem to continue that same philosophy.. why is that ??
Is it only me that sees this as inconsistent and counter intuitive ?
Dhanvi
kapiladhanvi said:
Hi All,
One thing that has consistently irritated me about the new SenseUI is what I see as an inconsistent "Back" button in the contact app to exit the application! It goes completely against the general established way in winmo devices to exit an application. The general practice in the windows world to use the 'x' at the top to come out of an application. That is just plain intuitive when using a winmo device.
In the SenseUI contacts app, there is no 'X' at the top right corner !! why?? However bad and dated the UI is of windows is, going against the general UI rules of the OS makes using an app even more confusing and plain frustrating.. Especially for the contact app which is one of the more (if not most) heavily used app if not the most.
Also all the ROMs seem to continue that same philosophy.. why is that ??
Is it only me that sees this as inconsistent and counter intuitive ?
Dhanvi
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On my phone the 2nd HARDWARE button from the right goes back to the home screen.
Sorry I wasnt clear in my original post. I was talking about the soft buttons in the UI. The "back" button in the lower left corner of the contact application - the application where you can browse through your contacts.
The "back" button there goes back to the previous screen you were on. This becomes more of a problem when I have to go back to the home screen or some other screen after or during a call. for e.g. after a call, if I started the call from the contacts app, I am dropped back on the detail page of the contact . no wi have to click back twice or more time ( if I started from the call history page) to come back to the home screen..
This I think is a waste of time.. A simple 'x' button at the top should allow me to exit the application and come back to the home screen..
Dhanvi
PS: All buttons I speak of are soft UI buttons and not the h/w buttons on the phone.
say 2 things, new to oreo and s9, last phone was an s7. anyways, if i had a program running in the notifications, say for my motorcycle gps, tomtom, i was able to long press the notification, then go to app data and force stop. not seeing that anymore.
Trying to find the fastest way to force stop an app running, that has a notification. for example this one says connect device. I am not trying to hide the notification, but force close it when i don't want it running. for example this app gives me live traffic, sometimes i want it, sometimes i don't.
hope this makes sense, and thanks.
anyone have any ideas here, to force stop an app.
thanks
I'd make use of the built in Device Maintenance. If you enter this menu and click the 3-dot menu on the top right, you can add a shortcut to your Apps List. You can then place this wherever you want on your homescreen. You'll be able to quickly enter the Maintenance sub-menu and then put whatever you aren't using to Sleep, immediately.
There may be a way to add an icon to your lock menu to jump right to it (using a 3rd party shortcut app,) but I haven't swam that far in the sea yet.
recents, long press the app icon on the left, wait for the i info letter to appear on the right, press i, force stop.
this was posted elsewhere. seems like the ticket !!