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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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Click to collapse
That's starting to annoy me as well.
Been playing around with my new Bluetooth keyboard and really like the easy screenshot option by pressing ctrl + s. Is there anyway to configure the stock remote to do this?
Also, there is one obvious flaw with web browsers Ive tried. The on-screen keyboard pops up, blocking a good deal of the page and its also very awkward. How do i disable this? And while im at it...having a web browser loses some of its convenience when you need to navigate the deep forest of crap that is the fire os ui. How do i get a shortcut in the recent apps section? Would i need to install appstore then sideload a web browser from amazon? Or maybe theres a llama event that can be used?
Id appreciate any tips. Itll save lots of time in trial & error. Thanks.
KLit75 said:
Been playing around with my new Bluetooth keyboard and really like the easy screenshot option by pressing ctrl + s. Is there anyway to configure the stock remote to do this?
Also, there is one obvious flaw with web browsers Ive tried. The on-screen keyboard pops up, blocking a good deal of the page and its also very awkward. How do i disable this? And while im at it...having a web browser loses some of its convenience when you need to navigate the deep forest of crap that is the fire os ui. How do i get a shortcut in the recent apps section? Would i need to install appstore then sideload a web browser from amazon? Or maybe theres a llama event that can be used?
Id appreciate any tips. Itll save lots of time in trial & error. Thanks.
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Click to collapse
It is not a browser flaw, it works the same way on all android devices. You tap the text area, the keyboard pops up. Some browsers do it automatically on sites if you enter a site that is already setup for you to start typing. Youtube, Facebook and several other sites are already setup for you start typing when you enter the site so they keyboard pops up automatically. A way to stp this is to tap anywhere on the screen before the keyboard pops up. That why I use Maxthon browser cause it does not auto popup the keyboard on those sites like Firefox and Chrome do. Also, if you wanna type without the keyboard popping up all you have to do is hold down on the text area for a few seconds and the little placer and the word paste should popup, then let off the text area and you can type without the keyboard popping up. It works the same way on all android devices except you use your mouse button instead of your finger. So all you have to do is go to the text area you wanna type in and place your cursor there, hold down on the mouse button for a couple seconds, the placer and the word paste will popup, depress the mouse button and you can type without the keyboard popping up. Just like on all android devices this method does not work for all apps, but it does for most apps. I type 90% of the time on the Fire TV without the keyboard ever popping up. Advice, try it on your phone first to get the hang of it. Open your browser, hold down on a text area and you will see that after a couple seconds paste will appear and the keyboard does not popup, which means if you had a keyboard you could type without the onscreen keyboard popping up and it works the exact same way on the Fire TV.
porkenhimer said:
It is not a browser flaw, it works the same way on all android devices. You tap the text area, the keyboard pops up. Some browsers do it automatically on sites if you enter a site that is already setup for you to start typing. Youtube, Facebook and several other sites are already setup for you start typing when you enter the site so they keyboard pops up automatically. A way to stp this is to tap anywhere on the screen before the keyboard pops up. That why I use Maxthon browser cause it does not auto popup the keyboard on those sites like Firefox and Chrome do. Also, if you wanna type without the keyboard popping up all you have to do is hold down on the text area for a few seconds and the little placer and the word paste should popup, then let off the text area and you can type without the keyboard popping up. It works the same way on all android devices except you use your mouse button instead of your finger. So all you have to do is go to the text area you wanna type in and place your cursor there, hold down on the mouse button for a couple seconds, the placer and the word paste will popup, depress the mouse button and you can type without the keyboard popping up. Just like on all android devices this method does not work for all apps, but it does for most apps. I type 90% of the time on the Fire TV without the keyboard ever popping up. Advice, try it on your phone first to get the hang of it. Open your browser, hold down on a text area and you will see that after a couple seconds paste will appear and the keyboard does not popup, which means if you had a keyboard you could type without the onscreen keyboard popping up and it works the exact same way on the Fire TV.
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Click to collapse
Great info! And that's a cool trick (holding down to avoid pop up). Still I have questions just not real techy ones. Essentially android is made for mobile so not being able to disable the keyboard wouldn't make sense. But now that its branched into set top boxes and some people are installing this on PC, not to mention chrome books...I can't believe the os isn't slightly modded for these platforms. If I'm not mistaken, I may have seen a xposed module that let's you do that? But the xposed mods I've tried on aftv have been limited to rbox TV mods and the necessary settings for playstore to work but itll be worth looking into. For now its not a big hardship.
Its not a trick. Android is made to do that. If you hold your finger/cursor over the text area, option will popup instead of the keyboard, and its always been that way.
Does anyone know of a way around the fact the Car Mode now prompts you to select either Android Auto or S Voice each time it starts now, after the recent B0F1 update?
If I choose Android Auto, my Home button becomes useless. It will flash up a screen telling me to start auto in my car and touch the display (I don't have Android Auto in my car). If I install the Android Auto app, it essentially does the same thing.
If I choose S Voice, well, then I'm stuck with that crappy app each time I start Car Mode
While Car Mode was always rather limited on the Note 4 (lack of support for home button launching your car app of choice), it was at least useful for keeping the screen on. I use A2DP Volume to start Car Mode when I connect to my in-car BT. Before the update, Car Mode simply put the steering wheel icon in notification, and kept my screen on all the time (if charging). This was perfect.
Now, I have to choose one of 2 useless apps, which breaks my Home button.
In lieu of a fix, does anyone know of a simple, reliable way to keep the screen on? Most of the techniques I've tried in the past were unreliable.
Apparently, the fix is as easy as installing a "car home" app that registers as such...
I had Auto Mate installed, which didn't seem to register as a selection. I installed Car Home Ultra, and when I'm in Car Mode, I get the popup to select either Android Auto, Car Home Ultra, or S Voice.
Now my home button always brings up Car Home Ultra. So, they didn't make it worse, they fixed the broken home button behavior, *if* you have a proper home app installed.
Enable developer mode, there is an option in it to keep screen on while charging. Thats what I did.
Go to : Settings > About Phone
then tap "Build Number" until it flashes a toast message telling you Developermode has been enabled.
Then under Settings you will now see Developer Options, go into that menu and check the box for "Stay Awake"
SOLVED.
Hey everyone! I just got an XZ1C myself a few days ago, and I'd like to share a few of the little quality of life changes I personally use to make the everyday experience with this phone more to how I like it. I figured maybe everyone could contribute a few ideas here and there to help other users deal with things they might be frustrated with, but not know a solution for.
A couple of notes - I gave up the root life a while ago, so all of these solutions are non-root! Also, some of these apps are paid apps (though they might have lite or free versions). Sorry! But as a software developer myself, I have the obligation to pay it forward when I find a nice app.
So here goes!
Making the volume keys default to Media Volume:
Having owned a Samsung phone before, this is one of the things I miss most in almost any other Android phone. But, as they say, there's an app for that! There's a very simple app called Media Volume Only (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=catchpower.gogo.mediavolumeonly&hl=en), which binds your volume keys to Media by default. It asks for Call permissions to see if you're in a call, where it will then bind the volume keys to call volume. Otherwise, it will always be Media, which is great!
However, that means there isn't a super easy way to changing your ring volume, unless you first press the volume key to bring up the sliders and hitting the down arrow to show the rest of the sliders....which brought me to:
Re-adding the missing Ring/Vibrate Mode switch to quick switches:
I am using Central Europe .374 + US oem file to get Fingerprint+VoLTE on T-mobile; I'm not sure if it's because of the CE1 region or whatever else, but I couldn't find any button in the quick settings that would just toggle the phone to ring mode, vibrate mode or silent.
To remedy this, I use Shortcutter (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.leedroid.shortcutter&hl=en). This allows you to enable a ton of different switches in the quick settings dropdown, though some of them may not work properly without root and only with other phones. After installing Shortcutter, swipe over to the "Pull-Down" tab, then hit "System Setting Tiles". In this list, scroll down and you'll find "Ring Mode". Turning this switch on will put the Ring Mode icon into the box of icons you can edit your quick settings with. Finally, pull down your quick settings, click the pencil icon to modify the quick settings and scroll down to find Ring Mode.
This way, it's easy to switch the phone to silent before going into a movie, or a meeting at work.
Fixing the crazy stock backlight control:
The stock backlight is a little crazy right now. It jumps around when the room is dark and it does not transition smoothly. A great app for controlling backlight is Lux (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux&hl=en). It even allows you to keep different profiles and define exactly how bright you want the screen to be in any lighting situation, and it will keep a map of your selections for you! You can control all sorts of variables, like how quickly it will transition, if it should only transition given what % of lighting change, so on and so forth. It's really very powerful and useful. I haven't had any trouble with the XZ1C display since installing Lux, which I've used on previous phones as well. Highly recommend this one! There's a free version called Lux Lite (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vitocassisi.luxlite&hl=en), but I've never tried it so YMMV.
Alternative for No Double Tap to Wake (or not having Ambient Display):
This is another one I have almost always used on phones that aren't Nexii/Pixel or Motorola. Gravity Screen (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.plexnor.gravityscreenofffree&hl=en) gives you a ton of different ways to automatically wake up the phone to the lockscreen. I find that using ONLY the Proximity Sensor setting to turn ON the screen (and turning everything else off) has negligible effect on the battery, and maintains extreme usefulness. With just that setting, when my phone is on the desk I can poke the phone where the proximity sensor is (as if I one-tap it) and it will wake up. If I take the phone out of my pocket, the phone turns on and is already waiting for me by the time I look at it. Super convenient!
UPDATE: Another user (quack3d) mentioned the app WaveUp(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jarsilio.android.waveup) which does exactly how I have Gravity Screen set up. If you want just that, this seems to be a great and simpler alternative! Thanks!
If you want more options, it has all sorts of other things like turn on by motion, etc. etc....I personally don't use those though, so I can't vouch for how well they work.
Double Tap to Sleep
I'm pretty sure you have to pay for this one, but Nova Launcher Prime (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.launcher.prime&hl=en) is an incredible launcher, and it allows you to specify custom gestures on the desktop. The gestures can trigger all sorts of things, one of which is Screen Lock. If you select the Time-Out method of locking the screen, it will work with fingerprint unlocking.
Custom Auto-Rotation Switching:
Normally, I don't like auto-rotation. I use my phone a lot in bed (lying sideways), but I still want to use it in portrait. So, I prefer to have my phone default to NO auto-rotation. That being said, it's annoying when you pull up a funny gif or the photo album or youtube and you want to just flip your phone over to watch a video. Sure, you can drag down the quicksettings and flip that switch, but there's a better way! That's where Automate (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.llamalab.automate&hl=en) comes in! Automate allows you to program your phone to do just about anything (especially if you have root) based on custom triggers.
In Automate, if first select "More flows..." and search for a script called "Auto Enable Rotation" by the author Anthony Beaumont. Once you download this script and run it, it will present you with 2 options, either to "start" the script service, or to "modify" the list of apps. You'll want to "modify" the list of apps and start a new one. To this, you can add apps such as Album, Youtube, Twitch and whatever else you want to watch in landscape mode. Finally, once that's done, stop the script and start it again, but this time select "start". (You can also select in the 3 dot menu to have this script run at start-up. Highly recommended!) Now, when you open Album/Youtube/Twitch etc. the phone should automatically flip to auto-rotation.
Enter all your app and website passwords automatically with fingerprint:
For better or for worse, I keep all of my online passwords saved in Lastpass. It turns out that once you have an account and saved passwords, Lastpass has an incredible app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lastpass.lpandroid&hl=en) that can pop up over Chrome and just about any other app on your phone that can fill in the username/password fields for you using your fingerprint! It doesn't work for all the different browsers out there (I just use Chrome), and there may have been a pay wall for the in-app password filling, I forgot (sorry!). That said, it's super convenient to head to any site and just tap the fingerprint to log in.
Additionally, if you're a Lastpass user already, they also have a Lastpass Authenticator (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lastpass.authenticator&hl=en) that works in place of the Google Authenticator (you can add Google Authenticator 2factor sites to the LastPass one), which is IMHO superior because the keys are linked to your account rather than to the physical phone. Also, if you have LP Authenticator + the Chrome addon on your PC/Mac, on some sites you don't even have to enter the Authenticator number, you can just press "approve" on your phone to get into the website on your PC. Awesome!
Send links from your PC to phone or phone to PC
Ever read something on your PC and wish you could link it to your phone super quickly and not have to go through emailing it to yourself? I use Pushbullet (Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pushbullet.android&hl=en PC: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pushbullet/chlffgpmiacpedhhbkiomidkjlcfhogd?hl=en), which allows you to directly link webpages from PC to phone and vice versa. Additionally, if you give it the permissions, it can hook up your phone's notifications to your Windows notifications (not sure about mac), including allowing you to read and send SMS from your PC. I believe it also has file transfer capabilities, but I don't use it.
I think that's it for now...I'll add more when I think of them. These are just a few of the mods I run which makes using the phone more effortless and enjoyable; please, feel free to add more and I'll add them to the list if there's something you want to share! Hope this helps someone out there!:highfive:
maidguitar said:
Re-adding the missing Ring/Vibrate Mode switch to quick switches:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alternative implementation that I use: Add a toggle on the home screen to quickly switch between Ring/Vibrate/Silent modes
First install Media-Mute [free & ad-free]. What this app does is automatically mute the media volume whenever the ringer volume is also muted, which applies to both Vibrate mode and Silent mode.
For some reason, since Android 4.x Google has decided that Silent mode should only apply to the ringer, instead of silencing everything that can make sounds out of the speaker. Media-Mute fixes that.
Next, install Silent Mode Toggle [free & ad-free], then add the widget on the home screen. Switching modes is now super easy, just tap on the toggle.
What I really appreciate about this app is that it allows customization to the toggle order. For example, I never use the vibrate mode, so I can set it to toggle between Ringer > Silent only.
As a bonus, it also lets you use your own custom icons for the toggle, super cool and makes it possible to perfectly complement your home screen layout.
Hide the annoying "running in the background" notification that comes with Android 8.0
With Android 8.0 Oreo, Google thought it would be a great idea to permanently remind you of any background processing currently running in the form of an impossible to dismiss notification.
While the intention was well meaning, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Thankfully, there's an app for that! Just install this cleverly named app Hide "running in the background" Notification [free & ad-free], problem solved!
Vibrate phone when call connects, ends
Yet another app to the rescue! VibCall [free & ad-free] brings this useful feature found on some OEM phones to any compatible Android device.
Basically, your phone will vibrate once to let you know that a call has connected, and twice when a call has ended. It's something that once you've used, you wonder why it's not baked into the Android system as a default option.
Add a fingerprint (Smart Lock) compatible screen lock toggle on the home screen
So Sony has unilaterally decided to remove double tap to sleep feature with no sign of bring it back. But I still want to turn off the screen and lock the device by tapping on the screen instead of waiting for the system to hibernate or hitting the power button.
The OP listed a paid solution which brings back double tap to sleep, but for those looking for a free alternative, this is the solution I'm currently using - Smart Screen Lock Pro [free & ad-free].
It's not a double tap anywhere convenience, but a toggle that is better than nothing, and most importantly it's compatible with fingerprint unlock. I've tried numerous screen off apps in the Play store, and this is the only one that I was satisfied with.
IMPORTANT: Take the time to carefully read and follow setup instructions, it's necessary for it to work properly due to OS restrictions. Once it's setup correctly, simply add a shortcut on the home screen and tap it to lock.
It's worth mentioning that it's not a true "instant" screen off and lock, but without root this is probably the best solution we'll get.
Non-root ad blocking
Ads are a necessary evil for the current economics of the Internet, but aside from the annoyance factor, they eat up precious mobile data, plus there's also very real security risks with ad networks, potentially hogging your phone's resources and draining the battery.
Whatever the argument, if you do decide to block ads, there are quite a lot of ad blockers to choose from.
Personally, I use dns66 [free & ad-free]. In my experience, it's very lightweight, and I haven't seen any ads in my browser or apps.
It does have its quirks though, sometimes downloads fail, such as OTA update or file in browser, for one reason or another (the author says it's a bug with the Android OS itself, see linked post).
But it's easy to workaround, just temporarily disable dns66 by tapping pause on the notification, and download again. After download has completed, tap the notification again to resume.
By the way, this is also the main reason I installed the hide background notification app.
So basically what is happening is that multi window no longer works on my Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 SM-T320, with Android 4.4.2 KitKat and no root. When I press and hold the back button on my tablet, the multi window tray doesn't show up. It also doesn't show up when I swipe from the right of the screen. However, if I make another user account on the tablet, multi window works perfect with no errors. Keep in mind I do have multi window turned on in the settings. Also, if I go to multi window in the settings, and then enable "Open in Multi Window view", and then, for example, I go into the My Files app and open up an image, i can then use the Gallery and My Files app side by side. Another thing that happened is that when I press the button to expand the quick toggles in the notification panel, nothing happens. I have to swipe down with 2 fingers to make it work. I can also expand the quick toggles menu on another user account. But this didn't justs start happening for no reason. I know what I did to cause it. I am just looking for a way to reverse the effects of what I did.
So what I did was I got the app called QuickShortcutMaker. For whatever reason, I went to the app titled "Setup Wizard", and its icon was an Android guy with a cube shape in the middle. Then I launched the activity "com.google.android.setupwizard.SetupWizardTestActivity". That was a mistake. It opened up a setup screen that asked me to choose a language. Then I closed out of it, and some things started happening. Not only did the button to expand the quick toggles stop working, but so did the shortcut to the settings app in the notification panel. When I pressed and held the power button, it opened up the menu to restart the tablet, shut it down, toggle airplane mode, and mute the audio. This time, though, there was no option to toggle airplane mode. I restarted my tablet, and it led to my current situation.
I want to know if there is any way to make this go back to normal. I have tried a bunch of things. I have noticed that the Setup Wizard app now uses 20 KB of storage as oppose to 16 KB of storage, so I tried clearing its data in the Settings app, but that didn't work. I also tried turning off the Setup Wizard app in the Settings, but that didn't help either. I even tried clearing the data for the app titled com.sec.android.app.FlashBarService, which I found out is actually the service for multi window, but that did nothing. I hope I don't need to reset my tablet to fix this, because then I will lose all my data. Multi window is a really good feature Samsung has included, which I used to use a lot, and sometimes i really need to use it.
Sorry if this is hard to understand because of my bad grammar or because I went into too much detail. I was typing this on my tablet, which is the same one that I can't use multi window on anymore, so I was typing on sort of a small surface.