Desktop Pagination: Usability gripe - Nova Launcher

Dear Folks,
As a Nova Prime proud supporter, I do have one long standing usability gripe with Nova Launcher. That is with its desktop pagination. Specifically, the inability to move app icons to the screen left/right edges without them creating a new page or barreling into the existing adjacent page. Let me elaborate with a list of finer point scenarios.
On large 10.1" or 12" tablets, with the Desktop Grid expanded out to its maximum width icon allowance:
With Infinite Scroll disabled, you can drag an app icon all the way to the left edge of the left-most desktop page (icon column 1 of page 1). With Infinite Scroll enabled, this is also not possible.
With Subgrid Positioning enabled, you can drag an app icon very close to the left or right edge of any page, but not all the way into the edge column. The closest you can drag an icon is into column 1.5 or column 11.5 (but not column 1 or 12). With Subgrid Positioning disabled, you can VERY CAREFULLY, and only SOMETIMES, manage to get an app icon into column 1 or column 12, if you have a pen stylus and great patience and a steady hand.
If you're very clever, you can start off in an adjacent page, try to drag an icon to the edge column, drop it, and hope it lands into the edge column on the page you actually intended to drop it on. Though sometimes it winds up in a random column if you release too quickly.
In all cases, trying to drag an app icon to the edge column of a page, winds up barreling into the adjacent page, like a bowling ball, wrecking all the icons on that page which you spent so carefully getting just right. Forcing you to start all over again.
When a user Long Presses their desktop, then scrolls right to a <new page>, they're presented with a Plus Button (+) which gives them the option to MANUALLY create a page. Doing so instructs them that they can use this option to afford a more fine-grained control over page creation, but advises them that pages are automatically created by dragging icons to that page...
I want to see an option that makes this manual page creation the defacto method, and disables icon-dragging auto page creation. I want to see an option that makes it a lot harder to accidentally drag an icon from one page to another page unless the user shows real intent in doing so -- give a 2.5 or 3.0 second count before the page is flipped, allowing the user time to drop the icon onto the edge column of the page. I want to see the dragging edge made narrower and moved further to the screen's edge, so it's not consuming the entire width of Column 1 and Column [12]. I want to force a single-page desktop, the same way I can force a single-page Dock.
I hope someone else is having these same frustrations as I. I'm using Nova Launcher on 3 tablets and 2 phones, and this issue is especially prominent on each of the tablets.
Thanks for listening.

This thread was supposed to have been posted to: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/nova-launcher
It clearly got posted to Android Apps and Games instead. If a mod could fix that, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Related

[App] JWMD Quick Shortcut Search and Launcher

Hi guys,
Again, I made a, I think a pretty useful application for Start Menu. It's not yet done, but I want to show a preview on what this app do.
Do you agree that sometimes scrolling way down to the bottom of the start menu is a bit tiring? Though you can move those on top but .. your application shortcuts in start menu will start getting messy
So I made this this start menu app to reduce some of the hard scrolling work.
thread moved to
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6476700#post6476700
thread moved to
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6476700#post6476700
Interesting concept! I assume how this would work is when Start Menu is opened, the bar shows up on the left and you just select a letter to get all the apps starting with that letter? And assume tapping on the background will "close" the bar?
Think the program would work better if each start menu item displayed was bigger (so it becomes more finger friendly).

Send official feedback to Huawei regarding EMUI1.6

Ascend P6 has already launched 3 months, we hope all our customers can give your valuable suggestion of EMUI1.6, please click http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K8TGW5C to feedback your
advice,thank for all your support, the smart phone software upgrade will continue!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
https://www.facebook.com/Huaweiemui
You can only send feedback once from one device, so makes sure you add everything in one go.
I made the following suggestions. Post yours too. So that its sparks better ideas for the coming Emotion UI 2.0.
Fixes:
- A fix for the profile changer app. There is supposed to be five default profiles built into it but only four shows up, with the car profile being missing. When a new profile is created with the name "Car", it shows up as already used. Hence this needs to be fixed.
- Fix for keypad. On the browser, the address bar also functions as a search bar. The problem is that when one starts to type into that bar, the keypad automatically switches the "space" key to ".com" key, and hence there is no space key option available. Now the space is alternatively available if i was to switch to the numbers key pad section, but i would actually want the space key on the mainpad itself as it is a frequently used key for an internet search. Maybe give the ".com" key the same swipe down function as space key or vice versa.
- Fix for ME widget. The problem is that if i was to reduce the number of widgets that are packed into that widget box, the size of the box does not reduce. So lets say i want to use only the 1x2 size weather widget while removed the rest of the widgets. But what happens is that the widget still takes up the whole big original space and leads to un-usable space on the home screen. The space cannot be used for other widgets or apps. So basically now i am having to search for third party apps to use as a weather/world clock widget. Neither can i use that small music player widget as a stand alone.
- Fix for email widget (not the gmail widget) allows only emails of one email ID (that too the email ID added first) to show up on the email widget. While within the app there is a feature for combined viewing of all mails from all the different email ID's. So this same combined view option should be available for the widget too.
Changes/Additions:
- Make the navigation bar opaque glassy color throughout the system. At present it remains opaque only on the home screen, while turns grey everywhere else. And there is a lot of complains about this grey color.
- Allow scroll option for the bottom tray so that more number of apps can be located there.
- Allow the swipe down gesture on any part of the home screen to bring down the notification panel. At present one has to extend finger all over to the top to bring it down which is laborious when using with one hand. By allowing swipe down anywhere on home screen, this can be solved.
- Regarding the navigation bar hide option. At present this is done by an additional small arrow at the left end of the navigation bar. To me that is a constrictive and inconsistent. I would say that they make the "back/return" key of the navigation bar itself for this purpose by letting the long press of the back key to initiate the hiding of the navigation bar.
- The Huawei ascend Mate got an additional option of "suspend button" but this is not present in the Ascend P6. I would say that this shortcut feature should be added to the P6 too, but rather than have an annoying dot/point on the screen and the problem of having it move about often to prevent it from blocking the screen, the long press of the multitask navigation key should instead be used for activating the shortcut menu. Also the theme of this shortcut should be much improved and great looking with included option of customization. Also there needs to be the toggle options, power off/ restart/ screen turnoff, etc controls, included in this shortcut. The app available on google play called "Toucher Pro" can be seen as an example of design and features.
- Allowing the creation of folders within folders or other options that would allow users who want to have an app drawer, the ability to use and feel the folder as an app drawer itself.
- Option for the lock screen to allow the guest login mode.
- Knock knock phone awaken feature or the active display feature.
- Lock screen should have more detailed notification/message/calls reading option.
- Option to search and download theme from the theme app itself, and of course releasing more themes in a consistent period of time and allowing other users to advertise their themes and make it available for all users. There should be some organized space for public creative development of themes by users.
- More Huawei exclusive live widgets and floating apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
warea said:
I made the following suggestions. Post yours too. So that its sparks better ideas for the coming Emotion UI 2.0.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good u have given all the super suggestions of which i could thought. Hope EMUI 2.0 comes fast.
Better weather widget with more animations and addition of night....
I have sent the following more:
Additions/Changes:
1) Add timer option for the EMUI Huawei Lock screen.
2) Allow vibration turn off/on option for the unlocking of lock screen. At present the vibration is enabled and cannot be disabled.
3) Allow timer option for switching profiles.
4) The incoming call screen ID picture should be bigger in size.
Fixes:
1) Grey navigation bar stays over third party apps even when third party apps ask for full screen.
2) Screen light abruptly changes at random even if the back light wasn't in auto detect mode. In fact, at times even when the screen light is kept in auto mode, it later abruptly switches to other modes and does not remain in auto mode.
3) The wifi automatically turns off under weak connectivity, even though this battery saving option was disabled.
4) When the permission manager is made to block any app, a notification popups every time the app functions. Maybe a separate section should be created within the permission manager, that mentions all apps that have some of their access blocked rather than through a popup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More issues:
Fix battery calibration :
The battery % at times become inconsistent, sometimes not charging beyong 90 or 95%, sometimes jumping to 100 after long time on 95. Also when using battery it jumps from below 10% to 4% etc.
Fix Browser:**
1) when using quick controls of the default browser, the top browser control bar that was supposed to be hidden instead gets distorted by appearing as black or some broken image of the website visited.
2) when using the translate option on long press, it goes to google china rather than google english.
Wallpaper controls:
When applying a picture from gallery as wallpaper, the option to apply it as scrollable wallpaper does not exist. The scrollable wallpaper option exists only for the preloaded wallpapers in system.
Some more really important**suggestions
Quick shortcut bar:
A quickshort cut panel that triggers by swiping up the multitask icon. Design: The panel should be 3/4 the height of the screen so that it does not make the thumb stretch too much for single hand users. The apps to pin to quick panel should be left to users to decide. The apps should be properly spaced in stacks such that one quickly memorizes the distance to swipe to trigger each app. So for example, if one pins a screen turn off/lock screen app on bottom of the stacked panel, a mere small swipe from multitask key to just above the navigation bar would trigger the screen to turn off. This design of shortcut to my knowledge would be the quickest and simplest shortcut taking swipe to its best use. Bring it first on Huawei.
Power manger upgrade:
At present there are 3 modes of power manger. Normal, smart and endurance. Although the smart mode conserves battery yet its not used by many as it disconnects the internet when screen locked. To make up for these users, there should a fourth option for those users who want to receive their chat messages or email notifications. They dont want as power hungry as games yet not as low as to be disconnected from internet.
Power manager combined with profile switch toggle:
Setting the power plan for different profiles would also be a great advancement. One could hence then switch their power plan with profile rotation key. So for example, one could switch to chat profile or game profile.
Smart minimizing of video & music:
There is a video minimizing feature on the ascend mate that allows one to watch video in minimized form while multitasking. This feature should be on the Ascend p6 but with certain advances. It should function with swipes similar to the new youtube mobile app. A swipe down/up from video or music play should minimize it to a small screen and then swipe left if one needs to close it or swipe back up/down to maximize it.
Switching browser windows:
Allow the Huawei browser to switch between different opened browser windows by a swipe left or right from the very ends of the screen. The trigger/hotspot being on the ends like an ubuntu side bar being opened but in this case, switching windows.
Other small changes/adds:
- On the default Huawei browser, the long press on text does not contain the "select all" option. Only the copy, share, translate and search option exists.
- There should be a unique sound or led notification to know the battery is full/completely charged.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

[Q] is there a Chrome Split Screen for our tablets ?

Chrome has a nifty free tool called Split Screen where you can have two URL's side by side on a single page.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/split-screen/eachfleknamlcepmplpdghagngjfjkin?
Very handy for language translation or to keep a series of parallel bookmarks for related items.
Is something like this available for our tablets ?
You can simply load two Chrome browsers in MultiWindow mode.
Sent from my SM-P600
Actually tried but apart from enabling multiwindow could not figure of just how-to
xdafly said:
Actually tried but apart from enabling multiwindow could not figure of just how-to
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the homescreen, swipe open the multi window bar, hit the Chrome icon and drag it over towards the middle of the screen and let go. As it is the first one you are opening it will fill the whole screen. Swipe the bar open again and then drag a second Chrome icon over the screen but keep your finger on it... as you swipe over the first half of the screen, one side of the screen will turn blue... if you want it open on that side just let go of the icon. If you keep dragging the icon over to the second half of the screen, the second part will then turn blue and you can drop it there and Chrome will open up a second time on that side. Hope this is clear enough
Sent from my SM-P605 using Tapatalk

Questions about S Note

Hello, I tried to use S Note the first time. After choosing the front cover of the note and the background layout of the papers, a windows shows up saying download of files from old version. It asks if it is ok to download note of version older than the one I am using. What is that? Am I supposed to click OK?
After I pressed cancel, it asked me to choose between S pen specific mode and S pen and finger mode. I am not sure the differences. Which one do you recommend?
Thanks.
S Note allowes you to import S Note files associated with your Samsung account. Since the NotePro has the newest version of S Note, you get that mention of old versions. If you've ever used another S Note (for instance, on a Note 2), it can import them.
In S Pen specific mode, you can only write with the S Pen. In Pen&Finger mode, you can also use your finger to write and draw.
The options and settings work with your finger regardless of the setting.
Thanks but if I allow Pen&Finger mode, then there will be no palm rejection. Am I right? I am having this problem with Action Memo. It seems to accept both finger and S pen. There is no way to choose palm rejection.
Are you having issues with stray marks being made with your palm? It almost sounds like you are confusing palm rejection with completely rejecting finger input. In these native samsung pen enabled applications (S-note and Action Memo) palm rejection is built in and should work automatically when the pen is sensed near the screen. So while using the pen you should be able to rest your palm on the screen. Naturally if you specifically turn on pen and finger mode in s-note then the tablet will get confused by multi-touch input so while in that mode you shouldn't be resting your hand on the screen.
Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk
muzzy996 said:
Are you having issues with stray marks being made with your palm? It almost sounds like you are confusing palm rejection with completely rejecting finger input. In these native samsung pen enabled applications (S-note and Action Memo) palm rejection is built in and should work automatically when the pen is sensed near the screen. So while using the pen you should be able to rest your palm on the screen. Naturally if you specifically turn on pen and finger mode in s-note then the tablet will get confused by multi-touch input so while in that mode you shouldn't be resting your hand on the screen.
Sent from my SM-P900 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. I am having issues with stray marks being made with my palm. In native samsung pen enabled apps, usually which option do users choose? If I choose only pen mode, can I still use my fingers to zoom in and out, erase using the eraser?
Now all those questions I mentioned do not show up on the screen. When I pressed S note, a black sheet appeared. The app did not ask me to choose the color of the note cover, etc. How can I choose the note's cover and whether I want pen only model or pen and finger mode?
petercohen said:
How can I choose the note's cover
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hit the gear icon on the top-right of the cover of the notebook. There you can change everything.
petercohen said:
Yes. I am having issues with stray marks being made with my palm. In native samsung pen enabled apps, usually which option do users choose? If I choose only pen mode, can I still use my fingers to zoom in and out, erase using the eraser?
Now all those questions I mentioned do not show up on the screen. When I pressed S note, a black sheet appeared. The app did not ask me to choose the color of the note cover, etc. How can I choose the note's cover and whether I want pen only model or pen and finger mode?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are no other settings or options for the S-note application other than what you see in the settings menu.
Out of curiosity, are you using a case? If so, try removing it and testing without one. Report back if your experience improved without a case.
These tablets are sensitive to magnetic fields; believe it or not sometimes the magnets used in various case designs to either assist in keeping them closed or to turn on/off the screen will affect touch and pen sensitivity in some parts of the screen. For the case that I use I cannot fold the flap completely behind the tablet if I intend to use the pen to write on the bottom right side of the screen in landscape mode.
Thanks. On my Note, the gear button is on the bottom right. It only has four options: edit tab, edit index, change background, show grid. There is no option to change the dover and template.
petercohen said:
Thanks. On my Note, the gear button is on the bottom right. It only has four options: edit tab, edit index, change background, show grid. There is no option to change the dover and template.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI, you can't change templates once you create a book so there is no way to mix and match page types in a book. If you want that capability you'll have to look elsewhere. My only suggestion at this time is Papyrus. I currently use Lecturenotes because I like its features but mixing and matching of page types is not one of them.
If you want to change the background of a PAGE inside a note you go to the gear icon while inside the notebook. If you want to change the COVER of the notebook itself you back out of the notebook to see the list of notes and long press the notebook's cover (works whether youre in recent notes or the S-Note home screen) to bring up the menu to select Edit Cover.
muzzy996 said:
FYI, you can't change templates once you create a book so there is no way to mix and match page types in a book. If you want that capability you'll have to look elsewhere. My only suggestion at this time is Papyrus. I currently use Lecturenotes because I like its features but mixing and matching of page types is not one of them.
If you want to change the background of a PAGE inside a note you go to the gear icon while inside the notebook. If you want to change the COVER of the notebook itself you back out of the notebook to see the list of notes and long press the notebook's cover (works whether youre in recent notes or the S-Note home screen) to bring up the menu to select Edit Cover.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I am not trying to mix and match page type in a book.
Is template and background the same thing?
I tried to change the cover of the notebook but it does not work. I clicked the back button next to the home button of the PRO. On the home screen, I saw the calendar on the top left and instead of S-note's picture that I saw before I used the app the first time, there was a window with three tabs: recent notes, all notes and a plus symbol. (Is this what you called the S-Note home screen?) When I long pressed the notebook's cover, the device thought I was going to arrange the windows... Pressing the plus symbol created a blank page without asking me to choose the cover nor template.
petercohen said:
Thank you. I am not trying to mix and match page type in a book.
Is template and background the same thing?
I tried to change the cover of the notebook but it does not work. I clicked the back button next to the home button of the PRO. On the home screen, I saw the calendar on the top left and instead of S-note's picture that I saw before I used the app the first time, there was a window with three tabs: recent notes, all notes and a plus symbol. (Is this what you called the S-Note home screen?) When I long pressed the notebook's cover, the device thought I was going to arrange the windows... Pressing the plus symbol created a blank page without asking me to choose the cover nor template.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems that what you suggested can only be done if I launch S Note by pressing its icon on the Application Screen. The problems that I just mentioned occurred when I launched S Note via the Home Screen. How come?
I don't know if there is a bug in the background (is it also called template?). When I chose a white background with lines, the background of the note looked correct. However, when I chose a brownish background, each line was divided into two. How come the lines are not continuous?
petercohen said:
It seems that what you suggested can only be done if I launch S Note by pressing its icon on the Application Screen. The problems that I just mentioned occurred when I launched S Note via the Home Screen. How come?
I don't know if there is a bug in the background (is it also called template?). When I chose a white background with lines, the background of the note looked correct. However, when I chose a brownish background, each line was divided into two. How come the lines are not continuous?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
l suspect that you are launching it from a widget when launching it from the home screen. Its tough getting used to the workflow that the program developers set for these programs.
Templates and background are not the same thing. The best thing for you to do is experiment with making new notebooks using different templates so you can see the difference. When you launch s-note from the application screen, create a new notebook by clicking the three dots on the top right of either the S-note home screen or recent notes screen (by now you're probably aware that you can switch between these two using the button on the upper left corner of the screen) and selecting "Use new template."
I want to post some photos on this thread. How do I do it? I clicked on the "Insert Image" icon but it asked for URL rather than the location of the file.
petercohen said:
I want to post some photos on this thread. How do I do it? I clicked on the "Insert Image" icon but it asked for URL rather than the location of the file.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use the advanced page (eitehr click 'Reply' or 'Go Advanced'), then hit the attachement button. Select the pictures, hit upload, hit OK. Then hit the arrow next to the attachement button > Insert into post.
Thanks. I have attached some photos.
Even I set the size of the eraser to minimum, the gaps it created are still too wide (see eraser width.jpg). Is there any way to make it even smaller?
When I chose the background to be light brown with continuous straight horizontal lines (see selection.jpg), a vertical line was created (see broken line.jpg). How come? Is there a way to fix it?
Is there any good tutorial or video to learn about S Note? Most of the available ones are older versions for older devices. It seems that the one which came with our PRO is quite different. Thanks.

Dragging Smart Select into Upper Text Box

I just got my note today and was excited to try out the smart select feature. Unfortunately, if you try and drop what you've selected into a text box on the top of the screen, the delete option gets in the way and doesn't allow you to finish dragging. Any work around for this?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using XDA Free mobile app
What are you trying to do exactly and what app is that?
icexshinigami said:
What are you trying to do exactly and what app is that?
Click to expand...
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When you hover the Spen over the screen and click the button, smart select is one of the options. You can crop an area on the screen and it will do text recognition. It then produces a floating bubble that you can drag and drop into a text field; however, once you start dragging the floating bubble, the top of the screen becomes the place to drag and delete the bubble, just like dragging an icon to delete on your home screen. So, having the delete box on the top of the screen renders the feature useless for any text field on the top of the screen.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using XDA Free mobile app
Ah I see.
I believe you are misunderstanding how to use the smart select feature.
That icon is not text, it is a collection of selections you took. To turn a selection into text there is a little T in the corner of the selection. (It can do fun things if your selection is phone numbers, addresses etc)
If I assume correctly you were trying to use smart select in place of highlighting copy and paste into a search bar.
If this is true then you can just highlight normally hold spen button drag across text you want and a bar with options will appear one of them is a search option that will auto search the selected text.
Some apps don't support spen highlight feature ex. firefox in which case you can highlight traditionally with a tap and hold spen(or finger) on screen and it will display the selection arrows for you to select, an options bar to do the same as above will appear.
icexshinigami said:
Ah I see.
I believe you are misunderstanding how to use the smart select feature.
That icon is not text, it is a collection of selections you took. To turn a selection into text there is a little T in the corner of the selection. (It can do fun things if your selection is phone numbers, addresses etc)
If I assume correctly you were trying to use smart select in place of highlighting copy and paste into a search bar.
If this is true then you can just highlight normally hold spen button drag across text you want and a bar with options will appear one of them is a search option that will auto search the selected text.
Some apps don't support spen highlight feature ex. firefox in which case you can highlight traditionally with a tap and hold spen(or finger) on screen and it will display the selection arrows for you to select, an options bar to do the same as above will appear.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. I didn't notice that little "T" after doing the smart select. Wish I was still able to drag it in, but the copy and paste thing works too.

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