My initial love of the menu button was that it allowed the screen to show more unlike the relatively small iPhone screens which have a small screen and menu options on the screen.
Now, I know legacy apps will have the little button for menu by the multitask icon on the control bar (is that the proper name???). But I've seen some videos with an additional menu/options bar above the control bar. To me, this seems like a waste of screen space.
I doubt anyone will really know, but in the hope that someone may know, does anyone know if there will be a push to have an additional menu bar like iOS? Or maybe there is an option to make the app behave like it's on legacy hardware and thus put it's menu button on the control bar.
I'm really hoping app developers are smart and maximise screen real estate which is especially important in landscape mode.
does anyone know if there will be a push to have an additional menu bar like iOS?
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Yes, it's called the "Action Bar". This new UI item has been introduced with Honeycomb.
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-4.0-highlights.html
Refined, evolved UI
Focused on bringing the power of Android to the surface, Android 4.0 makes common actions more visible...
[...]
Users can access each application's contextual options in the Action Bar, displayed at the top (and sometimes also at the bottom) of the screen.
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If this helps, i read somewhere that app developers can add a menu button to appear on the bottom 3 to make 4 buttons within the app
That would be much preferred! Thanks for the info.
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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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.
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!!
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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.
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warea said:
I made the following suggestions. Post yours too. So that its sparks better ideas for the coming Emotion UI 2.0.
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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.
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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.
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So, I want my menu button to open up menus again, and not the "overflow" menu. What are my options? Do I have to re-install 10.2 and the 0813 gapps and prevent any of the google apps from updating by backing up their apks and resigning them with ZipSigner? Will the unofficially signed apps even work properly anymore? Is there any way to map the menu button to the "navigation drawer" / "hamburger button?" I've tried searching but haven't found any help.
The first time I tried to hit the button one handed was also the first time I really dropped my S3 (small hands). It finally put a crack in my bezel. I was so proud of that bezel! I know that I can swipe from the bezel to the right to open up the "navigation drawer," but I can only get this to work about a third of the time, and only in Google's own apps. Might as well be the charm bar in Win 8. None of the third party apps I use seem to incorporate this swiping feature either, which is why I'd rather enable the overflow three dot display, and remap the menu button. None of the options in the buttons menu in CM are anything I'd use. I just don't get it. They want to get rid of the menu button because devs hide everything there, but to facilitate it they hide everything off screen in a drawer that I have to use two hands to open?
I wish Google didn't dictate that the Action Bar and on-screen navigation controls are the way "things must be." Especially with no consideration to those of us on legacy devices. I rather like having buttons on the bottom of the phone that don't take up screen real estate. I'd like it even more if the buttons were physical like they were on my Evo 4G, and not capacitive. I even miss the old four button layout. I used all four of them all of the time. Why not have physical + per app customizable on screen buttons? Get the best of both worlds? "Because Matias Duarte has not deemed it so." Sounds like Jonathan Ive or Steven Sinofsky.... If I wanted to be told how to use my phone, I would have bought an iPhone or a Lumia....
On a side note, I am less than enthusiastic about the changes Google has been making with the apps. The fonts got bigger in everything, but especially annoyed me in the Play Store. Whitespace, WHITESPACE EVERYWHERE! So now I only see 5 apps at once, rather than the 8-9 that was in the ICS store. Why have a phone with a huge screen if we're going to make everything giant? And so many apps are following these "best practices." Then again, I detest mobile sites and set my useragent to desktop. I guess I just feel that if I'm carrying a computer in my pocket, it should feel like a computer.