Related
Hello, all.
I've got a confession to make: I like apps. A lot. To an unhealthy degree. I've got a huge stash of apps on my phone, and an even larger collection of .apk backups waiting to be reloaded whenever I feel like it. I love finding new apps to try out, and deciding which ones are worthy to be added to my collection. A lot of the apps that I find and want to try out are paid apps; without finding many thorough reviews on them, I don't know whether they are worth my money - but I can't stand the thought of missing out on the Next Big Thing. And so I buy them, download them, install them, and test them out anyway. If it's an awesome app and well-worth the money, I tell my friends. If it is money that could be better spent on another app that I've tried before, I tell my friends that, too.
Unfortunately, not all of my friends are interested in my opinion on apps. They only listen to me because of my rugged good looks (my theory). This makes me sad, because I spend a lot of time (and money, in some cases) trying apps out - someone else needs to benefit from that time (and money) as well. Until someone decides to pay/reimburse me for all the apps that I evaluate, the next-best thing I can do is offer up reviews to the community of any apps that I have found particularly useful. This is the driving force behind my desire to make this thread.
I will be running down my list of currently-installed useful applications and entertaining games. I will include screen shots, AppBrain links, and as much detail as I can muster up. My hope is that the rest of the community may find some benefit from these reviews - and who knows, maybe you'll find a kick-ass app you'd never heard of.
I'm open to questions, ideas, requests, suggestions, and pretty much any other type of communication or input that could be provided. I only ask that you be respectful - both of me, and of the app developers. And if this list helps you find a neat paid app to try out, please do support the developer(s). Piracy is bad, mmmmkay?
Enjoy!
-codesplice
Credit where credit is due: All screenshots are made using the free ShootMe app.
NOTE: Now that the Android Market has a shnazzy new web interface, I'm going to change the primary links for apps to reflect this. I will add the AppBrain links as a secondary, and hope to add direct market links at some point once I find a site to reliably provide this information. Stay tuned!
Reviews:
Minimalistic Text (Widget)
Clutch Pad(Multitasking App) UPDATED 2/24/11
CircleLauncher (Widget)
Swipe Pad (Multitasking App)
Keyboard Manager (App) UPDATED 2/23/11
Shift Puzzle Game (Game)
ElecroDroid (App)
Hella Umbrella (Game)
Digital Wall (LWP)
Shortyz Crosswords (App)
Elixir (System Info App)
Google Authenticator (App)
Zeam (Launcher)
Lookout / WaveSecure (Mobile Security App double-feature)
If you don't want to subscribe to this thread, you can follow me on that twitting thing, as I will post updates about new reviews there.
Minimalistic Text (widget)
App Name: Minimalistic Text (v.2.1.3, @AppBrain)
Developer: Devmil
Price: FREE
There is quite a handful of text-based widgets available on the Market, and a lot of them are very nice. There are widgets for displaying the time as text, the weather as text, the battery level as text.... but this is one widget that does it all. Just about every aspect of the widget is configurable, from the text alignment and rotation to the font size and colors to even the format for different types of data. You've got several options for the display type, whether you want to use digits or words or even a bar (for days of the week or percentage of battery charge). There is also an optional "blur" text effect which works wonderfully for making accented text appear to be illuminated. To top things off, this widget also functions as a plugin for Locale or Tasker and can be used to display variables from either of those applications. For instance, if you want a small text-widget to display what Locale/Tasker profiles are currently active, this is your answer for a very configurable solution.
For each widget you are also able to define an action to perform when tapped - whether it is launching another activity (my clock widget launches my alarm clock), opening the widget preferences page, or even reading out the text currently displayed on the widget. You are also able to save and restore your widget settings, so don't be afraid to experiment.
Given the sheer amount of customizations available to you with this widget app, the configuration menu may be a little bit overwhelming and complex when you first get into it. Play around for a few minutes, and you're bound to get the hang of it.
This is a fabulous widget, and one that I highly recommend to anyone who will take the time to tinker with it.
Verdict: A highly-configurable text-based widget to display pretty much anything you want, especially with Tasker integration.
Screenshots:
1) Widget(s) in action. I should note there are three separate widgets displayed: Time / weather up top, day / date on the bottom, and a battery level bar on the right-hand side.
2) Preferences Manager for all widgets
3) Text Style menu
4-5) Custom Layout configurator
(tested on NexusOne / Kang-o-rama 1.2 T1 (CM7.n13 / GRH78C / Android 2.3.2))
Clutch Pad[APP]
App Name: Clutch Pad (v.1.3v.1.4.2, @AppBrain)
Developer: stevealbright
Price: $0.99 $1.99
Clutch is an application that seeks to optimize and streamline the way you multitask on Android. It is currently in beta status, but is very functional in its current state. It is a powerful supplement to the built-in Recent Apps feature.
Clutch manifests itself as a small semi-transparent "trigger" area, which functions similar to "hot corners" on a Mac (I think. I'm a Linux/PC guy). This small region rides at the very top layer of the Android interface (in a user-configurable position) and is accessible no matter what application you may be working in. You can tap this region to instantly bring up a small grid displaying your recently-accessed applications. You can customize how many apps you want to be visible, configure the application to ignore your Home (Launcher) app in its list, and to visually distinguish currently-running applications from terminated apps. This makes it very easy to quickly determine if that app you just exited is still running or if it has been shut down as it should, as well as providing a quick (and lightweight) task switcher.
Nice, but nothing terribly fantastic. Yet. Clutch also has configurable swipe gestures - the most useful (to me) of which is a Last Task functionality. For instance, if I Swipe Up from the Clutch region, I instantly switch to whatever my previous app was. If I swipe again, I am moved back to the app I just switched from. This functions similarly to just pressing ALT+TAB quickly, and is very useful for quickly jumping between two apps.
This little utility is quick and lightweight, and I have found it to be extremely useful. It is still in development, and has many more features planned (and a price increase to accompany them - so get it quickly!) including support for additional gestures (open/close notifications, for example), on-click task control (press-and-hold to kill, for example), and configurable transition animations.
If you've got a dollar to spend, you would do well to add this application to your device in its current state, and I can only imagine the app's versatility and usefulness will increase with the further planned updates.
Update (2/24/11): Clutch Pad has recently been updated to version 1.4. With this update, the application has dropped the "Beta" tag, gained an additional "Pad" in its name, and has added additional features and configurable options. At the same time, the price has also been increased to $1.99. New features include additional swipe gestures, configurable transition animations (that are quite pretty), the option to toggle the trigger button via a press-and-hold on the Search hardware key, and a Favorites option to quickly launch your favorite apps. Options have also been added for additional visual tweaks and adjustments of both the trigger icon and the popup lists, and all known bugs have been fixed. With each incremental update, this app gets more and more useful and I find myself relying upon it more all the time. Even at the increased price, this is still one of my must-have applications.
Verdict: An innovative way to access recent apps, and the Last App gesture functionality is every bit as useful as Alt-Tabbing between apps on your desktop.
Screenshots:
1) Trigger icon
2) Recent apps list
3-5) Settings pages
(tested on NexusOne / Kang-o-rama 1.2 T1 (CM7.n13 / GRH78C / Android 2.3.2))
CircleLauncher (widget)
App Name: CircleLauncher (v.1.5.2, @AppBrain)
Developer: db-ware
Price: ~$1.37 (free, limited version here or @AppBrain)
As mentioned previously, I have a lot of apps. One of the problem with having a lot of apps is running out of room on your homescreens for app shortcuts. There are various widgets out there that propose a variety of solutions to this problem, but they often leave you with tiny, almost unusable icons. This would have been fine in the days where the trackball reigned supreme, but this is the oh-tens. It has to be finger-friendly.
One true solution that I stumbled across the other day is called CircleLauncher. What it does is really very simple, but it does it very well. It allows you to create a single widget to group similar applications together (I've used location-themed apps and clock-based apps in my example). Tape the 1x1 widget, and a lightweight menu appears to launch your apps. Pretty standard, but this menu is laid out (by default - you can change this in the settings) in a ring around the icon. As you slide your finger or thumb around the ring, the currently selected application icon grows to make selection a bit easier.
Note that CircleLauncher includes other layout types (configurable from the widget's config menu, which you access by selecting the widget and then press-and-holding the center) including horizontal and vertical lines. I was also very pleased with the way that the widget's application menu adapts to its position on the screen - stick it in a corner, and your full selection of apps will be displayed within a 90-degree pie slice.
Obviously, a menu such as this is a bit limited to a relatively low number of apps (more than 9 or 10 and the ring will be just too cluttered to be functional), but if you need to have quick access to just a few more apps from your homescreen, this should do the trick. Since there is a free version available, why not give it a shot and see if this widget can help you to organize your home screen a bit?
Verdict: An easy way to combine several app shortcuts into one.
Screenshots:
1) Plain widgets (labeled GPS and Time) - you can dress them up a bit more if you are artistically inclined.
2) One widget opened showing the full selection ring.
3) The corner widget open showing the adaptation to the position.
4) One icon expanded while my finger hovers over it.
5) Settings menu
(tested on NexusOne / Kang-o-rama 1.2 T1 (CM7.n13 / GRH78C / Android 2.3.2))
Keep going mate
gruzman said:
Keep going mate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I surely intend to! Just have to figure out which app to post next
Thanks for the encouragement though. It is appreciated to know at least someone is reading over all this mess!
SwipePad Beta [APP]
App Name: SwipePad Beta (v.0.7.5, @AppBrain)
Developer: Conduction.mobi
Price: FREE
Keeping on the theme of "apps to help you access your apps", we come to SwipePad Beta. Similar in some regard to Clutch, this app also gives you "hot corner" functionality. Use the settings menu to establish what corners (or regions) you want to be active, and then slide your finger from a specified region to the center of the screen. Hold it for just a moment, and a 3x4 grid of application shortcuts magically appears. You can, of course, fully customize what applications should appear on this grid by simply pressing your finger on an empty square or by holding your finger over an existing icon until it is highlighted. The hot corners/region and swipe gesture should work pretty much any time that the screen is unlocked, and is a great way of quickly launching a new app without returning to your home screen.
The application offers to integrate task managing application by the same developer (which is a paid app) that I haven't tried out yet. Personally, I've got plenty of other ways of killing apps at this point - particularly once the function gets built into Clutch.
SwipePad is very nicely polished and quite responsive. It does what it does quite well. My only issue with it is that I just don't use it very frequently. I almost forget that it is there; I must be thoroughly conditioned to launching apps from the home screen. It's free, though, so give it a whirl and see if it can further help to optimize the way you launch apps from within other apps
Verdict: Clever use of hot-corners to gain quick access to up to 12 user-defined apps; non-intrusive to the point that you might forget to use it.
Screenshots:
1) SwipePad in action. Note that putting a link to SwipePad on your SwipePad gives you a quick way to access the settings screens.
2) SwipePad settings, with the hot corners highlighted in red at the bottom.
(tested on NexusOne / Kang-o-rama 1.2 T1 (CM7.n13 / GRH78C / Android 2.3.2))
is there a video demonstrating the use of Clutch? I want to watch it before paying for it.
Deff fav'ing this. Am looking forward to all reviews
(*is thinking about getting clutch)
Epic is as Epic does
Nice! Thanks bro!
waichung said:
is there a video demonstrating the use of Clutch? I want to watch it before paying for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I imagine there should be a video somewhere on the youtubes. Let me know if you find one and I will add it to the post. I'm about to go into work so it will be another 12 hours before I have access to the full internet, but I will look then if you haven't found anything.
Very good! Thanks
Keyboard Manager [APP]
App Name: Keyboard Manager (v.1.1) Keyboard Manager (v.1.4)
Developer: ne0fhyk
Price: FREE $1.99
NOTE: This app requires root!!
It took me quite a while, but I finally weened myself away from requiring a physical keyboard on a mobile device when I got my NexusOne. With the multitude and variety of available software keyboards available for Android, I haven't really missed the physical keys. The only annoyance at this point is that I find keyboards that work great for one-handed operation in portrait orientation, like Swype or 8pen (if you're in the mood for adventure and don't really care how long it takes to get a message completed ), but are next-to-worthless for dual-thumb landscape input. With a physical keyboard, you'd just slide that bad boy out and away you go. For those of us with only a touchscreen and maybe a few additional buttons, it can be a bit of a chore to manually change the selected input method each time we rotate the device. If only there was a way for the device to read my mind and select the appropriate keyboard.....
As luck would have it, XDA member ne0fhyk has provided us with a solution to this difficulty, in the form of his Keyboard Manager application. Simply select what keyboard you want to use in each orientation (I use Swype for portrait and SwiftKey for landscape), and the app will handle the tedious business of choosing the appropriate input method. It's that easy, and it works.
Mostly. The app is a bit of a hacked solution, and requires root permissions to be able to get around the Android security feature which prevents applications from changing the input method. Installation is not always straight-forward (instructions are available in the first post of the application thread, and it may cause a few software keyboards to force-close if you change orientation while the keyboard is displayed. The current version (1.1) has come a long way from the previous releases in terms of usability, stability, and reliability, and I haven't had any major issues with it. I highly recommend that you give this application a shot and see if it will help you out with your input needs.
Update (2/23/11): Keyboard Manager is no longer available for free, but is now installable from the Android Market. The now-current 1.4 version has fixed most of the install issues and should be a very easy set-up for you. If you run into any issues with the purchased version, please contact the developer - he helped me solve issues specific to my device, and the application works like a charm now.
Verdict: A functional hack to auto-select the appropriate software keyboard based on device orientation.
Screenshots:
1) The optional persistent notification icon. Activating the notification will give you quick access to the Keyboard Manager settings page, and I recommend you leave it enabled until you get things set up the way you want. After that, disable the persistent notification at your own risk (the persistent notification keeps the process in the foreground and prevents Android from terminating it).
2) Settings screen
3) Selecting which keyboard to use
4) Demonstrating that the app has automatically selected Swype for portrait...
5) .... and SwiftKey for landscape.
(tested on NexusOne / Kang-o-rama 1.2 T1 (CM7.n13 / GRH78C / Android 2.3.2))
Shift Puzzle Game [GAME]
App Name: Shift Puzzle Game (v.1.2, @AppBrain)
Developer: Handmark
Price: $1.99 (Free ad-supported version here or @AppBrain let's you try out 15 levels; full version features 40 additional levels and no ads)
The Shift Puzzle Game is a tasty Android port of the ever-popular SHIFT game by Armor Games, which you can play free in your Flash-enabled browser at the Armor Games website. If you're not familiar with the original (as I wasn't until I found this app just an hour ago), then let me fill you in on the skinny.
Shift is a new take on the classic adventure-puzzle platformer game. Your mission is to get from point A to point B, dodging whatever nasty traps and obstacles may be in your path. The twist is the ability for you to literally shift the game universe upside down. White becomes black, up becomes down, and you find yourself walking on the flip side of the surface you were just standing on. You can (and will) use this clever maneuver repeatedly in order to successfully navigate each challenging level. Not quite tracking? It can be rather tough to explain... Hopefully the screenshots below will help clear it up (or go play the flash version for free here).
This implementation for a touchscreen device is phenomenal. The controls are large and appear on either side of the landscape display - and you don't even need multitouch. Just tap the left arrow to move left, the left-up diagonal to jump left, and the SHIFT button at the top to do that groovy shift thing. The gameplay is engaging, and the levels can be quite challenging (and quite addictive). The game is worth trying out (the free version) solely for experiencing the joy that is puzzle-solving by twisting the fabric of the universe, and you might just get hooked enough to purchase the full version. It would be two bucks well spent.
Verdict: Quickly becoming my latest Android gaming addiction.
Screenshots:
1) Main menu
2) First level
3) First level - SHIFTED!
4) It gets twisted!
(tested on NexusOne / Kang-o-rama 1.2 T1 (CM7.n13 / GRH78C / Android 2.3.2))
This is a little off topic but is anyone attempting a Tor app?
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA App
jinsfch said:
This is a little off topic but is anyone attempting a Tor app?
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just slightly off topic, but no worries.
A quick search on AppBrain found Orbot: Tor On Android. Impressive, since Android still doesn't have proper proxy support on its own...
Can't find clutch video on youtube...
Btw,i think swipepad is better than it as swyping from the bottom is easier than from the right
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
waichung said:
Can't find clutch video on youtube...
Btw,i think swipepad is better than it as swyping from the bottom is easier than from the right
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I looked for Clutch videos as well and was disappointed to see that there aren't any. I may try to shoot a video once I get home from the desert in a few weeks (hopefully).
You can change the position of the Clutch region to really any spot on the screen. And I don't really see the two as competing anyway as they have entirely different purposes: Clutch gives you quick access to your recently-executed apps, while SwipePad offers a fixed menu of apps for you to launch.
codesplice said:
I looked for Clutch videos as well and was disappointed to see that there aren't any. I may try to shoot a video once I get home from the desert in a few weeks (hopefully).
You can change the position of the Clutch region to really any spot on the screen. And I don't really see the two as competing anyway as they have entirely different purposes: Clutch gives you quick access to your recently-executed apps, while SwipePad offers a fixed menu of apps for you to launch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The likely alt-tab function of clutch is really fantastic but does it show the recently-executed apps or the running apps? I use swipepad together with the virtual task switcher which allows switching among the running tasks. These 2 apps are completely free and no need to paid $1 for the "swipepad: tasks". But I prefer quick accessing recent tasks to showing those apps running at the background.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
waichung said:
The likely alt-tab function of clutch is really fantastic but does it show the recently-executed apps or the running apps? I use swipepad together with the virtual task switcher which allows switching among the running tasks. These 2 apps are completely free and no need to paid $1 for the "swipepad: tasks". But I prefer quick accessing recent tasks to showing those apps running at the background.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The set {recently-executed} apps includes the subset {running apps}. The default behavior of Android is to show all recently-executed apps under the Recent Apps functionality, regardless of whether those apps are still running or have been terminated. I thought that Visual Task Switcher behaved the same way, but based on the application page it does appear to only display currently-running apps. Personally, I prefer to see recent apps (with a visual distinction between those that are still running and those that have been terminated), as I often end up re-launching the same app over and over; of course, you could also just pin a shortcut to those frequent apps to SwipePad. We all operate our devices in different ways, so either option is of course valid.
Visual Task Switcher (at least the last time that I used it) tended to make my phone lag significantly for whatever reason; I did use it for quite some time though, and was pleased with its functionality as a complete Recent Apps replacement (after configuring the long-press home trigger to launch it via CyanogenMod settings). Also note that the free version includes ads (which may contribute to the lag I was experiencing?) while the full version will set you back $1.99.
Samsung’s Multi-Window feature is one of the more fascinating aspects of the company’s recent devices. Working in two apps side-by-side is an incredible boon to multi-tasking and productivity. However, this feature has been limited to only Samsung devices. Attempts to add it custom ROMs have been aggressively shut down by Google itself. However, what if instead of baking this functionality into a ROM, it was provided through an application launcher?
This proposal takes it roots in a device that was poorly executed. The Notion Ink Adam (first generation)’s interface was designed in a panel view, allowing quick access to certain services. While a sound idea in theory, this concept and the device were poorly designed. However, the idea remains a viable prospect.
What if this panel view was baked into a launcher application? What if the homescreen was a space that could be manipulated to show up to three applications?
When Android was unified under ICS, Google introduced the Fragments API to assist in developing paneled applications (ie. tablet optimized applications) and applications that could host multiple user interfaces (ie. Gmail phone and tablet UI). What if, theoretically, an application was designed using the Fragments API that created panels for hosting applications? Multiple applications could be utilized at once, side-by-side, much like Samsung’s Multi-Window feature.
The home screen would be a blank screen with the frames outlined in some manner. Layout options would ideally include a three panel layout (each panel occupying a third of the screen) or a two panel layout (one panel occupying two-thirds of the screen, the second occupying the remaining third), always in landscape orientation. I haven’t fully thought out how a portrait mode would work. The app drawer would be accessible via a swipe from the right side of the screen moving to the left side of the screen. To ensure the drawer could be opened with a swipe without disrupting applications using swipes, there would be an active region to detect the swipe, like in the Sidebar application. With the app drawer, a short touch would open up the application in full screen. However, a long press on the application would provide a menu of options regarding which frame the application would be sent to. Widgets would not be utilized in this launcher, as there is no space or need for them.
This is simply a proposal. I don’t have the coding knowledge or experience to be able to begin experimenting with this, or to know if this is even possible. However, I thought I’d at least make this post to see what people thought. Creative criticism and ideas are appreciated, but please, nothing incredibly negative.
Basic mockups using a Nexus 10 were made and are available below. These are incredibly basic, so be warned.
Schedule posts:
CyanogenMod 10.1 - part. 1
CyanogenMod 10.1 - part. 2
Useful links related to CyanogenMod
CyanogenMod 10.1
When it comes to the custom ROM scene for Android, the one name that instantly comes to our minds is CyanogenMod, and for good reason!
Let's take an in-depth look at CyanogenMod 10.1 and all the features it offers that make it one of the best custom Android ROMs around.
Credits for this guide must go to HQRaja
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look And Feel
One of the key philosophies behind CyanogenMod is to focus on functionality rather than design, and that’s been a great thing since ICS when Android’s design got revamped to what it is now. That’s why on the surface, CyanogenMod 10.1 may look just like pure vanilla Android, and for good reason, since it is based on pure vanilla Android, meaning you wouldn’t find even the slightest traces of HTC Sense, Samsung TouchWiz, MOTOBLUR or any such manufacturer-customized version of Android in it, as you can see below in the home screen and the app drawer of CyanogenMod 10.1.
That said, there are a plethora of changes under the hood that set it apart from plain vanilla Android. The launcher itself may look like that of stock Android, but it’s actually CyanogenMod’s own custom version called Trebuchet. If you try dragging an icon somewhere, you’ll start seeing the extra options it offers, and that’s just the start.
As you can see lower, you can not only remove the icon, but also edit it. Furthermore, CyanogenMod ships with a collection of wallpapers of its own (CM Wallpapers), in addition to Android’s default ones.
CyanogenMod Apps
You must have noticed a few extra apps in the app drawer screenshot above. None of them have been added from the Play Store (that screenshot was taken immediately after installing the ROM), but rather ship with CyanogenMod itself. They include a media player, a file browser and a terminal emulator. The former two are CyanogenMod-exclusive while the terminal emulator is same as the Android Terminal Emulator app available on Play Store.
Also, while the messaging app may look exactly like the stock one, it is in fact heavily modified to deliver a much more powerful and customizable experience. Lastly, you’ll notice an icon for Sound Recorder in the app drawer. It is actually a system app that comes as a part of Android itself, it is hidden from the app drawer by default and is accessible as a recording feature within other components of the OS; CyanogenMod adds an icon for it to provide users direct access to it.
The inclusion of a media player and a file manager ensures that if you choose not to rely on Google’s ecosystem or just want to use the ROM on a device that you want to keep offline, you already start off with all the basic apps that you’re going to need.
There is also a DSP Manager app here, as well as the cLock app that doesn’t show up in the app drawer but can be seen as a widget right on the home screen as well as the lock screen, but we’ll be taking a look at both these in the Settings section, as they are both configurable from there.
CyanogenMod 10.1 Settings
What makes CyanogenMod truly powerful is the plethora of additional settings it offers for customizing the ROM and having a more complete control over Android’s features. All these settings can be found within the default Settings app, laid out in the same settings interface that you’re already familiar with. Let’s take a more detailed look at them in the order they appear. Note that we’ll only be reviewing the settings that have been added by CyanogenMod, and will therefore skip the unmodified sections.
Cell Broadcasts
For most part, the ‘Wireless & Networks’ section of the Settings remains close to stock, though you’ll notice one new option under the ‘More…’ option by the name of Cell Broadcasts. This basically lets you choose which cell broadcast messages you want to receive, and opt out of the ones you don’t want to bother you. These include alerts for extreme and severe threats, AMBER alerts, ETWS (Earthquake Tsuname Warning System) alerts and CMAS (Commercial Mobile Alert System) broadcasts. In addition to opting out of them, you can also choose change alert settings such as notifications, sound, vibration, sound duration, text-to-speech for speaking out alerts, and showing opt-out dialog after displaying the first CMAS alerts to be able to easily disable them (other than presidential alerts).
Launcher
As mentioned above, CyanogenMod ships with Trebuchet as its home screen launcher, which looks identical to the stock Android launcher but is way more customizable, and this is where you can tweak it to your liking.
Many Android users complain about the lack of landscape mode for their home screen. Trebuchet takes care of that by adding support for landscape mode and auto rotation, which you can enable here. And if you have just customized your home screen to your liking and fear messing it up by mistake, you can set everything to stay locked in place. You can also hide the status bar to extend the home screen further, though we’d suggest you read on and see what else is in store for you in the full screen department, and you’ll forget about this option alltogether!
In the Home Screen section, you can tweak a lot of options pertaining to the way things are displayed on your home screens. Each option comes with a description to make sure you don’t feel lost.
The Drawer section lets you customize how apps are displayed in your Apps and widgets drawer. You can choose between transition effects, join the sections together and even hide apps selectively.
Lastly, you can customize the dock by changing the number of apps it displays, adding more pages to it that you can then access by swiping on it sideways just like the home screens, and more.
Lock Screen
CyanogenMod’s lock screen comes with a bunch of additional features, and the first one that you’ll notice is multiple shortcuts to directly launch the apps of your choice.
What’s more – these shortcuts are fully customizable! Just hit ‘Slider shortcuts’ under Lock screen, and you’ll be able to easily assign a different one to each slot and even select a custom icon for it.
In addition to these shortcuts, you can choose your lock screen security type, and tweak several options for the selected one such as making the pattern visible, choosing a 4×4, 5×5 or even 6×6 pattern in addition to the default 3×3 one, toggle visibility for pattern, errors and dots, and set separate custom delays for automatic screen lock after timeout and manual screen off, etc.
Themes
If you’re finding things to be a but too dull and completely stock so far in terms of looks, your patience is about to be rewarded. CyanogenMod ships with a powerful theme engine that can change the look of the entire UI based on the theme you choose. Some themes may change just the app icons on your home screens and in the app drawer, some change how the menus look, some apply to widgets as well, and then there are those that change pretty much everything. We like Android’s own stock looks but are big fans of transparency, and the awesome HOLO GLASS theme lets us apply that to the stock settings app as well as many other components of the OS, as you can see in the screenshots below.
Although no extra themes are shipped with CM by default, you can find countless options available in both free and paid variants on Google Play, XDA-Developers and many other Android modding communities – just search on Google for it and you’ll find more options at your disposal than you’ll know what to do with.
Before we move on to the next section, here’s how HOLO GLASS has changed our Dialer and Messaging apps. The background is actually our desktop wallpaper, not just a static background applied to these apps.
System
This is perhaps the most extensively customizable section of the entire ROM. Here, you can tweak major UI components such as the status bar, the quick settings panel, the notification drawer, the power menu and the navigation bar as well as toggle the expanded desktop (full screen) mode and Pie controls (yes, CyanogenMod 10.1 includes Paranoid Android’s famous controls), and customize LED notifications.
Status bar
When it comes to the status bar, you can show/hide the clock as well as choose AM/PM display, and change the battery and signal icon styles from several available options. You can even set the status bar itself as a brightness control slider that will change brightness as you swipe your finger along it.
Quick Settings panel
Starting with Jelly Bean, Android ships with a section in the notification pull-down that acts as a quick settings panel. CyanogenMod basically supercharges it, letting you customize it to your liking.
You can add, remove and reposition toggles, and also specify how some of them behave. There are plenty of options available to add, pretty much for every feature you’d want. We have customized ours to add the features we need to quickly access most often, as you can see in the second screenshot below.
For quick and convenient access, you can even set this panel to always appear by default when you swipe down from the edge of your choice (left or right) on the status bar.
Power widget
If you don’t fancy the above controls and would rather have a small list of toggles right in the regular notification shade, the Power widget can do just that for you.
You can select what buttons display in it, specify their order, and tweak some appearance & behavior settings for the widget.
Expanded desktop
Want to utilize your screen real estate to the fullest? Why not get rid of the status bar as well as the navigation bar? Just choose whether you’d want the status bar to remain visible or not in this mode, and you’ll then be able to go full-screen by selecting the option from the power button’s long-press menu.
Here is how the home screen and your apps will appear while expanded desktop is enabled. As you can see, I have set the status bar to be hidden in the first one and visible in the second one, while the navigation bar is hidden in both in this mode.
Power menu
When you long-press the power key, you get more options in CyanogenMod than in stock Android, as you must have noticed in the screenshot shown in the Expanded desktop section above. A great thing about these options is that you can choose the ones you want to be displayed in the menu.
In the second screenshot, we have stripped down the power menu to the bare essentials, removing all the additional options except for ‘Reboot’ from it to get back to basics.
Clock widget
CyanogenMod ships with a clock widget of its own called cLock that works on both the home screen and the lock screen. It’s the same widget that you have seen on the home screen and lock screen images above. In addition to the time and date, it is capable of displaying weather conditions (from Yahoo! Weather) as well as your calendar events, and all this information is customizable from here.
For the clock, you can choose between analog and digital items, toggle the display of any alarms that you have set, and customize the clock’s display colors and font.
When it comes to weather conditions, you can toggle them on/off, choose weather source, set a custom location if you want (it uses your current location by default), and tweak several visual aspects of the weather display. For your calendar events, you can specify what calendars to display events from, how far into the future to look, what types of events to show and hide and what information to display for each event, along with visual tweaks for how the events are displayed. The settings will apply to the widget on both your home screen and lock screen.
Sound
To what extent can one customize sounds of an Android device, you ask? Just take a look at the Sounds section of CM settings – it spans three screens, and that’s excluding any sub-sections! As you can see below, there are options for everything ranging from volume controls, ring mode and volume panel style to music effects, quiet hours, ringtone choice, system sound toggles, headset-related tweaks and more!
As you can see above, it’s hard to think of a sound-related option that hasn’t been considered here. All options available here are self-explanatory, as you can see in case of the volume panel style below.
This section houses two great features namely Quiet hours and Music effects (DSP Manager). Let’s take a more detailed look at each of them.
Quiet hours
The Quiet hours feature is pretty awesome; it lets you specify times when you don’t want to be disturbed, and even lets you choose the type of alerts you want to disable for notifications during these hours, including sound, haptic feedback, vibrations and notification LED.
Music effects (DSP Manager)
Remember the app icon for DSP Manager that we mentioned when taking a look at the CyanogenMod apps? It is a killer app that can tweak the sound output of your device in a way that you’ll find it hard to believe your ears!
You can enable features such as bass boost, dynamic range compression and a full graphic equalizer separately for your phone’s speaker, wired earphones and Bluetooth headsets.There are several equalizer presets available, and you can choose the strength level for any effects you apply.
Display
Unlike the ‘Sound’ section, you wouldn’t see a plethora of options under Display, but that’s because the UI tweaks have already been covered to the extreme in the earlier sections and there’s little to do with the display beyond that. However, CM still manages to squeeze an extra option in here in form of customizable auto-rotate settings.
In addition to the default on/off, you can now specify the angles your device can rotate to, and even set the volume buttons to automatically swap when in landscape mode (volume-up becomes volume-down and vice versa) that can be more optimal on some devices (depending on the volume button position).
CyanogenMod 10.1 - part. 2
Profiles
CyanogenMod 10.1 ships with a powerful profile system that allows you to set how your device behaves when different profiles are active. You can switch to a profile from the power menu (by long-pressing the power button) and then tapping Profile. Your currently active profile name is shown there by default.
These profiles aren’t limited to merely choosing the volume levels or screen brightness levels – you can specify settings ranging from features like mobile data, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, syncing and hotspot mode to individual volume levels for alarms, media, ringtones and notifications, and choose your desired ringing and lock screen modes for each profile.
Not only that, but you can also manage how different applications behave for each profile, which is made easy with application groups.
You can create as many new profiles as you want, or edit the existing ones to your liking. Similarly, you can add or remove apps to the existing groups, or create new groups of your own, and specify settings you’d want for them for each profile under that profile.
You can have one profile where everything is silent except for incoming calls, and all app notifications are also silenced other than for an app group you’ve created by the name of VoIP, in which you have Viber, Tango and Skype etc. Or you could have a profile in which only notifications from your social media apps are ignored – whatever your requirements, you can create a profile tailored for them.
Security
CyanogenMod offers enhanced security options for your lock screen, some of which we have looked at earlier in the Lock screen customization section. Under the Screen lock section in Security, you get more flexibility in certain options, specifically when it comes to the pattern lock. In addition to the regular 3×3, you can also set up to a 6×6 pattern for added security.
Also, you’ll notice a new option at the end of the Security section labeled SMS message limit. It lets you define how many messages can an app automatically send within a set time interval before it is deemed as suspicious activity and requires confirmation from you for any additional texts.
Language & Input
You’ll see mostly standard options over here as well, with the exception of two new ones: a Selector notification toggle, and Volume key cursor control.
In case have multiple input methods (like keyboards) installed, enabling Selector notifications will show you a persistent notification for selecting the input method to use whenever an input field is active. The volume key cursor control option, on the other hand, lets you control the on-screen cursor – where present – using the device’s volume keys.
Developer Options
Being Android 4.2,*-based, CyanogenMod 10.1 comes with the Developer options section hidden by default, so you’ll need to unhide it before you can tinker with the settings there.
unHIDE developer options -how to
Go to ‘Settings’ > ‘About phone’.
Repeatedly tap on ‘Build number’ seven times. That’s it!
You’ll see a few options added by CyanogenMod here as well, in addition to the standard options found in stock Android. You can toggle the advanced reboot menu from here that lets you directly reboot into bootloader or recovery, in addition to the normal rebooting.
The Launch Tools section here is meant to provide developers with quick access to several tools that can come handy when developing or debugging their apps. These include a vast range of tools such as Accounts Tester, Bad Behavior, Cache Abuser, Configuration, Connectivity, GTalk Service Monitor, Holo Spiral, Instrumentation, Media Provider, Package Browser, Pointer Location, Running processes, Sync Tester and Water (Live wallpaper).
Getting back to the main Developer options menu, you can also choose the root access level between apps only, ADB only, both apps & ADB, or none, toggle displaying the USB debugging notification icon while debugging mode is enabled, and enter hostname of your choice for identification in ADB mode.
Lastly, by scrolling all the way to the bottom, you can set the back button to kill the currently active app upon long-press, in order to quickly terminate misbehaving apps.
Superuser
Pretty much every custom ROM comes already rooted, and CyanogenMod is no exception. Though instead of the conventional Superuser app by ChainsDD or SuperSU app by Chainfire, CyanogenMod 10.1 comes with root management functionality built into the ROM’s settings interface itself, in form of Superuser by Koush (the guy behind ClockworkMod recovery and a senior CM developer). It works just like you’d expect – asking you for root permissions whenever an app requests them, and showing you a list of apps that you have granted or denied permissions.
From the list, you can tap an app’s entry to see its root permissions and make Superuser forget the remembered setting in case you want to change its access, which you can then do when prompted upon launching it next. In addition, you can see a log of all root access elevation attempts made by apps, and whether they were allowed or denied.
From Superuser’s settings, you can set if superuser access should be restricted to apps, ADB or both, toggle a setting that would show superuser requests from only those apps that declare that they require root access, choose the default automatic response to these requests, add a PIN protection so that no one else can grant apps root access, choose a timeout interval of your choice, toggle logging and tweak notification settings for the toasts that appear when apps are granted or denied superuser access.
Performance
If you’ve ever overclocked your Android device, you’re likely familiar with the SetCPU app. While many other ROMs would require you to use that or some other similar app to make the best of your custom kernel, CyanogenMod has everything taken care of in this department as well. Under ‘Performance’, you’ll find all the options you’ll ever need to tweak your processor, I/O scheduler and memory management exactly the way you want. You can also enable 16-bit transparency and choose a color dithering method of your choice for improving the graphics output.
For the processor, you can choose your CPU governor and set the minimum as well as maximum CPU frequency of your choice. For our Galaxy S Advance, the default CyanogenMod kernel provided a bunch of CPU governors and frequency options to choose from.
You can similarly choose your I/O scheduler, and zRam size. There are a few additional options available as well, like allowing purging of bitmap assets when freeing up RAM and setting your chosen CPU & I/O scheduler settings to apply each time you reboot your device.
CyanogenMod Updates
Found under ‘About phone’, this section is basically what OTA updates are to stock ROMs. Every time a new version of CyanogenMod is out, you will be notified of it, and can download it from here. You can choose how frequently should the ROM check for updates.
You can specify whether you want updates for the stable version only, or for pre-release versions (nightlies and release candidates etc.) as well. Your selected update will then be downloaded and applied via recovery.
This sums up our extensive tour of CyanogenMod 10.1
Useful links related to CyanogenMod 10.1
[ROM] [NIGHTLY] [TeamCanjica] Unofficial CyanogenMod 10.1 (GT-I9070 & GT-I9070P) - developer thread - do not ask sily questions there.
[CM10 / 10.1][Q/A] CM10 / 10.1 for the Galaxy S Advance - Q/A - DISCUSSION THREAD - here is the place where you can ask questions about CyanogenMod.
[GUIDE] From stock GB to Custom JB (Noob-friendly) - useful for users who are still on GingerBread
TeamCanjica' s Github
GooManager - download from Play
http://goo.im/gapps - GAPPS download from GOO.Manager
Just in case ... reserved 3
Be patiente and wait.
Coming soon ...
PS: Please DON'T QUOTE all OP anymore.
Can i install V6 Supercharger? And if i do, when i update rom, will i lose it?
Dude you have a dedicated thread for CM10.1 Q&A, this is a guide only.
PS: Later i give the links for threads where you can ask what you want.
Powered by CM10.1
Razvan, perhaps you could elaborate a bit... on differences under the hood, for example... is it more secure than stock or not? Meaning - the information we don't want to leak out of the phone without our notice...
R_a_z_v_a_n said:
Dude you have a dedicated thread for CM10.1 Q&A, this is a guide only.
PS: Later i give the links for threads where you can ask what you want.
Powered by CM10.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, sorry man.
Nice review for new people
pie control
good job, I just stayed with a doubt because in my cm10.1 the 13th does not have the pie control, have to write a command to turn on the emulator?
sory my bad english
posted in wrong thread sorry... if someone can delete it.
Amazing amazing amaaaazing guide. Just what I needed. Thank you!
Sent from my GT-I9070 using xda premium
Nice job
Great job for me as a new CM user, thanks.
Sorry for my bad english
how is the gaming performance?? does it increase or decrease??? and battery ??
INTRODUCING SwiftOpen
To speed lovers: this is the app you thought didn't exist but always wanted.
SwiftOpen is a launcher (not a home launcher) that allows you to launch apps, shortcuts, contacts, calls... very, very fast.
Not only is it fast at launching whatever you want, but its interface also allows you to choose it quickly, without even looking at the phone. And this applies to as many shortcuts as you wish.
It is also lightweight and battery friendly!
Awesome video by Android Hackz:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2edSlOMECU
Video "Life is Short":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj2gGZFzD5I
Appearing on XDA-TV:
http://www.xda-developers.com/android/3-unique-launchers-xdatv/
TRANSLATIONS:
I can provide native translations for Spanish and Catalan. If anyone wanted to contribute translating the app to any other language it would be very helpful. If so, please pm me or send me an email. Thanks!
Features:
Very fast launching
App launching
System toggles such as torch, wifi, autorotate...
Did I say fast?
Shortcut launching
Recent apps and calls
Guided setup
Folders that allow even more shortcuts
Multiple detectors
Multiple actions per detector
Custom icons for folders
Icon pack support
Alt-tab to switch to the previous app
Tablet (and phablet) mode
Intuitive settings
Battery friendly
Plenty of customization
I have already incorporated many features suggested by xda members. Any suggestion is welcome, and if I have time and I find it appropriate, I'll add it!
LAUNCHING IN PREVIOUS STATE:
Since v0.8.3 SwiftOpen launches apps in their previous state instead of restarting. Some apps behave different than expected, and need to be treated in a different manner so that they are resumed instead of restarted (like Whatsapp and gReader). I have a white list of these apps, so if you find an app that is restarted tell me and I'll try to verify that they'll be resumed if treated differently, to add them to the whitelist.
SOME PHONES:
The app does not work on some Huawei phones because of the rom -apps with floating windows don't work there. At least with those that I've tested. If someone has a Huawei phone with stock rom and it works, please tell me.
It does not work with some Xiaomi Redmi either. If someone has a Xiaomi phone and finds that the app works with the stock rom, please also tell me.
It is not because of the code in the app, but the rom those phones have...
VERSIONS:
v0.4 and v0.5 have not been optimized for Lollipop.
From v0.5.1 and up it is optimized for Lollipop.
In v0.6 the signature and the package name have changed (among other stuff) which means you'll have to configure it again, as it won't install on the previous version but in parallel. I'm sorry about this. The apk is also larger, because of the icons and all the changes in the project structure; it'll improve in next versions, I hope.
0.6.2 uses more ram than it should, and there are a few other issues.
ANDROID ISSUES:
If you go to the home launcher and then launch an app, it won't be launched until about 5 seconds after going home. It's how Google wants it to be, and I'll try a workaround in the future but I'm not sure if it'll work. Nevertheless, the point of this app is not needing to go to the home launcher
BETA:
This app is currently in beta. All your feedback will be more than welcome.
And you can also suggest new features...
If the app crashes it asks you to send me an email, with the Logs. You can see what is being send, so don't worry about your privacy, it is safe!
OPEN SOURCE:
Now I have to fix some bugs, add a bit of functionality, and clean up the code. Whenever this is done (in a few weeks, I hope) the app will be open source.
MATERIAL DESIGN:
I am also working on bringing material design to the app.
Nevertheless the priority is bug-fixing and functionality.
FEATURES, BUGS and CHANGELOG:
Planned features:
Improve aesthetics and animations
Add missing translations
Widgets
Bottom detector
...
17/07/17 [0.9.3]:
New!!! Notification of new version available!
New!!! Animations for opening launcher, changing grid.
New animations for launching apps.
Improving look and feel of settings.
Added pinch to resize, when editing the floating window size.
Website label can be edited.
Pausing SwiftOpen allows to grant permissions and install apps.
Added refresh button to list of apps.
Added analytics.
Multiple select of apps opens correct folder, now.
Small touch bug with fullscreen fixed.
Top most common crash bugs fixed!
Several bugs fixed.
15/05/17 [0.9.2]:
New!!! Files, folders, websites, volume, brightness, auto brightness, split windows, quick settings, system back, system recents, power dialog, contact, direct call, direct sms, direct email, navigate to address.
New!!! SwiftOpen controls.
Restructure of the cell\'s content activity.
Added optional background to folder icons, with editable color.
Added small icon to recent apps and calls.
Granting permissions and installing apps should be possible again.
Highlighted cell matches transparency.
Background color issue fixed.
Recent contacts fixed.
Cell names are displayed again on apps and shortcuts.
Apps multiselect fixed.
Launcher appearance bug fixes.
Bugs fixed.
17/01/17 [0.9.1.2]:
New!!! Each detector may have its own color.
New!!! Accessibility should allow to keep SwiftOpen alive!
Speed improvement.
It is possible to choose the backup folder (and have multiple backups).
Bug reports can be sent without user interaction.
Appdrawer is closed on navigation buttons or touch outside.
UI changes.
Cell color works, as well as tablet mode colors.
Bugs in automatic setup fixed.
Many other bugs fixed.
21/11/16 [v0.9.1]:
Improved fluidity
Action bar transparency issue fixed.
Fixed many bugs.
21/08/16 [v0.9.0]:
Attention! Most code of floating interface rewritten from scratch.
It should be more stable in the future but it may contain bugs. Please report them!
New!!! Multiple border detectors!
New!!! Multiple and customizable actions per border detector!
New!!! App drawer!
Bug fix: folder cells should not remain highlighted.
Language can be selected.
Launcher top bar background may be changed.
Option to show notification icon in statusbar.
Semitransparent border detector has same color than thin line, with alpha.
Aesthetic improvements
Fixed bug in "disable detector in landscape".
Fixed bug with "remove action bar".
Fixed a ton of other bugs.
01/02/16 [v0.8.3]:
Apps are opened in their previous state!
Added showcase of some features.
Checked apps (multiple selection) are not lost when searching.
Autosetup asks to add apps manually if necessary.
Some shortcuts like google translate work now.
A lot of bugs fixed.
25/10/15 [v0.8.2]:
The colors of the detector, highlighted cells, and non highlighted cells may be changed
The detector may be disabled in landscape.
Added on long click help
Issue: some translations are incomplete
Compatible with M permissions
App search searches all words and in word too. It also highlights the matching caracters
Settings are much more fluid
Better management when going to permissions settings
More material design
German translation
Improved: send email
Some preferences were not properly backed up
Fixed transparency issue
Minor bugs
10/09/15 [v0.8.1]:
The border detector will no longer cross the display
More material design and colours change
Added thanks section
Translation to Russian
Recent Call bug that made crash, fixed.
Old, occasional back button bug, fixed.
20/08/15 [v0.8]:
Recent apps and recent calls
Icon packs support
Guided setup
All-grid folders
Possibility to swap all cells from left to right
Shadows pre Lollipop
Chinese translations
Bugs fixed
15/04/15 [v0.7.3]:
Multiple selection of apps
Back up + restore of settings
Option to remove app labels.
Some material transitions
Fixed: Launch on boot setting not working.
Fixed: Drag distance going back to default.
Other bugs fixed
07/03/15 [v0.7.2]:
System toggles to switch: wifi, torch, autorotate, bluetooth and airplane (go to settings if android does not allow switching) and to go home (to the launcher).
Added a changelog in the app.
A trash to delete in "Apps & Shortcuts", when doing drag and drop.
Reduced ram usage.
Fixed: cells changed didn't look OK until relaunch of SwiftOpen.
Fixed: Changing the number of rows or columns now updates
Many other bugs fixed.
17/02/15 [v0.7.1]:
Drag and drop, when configuring grids.
Added dark theme.
More material design.
The animation for launching apps may be choosen.
Alt-tab on lollipop works much better now.
Fixed some bugs in tablet mode and border detector.
Fixed other bugs and known issues from 0.7.
07/02/15 [v0.7]:
Brand new shiny settings!!
Search in app list.
Option to remove action bar in tablet mode
Tablet Mode should work after reboot, now.
Fix a bug that made the app crash when an app in a folder was uninstalled.
Known issues:
Ok and Cancel FABs may be too close in some roms.
Tablet mode in Landscape may get a bit out of the screen.
08/12/14 [v0.6.3]:
Added "back folder"
Going back last app no longer stays highlighted.
App would crash in android API lower than 16.
Tablet mode now is active after reboot.
Tablet mode would activate without being active.
All apps' names are aligned now.
Fixed crashes when changing a cell or a grid.
Minor changes and fixes.
Settings to configure grids have been redesigned. A glimpse of what is coming
Reduced ram usage (and removed shadows before lollipop)
20/11/14 [v0.6.2]:
Fixed shadow for kitkat.
Improved eficiency (when drawing cells)
Some animations added.
17/11/14 [v0.6.1]:
Huge code changes for the future and for optimality.
Title marquee when it doesn't fit, and hidden when too small.
No notification icon in statusbar (will add setting to opt in or out).
Shadows and improved look (prior to android L it may not look very well, yet).
Other minor bug fixes.
07/11/14 [v0.6]:
Fixed when the launcher didn't start on boot (in v0.5).
Fixed bug when creating a new table and adding an app with the launcher running.
Fixed: the list of apps sometimes wouldn't load some apps.
Speed improved.
Tablet Mode (allows the launcher to be smaller than fullscreen!)
Multiple folder icons to choose.
Relaunch when killed by system should work better.
New package name + signature + code structure == you'll have to set the app up again. I'm really sorry about this.
26/10/14 [v0.5.2]:
Showing better text and icon position in big or small App-cells.
New icon.
Folder cellView and CellView "behind" of folder (after it is opened) now get Highlight.
20/10/14 [v0.5.1]:
Ready for Lollipop.
20/10/14 [v0.5]:
This version is not ready for Lollipop yet.
Icons were sometimes drawn in bad quality. Now they are ok.
Updating the launcher and detector when changes in settings are performed.
Notification leads to settings instead of closing the launcher.
Fixed: crash on tables with less than 4 cells.
Fixed: alt-tab would crash when recents was empty.
Notification icon is smaller.
The cell of the last opened app no longer stays highlighted.
Other minor bug fixes...
13/10/14 [v0.4]:
This version is not ready for android L yet.
Cells efficiency should be better, but will improve it further.
Back stack should be fixed.
Back from folder should be fixed except when in a folder inside of another folder.
Updating the launcher when changes in the table settings are performed (was harder than I expected!) (soon).
Choosing folder icons (soon).
26/9/14 [v0.3]:
UI improvements.
Minor bug fixes.
10/9/14 [v0.2]:
fixed: Sometimes apps didn't open (when closed through back button).
Other minor bug fixes.
Known bugs:
Direct calling on some samsung devices doesn't work.
A shortcut to soundhound may not work?
screen shoots please ?
wts1 said:
screen shoots please ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
uploaded!
Great job
I'll keep an eye to see how it evolves. By now it looks promising.
It would be great to include the ability to add widgets as well.
Yes, it's planned. I will add the features I have planned so that you know them. But that's after bug fixing, when the app is open source. So it'll take a while yet. At least a month.
Awesome! (some feedback)
I've been looking for something like this for so long. I simply love shortcuts. I've been trying it for a day now and here is my feedback (and some suggestions):
- Settings don't apply inmediately. You have to turn off and close the app and then restart it for them to work. (It would be awesome to see real-time changes (i don't know how difficult that is), for example, for the vertical position of the border detection).
- The alt+tab function is simply genius, i use it more times than i expected. Keep that up.
- Rows and columns could be editable for each table. For example, i got a "Contacts table" (where a folder in my main page redirects to) where i'd like 6 contacts but i want 4x3 icons in my "Main table". So that would be a cool feature too.
- The permanent icon: I don't know it's purpose. If it's only to close the app, maybe an in-app long press button or something will do better and be less invasive for the drawer?
That's all for now, i will edit, if you want, with more feedback on the next days. :good:
theJackalope said:
I've been looking for something like this for so long. I simply love shortcuts. I've been trying it for a day now and here is my feedback (and some suggestions):
- Settings don't apply inmediately. You have to turn off and close the app and then restart it for them to work. (It would be awesome to see real-time changes (i don't know how difficult that is), for example, for the vertical position of the border detection).
- The alt+tab function is simply genius, i use it more times than i expected. Keep that up.
- Rows and columns could be editable for each table. For example, i got a "Contacts table" (where a folder in my main page redirects to) where i'd like 6 contacts but i want 4x3 icons in my "Main table". So that would be a cool feature too.
- The permanent icon: I don't know it's purpose. If it's only to close the app, maybe an in-app long press button or something will do better and be less invasive for the drawer?
That's all for now, i will edit, if you want, with more feedback on the next days. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much for your feedback. About settings, I know that and its in the bug list to be fixed.
Rows and columns editable for each table is also into consideration. Nevertheless I don't think it is intuitive because the cells would not be in the same position.
And if the permanent icon means the notification, it is because to ensure that the app is not killed by the system, it is required to have a permanent notification.
If you give me more feedback it will be highly appreciated
Here's some more
Here are two more things i noticed:
- The border detector sometimes gets graphically buggy and it shows a big rectangle where the thin line should be. I assume it's the detector losing its transparency. I have a Nexus 4 running cm11 M10 (maybe it's only my problem)
- And second, sometimes when you accidentally fast click the border, it opens youtube (in my case the top central shortcut) instead of the one that belongs to the very edge of my screen (which i have empty to prevent this cases in particular, though it seems not to work)
I leave a screenshot with my config also.
About the big rectangle in my phone it happens very very rarely. But I'll fix it as soon as I discover what causes it.
And about launching YouTube, I'll look into it. Nevertheless it shouldn't be necessary to leave that cell empty if you use the "distance to drag necessary..." preference. I know the name is not intuitive but it prevents the detector from opening the launcher when the drag is very short (taps).
Thanks!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
Nice work
Awesome app, I'd love to see it fully perfected!
Here's my feedback:
1. When the launcher is activated when in SwiftOpen Settings, the activity stack is all messed up, (especially if you go into creating a new table and opening the launcher while configuring it). While pressing back, the same activities come repeatedly and I have to press back a lot of times to exit the settings. Not a big issue, but a rough edge to be polished. I think it can be solved by providing a separate task stack for the launcher activity alone, by specifying a
Code:
android:taskAffinity
for the launcher activity in the manifest file.
2. Android limitation of launching an activity from a service only after at least 5 sec, is unfortunate. I was riddled with the same problem, however to overcome that, I replaced the activity and made the entire thing "draw over other apps". I am not sure whether it'll work properly in this case, but worth a try anyway.
I'll come back soon for the updates.
Edit: I guess point 2 is in place, since I don't see the delay anymore.
I noticed the stack issue and forgot to write it down, so haven't tried to fix it. I'll try as soon as possible. Thanks for the feedback!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
The "Distance of drag necessary..." works just perfectly fine!
I also noticed the stacking-back problem but i thought it was only me...
Keep up the awesome job!
Edit: Trying out the new v0.3 and noticed one thing, it's hard to explain so i'll try my best.
When you swipe away the apps from the "recent menu" (i dont know how to call it, it's the bottom right soft button on a Nexus4) and you leave it completely empty, using the Alt+tab function closes the app everytime.
It may be silly but that's a bug i think (although not very critical )
theJackalope said:
The "Distance of drag necessary..." works just perfectly fine!
I also noticed the stacking-back problem but i thought it was only me...
Keep up the awesome job!
Edit: Trying out the new v0.3 and noticed one thing, it's hard to explain so i'll try my best.
When you swipe away the apps from the "recent menu" (i dont know how to call it, it's the bottom right soft button on a Nexus4) and you leave it completely empty, using the Alt+tab function closes the app everytime.
It may be silly but that's a bug i think (although not very critical )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I hadn't noticed that. I'll try to fix it as soon as possible! It's not a typical scenario, though
Liking it very much so far. Looking forward to new updates!
Swift Open L cannot be installed if downloaded through tapatalk. The total size is 6bytes.
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
Just wanted to add that the name is already taken in the GOogle Play market => https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicunlock.rx24race&hl=en
Apart from that, awesome app but I really would like to see drag and drop re-arrangement options for setting up my tables its a bit of a pita to remove and re-add when setting thigns up :-/
ovizii said:
Just wanted to add that the name is already taken in the GOogle Play market => https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.epicunlock.rx24race&hl=en
Apart from that, awesome app but I really would like to see drag and drop re-arrangement options for setting up my tables its a bit of a pita to remove and re-add when setting thigns up :-/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for telling me about the name. When I looked for it it didn't appear (or I didn't see it). Nevertheless I'll put Swift open - Launcher or something like this, in the play store.
About drag and drop, it's in the long lost of to-dos but not a priority. First I have to fix some bugs. Thanks!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using XDA Free mobile app
Folder suggestion
Great App! Please consider allowing custom icon for each folder.
Android 7.0 Nougat is rolling out now, starting (as usual) with Nexus devices and eventually moving on to other phones. The new OS is loaded with new features and refinements, each one improving upon the overall Android experience. Some changes, such as bundled notifications, are quite obvious. Then there are the less visible changes, such as a new multitasking shortcut. Follow along as we take a look at what’s new in Google’s latest mobile OS.
Daydreams become screen savers
With Google repurposing Daydream as the namesake for its VR platform, a new name was needed for the previous Daydream feature. That new name is Screen Saver, which makes so much more sense than Daydream did in its previous incarnation. Android screen savers still work in the same fashion as they always have.
Quicker multi-tasking
You can now double-tap the recent apps button to quickly switch between your two most recently used apps. For example, say you’re in Gmail but need to look something up in Chrome to include in an email. You can open Chrome, find and copy a link, then double-tap the recent apps button and your device will switch back to Gmail.
Use two apps at same time
Samsung users have long had access to using apps in a split-screen mode. With Nougat, Google is officially adding support for multi-window support to all Android devices running Android 7.0. To activate multi-window mode, long-press on the recent apps button. Whichever app you’re currently using will go to the top of the screen (on a phone, or to the left on a tablet), with a list of recent apps shown along the bottom. Select the second app you want to use from the list. Drag the divider to resize the app windows, or to maximize either of the active apps.
View two Chrome tabs
It took Apple an entire year to introduce split-screen tab viewing in Safari for iPad users, but Google did it at the same time it introduced multi-window to Android. When using Chrome in multi-window mode, tap on the Menu button and select they super handy option of “Move to other window.” It’s fully acceptable to point and laugh at iOS users if you feel the need.
Drag and drop text, images when in multi-window mode
When using two apps at the same time, you can drag-and-drop text between the two windows. Highlight the text, then long-press on it until the text begins to float. Drag it to a text field in another window, and let go. The same goes for sharing images between two apps, assuming they’ve been updated for the latest of Google’s wares. Magical, right?
Finally, the lock screen gets a wallpaper of its own
It only took way too many years, but the day has finally come: You can now set a wallpaper specific to your home screen, and a different one for your lock screen. The process to accomplish the once unthinkable feat hasn’t changed much—after selecting an image to set as a wallpaper, you’re shown a new prompt to select where the image will live.
Clear all recent apps
Google added a Clear All button to the recent apps list, only it’s a bit hidden. Instead of placing it at the bottom of your screen when viewing your recent apps, you need to scroll to the top of the list where you’ll find the handy Clear All text. Tap on it, and all apps are closed out. When you’ve closed all your recent apps, a new icon is displayed letting you know there are no recent items.
Where did that APK come from?
Android Nougat will now keep track of where an app was installed from. Open Settings then Apps and tap on any listed application. Scroll to the bottom of the page, where you’ll see the source of the app’s installation. For example, if it was installed from the Play Store it will say as much. If it’s something you side loaded, it will state something along the lines of “Installed from Package Installer.”
New installer animation
Speaking of installing applications outside of the Play Store, you’ll find a fancy new installer animation when sideloading an APK. It’s a subtle change that won’t have a dramatic impact on your day-to-day use, but it’s not a bad looking change either. Who doesn’t like seeing the Android bot whenever possible?
Bundled notifications
Have you ever posted something on Facebook, only to have your notification tray blown up with alerts of likes and comments? Me neither, but for those who have you’re going to love bundled notifications. Once an app updates for Android Nougat, it can opt to have all of its notifications bundled into one alert. Slide down on the respective notification to reveal the rest of your alerts for that particular app.
Reply with speed
You can now reply to messages from apps like Facebook Messenger, Hangouts, or Messenger directly from the notification. Of course, this means you can hold a conversation without having to bounce between a messaging app and another app. It’s important to note, this isn’t limited to messaging apps. Twitter apps, for example, could add the ability to reply to mentions
Notification importance setting
You can now set the importance level of an app’s notifications to fit your specific use of that app, including allowing an app to ignore your DND settings. With a long-press on a notification, you can view the current importance level. Tap on More Settings where you can turn off the default automatic setting, and adjust its interruption level. As you move the slider, a brief explanation will detail each alert type.
Data saver
Tired of paying for data overages? When using an Android Nougat device, you can enable Data Saver to restrict specific apps from using data in the background. Under the Data Usage menu, open Data Saver and turn it on. You can then go through a list of apps installed on your device, and enable background data for each one you want. Otherwise, apps will only gain access to a cellular data connection when you’re actively using it.
Quicker quick settings
When swiping from the top of the screen with one finger, you will see a row of quick setting shortcuts just above any pending notifications. Tap on an icon to enable or disable features such as Wi-Fi, open Battery settings, or turn on the Flashlight. It displays the first 5 items in your quick settings, so if you reorder those, you'll change what appears here.
Tiles are so in right now
You can now add multiple Quick Setting options to your device by viewing your Quick Settings panel and tapping Edit. You can still tap on tiles to edit a setting or interact with it. Alternatively, you can still long-press on a tile to disable or enable a feature if applicable. Third-party developers now create apps that live only within a Quick Settings tile.
Easier Settings app navigation
When navigating through the Settings app, now you can quickly hop between various sections using the hamburger menu on the left side of your screen (or by dragging in from the left edge). Settings are broken down into the same categories as the main list, but using the slide-out menu eliminates the need to tap the back button, scroll, then select another setting category.
Suggested settings
When you open the Settings app your device will offer some recommendations for various settings and features you should set up. For example, upon initial setup Settings recommended I set up Screen lock, add en email account, set up “OK Google” commands, and change the wallpaper. Tapping on a suggestion will open the proper settings pane or app. Alternatively, you can tap on the overflow menu to hide an item from the list.
New Emojis
Android Nougat includes the latest and greatest Emoji approved by the powers that be, including bacon! Beyond the latest and greatest emoji baked right in to Android, you’ll also notice Google has reworked most of the emoji included on its mobile devices. Smiley faces now have a more human look and feel to them.
Cancel button for app downloads
Ever start to update or download apps from the Play Store, only to remember you’re on a cellular connection or your battery is about to die? You can now cancel downloads directly from the download notification, instead of having to tap through each item in the Play Store. Slide down the notification, tap cancel and your data bucket is safe.
Keyboard shortcut helper
Using a physical keyboard with a tablet like the Pixel C adds a level of convenience and mobile computing appeal to the tablet. However, learning and remembering each apps’ keyboard shortcuts can be a chore. With Nougat, you can press Search + / to view a list of shortcuts for the app you’re currently using.
Thanks for reading #Nougat
Thread closed.
The Flash
Forum Moderator