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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 ??
Hello All,
I will try to maintain this thread with Feature requests from users.
This is a big as list right here peeps and XpLoDWilD has been taking time to read all the requests and answer them in the document on google docs linked below. Please go through that document before requesting to see if it has already been answered.
XpLoDWilD said:
There, 'official' answers, open for discussion of course:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...hWbkdiMjNfT1N1V01XNUpiT2c&usp=drive_web#gid=0
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Added after XpLoDWilD answers above:-
T9 dialer
Sim Toolkit
Maybe multi window could have an option in the settings menu so we could have the top and bottom app like usual, but be able to have one app extra behind the top and bottom apps and be able to swipe to flip back and forth between apps, thus having 4 apps available on multiwindow?
Music for alarm
I would love to have a support for Note 3 Like ScreenShot wherein you will select the Part of the Screen to be Freezed and Save in to Gallery!
An Object Eraser where you can Remove unwanted things from your Pics like in Micromax Canvas Turbo
On my HTC One the recent apps list is a square list of windows. It would be really cool if we could utilize more of this big screen to display the apps rather than having a horizontal list to scroll through. Imagine if the recent list was displayed in app drawer style. It would very cool and more convenient if you ask me
System Wide Dictionary - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46810572&postcount=234
Multi Window features
Launching applications in 'window mode' from the recents menu (instead of long pressing then hitting add to split view)
Swipe left/right to get rid of the application
Swipe up on an application to put it into the top window
Swipe down on an application to put it into the bottom window
I have been playing with the idea of ungoogle my data (calendar and contacts). I have installed owncloud on my ubuntu server. It would be nice to have a native CalDav and CardDav provider included in Omni so you can sync with alternative sources.
is there any way to do ring alarm while phone is power off?
Maximised lockscreen widgets option
Hide initial page hints on lockscreen
Built-in cryptographic protocols that any app can use to securely transmit encrypted emails/chat/texts. (Cyanogenmod's PushSMS feature)
Features to protect from Google, Facebook and NSA spying.
Support for IP obsfuscating technology like Tor.
Support for the Dark Mail email protocol and support for Mailpile.
Support for Freedombox and related technologies.
Answered by @XpLoDWilD -
Extend Active Display to display time when screen is off and no notifications when hand is waved over proximity sensor, can work as a power button saver as well.
We all know that custom rom flashing is addictive, can we have inbuilt support for backing user app and data as a recovery flashable zip file? either in Android or in recovery?
CYAN 624
Full emoji support
It would be great if false would be changed to true in <bool name="quick_settings_show_rotation_lock">false</bool> in res/values/bools.xml in SystemUI.apk to enable the rotation lock button in the status bar.
Custom led pattern for contacts, as to see who texted or called you. Really use full for devices like the 2013 nexus 7 that does not support multi color led.
Ability to open new notifications from lock screen.
Invisible gesture unlock. I mean, without any dots or anything that signifies that a pass code is to be entered.
Snooze alarm with voice command.
Completely wipe device, with media, if pass code is incorrecly entered enough times.
Ability to share app data with restricted profiles.
Quick access to other users without having to lock and open device again.
Maybe a notification app like on LG, when gaming it just pops up when call comes in and doesnt disrupt the game, if you choose you van pick it up or not.
Or you can ignore it, change mind and ingame swipe notification down to pick up anyway, ingame.
What about something like IOS banners that when a call comes in while you're busy a banner at the top underneath the status bar comes up. Swipe to answer. Click to dismiss. Etc.
From what i know, the kernel has to be customised for every Device, because they all have different Hardware. I dont know how depending these customisations are on each other, or how deep they are coded into the source. But if that would be possible, i would think a developer repository of kernel optimisations for already known hardware would be great, so developing a built for a new device, with partly known hardware, could be much shorter.
Ability to mount Network shares into the device as an external sd-card so that apps directly can access them
how about native reverse tethering? The more aps mess with the connection,like vpn proxy firewall,the less likely it works flawless
Halo
Pie
Floating Window - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=40906936&postcount=2
full animation control as well as scrolling animations
ability to have carrier shown in statusbar with the ability to have a custom carrier like in Mokee OS
full control of the launcher, or perhaps even integrated launchers that are changeable
enable and disable the navigation bar like in Slimbean and customize its colours and so forth
reduce zip file size (something similar to slimbean)
ability to move status bar to bottom of phone screen, will be helpful as screen size increases and status bar at top can be a pain sometimes when looking for notifications.
white UI
transparent keyboard
Custom statusbar colors to match app...make it intelligent enough to figure out current app values and just emulate them - extend beyond current availablilty and allow custom colors on a per-icon/clock basis.
MIUI-style theme engine, where you can fine tune elements on a per-app basis, mix-n-match, etc. Would be great if it supported current MIUI/CM themes, but with this expanded functionality. And with MIUI, you can theme anything you know the package name of and can get the resources from.
With PIE - the ability to adjust the width of the trigger area, so if, say, it's at the bottom of the screen, it's only triggered by the middle of the screen, versus taking up the entire bottom.
Native CIFS
Quiet hours
on devices with soft keys (like the ones in s3) there should be an option that would make the keys light up with the notification led.
on devices with virtual keys (Nexus devices for example) swiping from either the left or the right edge of them to the opposite edge would allow to make a cool switch between open apps and swiping up would open recents with cool animation (and the same animation would be shown when the recents key is pushed too) (just like in Chrome Beta (video) that allows to switch between tabs)
a security feature that would allow you to protect an app by showing the "com.example.example crashed" notification and making a secret gesture would open the app (like this)
possibility to copy text from anywhere like from apps like settings or Google+
How about more native google feature support? Like...the stock music player incorporates a google music library, file explorer ties to drive, gallery could use google pictures, messaging/dialer natively support voice? That would be badas$. And chromecast support if Google ever allows it.
I would like to see the hybrid engine of pa on this rom too. Or at least something like it. On big screens like on the find 5 you get better looks on some apps with an lowered dpi!
swipe left and right between open apps
window switcher like on lg g2 rom.
Easy maximizing positioning of windows
multidpi support
How about taking a page from carbon, and making it so when you're on the lockscreen and you hold down the nav ring (where the home button is normally) it turns the torch on.
small but a feature i love is screen shot trash ...when u take a screen shot and it pops up in the notification bar roms like carbon have a trash button near the share button
something ive always like but no rom have it and id had to use 3rd party apps is the battery icon horizontaly like i0s 7 with text next to it every body have circle battery and vertical bout time we have horizontal.
brightness slider.drag your finger accross the notification bar to change brightness.
background transparency in app drawer And scrollable dock icons
Voice plus from CyanogenMod. Very useful for Google voice users
How about per app color for the notification/quick toggles? Always bothered me
Also how about making the display turn more orange when it's late/dark.
Warm colors are easier on the eye in such conditions.That would be a natural development of the auto brightness - kernel so no
Backup of app data to a cloud service. Google may save your settings and re-download your apps, but it does not save your app data. - There are 3rd party apps to do that and omni will never entertain it as it can be used to steal personal data
I really would like to see that in apps like the dialer, the messaging and the people app(contacts) the user would have an opaque or blurry view of the home screen wall paper. Transparency is cool, but bluriness is better.
And it would be nice if the notification panel worked like ubunto os notification. You know, how you can slide between notification pages while scrolling it down.
And the last thing, if you could hide the permanent icons (something like the keyboard's icon or the gmd icon) from notification panel (like in MIUI).
An idea I had was to work on a "directional notification swipe"...example: you have a message....if you swipe right open message apk ready for reply...if you swipe left you just delete notification...same for recalls, maybe for facebook notifications...I don't know if is possible, but it's an idea
Ok, my feature request is simple. Just make how we can interact with our device as efficient and ergonomic as possible. Ability to operate phone by one hand etc. Probably will have different UI for tablet and phone, optimize for each device. Customize nav bar and ring targets (just swiping) are among examples,
one feature that i would like to see is the ability to completely disable the hardware key. MIUI have a feature to do this from the notification panel, but it's not permanent and resets on every boot.
http://opendesign.bbqdroid.org/ port forward the features developed here, and work on the feature requests lying pending there, most of the developers who started opendesign are on omniROM too
camera with smart capture mode like in carbon, slim and liquidsmooth
https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/CYAN-1122
https://jira.cyanogenmod.org/browse/CYAN-1301
AirPlay
LMT like Nav-Bar (Not PIE2, more simple, and animated)
And PLEASE respect the color calibration on the N4, if anyone wants to change it, they can do it manually. Some of us actually like the Google pressets.
can you try to enable the voice call "GSM call " ? on nexus tablet specially 2013 .would be awesome if its happen and imagine how many nexus users will install this Rom
turn phone's screen on desktop to mute any sound
gamepad mode (screenoff but touch sensitive) when HDMI OUT
tablet mode on large screen
Japanese/Chinese switching system font option (avoid bad character display)
tap on right/left of device to previous/next music player
build in firewall with simple rule per application (allow/ask/block radio button maybe?)
password on selected applications startup
hidding mode on app drawer, on picture gallerie
multi-users/profiles - being Worked on
It would be nice to have some features that Samsung's touchwiz has... For instance "movements". That is, the hability to use the devices sensor to do some stuff like "flip to mute". Some preset gama settings, a battery saving mode and built-in contact white and blacklist.
I know this is possible with some apps like tasker, but wouldn't be nice for the less tech guys?
It would also be very nice if it would be possible to have a tool for choose the roms features. What is essential and what is optional.
It would be really nice to see you guys implement media control with the volume buttons when the device is locked!
swipe to delete in text message & email apps
ability to save apps on 'external' SD card - Android guys have stopped this for a reason so am guessing a no
Would love to be able to play songs like a pendrive E.g. radio usb ports.. and be able to know what's the charging current of the phone (maybe a dynamic icon for the battery at the quick setting panel. AntTek Explorer as basic explorer!!! http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2408136
)Swipe to change b/w toggles and panel
Anything like those ubuntu status bar(wher u can swipe over icons to gain info)
A lot of guestures for accessing some features(surprise me over here )
Expandable and expanded volume adjustment window, as in CM.
Volume keys to move cursor r/l, l/r as in CM.
Camera Tile.
Hide status bar/status bar delete (for hidden status bar, there should be an option to disable 'swipe to peek' when in a fullscreen app).
All in one widget with weather,battery,clock,date,alarms set...etc.
Optional Programmed gestures to open (ribbons,app drawer,notifications,camera). Gestures are preferred to prevent accidental opening.
Swipe through open applications with multiple finger gesture.
Button control (allow more/custom actions to be programmed for long presses).
Help : There should be a searchable help because this seems like it will be loaded with features and sometimes you cant find a particular feature you want to edit. This help should be able to easily find the feature as well as a description of what it does.
I think you guys could likely optimize "Profiles" considerably with the addition of the geofence api, perhaps UI and a genetral ease of use overhaul.
A automated data migration (apps, sms etc) within the installer would be awesome
Combined Navbar with customizable buttons, and the popups for notification to display above the navbar instead of on top of it, so you can open the notification tray without having to wait 3 seconds for it to fade.
guest mode lockscreen - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46471023&postcount=78
Fully customizable nav bar like in aokp 7 soft buttons with long press features and icon customizability
Proximity sensor on during a phone call with Bluetooth hands free device connected. This way when the phone is in the pocket, no buttons get pressed accidentally during a call. I don't understand why this feature isn't on by default.
3D Mode - A mode that can be activated and that turns the whole UI (Launcher, Apps, Games,..) to Anaglyph 3D. That could be so cool if it could be done!
On lockscreen have different logins, kind of like how Windows has it, you just tap an icon and put in your password for a different user. They get their own partition with their own apps and data (have like 3 different /data partitions, might be hell to back up in TWRP).
Also have something like PGM on the Nexus 4 and GN built into the kernel and enabled as an option in the device settings.
This may or may not have been in the OP (I didn't see it) but have something like LightFlow LED built into the kernel and ROM for awesome multi-color LED notifications and settings, especially for us Nexus users. But more options like blink speed in ms and multiple color combinations like blue then green then red for Mom, red then blue then orange for Bill etc.
One feature I have always wanted is the ability to have the slide unlock lead to a password or face unlock. It really doesn't seem fair that people should have to sacrifice security to be able to use the lockscreen shortcuts, or the battery indicator on this rom. - already planned
Fixed Volume bugs on the SPHD710 Epic4GTouch. CM Has a speakerphone bug that sounds very low and the micrphone records extremely low that it's pretty much non existent. Ability to wake the phone by saying "Omni on" or how the new Motorola phone listens to voice commands that can control music apps and wake phone from sleep.
Native multitouch gestures and the ability to define the actions; would be a great addition and something that android tablets are lacking behind in.
Theming engine
Groupsms
change the background of the settings app
Blackberry Lockscreen
Apt-X support
- I don't know if the Pv6 privacy extension is standard activated in the newest Android versions but for OmniROM it should be always on or confugurable over the settings.
PIE with a working hardware search key.( What I'm trying to tell is, having a search button in PIE that emulate hardware search buttons like in those old Android phones, not just to open Google Now like the PA or CM PIE but more like LMT or Slim PIE. (Sorry for the inconvenience, English is not my native language. ))
It would be great to have a call notification like the Galaxy Note III. Like this : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46514971&postcount=130
Quick Cover support.
SuperUser included
custom height navigation bar (for me is best 32dp and the action area is larger)
only text battery indicator
battery level in lane above of screen
before time in status bar: "day of week" (localized)
option to change "device name" (super for monitoring connected device to AP)
possibility to change layout square in status bar
ofcourse high performance (eg. on Nexus 4 in AnTuTu over 21k points)
resize nav bar
Please add QuickPeek notification bar while playing games.
Seriously about the only thing I want is either on first boot holo light ui or a button to change to light holo. Almost every rom has a button to change to dark holo but not the inverse and its irritating.
As a side feature gesture unlock is cool
Extended quick settings buttons - For example, I use an overlay to show my up- and download rate. But sometimes it's annoying so I would like to be able to turn it on and off easily like my WiFi or my GPS. The app just has to support it. That's it
Random Colors for Quick settings Tiles
How about quick statusbar preview when in full screen apps like on Samsung roms, when you swipe down from top ?
Multi window :
You gotta figure out some way to add apps to multi window without interruption of current process , something like Samsung side bar ?
ATM you have to stop current app by long home press to be able to add new window , so if I was watching some online video I'd have t play it all over again ..
What I wanna say is we need some way to create windowed apps without interrupting ongoing one/ long home press , because this way it's just ugly.
swipe down hide - swipe up show ( feature of GMD )
scrollable nav bar (like notification widgets, you can also put apps/shortcuts/and toggles, and with no scroll bars )( MY IDEA: dunno if someone have already made it )
Dual Layer ( i hope u guys get the point :> )
optional home button auto-hide ( feature of GMD )
customizable upto animations
something i have not seen sense my fascinate on aokp. adjustable auto-brightness variables
a mhl interface where you can send the output of a selected app to mhl, but then use the phone for other things.. so in car. send navigation to dvd player screen. and when i take a call the navigation continues on the second screen.
when at home. you could mhl a movie to your tv, while using your phone for other things. is this possible?
Icon packs being able to be applied to stock launcher with out having to install a 3rd party app/launcher would be great
A built in "Mass Memory Mode" for sdcard would be handy.
Recent Apps custom Background and Alpha menu option.
Ability to change Wifi/signal Icon colors.
Could you implement iPhone like notifications for full screen apps? Or a way to pull down the status bar in full screen apps (like most Touchwiz phones)?
I wish there was a way to install wanted features through aroma installer, like brightness slider is something I don't use so I wouldn't choose to install the code or dark or light ui switch, some might choose to install dark, I would install the light holo switch
A shortcut in power menu to a dashboard where i can find all my rom controls - go to settings and voila! [don't be lazy ]
Answered
Active Display - Done
Double Tap to Wake - device dependent
build-in titanium-like integrated backup application - no as it can be used to steal private info by hackers
build-in tasker-like scheduler-trigger application - - 3rd party apps exist so no
side edge loader similar to "Unity Launcher" app - 3rd party apps exist so no
Volume Wake - already added to gerrit http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46435278&postcount=11
Xposed framework baked in - Please use xposed app
Air gestures/wave2wake? - Please use 3rd party apps
A better dial-er than CM . Something having features like MIUI and similarly for a messaging app if possible. - - well find us a open source one and we will try also there are 3rd party apps
USB OTG - device specific, kernel so no
implementation of the proposed fm api as in - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=46296583 - being worked on
native built-in pdroid to allow faking privacy related info - - will create problems with faking info
ability to sync and view Picasa/Google+ galleries in the Gallery app. - - not open source by google AFAIK
- An advanced rights management system and integrated firewall like in MIUI where you can allow/forbid every right (root, wifi, 3g, contacts etc) for each app individually. - AppOps
ADB over wifi - is on gerrit http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46435486&postcount=13
Facebook contact integration, HD contact pictures. - can use 3rd party apps
It would be great to have some common kernel features for all builds. Like governors, i/o schedulers, tcp congestion control algorithms, zram, ksm, specific filesystems support. Controlling them should be integrated into performance settings, with advanced fine tuning options as well.
Other board-specific features (DT2W, S2W, fast charge, Wi-Fi power mode toggle, vibration intensity, gamma control, adaptive backlight, in-kernel auto brightness, BLN, etc.) should also have standard sysfs paths, this way the available features can be controlled in performance settings (or other places in the settings app) and those not included will simply be hidden. - kernel so no
Custom autobrightness - already on gerrit
LED color Settings - already on gerrit
sweep to wake - kernel so no
much more attracting looking gallery app! - please find one which is open source
boot screen changer (the picture that comes up first when turning your phone on) like this - this will be hard to do because every device has different partition details
Oh, and a few people have mentioned keyboard mods...I'd like a keyboard that will let me swipe my email address without having to save it first, and gives me the option to swipe passwords. I used to be able to do it in early versions of swype beta, but it's since been removed. - these options can be used to trick and steal your personal info so no
please impliment viper4android audio mod - you can always install from 3rd party. So am guessing a no
Add an option to the settings app to change the wifi region code. - http://review.cyanogenmod.org/#/c/28486/ - added to gerrit
use source code designed for the specific device (as trouble JSS vs. JWR with Andorid 4.3 on Nexus4)
kernel support for Touch Control (this I found on first page, but it's so important, that I must it leave here) - - kernel so no
or support for Franco kernels (Franco have support for Touch Control) - u can flash it
support for some "call recorder" apps (eg. Call Recorder - is the best) - 3rd party app exist
xlythe (Will Harmon)'s calculator app AKA the calculator that comes with CM - https://github.com/Xlythe/android_packages_apps_Calculator/ - - aosp calc is already in
Would it be too much trouble to implement colored terminal output like in CM, PA etc? - will come down the line, low priority as of now
palm rejection (incoming call) - 3rd party apps exist so no
wave to hang (incoming call) - 3rd party apps exist so no
stylus support (ex: samsung's stylus button) - on gerrit
File Manager would be great - will come down the line, low priority as of now
Would love to see differential zip rom upgrades like it's done with CyanDelta Updater. (you download only 10 megs of delta to update your rom zip instead than the usual 100-200) - already planned
long press back button to kill apps - dev options
OTA updates would also be nice. - will be done in the future
messaging app with alot of features - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46478642&postcount=90 - - 3rd party apps exist so no and if you need it badly find us a AOSP one
request a setting I had on PacMan. When you press Vol up or down the volume bar comes up on screen, but on the right side of it there is an expandable settings button. When you click it, it shows all individual volume types, and their corresponding current levels. That way it's super easy to change individual volumes. Alarm, notification, music, ring tones are all individual volume settings - on the list
I suppose this won't even make a list but, if possible, and if they're going to create some new music player, could I drop in a request for Opus support? It's an "official" audio standard now, and I suspect that support will grow over time - it's freakin' awesome for low bitrate audio and the only players that seem to support it yet are GoneMAD (which I can't tolerate) and Neutron (which to me is hideous).
Would love to see a bare metal audio player that has the basics: good format support, cover art support (embedded as well as included in folders), and that's about it. I think support for Opus was in the works for Apollo, could still be at this time I have no idea but I wouldn't mind having it in something besides the aforementioned players.
If you're gonna do a full blown open source OS, might as well have a media player that covers the open source audio format(s) fully as well or as much as possible. - XpLoDWilD is looking into it
Net speed indicator like in the latest Carbon - added to gerrit here & here
I am in no way related to OmniROM. Just created a thread to maintain a list.
Thanks
Munchy
Something like Floating window (not the multi window)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=40906936&postcount=2
Needs to have everything it can (I hope) but things that are kinda only in a few roms that you don't see a lot, for example, i'd like to see full animation control as well as scrolling animations, Net speed indicator like in the latest Carbon, and the ability to have carrier shown in statusbar with the ability to have a custom carrier like in Mokee OS?
I'd like to see full control of the launcher, or perhaps even integrated launchers that are changeable. The AOSP launcher is just fine, but I like the complete control I get with Nova.
munchy_cool said:
Below are the features I request.
Halo
Pie
Active Display
Double Tap to Wake
Volume Wake
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please be more creative
Sent from my Find 5 using xda app-developers app
maxwen said:
Please be more creative
Sent from my Find 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ability to move status bar to bottom of phone screen, will be helpful as screen size increases and status bar at top can be a pain sometimes when looking for notifications.
white UI
Something ive always wanted from android, but never found the right solution, Is a transparent keyboard.
Honestly one thing people haven't really mentioned is a framework like Xposed to be baked directly into the rom. Talk about customization and such.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk
maxwen said:
Please be more creative
Sent from my Find 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW
I have already added volume wake to gerrit. Will be merged soon.
Regarding DT2W
This is actually very dependent on the device and needs kernel support. I have added this together with S2W for the Oppo find5. For other devices this needs more investigation if it is possible to implement
Sent from my Find 5 using xda app-developers app
Here's a couple:
Custom statusbar colors to match app...make it intelligent enough to figure out current app values and just emulate them - extend beyond current availablilty and allow custom colors on a per-icon/clock basis.
MIUI-style theme engine, where you can fine tune elements on a per-app basis, mix-n-match, etc. Would be great if it supported current MIUI/CM themes, but with this expanded functionality. And with MIUI, you can theme anything you know the package name of and can get the resources from.
Air gestures/wave2wake?
With PIE - the ability to adjust the width of the trigger area, so if, say, it's at the bottom of the screen, it's only triggered by the middle of the screen, versus taking up the entire bottom.
Native CIFS and USB OTG.
ADB over wifi?
Facebook contact integration, HD contact pictures.
Mind you, I'm just rattling off a wishlist. Sounds very exciting so far. Can't wait to see the new phasebeam.
Edit: Also thought yesterday...wouldn't it be cool to get some kind of live wallpaper that did almost like a zoe (HTC One) or animated .gif as a live wallpaper? Not a full persistent video...but more of like those pictures in harry potter.
Adb over WiFi is on gerrit
USB otg is another very device specific feature. For devices that supports is on the HW side no problem. For the others USB host support can be added if possible to the kernel
Sent from my Find 5 using xda app-developers app
maxwen said:
Adb over WiFi is on gerrit
USB otg is another very device specific feature. For devices that supports is on the HW side no problem. For the others USB host support can be added if possible to the kernel
Sent from my Find 5 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm aware that some of these are kernel/device specific. But it would be kinda cool to have them baked in off the bat when possible, versus having to hunt down and install a secondary kernel that may or may not work 100% with the ROM. I always prefer to use the official kernel when I can.
It would be great to have some common kernel features for all builds. Like governors, i/o schedulers, tcp congestion control algorithms, zram, ksm, specific filesystems support. Controlling them should be integrated into performance settings, with advanced fine tuning options as well.
Other board-specific features (DT2W, S2W, fast charge, Wi-Fi power mode toggle, vibration intensity, gamma control, adaptive backlight, in-kernel auto brightness, BLN, etc.) should also have standard sysfs paths, this way the available features can be controlled in performance settings (or other places in the settings app) and those not included will simply be hidden.
Here are my feature requests:
- Pure AOSP look
- Improvements of performance & battery efficiency (maybe omni rom should build their own kernel to make this actually happen)
- Open source drivers for phones with only useless proprietary ones
I would actually prefer performance and battery life than battery consuming software features namely halo
My requests so far (don't know if already in):
- Quiet hours
- Custom autobrightness
- LED color Settings
- retain AOSP (kernel) compatibility (Nexus devices)
Btw. on one of the screenshots I saw of Omni where the MultiWindow feature was shown it was quite hard to see where one app starts and another ends, maybe it would be beneficial to add a small separation line?
Adam77Root said:
It would be great to have some common kernel features for all builds. Like governors, i/o schedulers, tcp congestion control algorithms, zram, ksm, specific filesystems support. Controlling them should be integrated into performance settings, with advanced fine tuning options as well.
Other board-specific features (DT2W, S2W, fast charge, Wi-Fi power mode toggle, vibration intensity, gamma control, adaptive backlight, in-kernel auto brightness, BLN, etc.) should also have standard sysfs paths, this way the available features can be controlled in performance settings (or other places in the settings app) and those not included will simply be hidden.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My thoughts exactly. Maybe even give it it's own performance app that is an AIO stop for overclocking/undervolting/governor/scheduler/etc. tuning. Instead of having a mildly limited "performance" area in settings or having to do things via a 3rd party app that has support for whichever kernel's features we want to use...one unified kernel/tuning app for any device. It already sounds like the ROM is going to be very performance-oriented...this could even potentially be like a centerpiece for all the tuning features. :good:
digitalhigh said:
My thoughts exactly. Maybe even give it it's own performance app that is an AIO stop for overclocking/undervolting/governor/scheduler/etc. tuning. Instead of having a mildly limited "performance" area in settings or having to do things via a 3rd party app that has support for whichever kernel's features we want to use...one unified kernel/tuning app for any device. It already sounds like the ROM is going to be very performance-oriented...this could even potentially be like a centerpiece for all the tuning features. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Undervolting is present in the performance control app already, flashed another kernel to test and logs show it's available, but the app crashes somewhere else. Will have to investigate that as soon as I resync repos with GitHub ones (I only have Gerrit repos synced now. ).
sweep2wake <3 ,power buttons usually get spoilt! this would be an killer feature
Testraindrop said:
- Custom autobrightness
- LED color Settings
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LED color settings is already merged
custom autobrightness is on gerrit and should be merged soon
The interfaces for both of these apps
are going to be very similar: just a list
of things you can tweak. The real
differences are going to come in what
exactly you can tweak.
The organization on both is pretty
standard, and once you get it all setup,
you likely won’t need to go back into
the app for much. Interface really isn’t
a deciding factor here, but at least you
know what you’ll be working with.
So What Can They Customize?
Short answer: nearly everything. These
modules are both fantastic solutions for
customizing your Android device
without flashing a custom ROM.
Your best bet once you download one is
just to run through every section and
see what you can change — you’ll likely
run into a customization you didn’t
even know existed, but soon will wonder
how you ever lived without it.
Above you can see the options for
customizing the status bar in both
apps. You get mostly the same types of
things with a couple of noticeable
differences. For one, XBlast has
gestures available for the status bar.
GravityBox, while it supports a double
tap on the status bar to turn off the
screen, doesn’t support other gesturing
like swiping left or right or long-
pressing.
However, GravityBox has Notification
Heads Up, a feature that gained hype
recently with the announcement of
Android L and the new pop up
notifications. If either of those tickle
your fancy, you may want to pick one
over the other.
Moving onto the lockscreen is where
XBlast really shines. GravityBox has its
fair share of lockscreen tweaks for sure,
but XBlast outdoes it with the ability to
change the unlock icon, the color
around it, the size, and many other
parts of the lockscreen like showing
notifications on it. XBlast pretty easily
takes the cake here.
Each app has so many of its own
customizations that it would takes
pages and pages to elaborate on all of
them. If you’re curious about the
smallest of the tweaks available in
each, like XBlast’s ability to customize
your build.prop or GravityBox’s ability
to tweak the Google Experience
Launcher, download each of them
individually and give them a shot.
However, don’t have both activated at
once or you’ll run into some wonkiness.
Multitasking Tweaks
Both of these apps take a slightly
different route for multitasking. There
are other ways of getting multitasking
on your device , but having it baked into
the module is super convenient.
XBlast takes this approach in three
different ways: a Circle App Launcher,
an Appbar, and Gesture Anywhere.
Circle App Launcher displays a cool
ring-like effects along one of the sides
of the screen that you can scroll
through to access other apps. Appbar
simply makes a list of apps appear on
the side of the screen. Both are
controlled by a swipe in from the
outside of the screen, and they make
for super simple multitasking.
They’re very customizable, from the
transparency to the size of the
activation area, and they work
surprisingly well. Circle App Launcher
can be seen below on the left, and
Appbar on the right.
For this kind of multitasking, XBlast is
your module.
GravityBox, on the other hand, has its
own kind of special feature: Pie
Controls. Pie Controls are useful if you
want to hide the onscreen navigation
keys and only access them from a
swipe up from the bottom (or in from
the side if you prefer). It comes from
the famous PAC ROM , and it has made
a name for itself as a staple of the
rooting and tweaking community.
You can customize the heck out of the
Pie Controls in GravityBox’s settings,
and it’s a fantastic way to save screen
real estate if your device has onscreen
keys. Plus, with the multitasking button,
you can reach Android’s built-in
multitasking super quickly anyway.
Above, you can see the Pie Controls in
action. On the left is what happens
when you swipe up quickly — releasing
from the swipe will press the button
your finger is on when you lift up,
making it pretty dang fast. However, if
you hold it and wait without lifting, it
greys out the background and gives you
some system info, especially helpful if
you like to live in fullscreen mode
without a notification bar.
If you like XBlast but still want Pie
Controls, check out another Xposed
module called Ultimate Dynamic
Navbar, which we’ve reviewed . It can
help complete your customization
experience.
Who Is The Winner?
You tell us. Let us know in the
comments which Xposed module you’re
using and why.
As for me, I would have to recommend
XBlast. It’s available on a wider range
of devices (Android 4.0+) and it has
significantly more customizations like
lockscreen notifications, quiet hours,
multitasking, and build.prop mods. Still,
I love GravityBox and have used it for a
while on my own device. Try both out
and see which you like best.
Is this a poem?