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[Q] A few questions

Hi all
I have removed the xposed framework and gravity box from my Nexus 5 as I have switched to the ART runtime as I was fed up with poor battery life.
A few key features I am really missing.
Status bar brightness change (like CM)
Advanced volume control where when you push the hardware volume keys you get the media slider too
Volume key hold down to skip track with display off
Quick settings from dragging on right side of status bar (not silly two finger Kk style)
Battery percentage number always displayed
Resizing the horrendsly massive navigation bar which takes all screen space up
There were more things but those were the main...
My Nexus 5 is rooted and unlocked. I don't mind if I have to use adb to do some of the above or flash etc. I'd like to stick to the standard ROM. I'd also not like to install a million third party apps which also require resources and permissions...
Any suggestions? Does Android L improve on the above?
Thanks very much
Laurence

These are custom features. Xposed was the easiest way to get them. Finding a custom ROM is the other way.

Either Xposed or a Custom ROM. Xposed won't work with ART.

I know that's the problem . I wanted to keep stock but there is just far too many lacking features - come on Google give the advanced users a few more options - even if you hide it away...
I'll have to flash the Cyanogenmod ROM. I see that they have the M8 (4.4.4 ) version of CM 11 which is which I think has all the features I need and more. Maybe a good thing anyway!
I think Android L has a few problems reading up on it for now... I know it is a developer preview anyway.
Thanks
Laurence

Help modifying home screen w/ Tribuchet

Hi guys!
I just installed Pac rom KK, which works great. I'm almost fully done playing with it
Unfortunately I get stuck at the very end with something that to me (as a user, not a dev) seems quite trivial.
Seeing how I've tried to find different solutions for many hours without making any progress, I turn to you in desperation.
What I want to achieve is a clean home screen (like a painting, and nothing else, not even navigation bar) along with no use of physical buttons.
I've set everything up with full screen, gestures, pie control, and all the good stuff which makes the phone easy to navigate.
What I have left to do, and where I am stuck is:
- adding app drawer to something other than the icon, and physical buttons (basically meaning quick settings, pie control or gestures)
- removing app drawer logo from the home screen, along with the home screen dot (the one showing which home screen, and if more also how many there are)
- also locking home screen (meaning that it won't bounce)
For you who have taken the energy to read this far (which I very much thank you for), I'm sure you realize that these are easy fixes.
Thing is...I don't want to use a launcher such as nova or AWD.
...I don't want do download another pie control for the sake of having one where you simply (being the keyword) can add app drawer.
....I have removed navigation bar (which I want removed), so can't use navigation actions.
I'm sorry for being so extremely picky, but I've spent to many hours trying to get this juuuust right. I hate basically dumping this on you guys, but I'm really at loss here.
The "easiest" workaround I could come up with was to write a small app, which only function would be to open the app drawer, and then hook it up to Pie Control. Only problem is, I can't code for sh#t. I do have Xposed, so a nice and slim Xposed solution would suit me just fine. The only thing I want to keep away from is apps doubling in function (one gesture app doing this and that) and/or apps that might have a problem interacting.
If anyone would care to help me with this, I would be so grateful.
Thank you so much on beforehand!
Summary of specs: Xperia Z2 (d6503), Pac-man Rom KK (RC-3) (4.4.4), Xposed

munte89 said:
Hi guys!
I just installed Pac rom KK, which works great. I'm almost fully done playing with it
Unfortunately I get stuck at the very end with something that to me (as a user, not a dev) seems quite trivial.
Seeing how I've tried to find different solutions for many hours without making any progress, I turn to you in desperation.
What I want to achieve is a clean home screen (like a painting, and nothing else, not even navigation bar) along with no use of physical buttons.
I've set everything up with full screen, gestures, pie control, and all the good stuff which makes the phone easy to navigate.
What I have left to do, and where I am stuck is:
- adding app drawer to something other than the icon, and physical buttons (basically meaning quick settings, pie control or gestures)
- removing app drawer logo from the home screen, along with the home screen dot (the one showing which home screen, and if more also how many there are)
- also locking home screen (meaning that it won't bounce)
For you who have taken the energy to read this far (which I very much thank you for), I'm sure you realize that these are easy fixes.
Thing is...I don't want to use a launcher such as nova or AWD.
...I don't want do download another pie control for the sake of having one where you simply (being the keyword) can add app drawer.
....I have removed navigation bar (which I want removed), so can't use navigation actions.
I'm sorry for being so extremely picky, but I've spent to many hours trying to get this juuuust right. I hate basically dumping this on you guys, but I'm really at loss here.
The "easiest" workaround I could come up with was to write a small app, which only function would be to open the app drawer, and then hook it up to Pie Control. Only problem is, I can't code for sh#t. I do have Xposed, so a nice and slim Xposed solution would suit me just fine. The only thing I want to keep away from is apps doubling in function (one gesture app doing this and that) and/or apps that might have a problem interacting.
If anyone would care to help me with this, I would be so grateful.
Thank you so much on beforehand!
Summary of specs: Xperia Z2 (d6503), Pac-man Rom KK (RC-3) (4.4.4), Xposed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well tasker can do most of this, like mapping the action of opening the app draw on certain events on the pie controllers or hardware button press. the only thing it cannot do is hide the app draw button. as far as I'm aware, this cannot be archived without changing the launcher. although perhaps changing its icon to a transparent one may help in this matter.

angelus0w said:
Well tasker can do most of this, like mapping the action of opening the app draw on certain events on the pie controllers or hardware button press. the only thing it cannot do is hide the app draw button. as far as I'm aware, this cannot be archived without changing the launcher. although perhaps changing its icon to a transparent one may help in this matter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you very much for your help!
I will look into it, and I'll repost my fix

[APP] [1.6+] Emerald Launcher [Beta]

Emerald Launcher is a simple home screen for Android phones. It is based on TinyLaunch code with lots of improvements and is in beta stage. It provides some features to make it easy and nice to use. You can resize layout as you wish, apply icon packs, easily access apps via search or sort them by categories.
Download from Google Play
Source code on GitHub
Any help is appreciated. Please feel free to post suggestions or report found bugs here. Thanks.

Surprising not to see comments here. Just found it on F-Droid and think this is a fantastic launcher implementation. No unnecessary permissions, no ads, no statistics or analytics, good customization, fast.
Thank you so much for developing this. Still playing with it and personalizing. ( Came from using KISS launcher for quite a while. )
　

I was wondering if it would be possible to change a single application's icon ( or all of them but without installing an icon pack ) and found a workaround...
PNG files generated in Emerald's cache folder at /data/data etc can be replaced, one by one or all of them. No need for icon packs. In case this is useful to anybody.
（ ^_^）
　

Hello,
i also would like to thank the developer for this nice launcher. I tried it and found it great, but...
i'd like to have the ability to search contacts and settings and not only apps as Emerald does. Is it possible to add this feature as well as widget support?

surferjoeit said:
Hello,
i also would like to thank the developer for this nice launcher. I tried it and found it great, but...
i'd like to have the ability to search contacts and settings and not only apps as Emerald does. Is it possible to add this feature as well as widget support?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not to sound rude, but the lack of those features is a huge plus for me. Plenty of other launchers are loaded with functions such as those. Try KISS or OpenLauncher for instance, just to mention two out of dozens.
　

Hello.
Thank you everyone for the support and sorry for the late reply. @Ultramanoid, I came from KISS myself. It is fine, but lacks some features such as folders and grid layout, that's why I've forked TinyLaunch and started to modify it.
surferjoeit said:
i'd like to have the ability to search contacts and settings and not only apps as Emerald does. Is it possible to add this feature as well as widget support?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to add support for shortcuts, so it'll be possible to search through contacts if you add them on the homescreen. About settings... I think that settings search is unnecessary, because it won't speed up toggling much. Widgets are most likely not to be implemented. You can use EcoHome as a separate screen for widgets, it's very lightweight.

I'm looking for help with testing alpha versions of Emerald. If you want to help, please e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll send you the latest apk with instructions. I have to mention that test apks won't include features for Nougat and Oreo, so if you use these OS versions, please be ready to some bugs and make a backup of preferences. Thanks.

Might want to updated the link so it's not the description (should be this): Download From Play Store

Very nice launcher. I'm using on Nougat on a very special kind of phone (F25). I'm having a problem with an icon pack though. It just contains 2 icons but doesn't get applied in any way.

Okay but.....
Just gave it a quick try and here are my results
1 - adding to the dock, on my phone the home/back/recents button gets in the way. Seems to fix it if I turn the phone landscape and then back. But then it comes back as soon as I touch the menu on the top left - see screen shot.
2 - no shortcuts or 1x1 widgets - not sure how basic you want the launcher to be.
3 - on my phone I prefer to be able to move the things. like your search bar, etc. My phone is an HTC M8, anything that requires 2 hands to do (or reaching to the top of the screen) is annoying.
4 - since you only have 1 screen, maybe making gesters do something - like making swiping on any part of the screen switch categories (instead of the top of the screen).
5- Maybe allow changing the size of the text for the apps on the screen.
6 - If you set to just text, the dock has all little green android
might be more, but not ready for prime time, good luck.
-brad

Hello, @bradley_e_smith. Thank you for the review.
1. This issue was discovered already, but I can't reproduce it, because there is no phone with on-screen buttons to test it.
2. Shortcuts are planned and widgets are not.
3. I've updated the app recently. Now it's possible to move the main bar and apps to the bottom.
4. Yes, I'll probably add gestures soon.
5. The text size can be changed through appearance settings.
6. It's a known issue. I don't know what could be the best option to show. There are three possible options:
- always keep dock icons in cache;
- show text labels in dock.
Droidphilev said:
Very nice launcher. I'm using on Nougat on a very special kind of phone (F25). I'm having a problem with an icon pack though. It just contains 2 icons but doesn't get applied in any way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello. Please could you answer some questions to help? Does this icon pack work with other launchers? Is it listed in Icon Pack option? Thanks.

HenriDellal said:
Hello, @bradley_e_smith. Thank you for the review.
1. This issue was discovered already, but I can't reproduce it, because there is no phone with on-screen buttons to test it.
2. Shortcuts are planned and widgets are not.
3. I've updated the app recently. Now it's possible to move the main bar and apps to the bottom.
4. Yes, I'll probably add gestures soon.
5. The text size can be changed through appearance settings.
6. It's a known issue. I don't know what could be the best option to show. There are three possible options:
- always keep dock icons in cache;
- show text labels in dock.
Hello. Please could you answer some questions to help? Does this icon pack work with other launchers? Is it listed in Icon Pack option? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello,
This icon pack is working with Lawnchair launcher at least. I have not tried on other launchers. It's listed in Emerald Launcher settings.

ELI5: Why are some values not able to be themed on Samsung devices?

For the longest time, me and other Samsung themers/modders have been ultimately confused on why some values are unable to be modified. For example, on Nougat, the keyguard date was able to be removed by setting its height and width to 0dp.
On oreo, it simply can't be done. Even by editing the layout itself and setting everything to 0dp height and visibility="gone", the view is not themed. Why is this? The valued are not hardcoded in the source because the layout files exist still. Is it a priority issue? A Substratum issue?
Thank you for your replies. Anything to help explain this as simply as possible would be super appreciated.

List of Features broken after removing Moto App Launcher (help build list)

If anyone is interested in pushing their DPI down to the missing 'Smallest' or 'Smaller' setting, you will have to actually remove Moto App Launcher. When you do that, you will lose the 'new' pill nav bar and revert to what appears to be a stock Pixel Navbar.
You also lose:
Attentive Display (where it won't time out/sleep if you look at it)
I am currently trying to compile a list of all the functions/features that get broken from this system edit. If there is a better way to post about this, please inform me! I would greatly appreciate the community chiming in and telling me what they have noticed got broken.
You will gain:
Previous 'Recents' functionality (side by side apps, properly obscured thumbnails in secure apps, etc)
Unaffected features:
Moto Actions (chop flashlight, twist camera)
Fingerprint reader
Camera (? I never really use it; it doesn't crash)

This always really pisses me off because they do this on purpose.