Android Auto 2.0 - Go to main/home launcher - Solutions Found! - Android Auto General

So, I finally updated to Nugat last night, and now Android Auto 2.0 has a few annoying 'features' I needed to fix. I figured them out, so I'll share here.
I could no longer get to my main home screen. This used to be really handy, as I could plug in my phone, get everything setup, tap recent apps and then home to get to my regular home screen. I need to be able to do this to arm my home alarm and to launch Waze.
SOLUTION 1 - 1 Tap Quick Bar
There are a lot of apps like this, and I tried this one first, did exactly what I wanted it to, but it left too much going on in my notification pane. Basically this creates an additional notification bar that you can add settings or applications to. I added Action Launcher 3, Waze, my home alarm app, and two others to it, worked fine.
If there were a way to have a notification bar like this be active only when Car Mode was enabled, it would be my preferred method.
SOLUTION 2 - Custom Quick Settings - (PREFERRED)
This works perfectly, takes up almost no space (one quick settings tile), and looks like it is built in.
I installed this, added a quick settings tile to go directly to my Action Launcher 3 home screen (my wife set it up to go to Nova Launcher), and now I just pull down on the right side of my Nexus 6P screen, tap on the Quick Setting Tile that says Home, and bam, back at the home screen. Tap on the Home button in the Android Auto overlay and I'm back in Android Auto (I just leave it in Waze).
Hope this helps others.

Related

iPhone apps I WISH we had. Irealquicksms and SBsettings

I have both an iphone and a G1. Now people slate the iphone for not being open source, but in terms of productivity it seems the iphone still wins out for me, and it is almost entirely down to two apps which I feel the G1 could REALLY do with: sbsettings and irealquicksms. I am trying to use my g1 everyday as I'm considering selling my iphone and hope someone can point me in the direction of something similar, or the same. Best to look on YouTube for a full understanding of these apps, but in shorts....
Irealsms allows you to send an sms from within ANY application, simply by pressing the volume button followed by a tap on the volume icon that appears, or by doubletapping the homekey. This saves swapping between applications if a text needs to be sent, and also facillitates replying. This is invaluable if you are watching a movie clip and really speeds up the texting process...it is the one application I truly miss from the iphone more than any other.
SBsettings allows you to change almost ANY setting from within ANY application simply by swiping a finger across the status bar on iphone. This means, for example, that if one is watching a film, or browsing the web, one can change the brightness, turn on/off wifi, bluetooth, 3g, gps or any number of other functions by simply swiping the top of the screen, upon which a toggle board slides down the screen. A press of the menu key slides it back up again. I am amazed that this app hasn't been developed for android as it is much more efficient than silly toggle switch widgets which clutter the home screen and are far less practical if one is already inside an application
well Toggle Settings by cooolmagic places the application icon in the status bar for quick access, I find that a good replacement for SBsettings
Toggle Settings is definitely an awesome app and sounds like it would be a good replacement for that Iphone app.
I use ChompSMS and they are constantly improving their app. I'll get onto their website and request they add on a shortcut ability. Say double press on the camera button?
Or, another option is "Bar Control" to add a shortcut for ANYTHING to your notification bar.
Keyboard shortcuts are great, too.
I would suggest looking into sms popup. It makes the text msg pop up and you can just hit the reply button after you respond just hold down the home button and go back to the program you were using last.
Why not use the quick launch keyboard shortcuts for messaging (Search button + S) and Settings (no default)?
You can set shortcuts for up to 36 different apps and the shortcuts will work from any application. Just go to Settings > Application Settings > Quick Launch.
You could also just hold [HOME] and select Messaging/ChompSMS to send texts without having to drop back to the home screen (If it was one of your last 6 apps used anyways...)
Fandango would also be awesome.
mianosm said:
Fandango would also be awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Random hijack much? Get your own thread.
Bar control allows you to put any app in the notification bar for easy access within most apps. So you could put your messaging app and a setting app (or any other app you may want) in the bar for easy access. The only exception would be apps that take up the full screen and hide the notification bar. Not many of those though.

Workaround for backlight adjustment Hero Roms

I'm sure everyone here has the annoying problem of how to adjust backlight when using a Hero Rom.
So far I haven't found an app on the market or widget that works, so I'm always forced to keep a settings shortcut on my home screen and jump through the menus. Well i found something that won't fix the problem but might ease the pain.
Step 1:
Download an app called "Bar Control" from the market - this app will allow you to place shortcuts in your title/notification bar (the one you pull down from the top of the screen)
Step 2:
Open Bar Control and when it finishes loading all the apps installed scroll down to "Sound & Display"
Click on that, Choose an appropriate icon (I like the light bulb)
And you should see the icon appear on your top title/notification bar
Step 3:
Close the program and now you have a convenient shortcut - accessible across the system - that takes you directly to the brightness control settings (you just have to scroll down)
Hope it helps, and if anyone does have an app/widget to control brightness on a hero rom (using 1.5 here so I don't get that nice panel in the newer ones for wifi bluetooth etc.) please post it below.

[Q] Questions: New Nook HD with CM10.1

I've been happily using a Nook Color for over two years running CM7.
But when B&N reduced the price of a new 16GB Nook HD to $150, I couldn't resist.... I grabbed one.
Haven't even had it for 18hrs and its running CM10.1 in EMMC (thanks to verygreen's fantastic skills and files)
Now I'm trying to get moved in and get it configured like CM7 was in the Nook Color.
1: In the CM7 system tweaks, there was a setting to allow apps to run full screen on request. I can't find anything like that in CM10. I tried the FullScreen app from the Play Store, but all it does is run full screen all the time or not at all. I want the status and navigation bars to show when not in a full screen app. Any suggestions???
2. Having a problem with wallpapers.... I can choose and set to any preloaded wallpaper that came with CM10. But when I try to use a downloaded wallpaper JPG from the Gallery, the wallpaper setup goes normally, but won't change the wallpaper after tapping Set Wallpaper. ???????
3. I managed to get a Power Control widget stuck in the upper left corner of the screen. Press and hold to move or remove it doesn't work. Help!!
4. Navigation Bar: This thing is a total mess compared to CM7. I had full control over which buttons showed in CM7. Now it appears I can't do anything with it. The home button is a useless duplicate of the Nook button. And personally I have never had any use for the Recent Apps button. But in CM10, I can't turn them off!!! All I really need in the navigation bar is Menu and Back (which is all I used for two years in my Nook Color). And I don't even need them. There's a navigation app called Button Savior that I absolutely love. When not in use, its just a little tab on the side of the screen... tap the tab and a full navigation menu shows in its place. And its totally customizable. What can I do to get rid of the Home and Recent buttons in the navigation bar.... or barring that, how do I turn off the navigation bar??????
I really liked CM7 because of all the nifty tweaks it had.... where did they all go????????????
Forget about number three... the widget went away on its own somehow.
macevanscb said:
1: In the CM7 system tweaks, there was a setting to allow apps to run full screen on request. I can't find anything like that in CM10. I tried the FullScreen app from the Play Store, but all it does is run full screen all the time or not at all. I want the status and navigation bars to show when not in a full screen app. Any suggestions???
4. Navigation Bar: This thing is a total mess compared to CM7. I had full control over which buttons showed in CM7. Now it appears I can't do anything with it. The home button is a useless duplicate of the Nook button. And personally I have never had any use for the Recent Apps button. But in CM10, I can't turn them off!!! All I really need in the navigation bar is Menu and Back (which is all I used for two years in my Nook Color). And I don't even need them. There's a navigation app called Button Savior that I absolutely love. When not in use, its just a little tab on the side of the screen... tap the tab and a full navigation menu shows in its place. And its totally customizable. What can I do to get rid of the Home and Recent buttons in the navigation bar.... or barring that, how do I turn off the navigation bar??????
I really liked CM7 because of all the nifty tweaks it had.... where did they all go????????????
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried using expanded desktop and pie controls? If not, you may find it does pretty much what you're looking for with both #1 and 4.
Go to settings --> system and tap on "expanded desktop." When enabled, you can hold in the power button, and one of the options will let you toggle expanded desktop on and off, which allows you to get rid of the navigation bar entirely whenever you want.
Also in settings --> system at the very bottom, you can enable Pie controls. When enabled, you can tap the bottom of the screen to bring up the navigation bar controls.
I don't know if there's a way to enable or disable expanded desktop automatically depending on the app in CM 10.1. I don't use the option myself, so I'm just not aware. Maybe with Tasker or something?
If you just want to get rid of buttons in the navigation bar, that's also under settings-->system. Tap "buttons and layout," and you can add or remove whatever buttons you want, including a menu button.
Hopefully that answers at least some of your issues, and I wasn't just telling you stuff you already know.
About #2 (setting wallpaper):
I found that changing wallpaper in landscape mode --> it won't stay.
But doing the same thing in portrait mode --> working fine.
I think this is a small bug in verygreen's CM10.1 (don't see this in other devices running CM10.1).
Hiding the Navigation Bar
Thanks for your help Dan...
I looked up both "expanded desktop" and "pie controls" and then played with them.
The expanded desktop only deals with the status bar and that's not a problem in the apps I want to use full screen.
Those apps do hide the status bar but not the navigation bar.
I don't need the pie controls because the Button Savior app does the same thing... and is much easier to use IMHO.
I finally figured out the interface for Buttons and Layout.... I don't find that setup intuitive at all... but I did manage to beat it into displaying just the Menu and Back buttons, the way I like it.
So I still need to find some way for full screen apps to hide the navigation bar.
I really liked the old way it was done in CM7: There was no separate navigation bar. Navigation buttons were in the status bar. And the status bar could be placed either at the top or bottom of the screen. I had the status bar at the bottom with just the Back and Menu buttons in it. I'd love to find some way to make CM10.1 work that way.
After living with the Nook HD for another day, I see that some apps do go full screen and hide the Navigation bar... both YouTube and MX Video Player do this. But the one app I use for reading PDF eBooks, RepliGo Reader, won't go full screen and hide the Navigation bar. My secondary reader app, Aldiko, hides the navigation buttons, but not the navigation bar.... strange. I guess I'll talk to Cerience about RepliGo Reader under Jelly Bean.
hyperxguy... re: wallpapers: I've been doing all my attempts to change wallpaper in portrait mode... sigh
Had anyone out there set wallpaper from a Gallery file successfully???
Is there some special place I need to put my wallpaper JPGs in???
Right now they're just sitting in /mnt/sdcard/download/
macevanscb said:
I looked up both "expanded desktop" and "pie controls" and then played with them.
The expanded desktop only deals with the status bar and that's not a problem in the apps I want to use full screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Expanded desktop definitely gets rid of the navigation bar. If you choose to enable it, it will give you options that say "status bar visible" or "status bar hidden." But with either of those options, it will get rid of the navigation bar.
I agree that these functions are implemented in a non-intuitive way. It seems like there should be easier ways of configuring it.
I'm not aware of any ways to do the more involved things you're talking about, like moving the status bar down with the nav bar. There are other ROMs out there that allow more fine grained control (Paranoid Android is especially popular), but I don't think they're available for the Nook. If you want more customizability, you might be better off with a tablet like the Nexus 7, which is not much more expensive and has more development support.
I'm sorry Dan, but I can only go by what I see.
With expanded desktop set to either hide or show the status bar, the navigation bar will not go away when running either RepliGo Reader or Aldiko Reader.
I would be totally happy if it did.
I'm running CyangenMod v10.1-20130615-UNOFFICAL-hummingbird
That's what was in the EMMC instructions I used.
Is there a more stable version I can load up????
Maybe backing down a build or two would get rid of all my problems.
I think this goes back to the user-unfriendliness of the way CyanogenMod implements certain things. To get rid of the nav bar, there are two steps involved. First, you have to go to settings-->system, and choose Expanded Desktop, either with status bar visible or hidden.
But all that does is enable the option to turn the nav bar on and off. To actually turn it on and off, you have to hold down the power button to bring up the power menu. If Expanded Desktop is enabled, you should see an option for "Expanded desktop." Tapping on it turns the nav bar on and off.
I tried to say that in my first post, but it's a complicated process, and it's not easy to describe.
Also, in an earlier post you mentioned something about wanting the status bar at the bottom of the screen. I didn't really understand what you were talking about with that, but it may be TabletUI, which Google used to put on large tablets but then discontinued. There's a mod where you can install it for the Nook: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2275939
I haven't tried it, so I don't know how stable it is. But it may be worth trying if you like the look of the screenshot on the page I just linked to.
IT WORKS!!!!!!
Thanks, Dan!!!!!
I never noticed the Expanded Desktop option in the Power Menu... in the week I've had the HD I've almost never used it.
My apps are now running full screen and I don't miss the navigation bar at all... Button Savior takes its place.
Status bar on top or bottom was in the CyanogenMod Tweaks settings in CM7 as was adding navigation buttons to the status bar.
I don't really need it here at all as all my navigation is handled by Button Savior.
I have a new question about pixel density... for you or for anyone out there.
I learned in CM7 that pixel density had to be set to either 420 or 69 for Google Play Store compatibility.
Use any other pixel density, and it was very difficult to get new apps or app updates.
And a setting of 420 was perfect for my Nook Color with its 1024x600 screen.
Now, on the Nook HD, the default setting is 420 for the 1440x900 screen.
This leaves a number of things a little too small for me... especially the status bar and other text.
Does anyone know a larger density number I can use that is compatible with the Play Store????
density
Wow... I sure didn't remember this correctly.
160 was the original setting on my Nook Color and 240 was what I used to make things the correct size on screen.
Now 240 is the original setting on my Nook HD and I've found that 320 is the Play Store compatible setting to make things larger on screen.
I am not totally happy with my CyanogenMod Nook HD... everything is working perfectly!!
I'm glad the full screen is working for you. I don't know anything about the pixel density, unfortunately. I've only had the Nook for about a week myself, and I haven't run into any app compatibility issues that would make me start messing around with that.
macevanscb said:
I am not totally happy with my CyanogenMod Nook HD... everything is working perfectly!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are you now not happy with perfection?
Stupid fingers
Damn dyslexic fingers.... NOW.... I am NOW totally happy with my Nook.
pixel density
The reason I had to mess with pixel density is because I don't like the stock Trebuchet launcher app.
I started out almost three years ago with the Zeam launcher app and I got used to its simplicity and gestures.
But Zeam adheres to the pixel density in build.prop and the icons are too small.
When running Trebuchet, the icons are ok, but widgets and things in the status bar are too tiny at stock density of 240.
Then, running Zeam, everything is too small at stock density.
But with the density set to 320, everything is just right.
You might try Nova or Apex launchers. Both have lots of customizability with gestures, though you may have to pay for the full version to get all the options. I'm not sure if they deal with the dpi issue.
It's too bad there's not a Nook HD port for the Paranoid Android ROM, which allows you to customize the dpi separately for every app you have. If it ever becomes available, you might want to try it out.

Home / Recent Apps / Notification Drawer stopped working

So today, after loading an app, my Nokia 8 decided to reboot itself. After rebooting, a few things ceased to function.
The Home button no longer worked. The recent apps button stopped working, I can pull down the notification bar however, the settings button and extending the notification bar to show notifications no longer functioned.
On top of this, Google Play stopped functioning with regards to installing software and you will notice that you cannot access the developer options anymore (as well as all your personal settings being reset!)
Was at a complete loss at what to do... I managed to install the Nova Launcher from an apk file from there accessed the short cuts to the Setting Wizard and re-ran it.
You can re-run the setting with the same email address and as soon as it's finished, everything should be working back to normal. You may need to reset a few preferences (such as keyboards etc / glance screen etc) but at least all the buttons work again.
Step instructions:
- Download Nova Launcher. If you cannot from the google play store, search for it on Chrome and download an apk version
- Install it (you may get a pop up advising you need to let apps installed from chrome, go to settings and allow it)
- Once installed, click on Open. This should launch the Nova Launcher
- Long press anywhere on the screen
- Choose Widgets.
- Look for the Activities widget and hold and place it anywhere on the screen.
- Scroll down to Setup Wizard. There's two, one that's "Setup Wizard" and the other "SetupWizard" without a space. Choose the first. There should be an option under it called ".SetupWizardUpgradeActivity". It might be slightly different for you pending the version OS you have but that's what came up for me.
- Select that to create the widget shortcut then click to open.
- This will bring you to the setup wizard and then just click Next all the way through (turn off any preferences you may have in the past)
And voila. Back to normal afterwards!
Note: You don't need to use Nova Launcher as your default launcher. You can even uninstall it if you want.
Works!
Thank you, this totally worked!
I think Skype crashing and crashing the phone caused this for me. It's getting an uninstall as a special thank you.
Cheers,
Peter
Please help! I don't see any option for setup wizard!

Question Third Party Launcher + Gestures

Hi everyone,
trying on MIUI 12.5 to enable Microsoft Launcher with Gestures instead of the 3 Bar Bottom Navigation.
Installed "MyGestures" App - which enables gestures - fine.
But still having the 3 buttons bar on the bottom.
Have tried FNG which is recommended by many people, but it only hides the 3 bar bottom - still having a black bar.
Some months ago (before I wiped my phone) I have enabled the gestures in the MIUI menu, and it hid the navigation bar.
But now I get the following chinese info (seems like a message to activate the default launcher, as it gets enabled after right clicking the button)
see screenshot.
Any idea how to activate it without auto starting default launcher?
well for anyone with the same problem, I got a workaround which is quite embarrasing but at least it works to remove the 3-bar navigation.
You need the "LADB" application from Playstore which sadly costs some money.
Then in short:
1. Developer Options - > Wireless ADB enable
2. start LADB and connect it (you have to use dual window feature, because otherwise the port+pin will change)
you need to do this once, after setting up - it will connect next time automatically.
3. insert in LADB command line: settings put global force_fsg_nav_bar 1
It works good. But you have to do it again after a reboot.

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