First post, but I did my research and couldn't find anything similar.
I'm wondering what the feasible limits are of editing Android. Here's the situation:
I'm thinking of buying the Sony Walkman Z, but would want to create a new interface to make it more music-centric. Would it be possible to create a rom/skin/theme which would act almost nothing like android, but still run android apps?
something like this:
homescreen is fairly normal, clock+link to internet.
swipe left launches music/video app(which I'd like to make custom too, just a pipe dream)
swipe right is list of selected apps (not anticipating having more than the 16 one page could display)
swipe up displays full list of apps (like normal)
shortcut keys work as normal.
don't really need notifications(no texts/calls, don't tweet) so top bar can go away. really that's it. minimalist so as to keep the music the main focus.
A: is it possible?
B: is the skill level required ridiculous high?
C: are there any developers out there willing to take on a challenge?
Thanks so much,
GrIdiot
Related
I have a new Sprint Touch Pro 2 with 6.5 and 2.5, stock ROM. The Today screen works. However, as a smart phone, it really isn't usable as-is. There is a total of 9 quicklinks, and the start menu is a mess. If you move things in the start menu, you break the quicklinks, so best to leave things where they land. Whatever it is that works to organize the interface needs to show unread e-mails, voice mails, and texts on the home/today screen, and a link to contacts, not that lame people thing. I get around this with the stock interface by dropping people out of the slider and pointing one of the top quicklinks to contacts. When I click on a new text message from the slider, it's pretty clumsey if you ask me. I have to look around for delete all etc. Lots of mouse clicks. I've been looking around at the likely suspects and would value your input.
Edit:
1. SPB Mobile Shell 3.5: I installed it for the third time and worked with it. My impression is that it is more about personalization and special effects. My impression is the pieces are not logically woven together to create an environment. First there is the home tab, with exactly 3 home pages, one left, and one right. There are a collection widgets that I can put on them. Second, there is a launcher. The Launcher has some impressive graphics for launching things. However, is seems to represent their concept of organizing the Start Menu into folders. You can see them if you click on the Start Menu. To me, it was confusing. The third area is the Carousel. It is very nice idea for organizing things, but it's pretty much pre-defined. I won't be coming back here because it doesn't match my needs or organizing the many apps the way I want to. It's easy on memory, 42%.
2. I worked with iPhoneToday, today. It has things like voicemail, e-mail, texts, etc. on a bottom row which does not scroll, so the important stuff is always visible. It's perfect for organization. You can add home screens at will and even label then on the top. You can change programs and the tabs they use. You can point them at the .exes or the shortcuts in the Start menu. You change the icon spacing and even have them scale to get more on a line. It's the easiest on RAM coming in at 39%. From an appearance standpoint, they really try. True to it's name, it closely resembles the iPhone. (Rubic's Cube) It uses the same size square icons for everything from volume, battery, etc., to e-mail, texts, etc. It just puts a number on the cube. You look around a bit to find what you want. It would look pretty good to someone who hasn't seen Sense. There are not real docs. The basics your will figure out by simply guessing. The other types of formatting are not as straightforward as CHT. The best source I've found is the wiki http://iphonetoday.wikidot.com/the-menus and to ask questions on the thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=633618 where people have been very responsive and helpful. Before I tried it, I just thought it was for iPhone wanabes. Not so. Unlike Sense and Mobile Shell, it is in fact a very well thought out environment when you're looking to use your phone as a single device to organize your world.
3. CHT 2.0: Sense by itself doesn't make any sense. Since people have been hammering me to try CHT, I've been following the CHT threads, 1.85 and 2.0. Normally, it makes sense to go with the newer one because that is where development would be, but my concern is the new 2.0 seems to have worn out the Cookie Monster, and he would be too worn out to support it. However, I decided to try 2.0 since the he wrote every line was gone through and made squeaky clean, and he did stick around long enough to wean the product.
Of the hundreds of posts I read, many say it's pretty resource intensive, and not so good for multi-taskers. (Like me) That makes sense, since it adds functionality to the an already pretty good size Sense UI, so that became my expectation. I started thinking that if it adds say 10%, it would make sense that things would get shaky, pretty quickly. Thus it made sense to test before and after adding CHT. The percent RAM usage came in at exactly 52%, and remained there even after using it for awhile. Since iPhoneToday can be run inside Sense, I'm doing that now. What doesn't make sense is it only requires an additional 2% of RAM.
As for multi-tasking, I'm running out of porkers to load and I'm at 72%. (See attached images) After these screen shots I added Oprah and iPhoneToday, which is a UI on top of a UI. After playing around, I was able to get it to 77%. That's more apps than a 5 person office runs at a time. It still loads things fast. Initially, I thought scrolling perhaps was degraded slightly, but later I did before and after and even that wasn't affected. Maybe I don't have to worry.
As for the CHT UI, I read the User's Manual. It's only 12 pages, and 1/3 has to do with installing it. It's simple enough to where if you read it once to understand the paradigm it uses, you won't need to refer to again. I plan to run iPhoneToday inside of Sense/CHT and organize both to see which I like the best.
Edit It was tough to choose between Cookies Home Tab 2.0, AKA CHT 2.0, and iPhoneToday. You can't lose with either because the struggle is to pick the best of the best, rather than pick your poison. iPhoneToday is light, fast, and smooth. It would win if I were a fan of the iPhone interface, but I'm not a fan of anything except functionality and efficiency. In the end I went with Cookies Home Tab 2.0 for these reasons.
- It allows me to use widgets, and place them wherever I need.
- It allows me to place quicklinks called FreeLinks anywhere
- It allows me to have levels (scroll up and down) as well as pages (scroll side to side)
- If it doesn't support what you want directly, you can indirectly. Example: Let's say you want QuickLinks on all of your pages, line the iPhone, but not on the home screen where you have your clock weather. Just make the upper rows on your home screen invisible. Lets say you want one row of QuickLinks to be the same on every page. Simply pin them.
- There is no practical limitation that I've found as to how you arrange things. I can't say that about anything else I've tried.
- Configuration is easier to understand. The book is only 12 pages, 1/3 is install, another 1/3 is common sense, and the other 1/3 tells doesn't lead you step by step, it gives you the concept of operation. Because of that, once you read it, you'll never have to refer back to the manual.
I may not have gotten any help from the thread this time around, but other threads and people here have helped me plenty. Apparently, it was my turn to give back.
Enjoy!
PS: I also played with ThrottleLauncher and the WP7 clone. It didn't make the cut because its organizational capabilities are far too limited for someone like me (IT Architect) who has lots of apps. It's more for people who's life revolves around a close group of friends, music, and social networking. This is not a problem with ThrottleLauncher itself, but rather the design of the WP7 architecture. The real phone has the same problem.
Forgive my ignorance here. I bought the GTab from Woot solely to learn about Android and tablets, I just got my ipad2 and thats the one I planned on getting the most use out of, but honestly I thought it would be good to have an Android tablet in the house.
Of course, the default OS was painful, so I put on TNTLite and ran some apps and was pretty happy. I haven't used it much since. I am still trying to find a way to stream video to the tablet (and hopefully someday out to my TV, to retire my laptop).....and am not sure which app to use. For Ipad I can use Air Video Server.
BUT ANYWAYS...
The default portal screen on TouchNTap was, I thought, pretty cool....weather, news links and time with your apps available on the bottom row.
Tell me, is there a similar type of portal app you can use on the Gtab? Is there a way to make it just be an alarm clock or a picture frame until you pick it up and want to start using it as a tablet?
TNTLite is cool, and I installed ADWLauncher (I think that is the name), but all I am seeing is now a windows desktop-looking thing. Can you use that front-end with TNTLite? Or is it just adding widgets to a "home screen" like a clock, calendar, web browser, etc.
Thanks!
Take a look at this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=854175
If you want to alter TNT Lite to your liking, it's actually fairly straightforward - once you understand the layout.
When that firmware is run, it layers on a 100% stock image first, then I make the alterations later. You can alter either the updater-script (where the deletions are) or the /system folder (where the additions are) to tweak it to your liking. For example, if you want to keep the TNT launcher, just delete this line from the updater-script:
Code:
delete("/system/app/HomeScreen.apk");
That would add the TNT homescreen back, on the next firmware flash. This is just an example.
Sideload and Switch Home Screens to Get Back Default
HeadRusch1 said:
The default portal screen on TouchNTap was, I thought, pretty cool....weather, news links and time with your apps available on the bottom row.
Tell me, is there a similar type of portal app you can use on the Gtab?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need a "similar" portal app unless you just want it. Just sideload (move the files from your PC to the sdcard via USB cable and then click/install the apks from the sdcard) the original HomeScreen.apk, Weather.apk, Clock.apk, and News.apk - then use the Home Switcher to switch to the Viewsonic HomeScreen - if you want that to be your default.
I've done this since TNTL 2.0 because I also like the look and the options.
Other apk's that will fit into the default HomeScreen package are GroceryList and TaskManager. MediaPlayer will also go into the Viewsonic HomeScreen.
In case you didn't back up the original VS default portal files - I've attached them.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who likes the original VS portal.
Thank you
I'm going to be messing with this to see if I can get it to work......however, I do have one question, and its off topic:
Is there any way to put the Gtab into sleep mode the way that an ipad goes to sleep, so you just tap the screen to wake it up? Or have it so that way it has a permanantly on clock display or a rotating picture frame function with clock?
I'd like to buy the dock for it, but not if I have to hold the power button to wake it up all the time, I realize its a little thing but it is somewhat an annoyance.
Before coming to Android, I had a Nokia N900 running Maemo 5 operating system, which, like Android, was partly open source and based on the Linux kernel. While there are certainly lots more apps on Android, there is one app from Maemo that I really do miss and cannot find a replacement for. The app I am talking about, goes by the name of Queen Beecon Widget and in the words of the dev, it is "A super powerful and customizable widget generation engine" http://wiki.maemo.org/Queen_BeeCon_Widget
It is a really versatile tool. Here are a couple of screenshots of my previous setups to show what sort of thing I am after. Most of the items you see on all three screenshots are created by using this app, as you can input any image that you want to be displayed along with the result, as long as it is a.Png
So, sure, I know about widgets that can cater for certain parts of this app eg. Widgetsoid, Minimalistic Text, Meta Widget etc. but what I am really after, is an on-device widget creator that can export terminal commands, as a result and directly onto the desktop. I have had a look at script manager and sm widget, but that doesn't seem to display the result directly onto the desktop (when I tap on the widget I have made, it opens up terminal, which defeats the object for me). Does anyone know of a tool, app or widget or even a combination of apps that I can use to achieve this?
Hopefully I have been clear enough.
I also wanted to post a very brief and simple way to explain what I am looking for. In basic terms, I need a (terminal) command execution widget that will display the result directly on the desktop.
The widget that accompanies Script Manager is sort-of on its way to what I need. Perhaps someone knows of an app like this, that is a bit more advanced, flexible and customizable. Any help appreciated. Thanks.
Anyone got any ideas?
Hi everyone, I'm a longtime lurker on this forum, but this is the first second thread I've opened. I've just begun studying at the university level, majoring in mechatronics systems engineering and minoring in computing science. I've done a lot of research in the area of music theory, and I discovered peculiar arrangement of musical notes which I call a "pitch-correct harmonic note table" (Google it for a higher resolution than the attached image; I'm too new to post links).
The concept has been explored in the past (see Wikipedia's harmonic note table layout) and the interesting thing about it is that it visually reveals how notes and chords are related to each other. My version, unlike every other one I've found, preserves the proper pitch spelling. A C minor chord, for example, is properly notated as C-Eb-G, not C-D#-G.
The table by itself can prove useful for those learning theory and composition, but right now it's just a picture. Here's where Android application development comes in. I hope to turn this picture into an interactive chord-generating device. It'd be like a guitar, except anyone can pick it up and create music with it, as the chords are easy to play and the relationships are obvious.
The application's general flow would go something like this: First, select a key signature (which positions the purple ribbon), time signature and tempo. Hold down the root of the desired chord. Slide your finger up to select its major chord or down to select its minor chord, and release. Press the root again to play the chord or press a different note (like the seventh) to play an extended chord. The chord will loop until you perform that last step again for a different chord (selecting another chord by touching and sliding does not interrupt the looping).
However, here's where my inexperience with development hinders my progress with this application. I've only taken one programming course and it was in C. I'm taking the Java course now but we're only going as far as the command line. I'm therefore at a loss as to where to begin. I have the SDK and Eclipse all set up and I have some basic ideas for how I would go about coding the notes, like using the "fifths" and "augmented" axes to create a rectangular grid instead of trying to use the hexagonal grid that the table is currently in. I'm probably going to end up creating a playChord() method with parameters for root, quality, extension, and bass. I'm not sure whether to use Canvas or OpenGL; I'm not sure whether to use JetPlayer or MediaPlayer, .mid's or .mp3's or .ogg's, or generate the chords on the fly; I'm not even sure how I'm going to voice the chords (though my Casio keyboard might be able to help with that).
Most of those issues I can worry about later though. For now I'm going to focus on creating something like a soundboard except more refined. This is why I looked to XDA - to give me an initial push in the right direction so I can avoid coding myself into a corner and having to start over. If you can give me any tips or advice, I'll greatly appreciate it. =)
Bump? =)
Hello,
I'm not certain where this post belongs. Please be benevolent, admins, or direct me in the right direction.
I'm brand new to modding and even Android. After ditching the iPhone 4s and grabbing a OnePlus One, I'm loving Android and I'm finding lots of cool customization mods. As a graphic designer and html and css coder, I can get a little picky and will spend hours tweaking the smallest of things for a simple aesthetic cause.
While playing around with the look of my phone through themes and backgrounds I got a little itch to design something of my own:
The Basics: a simple home screen navigation. Press the centre and swipe one of eight directions to open up one of eight apps.
Details: I'm a huge norse mythos fan and what better thing to show it then a phone navigation based on the Vegvisir, a runic compass. Eight points, eight apps to call upon. I would like a black background with 50% grey of the Vegvisir already centred on the home screen, doesn't even have to be part of the navigation I could just have it on the background. Once the centre is pressed and held, I'd like it to start glowing or even just jump to white and highlight one direction of the Vegvisir. Let go with one of them highlighted to launch the app.
The Extra Mile: Maybe have it customizable through some menus to set apps right on the phone instead of coding what program to launch. Easing and effects to make it look pretty.
Phone specs: (let me know if you need any more)
OnePlus One 64gb
Cyanogen OS Version 12.1-YOG4PAS1N0
Android Version 5.1.1
I'm brand new to modding Android. Let me know if you think it's too ambitious or if you know something similar that would do the trick (eight-direction swipe home screen nav). If you have any resources or know where I should get started please let me know.
Much appreciated,
Skaldsyn