SoftKeys provides on screen keys for menu/home/back/search for devices that don't have those keys in hardware.
SoftKeys is also available in the Android Market
If you want to make themes for SoftKeys you will need the tools to build apks (eclipse/android sdk/etc) and the template from the git repository.
http://git.hoopajoo.net
Changelog:
2011/01/11 - 3.06 - Fix notification keys, boot straight to launcher on system startup
2011/01/11 - 3.05 - Fix notification softkeys <b>broken release</b>
2011/01/10 - 3.04 - Adds dpad and up to 6 custom keys, ability to put device
to sleep, improved performance for key injection, built in documentation, bugfixes
2010/12/23 - 3.00 - Most of the layout code has been rewritten to allow for theming, couple of bug fixes, SoftKeys is now gpl3
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Old Changelog (I'm too lazy to reorder this newest to oldest):
2010/12/04 - 1.01 - added launcher selector and remembers last launcher
2010/12/04 - 1.02 - added themes layouts from nemith, looks more like his screenshots but the spinner text is still black so the launcher chooser is hard to read, hopefully I'll have some time to fiddle with that soon
2010/12/04 - 1.03 - My fingers are too fat, I made everything in to image buttons and moved the launcher config to a prefs screen, if anyone has nicer icons let me know these are repurposed from generic android icons
2010/12/05 - 1.04 - Added alternate long-press soft home key for secondary launcher like if you want to use the built-in nook home, added configurable options for what to do if you tap or double tap the nook button while in the softkeys screen, long press on menu/back sends an extra back to the app before sending the requested button for apps that bring up pause screens or something when you move them to the background (angry birds, etc)
2010/12/05 - 1.05 - Integrated the dark theme from nemith, you can choose it in prefs now. Added options to disable the "exit" and "configure" buttons. If you disable "configure" you can still get to the preferences using the "menu" button in the notification bar (e.g. the normal menu button)
2010/12/05 - 1.06 - fix broken key handling, menu and back didn't work, don't use 1.05
2010/12/06 - 1.07 - add recent applications to top of the screen since we don't have a long-press-home recent apps dialog, looking in to re-ordering the buttons next
2010/12/07 - 1.08 - This release adds options to re-order the softkeys, insert soft keys in to the notification area, disable the recent apps list, long press the background to configure if you lost the configure button, and some options for changing the background to dim/blurred/none (note: the notification soft keys show up in the notification area, not in the main status bar like the nook menu/back, I can't put things there as an application you would need to modify system jars to get this effect)
2010/12/07 - v1.09 - Default to non-blurred background and added note about slowness, added option to return to softkeys after pressing back button
2010/12/08 - v1.10 - Selecting "SoftKeys" for your single-press home action will make it so if you launch softkeys, it will go to the launcher unless you hit home again, e.g. single-press home to go to launcher anywhere, double-press home to go to softkeys
2010/12/13 - v2.00 - This adds a new service overlay that is displayed above all apps allowing softkeys to be sent without having to mess with the home button. Default home key behavior has changed to be single click home from anywhere goes to your default launcher, double click home to get to the old softkeys interface. I'm still fiddling with service panel layouts and ideas so things will probably change, I just wanted to get some testing with something simple.
2010/12/17 - v2.01 - The service panel can now be dragged around the screen, you can change it from horizontal to vertial by long pressing it, you can adjust the transparency of the panel and the icon size, and also control if it closes after sending key events. If you don't want the dialog background on the panel you can disable it to just have floating buttons. NOTE: the signing certificate has changed to a release cert, you will need to uninstall the old softkeys before installing this one
2010/12/17 - v2.02 - Now you can move the button that brings up softkeys service, slightly better handling for switching horizontal/vertical layout by long press
veeerrry nice man!
Thanks! I agree with you - I didn't want to permanently re-assign the volume buttons, as I use them in some apps.
One request, if possible ) - Is there any way to make it go to launcher pro (or whatever you want as default) when pressing "Home" in the app? Right now, it asks me to "Pick Home" every time.
ddenson said:
Thanks! I agree with you - I didn't want to permanently re-assign the volume buttons, as I use them in some apps.
One request, if possible ) - Is there any way to make it go to launcher pro (or whatever you want as default) when pressing "Home" in the app? Right now, it asks me to "Pick Home" every time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never personally use the "home" button, I use the quick drawer thing in the notification bar, so I don't really use a launcher. I could probably quickly add a button just for an alternate home or use last home I guess/choose new home I guess. I'll see what I can do. I've also though about adding arrow soft keys, for using in like connectbot, is there any interest in that?
There are also other minor irritating things, like apps that exit when they are not in focus will not work with this hack. For example, monkey kick (a game my son loves to play) will exit if it's not in focus so it never receives the soft keys. I suppose it doesn't matter though since it doesn't use the screen completely anyway, so he just gets to play on my old g1
bpk said:
I never personally use the "home" button, I use the quick drawer thing in the notification bar, so I don't really use a launcher. I could probably quickly add a button just for an alternate home or use last home I guess/choose new home I guess. I'll see what I can do. I've also though about adding arrow soft keys, for using in like connectbot, is there any interest in that?
There are also other minor irritating things, like apps that exit when they are not in focus will not work with this hack. For example, monkey kick (a game my son loves to play) will exit if it's not in focus so it never receives the soft keys. I suppose it doesn't matter though since it doesn't use the screen completely anyway, so he just gets to play on my old g1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again. Using the last home would be great, if that's possible. I don't personally have any use for additional buttons, but maybe someone else can comment? Rgds.
Awesome.
Code would be cool it would be nice to have them popup at the bottom of the screen like when you press the menu button in an app.
Also to take a screen shot you hold the 'n' button and tap the Vol - button. If you have as much trouble as I did with this method, you can also install drocap2 (root required) which does nice job.
awesome app. its perfect! great replacement until someone does the sidebar buttons like the ones available for the archos
nice work... now if you can make this pop up on the bottom of the screen with a black background like the archos tablets it would be awesome...
thank you, this is a great work around
I put the source up at
http: // git.hoopajoo.net
(take out the spaces I can't post links apparently)
That page has a list of my public git urls available, the last one is SoftKeys
if anyone wants to check it out, I'm currently looking at remembering the last launcher picked and defaulting to that for people that use launchers.
-- the rest of this is just for people looking in to the source, to provide some background to why I did it this way and alternate ideas I had --
If any devs look at it I thought I'd post some of my reasons for doing it this way:
1) I looked at creating a custom init service bound to a keycode at first, this would have made it so you didn't need superuser but would have required modifying your ramdisk. Even just making a daemon and communicating through some kind of pipe would require modifying the ramdisk to get it in init. In the end I abandoned the idea because it seemed easier for most normal people to just install an apk.
2) I looked at binding this to the camera button and remapping it in the keylayout, that would preserve the default home screen selections, but would require modifying a file in your /system/ so people would need to adb their stuff. Again I thought an apk would be easier and adding in shell commands would just complicate things for people and I'm not very good at support
3) I spent a LOT of time looking through git repos from aosp to find out if there was some way to bind to the long-press home and take over the recent apps list, since it doesn't even work. This would preserve your home settings and not even remove an existing function. After several hours grepping through the core.git stuff I decided this was just easier to do. If figured good enough is usually good enough. Though if someone can figure this out it would be sweet.
4) I really was hoping that we could just pull whatever archos is doing since that seems ideal, completely soft buttons. However after downloading the aos firmware I found it was encrypted and apparently currently can only be decrypted by the devices using the public key stored on them somewhere and I'm not aware of anyone having dumped their system images yet.
Also I've been looking through the superuser source to see how they handle the popups, they do a good job of not killing the running app and being all around unobtrusive, doing it their way for the popup buttons would be really sweet since it never seems to break the currently running app.
Great except one thing!
I have LauncherPro so when I click the home button, it always gives me a choice between LauncherPro and the original home. Can you make it so I can set a default? I want to just go straight to launcher pro then I select home.
Pinesal said:
Great except one thing!
I have LauncherPro so when I click the home button, it always gives me a choice between LauncherPro and the original home. Can you make it so I can set a default? I want to just go straight to launcher pro then I select home.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thread is one page long and your question was already discussed.
One page was too much reading?
How about double click home button for menu and hold the button for back? Just my 2 cents.
I have taken the source code and modified it to a be a row across the bottom of the screen, I think this looks a little bit better
Note the bar at the bottom of both. Ignore that ghosting on the second image.
If anyone is good at graphics I can use some images to create a fancier looking bottom bar.
kabi said:
How about double click home button for menu and hold the button for back? Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am going to play to play with doing stuff like this. For example. Press Home for the menu. Press Home again to make the meny disappear. Double tap home for menu. Long Press for back.
I think next on my plate is setting a default launcher application to use when you hit the soft Home button.
Here is the github respository for anyone interested: https://github.com/bennetb01/SoftKeys
I can't get this to install. The first one instaled fine but when I kick this off it says it will replace the first version then "application not installed" should I remove the first one manually?
Great work BTW. Thanks
lovelacer said:
I can't get this to install. The first one instaled fine but when I kick this off it says it will replace the first version then "application not installed" should I remove the first one manually?
Great work BTW. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can uninstall the first one via the following:
Code:
adb uninstall net.hoopajoo.android.SoftKeys
Install the second one normally via:
Code:
adb install SoftKeys.apk
Interestingly enough the adb uninstall command resulted in a failure as well. I just uninstalled via long press at my app screen and was able to install via root explorer on the nook.
Thanks for the help though.
I do like those buttons, I'm not much for making things look nice, typically I just do back end stuff. If you want to rebase against head and post your git repo I'll merge those changes in to main.
I started using launcher pro and realized it does suck way too much to have to select your launcher every time. It's just 1 button press but I'm too lazy.
And for people re-installing, from adb you have to do:
adb install -r <APK>
Also to remove packages I use appremover, or you can use astro file manager with the package manager under the menu.
nemith said:
I have taken the source code and modified it to a be a row across the bottom of the screen, I think this looks a little bit better
Note the bar at the bottom of both. Ignore that ghosting on the second image.
If anyone is good at graphics I can use some images to create a fancier looking bottom bar.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks very much for this, sir.
About those images: what size do ya need? i can do them right now.
-K
I didn't want to start a new thread for this piece of information, so this looks like a good place to discuss it. My wife noticed that you can always access the back button by swiping from right to left across the notification toolbar. This worked on her non-root NC as well as my rooted one. Pretty cool!
First off, this place is great. Very helpful, very organized, and just incredible content.
I have been tooling around with ROMs and such for a while now, and this site has always delivered.
I've run into a bit of a problem after i installed quite an amazing ROM. I 'Auto-hid' my toggles, and they seem to have took the opportunity to take a long walk off of a short cliff.
I have searched this forum, and have read long pressing the settings will fix this, unhiding the toggles, resetting the toggles, reboot.. etc.
before i back up and re-flash i was just wondering if this was brought to anyone's attention, or if there is a formal fix?
thank you.
Edit: Whoops. after unchecking the top option to long press/etc. i found pressing the settings icon once brought the toggles back, and was then able to uncheck the auto hide function. :highfive:
Using: EnSec Enhanced Security + Operative w TWRP. WP8 Launcher
I checked the "Always show statusbar" option in Swipe Status Bar. It works, shows the status bar constantly, BUT... Now I can't launch any applications except for the ones that are linked in the main launcher screen. When I swipe right to the drawer, tapping any app has no effect. It seems like it's blocking applications from either detecting screen taps or opening at all.
Even in the few I can launch, like Settings, it doesn't detect when I tap any of the menu options. I can scroll up and down, and pull down the status bar, but I cant make the SSB control panel open again to disable the option.
I tried booting into safe mode, but it still launches SSB so the problem persists. I tried changing to Smart Launcher, same problem.
Is there any way to prevent Swipe Status Bar from starting up?
mklopez said:
Using: EnSec Enhanced Security + Operative w TWRP. WP8 Launcher
I checked the "Always show statusbar" option in Swipe Status Bar. It works, shows the status bar constantly, BUT... Now I can't launch any applications except for the ones that are linked in the main launcher screen. When I swipe right to the drawer, tapping any app has no effect. It seems like it's blocking applications from either detecting screen taps or opening at all.
Even in the few I can launch, like Settings, it doesn't detect when I tap any of the menu options. I can scroll up and down, and pull down the status bar, but I cant make the SSB control panel open again to disable the option.
I tried booting into safe mode, but it still launches SSB so the problem persists. I tried changing to Smart Launcher, same problem.
Is there any way to prevent Swipe Status Bar from starting up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem here, except I stayed in the SSB settings long enough to discover that unchecking that check box again is one of the things that having it checked prevents you from doing. Long story short, I think this has probably made the decision for me whether or not to switch from EnSec+Operative to Loki's new ROM...because I am not sure there's any way out of this without flashing.
I had the same issue,
Only thing I could do was open up play store and uninstall.
It took forever to figure it out and took many tries till it finally registered my clicking.
If all else fails, you may need to wipe the watch via recovery and start over.
I have since stopped using the app as I never want to go through that nightmare again.
D.
Lokifish Marz said:
Swipe Statusbar
How do I get Swipe Status Bar to work?
Launch Swipe Status Bar
Select the first two options
Done
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now your only options are to either factory reset in TWRP or flash back to stock and start over.
Lokifish Marz said:
Now your only options are to either factory reset in TWRP or flash back to stock and start over.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bummer.
Not sure the quote was relevant.
Should have checked the app's page when I saw that feature though:
SwipeStatusBar said:
What's New
added ability for permanently visible status bar (BETA - back button do not work!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...Granted, it doesn't mention anything else not working, but that would probably have been enough to keep me from experimenting, even though it still wouldn't have led me to think that checking the box would make it impossible to uncheck the box...
---------- Post added at 09:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 PM ----------
Found another way!
...For those who are remotely comfortable with adb, anyhow.
adb shell 'pm clear cz.chladek.swipe_status_bar'
This is essentially a force-stop and clear app data on Swipe Status Bar. Only works if you already had usb debugging enabled or find a way to enable it, of course.
Thanks for the tip Kilroo, but it was too late for me. I went TWRP and wiped it. Yeah, it cost me a lot of customizations gone, but at least I didnt hand anything there that wasn't backed to the cloud.
One silver lining: Now I get to rebuild the launcher, icons, widgets etc in a bit more usable form. AND I'm staying away from that SWB setting until is out of beta! Thanks for the help, all!
mklopez said:
Thanks for the tip Kilroo, but it was too late for me. I went TWRP and wiped it. Yeah, it cost me a lot of customizations gone, but at least I didnt hand anything there that wasn't backed to the cloud.
One silver lining: Now I get to rebuild the launcher, icons, widgets etc in a bit more usable form. AND I'm staying away from that SWB setting until is out of beta! Thanks for the help, all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was afraid of that. Well, maybe if anyone else makes the same mistake it will help them.
I'm still trying to figure out whether I want to go from EnSec+Operative to the new Unified Rom doohickey or not, since I no longer have to redo everything regardless.
When I long press the home button a semi circle comes up and Google is at the top, no other icons. Can I add different apps to this? I think I've been through every menu, I just got the phone yesterday and I am still working on it.
Thanks!
jackryan57 said:
When I long press the home button a semi circle comes up and Google is at the top, no other icons. Can I add different apps to this? I think I've been through every menu, I just got the phone yesterday and I am still working on it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Short answer: not without modifying the firmware. There might be a custom firmware (or "xposed" module) that has this as a feature. (However, I'm not personally aware of anything on the HTC One M8 that does it.)
For future reference, single questions with shorter answers should be posted in the device's Q&A section, not the general section. (If it's an open question involving a lot of conversation, it might be okay in 'general.')
Take care
Gary
Dears members,
After long searches on this forum, i can't find the correct keywords for my request. My apologies if i'm not in the correct section. Let me try to explain what i'm looking for.
I would like to be able to customise the home button from my onscreen navigation bar (i have Samsung S8+) and do specific actions on this button (long press - double press - swipe up- etc.).
Actions could be: take screenshot, go back, go forward, launch application, launch shortcut, toogle option, etc.
Does it already exist apps that can perform this?
(I am not searching for an "edge launcher" application)
Many thanks for your help.
Manbboy
This is what everyone recommends, me personally I tried it, didn't like it... but give it a whirl
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.paphonb.systemuituner
@wutangkillabee: thank you. I've already seen this app. Not used yet. I was expecting something else and easier to install. Any other suggestions?
There plenty of edge launcher applications.. and only one for nav bar launcher application ("Custom Navigation Bar") ?
You could try this: https://forum.xda-developers.com/android/apps-games/app-custom-navigation-bar-customize-t3590967
@darksidesh007: this is exactly the same as @wutangkillabee suggested. Thanks anyway.
Other alternatives ?
Not that I kno of... But 4 you to accomplish this your going to have either root your phone or perform adb commands, really no other way around it