[Q] Repurposing Home Button to show Notification Menu? - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Dear Androidsters
I'm very much enjoying my Samsung Galaxy Note (running stock Android 4.1.2, rooted), and it's waaay better than all my previous 11 palmtop computers put together.
I have four apps which effectively make my Notification Menu into my app launching mechanism [1], since I find this to be quicker and more efficient than the default Home Screens paradigm. I have explored using various app-launching Home Screen replacement apps (such as GO Launcher EX, 3D Home, etc., &c., all of which stick to using the Home Screens paradigm), but I much prefer to use the Notification Menu to launch apps.
Android is justly famous for its 'Customise Everything!' abilities, but search as I may, I cannot find a way of customising a single press on the Home Button. The final finesse would be that, in any and every situation (including when apps are running full screen, where the Notification Bar method of accessing the Notification Menu is absent), a single press on the Home Button shows the Notification Menu instead of the Home Screen (or whichever replacement app-launching Home Screens app it currently launches).
So does anybody know of a customising utility app which will allow me to remap a single press on the Home Button to show the Notification Menu?
Thanks in advance for your help.
[1] Four apps which effectively make my Notification Menu into my app launching mechanism:
Simple Shortcut Panel, Launch From Notification, Settings Extended, and Notification Toggle

There is a way but I know little about button mapping, ask some app developers, they'll probably know.

Related

Home icon on toolbar - Possible?

Is it possible to create a "Home" icon on the toolbar next to, say, back icon? Only reason I am seeking that is then I won't have to physically hit the Nook button every time.
P.S.: It is a fully rooted Nook tablet.
How about Button Savior?
I cannot specifically answer your question, but I would recommend Button Savior for the time being. I used it while rooted with NT and still use it with CM7. I prefer not to use the physical buttons unless I have to.
Ed
If you install CM7, you can customize the menu bar to include your choice of home, back, notifications, search and settings buttons.
Yes, you can add a home icon to the toolbar by modifying the systemui.apk. Here is a link to the thread in the app section.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1425581
Attached is a screen capture showing my home screen with the home icon on the status bar.
If you are just using a rooted nook, the home manager app can provide similar funtionality (albeit with a couple more clicks.)

[Q] Question: touchkey shortcuts

I've searched everywhere, but didn't find a solution for the following:
when you hold the bottom left hardware touchkey you'll get a popup browser with google search.
And if you hold the center key a window appears with recent programs.
Is there a way too change these shortcuts into something of my own choice?
My s2 is rooted, so maybe there is an app that will do the trick?
Like you, I'd love to remap the menu key to home and home key to menu. We use the home key much more often than menu and it's harder to press a physical key. However, I haven't found such a mod yet.
Remapping keys
I am looking for a way to remap long press of back key (i.e. hold down right key) to something else. Haven't found anything yet.
Now I am using SwipeSwitcher - I configured top left swipe to run Quicker, top right swipe to run a task switcher (I am using PreHome), bottom right swipe to run recent apps (I couldn't find an app to run ICS recent apps, I installed Nova Launcher and assigned the swipe action to its recent apps shortcut).

Are you annoyed by accidental navigation key clicks?

I am using a Galaxy Nexus. Most of the time, keys on the navigation bar are not touched by accident. But when playing a game I often touch the soft key accidentally. Because many games require to touch controls on the edge of the screen, which is very close to the navigation bar. iOS, on the other hand, does not have this problem, because apps use the full screen, and there is one hardware button. Also, I often accidentally swipe up from the bottom to launch Google Now, when actually I wanted to scroll up. There is no menu to disable that swipe up action, except disabling the Google Now. I want to use Google Now but not by swiping up. I would prefer just a icon on my home screen to launch Now.
I already saw some custom ROMs have a feature to toggle the navigation bar, but I think there must be some official solution to this. The solutions I can think of;
1. The custom ROM way. Add toggle menu to the power menu.
2. Make the buttons as physical buttons not capacitive buttons.
3. Add another physical key on the side to enable/disable navigation bar.
4. Swipe from left to right on the navigation bar to lock it. Swipe again to unlock it.
5. Long pressing Home toggles the navigation bar. On first long press, the home button is changed to a lock icon. To unlock the bar, long press the lock icon.
6. Or Google Now is launched by long pressing of the multitasking button.
What do you think? Do you have the same troubles?
typingcat said:
I am using a Galaxy Nexus. Most of the time, keys on the navigation bar are not touched by accident. But when playing a game I often touch the soft key accidentally. Because many games require to touch controls on the edge of the screen, which is very close to the navigation bar. iOS, on the other hand, does not have this problem, because apps use the full screen, and there is one hardware button. Also, I often accidentally swipe up from the bottom to launch Google Now, when actually I wanted to scroll up. There is no menu to disable that swipe up action, except disabling the Google Now. I want to use Google Now but not by swiping up. I would prefer just a icon on my home screen to launch Now.
I already saw some custom ROMs have a feature to toggle the navigation bar, but I think there must be some official solution to this. The solutions I can think of;
1. The custom ROM way. Add toggle menu to the power menu.
2. Make the buttons as physical buttons not capacitive buttons.
3. Add another physical key on the side to enable/disable navigation bar.
4. Swipe from left to right on the navigation bar to lock it. Swipe again to unlock it.
5. Long pressing Home toggles the navigation bar. On first long press, the home button is changed to a lock icon. To unlock the bar, long press the lock icon.
6. Or Google Now is launched by long pressing of the multitasking button.
What do you think? Do you have the same troubles?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can kinds of disable it using SwipeLaunch Disabler.
https:/play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hk.sld.SwipeLaunchDisabler
Honestly probably all nexus owners experience this problem although I personally give it up for awesome stock launcher and features and being able to easily hack it.
Sent from my SCH-R950 using xda premium

Removing menu button from apps

i have a galaxy note 2, i activated the screen buttons, but kept the menu button active... however the apps keep thinking i disabled it, so they give me a menu button IN the app... this is very anoying, specially in some stock apps that dont resize when another bar is added to acomodate the button and so the lists get cutt off... any way to tell the apps i have a menu button whilst keeping the buttons bar?
there are plenty of threads out there to do just the oposite, not this.

How to open in app menu?

Hi all. It may seem a silly question and probably it is but there are apps (in this case Touchdown mail client) that haven't an icon to open the in app settings menu. With my previous phones I used a physical button, usually long press on the back button, to open it. But how to do it with the single button p9000? Thank you.
Very good question, they seem to have forgotten about apps that need a physical key for menu, have you tried enabling the softkeys to see if the menu button appears on them for you? Can the "Smart Button" not be setup to be the menu key? or is it only to open apps? I not played with it myself..
Still searching how to have the MENU inside applications, softkeys does not work !
I would ask the software maker! The phone maker won't add more physical buttons.
And multiple press are always software driven!
Even if the phone maker did, that won't help you out with the old hardware...
Doesn't seem to be an answer anywhere online so here goes:
Go to settings > Navigation bar > Turn On.
Go to app you need a menu on > swipe up from bottom to bring up the Nav bar.
Three dots appear on the end of the nav bar. Done.
If the three dots don't appear; click on the recent tasks button and then go back into the app and they should come up.
Tried and tested with EZ Drop.
- Doesn't seem to work with apps with the built in "three dots" menu.
I use ‘Menu Button (No root)’ by JetToast free on the Play store, to get round this problem.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jettoast.menubutton

Categories

Resources