Hello All - a quick bit of advice.
I am looking to get an android device to simply plug into a TV so that I can display a number of Widgets. A home dashboard if you will. (News, Train times, Weather that sort of thing).
Will one of the multitude of Android TV boxes you see that are designed for things like Kodi work for my needs or not? Is this overkill as I really do not need to use it for streaming and all that.
Is there a better option - some kind of stock/vanilla android device that will simply allow me to access play store -> install software -> and display widgets.
Thanks all!
Related
Is there any way to change the wallpaper on my out-of-the-box gTablet? I can press the classic home screen and get to the wallpapers/widgets etc but can only see the stock images for wallpaper selection.
I do not have Gallery on this tablet but do have new photos on the gTab (Picasa and downloaded) that I would like to use.
Anyone know where does the stock wallpaper (non animated) photos live on the gTab? Thank you!
first off out of box rom kinda sucks, but if you like go with it .
to change wallpaper on most roms is just pressing and holding down on the current background till a window pops up. there you will see a wallpaper option. gl
You might want to check out dodal Wallpaper Maker (AD), available from the Android Market. This app allows you to create wallpaper from your own images. Works fine for me on the gTablet.
Gary,
the out of the box ROM does not have the Android Market. I would use the suggestion from numberattic or install a custom ROM to get to the market.
Wallpaper help. Thanks!
Hi --
Thanks to each of you for responding. I wish I had time or interest in rooting this thing and changing out the ROM etc. I had expected something a little more professional. I prefer the Classic Home UI and am not happy that out of the box, I get 4 or 5 cheesy wallpapers (either live or static) and no access to Market etc. Prob the average user of this thing will not experience or care about this, but . . . it's worth to me to shell out a few more dollars and not have to hack anything to get it to where it should have been in the first place when I bought it.
Judy Wilson
Yes, I can and did do what numberattic suggested as is standard with Android but on the gTablet this only allows access to the pre-installed wallpapers and provides no add'l functionality at all. Trying to get images I have loaded in "Photos" to work as wallpaper is also apparently not possible with any combination of mashing, pressing, tapping etc etc etc.
>>to change wallpaper on most roms is just pressing and holding down on the current background till a window pops up. there you will see a wallpaper option. gl
Hi guys!
I've bought an Alwinner A13 Tablet as a Christmas present for my daughter who is 3yrs old. She has been using mine and my husbands HTC Sensations for watching BabyTV and playing various counting and alphabet games, but we twitch every time she drops them...hence the cheap tablet. It is running 4.0.4 has 512 MB RAM and 8GB internal storage. We bought a 16GB SD card to increase the storage.
I want to customise it for her in time for Christmas and was wondering if you guys mind my asking some questions on here in the hope 1 or more of you has done something similar or can point me in the right direction at least.
What I want to do:
Hide, disable and lock out the internet browser, app store and anything else that I may need to do stuff (like install apps for her) but don't want her to see or use.
Disable the system icons / buttons (battery, clock, app home etc)
Make desktop / homescreen icons bigger (approx twice their current size).
Prevent her moving and deleting icons
Create folders on the home screen with custom folder icons (different picture for each folder) that will hold apps and shortcuts to movies on the SD card.
Give App and shortcut icons custom icon images (I have graphics files for these that I can resize)
Play movies directly from shortcut
Minimalistic movie player that just plays the file and then EXITS back to the home screen when the movie is done.
If any of the above requires changing ROM from the installed 4.0.4 to something else or requires the tablet to be Rooted then I've learnt how to do that already.
Any help or advice on how to achieve the above list would be greatly appreciated.
p.s I already looked at the "big icon" app in google market, but it sticks a setup icon next to the icon which you cant lock out..which means my daughter could easily modify the icons.
Thanks
Lyndsey
most of your requirements can be found on go launcher or adw launcher as for movie shprtcuts i dont know if its possoble
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
Kids Place + ES file manager
most of this could probably be handled by the Kids Place - Parental Control app on Google Play, you can make shortcuts to basically anything (including movie files) using ES File Explorer by tapping and holding on the video and selecting make shortcut and also has a pretty simple video player built in.
ngoralph said:
most of your requirements can be found on go launcher or adw launcher as for movie shprtcuts i dont know if its possoble
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your help!
Do you know if there is a movie player around that I can configure so that it closes down and returns to the home screen after it's finished playing a movie? This functionality is pretty important as I don't think she'll be able to exit the movie player herself.
I looked at go launcher but I couldn't see it supporting setting folder and shortcut icons. This is pretty important as well, because her reading level is still quite low and therefore she will have to navigate by "familiar" icons (BabyTV Icon to take her to the BabyTV player etc).
cyhax said:
most of this could probably be handled by the Kids Place - Parental Control app on Google Play, you can make shortcuts to basically anything (including movie files) using ES File Explorer by tapping and holding on the video and selecting make shortcut and also has a pretty simple video player built in.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I installed Kids place. That wouldn't let me add movie shortcuts or folders to the desktop, only apps. I want to have folders on the desktop with shortcuts inside each folder to movies. Each folder to have an icon depicting the cartoon character of the movies that the shortcuts inside point to.
Having folders with custom icons is something that computers have been capable of for 20 years and yet android can't do this. It's extremely frustrating that there are so many other types of customisations and wazzy effects (launchers seem to prioritise a hundred different ways of scrolling over desktop customisation!!) and yet something so basic is absent or poorly implemented.....
Sorry....had to get that rant off my chest!
I'll keep looking but thanks for the help http://forum.xda-developers.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
I'm trying out go launcher again. So far it's closest to what I need to do but still has some issues. Such as when you make the icons larger, folder labels disappear inside folders! I had each shortcut inside the folder listed as 1,2,3 etc because my daughter can count, just not read that well yet.
I have a question I hope someone can help with:
Why do all the custom launchers reduce the size of the desktop icons? whichever launcher I load up, when I go from stock ics launcher to the custom launcher, the icons are about 50% of the size. I'm just curious...
You daughter wouldn't be able to go to the homescreen by herself?
It's not that hard to teach her to press the home button when she wants to go to the homescreen.
Revobase said:
You daughter wouldn't be able to go to the homescreen by herself?
It's not that hard to teach her to press the home button when she wants to go to the homescreen.
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Click to collapse
Yes, we've already tested that theory out on my phone (HTC Sensation). So we know she can get back to the Homescreen. Thanks for bringing it up though, it's a valid point. We assumed that because she is only 3 she wouldn't be able to find her way around. But in truth she seems to be able to find her way to youtube and play movies there
So we've removed the youtube icons from her tablet now.
artychoke said:
Yes, we've already tested that theory out on my phone (HTC Sensation). So we know she can get back to the Homescreen. Thanks for bringing it up though, it's a valid point. We assumed that because she is only 3 she wouldn't be able to find her way around. But in truth she seems to be able to find her way to youtube and play movies there
So we've removed the youtube icons from her tablet now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kids are MUCH more tech savier then you problably are. In 5 years, she'll know as much as you.
I'm not the best at explaining myself so bare with me and sorry in advance!
Let's say my Android phone is 1080p
and my TV is 1080p
and I'm connecting my Android device to my TV via HDMI and it's in 1080p resolution...
My question is, will the resolution of the Android interface (GUI) change as well? Example: On a Non-HD Android phone, you'll have maybe 6x6 (rows/columns) of icons... on a HD Android phone, that pretty much stays the same (Why would you want 12x12 of icons on a 5" phone right? it'd be way too small to see all those icons and even harder to touch it with your finger)
So if your Android is connected TV in the same 1080p resolution, will it now display more icons? Or is it pretty much just mirroring the exact look of your phone? On my PadFone, it changes the entire interface from 'phone mode' to 'tablet mode'... That means when the phone is in the tablet, you now have tons more icons, tons more space for widgets, etc, etc... same resolution, but allows more space to be used.
Does that make sense? I'm trying to find an alternate setup to my PadFone, (using a 24" monitor as the phones screen)... but I would just hate to see enormous icons take up the entire monitor (6x6), I want to see more icons, more space.
Thanks in advance!
Edit:
I'm going to ask another question in this thread if you don't mind, 2 birds 1 stone kind of thing...
Let's say my android phone is NFC, and my computer is NFC, and they support the 'mirroring' thing... if I tap my phone to my computer, will it show up on the monitor and I can use the COMPUTER keyboard to write texts? The computer I'm looking at is the new Sony Laptop Tablet:
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/sto...87789#features
ty ty ty in advance!
Hi,
Short:
Is there any launcher that supports (lockable) profiles/layouts? (See last paragraph for detailed description)
Long:
Lately I was thinking a lot about the UI of smartphones. It started as I got my first android device which pretty much took over the basic UI of the iPhone. Up to 4.2.1 android starts with a launcher that provides several pages (as a mobile would be a book), and you can place icons and widgets on it - as it were a desktop that you look at often. But shouldn't a launcher be a launcher after all? It's first task is to find and start apps as quick as possible. Further it can use its space for showing dynamic information or feature nice images (background).
So I tried almost every launcher I could find. Most were pretty similar to the stock launchers, with some additional, but mostly not needed features. I tried several layouts - just how I guess most people use their home screen: putting icons on the screens, put them in groups by categories or how often I use them, checking out widgets (most are of no use because they don't show dynamic content) etc. but I was never really satisfied. I've kept no launcher more than a few days. Not that they were any bad - not at all. But it's just not perfect.
Lately some interesting alternatives were introduced here on xda: for example SFlauncher (mostly interesting because of its nice layouting) or Listener (mostly interesting because of its reduced focus to show dynamic information). Besides apps arise that use the obvious - gestures and haptic feedback: GYF, Swapps, LMT and others.
But I was still not satisfied. I observed how I use the device (and I'm a heavy user for sure). I found out, that when I'm on the streets I would prefer to have Google Maps as my live wallpaper, a widget to control my music - and for sure I then don't need a shortcut to Titanium, LMT configuration etc. When being in my office, I want to have another, colleague-friendly background. Being with friends I want to have some sharing apps in front - and being safe to give them the phone (so no direct access to those apps/bookmarks/images that are too private). So it's all about purposes.
My journey seemed to come to an end. But I cannot find any launcher that follows such an approach. I know apps as Llama and Tasker can do most of mentioned actions location-based. But I don't want to have my mobile react on location, I want to switch between the profiles/purposes anytime (some need be locked, of course).
So, currently I believe that the ideal launcher (for me) would structure everything by purposes. I want to be able to define several purposes/scenarios (for example: traveling, studying, in the cinema, kid is playing, optimizing device). Each of these purposes then should show its own background, widgets and icons on the screen (one per purpose is enough). Individual wifi/bluetooth/... settings and status bar visibility setting would be a plus, but not so important.
So here is the idea, a X-Cross Media Bar (XMB) style interface launcher that can be used on android devices, phones or tablets, but I plan on using it on my N7 since I use a Bluetooth keyboard I use for remote desktop and chrome and a pc xbox controller for games from time to time I have been trying to figure out how to make a decent android home screen that interacts like the XMB controls wise but have come up short.
I have found quite a few threads and other pages for stuff like this that has moved nowhere in the past and was hoping you guys might be able to get something in some sort of solution to my desire for a clean interactive interface. The closest thing i have, thanks to one of my friends who first came up with the idea but I have obsessively been trying to find a way to perfect, is using Nova launcher with folders set to tap to open a set app and swipe up to open the folder and a custom icon based off a PS3 theme pack I took the images from all arranged in an XMB style (picture linked) with the Wave Life Wallpaper to give it that PSP/PS3 look.
Basically all I want is an interface that interacts like the XMB, can be controlled either with directional buttons or by swiping across the screen (or tapping the icon of what you want if possible). But the big kicker here is that it has to support each column set acting as a customizable folder, like in Nova, and a standard app drawer where you can see all your apps. I don't even care if this requires xposed, a different launcher, and widgets, I want it and have done everything short of trying to code it myself. (probably not a good idea, I'm a network guy, not a good programmer)
All the pages I have come across in search of the pot of gold:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1104989
http://home.gna.org/gp2xmb/
https://code.google.com/p/xpmb/
http://boards.dingoonity.org/jxd-devices/xmb-launcher-for-android-5891/
The second to last one was a launcher somebody made, and believe it or not runs on 5.0.2, but has some issues and does not really let you change anything. The last Link is an actually functional one but does not allow for much customization.
What I am thinking of is more of a launcher that allows you to create columns for certain things and select which apps fill them like a folder does, allows you to have whatever wallpaper (static, scrolling, live) and has customization options. If somebody out there can program this and get it working I would pay for it. It just seems like such a usable interface for when using a controller, keyboard, or even on a touchscreen as a way different way to have everything organised. Although a standard app drawer would still be nice to avoid having every app in a column and just the ones you frequently use (I basically want an XMB in place of multiple desktops on the home screen)
Just let me know if anybody can help me figure this out.