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!
So here I am, 5 yrs a RIM BB client, now holding in my hand a beautiful device called the dell streak. When I was with BB, I always had the most up to date firmware, months before Telus would drop them. I modded my system first to look like an iphone and then to look 'androidy' and 'linuxy'...
well, now I begin my search to perfect this device. I have a few questions and I hope I don't offend the 'experts' as a noob but I have an unlocked Streak running Froyo. While playing with it I have noticed that the page that is set as my home page when I click my home button is a series of apps recently opened. I would much rather have this be set to programs that do not refresh, call it my top 10 list.
I would also like to view, add and test themes, skins etc... that add more functionality to this phablet, tabone, or whatever the word is for this giant AND AWESOME device.
I want to create backgrounds with my daughter, my bike, my logo all my things...
I have tried to go through the 'settings' but honestly, it seems really limited.
I have read around the forums here, but most of this stuff seems advanced (which I will get to) but is there a noob guide somewhere?
The apps list you describe sounds like a Stage widget. Long press on it and it will change shape and a trash can will appear, without letting up on it drag it to the trash can. That's how you remove the stuff you don't want to make room for what you do. Some not Streak specific info.
You can add shortcuts and widgets to an empty area of a screen by holding your finger on that area until a menu pops up.
You can also put a shortcut to an app on the screen by opening the app tray and long pressing on the app icon you want on the screen. The app tray will disappear and you can drop the icon where you want.
When in doubt tap the menu key again. There may be another layer of options.
The Home key takes you back to the home screen from an app, but in some apps what happens in the background is different than what happens if you leave the app by pressing the back key. Leaving with the home key usually means that when you go back to the app you'll be at the same place.
Long pressing the Home key brings up a list of recently used apps. You can use this to quickly switch between apps or to get back to an app after a phone call or other activity.
A home replacement app changes the way your phone looks and the way you interact with it. The two favorites for the Streak are LauncherPro and ADW launcher.
How to change defaults apps/keyboards.
Other suggested sites:
Streak Smart (make sure you check out the forum)
Streak area on MyDellMini
Live wallpapers you may be interested in:
Multipicture Live Wallpaper
WallStreak
to set wallpapers all you need to do is transfer or take a picture of your daughter or bike etc and go into your menu, gallery, open the image then click on menu and Set As wallpaper
i prefer to call my streak perfection because it does everythign i ever wanted and more
if you have the ADW launcher you can download some themes from the android market you might be able to find more on the web using google not 100% sure if the dell UI does themes yet
the launcher pro for ssome of its features you have to pay so i dont really use that one myself
I suggest launcherpro
I have mine set so when I hit home, it opens apparently drawer and in apparently drawer I hit home it goes back to default home screen.
Also like it because you can have 5 shortcuts and make them also a swipe gesture to do something else.. making them 10 items....
Example....
Normal click- direct dial wife cell phone
Swipe- direct dial wife work phone
You can have multiple docks as well by swiping.
Other recommendation is to download and install dialer one..
That has a t9 dial keys which guesses your contact list.. kinda like the bb
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk
Hi,
where can i download the Tapatalk? is it free or paid
and the xda messenger?
Thnx in advance
Hi, I would like to know how I can toggle Recent App of ICS. It can be shown by long clicking on the home button. The one that has preview because I don't like to be pressing so much my home button as I am noticing improper responses from it. Is there a way to put this as an icon or widget on the homescreen? Thx
Anyone? Tried apps like button savior, etc. But it shows their built-in recent apps instead of the firmware's or samsung's.
BUMP
I know this post is old, but Im trying to figure a way too without using an app or service BUMP\
I found what I was looking for in app LMT using the "invisible swipe gestures" set to top center of screen so that swiping top left is notifications, top right is quick settings, and top center opens recents. This is for anyone who might be searching and happen to land on this dead thread. Any other particular method of shortcut will work if you set it to Activities>SystemUI>Overview.recents is the path to this.
sent from the tapatalk app on my S3 running whatever rom Im running this week
I use GMD Gestures, because my sensitive buttons aren't working. Before, I used CM official inbuilt option that you can change the option sensitive (or back) button for recent Apps. Can really recommend that. Greetings.
Hey peeps, I was watching this video " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxziEamCkIY " and noticed when the guy added the battery widget he just pressed and held the screen, then a menu popped up.
My issue is whe I press and hold my screen I get the Wallpaper menu, see this link " http://www.box.com/s/d6bae3441e6640b1dbff " . Why is mine different? :-(
My Prime is 100% stock, not rooted, and running the ICS from Asus updates with .21 firmware.
curtis818 said:
Hey peeps, I was watching this video " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxziEamCkIY " and noticed when the guy added the battery widget he just pressed and held the screen, then a menu popped up.
My issue is whe I press and hold my screen I get the Wallpaper menu, see this link " http://www.box.com/s/d6bae3441e6640b1dbff " . Why is mine different? :-(
My Prime is 100% stock, not rooted, and running the ICS from Asus updates with .21 firmware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like he is using a different launcher application than the stock version that comes with ICS.
In Android 4.x the only way to add a widget or app shortcut is through the Widgets/Apps Menu.
In older versions of Android you could hold the screen and it would bring up a prompt to choose what actions you wanted (add widget, add app, change wallpaper etc) however Google has done away with that in favor of a more robust Widget gallery that lets you see the different styles of widgets that a widget pack comes loaded with, instead of just seeing descriptions of them in a list. It is possible some custom launchers and ROMs include this outmoded functionality.
You can tell from the video that the person who made it is not using a stock ROM, since it lacks the Google Search widget on the top left, the App Menu button on the top right and also the "Trashcan" appears as a black bar on the left of the screen instead of as a text link at the top of the screen.
New Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 has by default three (3) pages visible (not counting Apps page)
Home is on the center, with Samsung Daily occupying entire Left side (swipe left).
Can this Samsung Daily be completely removed so that only two pages show by default ?
Tried disabling and also tried by removing all permissions. Have not signed into a Samsung account, don't have a Samsung account and don't plan on creating one.
The only purpose of this tablet is for Zoom meetings so trying to make it as barebones as possible.
Figured out it could be pinched into a preview window and then an On/Off slider shows up. Once set to Off, the page drops off and now only Home (1) and another empty with one group folder page (2) shows with right swipe from Home page.
Perfect for now!