I wanted to know since the tab has a screen that is 3x as big as a Galaxy S (3 phones put side by side on the tab) is there an app or a home launcher or something that will allow me to have multiple things running on different screens.
For example, I need to take information from one document and organize with another and I can easily switch between them on Windows and Linux.
I then need to tag along to other places and want to continue to edit both documents on my tab, I have to keep opening one document then remember a sentence or piece of information for a second and close that document and open the second one to continue typing it up.
It is a real hassle and very time consuming and frustrating. Our tabs are pretty big and I would like to utilize it to the fullest of its capabilities as a tablet/big smartphone.
What my suggestion is if anyone feels like making an app that I can do just this and more on my tab, they couod design an app that works like the home screen.
For instance you open a document, email, or webpage and want to look at another document or note you made for yourself or another email. All you do is swipe to the left or right and it is a clear home screen or something to that effect or maybe a list of documents, notes, emails, webpages you can open. You then choose/open what you need and can continue with the first page having the second one open for reference or whatever the case may be.
You can then easily switch between the 2 or however many pages you have opened just by swiping the screen just like you would your homescreen.
If someone knows of such an app or had the resources to make one please let me know.
Also this would make for a great multi-tasking app if made correctly.
What might be an issue here is that most programs themselves are going to detect the loss of focus and handle things. Either saving/reverting to front screen/closing down completely, or leaving things up and running.
I can see what you're after, more a 'cards' type thing, and it might be possible, but you'd have to override what the OS is sending to the apps (don't send the lose focus thing), or get the apps to handle things differently.
Either going to be impossible, or trivial. And even if it was possible to be hacked, apps are going to be assuming their running and might use more power. The way it works at the moment is to assume you're being shut down, and handle that gracefully so you're using minimal resources on a phone.
If one were to change how android handles the multi-tasking, would this sort of app be possible?
Another question is, are there any document editors that can do something like this?
I have an iPod Touch and an app named iFile, and it has multi-window type thing that I am describing where I can open many pages and view many documents at a time.
That's the main thing I want it for, editing documents without having to open and close constantly.
I was thinking of this the other day. This would be something you'd have to build into a ROM. It'd be a nice mod, and since Android already takes screenshots for the recent apps bar, it wouldn't be too hard to implement once the source is released. My thought is it would be a four or five finger gesture left or right. It could possibly zoom out similar to how the screens zoom when you drag an icon on the launcher so that the other tasks could be visible at the same time. The normal activity lifecycle would continue as usual (i.e. onPause() would be called as soon as the gesture starts, and onStop() once the activity is off the screen). A screenshot would be used in place of the actual Activity until the gesture is over (meaning the Activity has "snapped" into place).
Related
slightly edited double posting from CDMA development (tangent from a conversation in there)
If you've used webOS you'll know what I'm asking for here. If you haven't used webOS there are plenty of videos on youtube to look at to get the general idea of how it multitasks which is where it excells.
Open a web browser, press menu>bookmarks and look, finger scrollable preview windows of webpages, now in your head replace that with preview windows of currently running processes... add the ability to swipe + drag a process down to bring to foreground or up to kill that particular process. Very fluid, very easy, very natural.
Very intuitive idea and well executed in webOS. I would love to see a general port of this function added to android in form of an app or possibly a homescreen replacement, most ideal would be replace the worthless "add to homescreen button" on the senceUI dock, as longpress on the homescreen is another way to do exactly the same thing. Shade out your homescreen and put these previews over the top of your homescreen, drag in a direction as mentioned above, or hit the "add to homescreen button" agian to return to your homescreen.
I will make a bounty of $50 USD (a fair amount IMO) to anyone who makes it exactly as I describe... guaranteed to be a killer app and in no way infringing on webOS patents, as it's only replicating a function provided inside webOS similar to their "synergy" that android has copied almost bit for bit in idea.
also after all designing and beta testing is complete ... you put it out on the market you will be getting even more money, pm me if interested and details on the bounty I am offering. (I don't ever check this side of the forum so be sure to PM)
will be paying with paypal, so please have an account before responding.
I think there is already an app out there very similar to what you described
Can't remember what it's called though.
all its missing is the "previews" i think
Lennyuk said:
I think there is already an app out there very similar to what you described
Can't remember what it's called though.
all its missing is the "previews" i think
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
taskOS, I'm aware of it... the previews and the drag to foreground is what I'm wanting, and a little better way of starting it
johnsongrantr said:
taskOS, I'm aware of it... the previews and the drag to foreground is what I'm wanting, and a little better way of starting it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would imagine (though admit, I don't *know* definitively) that application previews wouldn't be possible without support from the application itself.
The reason I say this is because Android applications are essentially "sandboxed", and all inter-application communication is via "intents". Therefore, I believe that it is probable that in order to display a preview running apps, those apps would need to be coded with an "intent" to supply that preview.
As I said before though, I don't know with 100% certainty, but I'm sure if I'm wrong someone will chime in!
Regards,
Dave
i see sort of what you're saying. Bookmarks in the web browser save thumbnails of the webpages bookmarked to your sd card, but like you said it's not inter-app.
Each app would probally have to supply that thumbnail, or try and make an additoinal app that creates thumbnails when an app is in a foreground for x amount of seconds would proablly be needed, and reading the taskOS thread it sounds like it's probally not supported by the sdk. Something to look into... my offer still remains if a solution is found for this and is implemented, he's the closest example and it sounds like it's his goal as well so he will probally get the pot if he implements this and a few other things.
also find a way to twist that into senceUI as mentioned as a "root only" update.zip version to remove the explicit need for a hardware button
App
phandroid[dot com]/2010/02/18/spb-mobile-shell-5-0-coming-to-android/
Something like the top video?
Wow that looks cool
deejay300 said:
phandroid[dot com]/2010/02/18/spb-mobile-shell-5-0-coming-to-android/
Something like the top video?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, thats actually what I'm looking for... guess I'll look into it thanks
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/android-software/
winmo version
http://www.spbsoftwarehouse.com/pocketpc-software/mobileshell/
foxmeister said:
I would imagine (though admit, I don't *know* definitively) that application previews wouldn't be possible without support from the application itself.
The reason I say this is because Android applications are essentially "sandboxed", and all inter-application communication is via "intents". Therefore, I believe that it is probable that in order to display a preview running apps, those apps would need to be coded with an "intent" to supply that preview.
As I said before though, I don't know with 100% certainty, but I'm sure if I'm wrong someone will chime in!
Regards,
Dave
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my idea would be to take a screenshot of the device every time you push the home button, then use this screenshot for the task. remember how the iphone does the animations when closing tasks?
deejay300 said:
phandroid[dot com]/2010/02/18/spb-mobile-shell-5-0-coming-to-android/
Something like the top video?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I can tell from the video, that's more like a preview of live widgets rather than running apps which is going to be possible since widgets are by definition live on home screens.
Regards,
Dave
kendong2 said:
my idea would be to take a screenshot of the device every time you push the home button, then use this screenshot for the task. remember how the iphone does the animations when closing tasks?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would probably work - the issue though (for me anyway) is that the screenshot wouldn't show the current status of the app, but the status just prior to shifting anyway.
If I'm running say Spotify, I'd want my live preview to show what I'm currently playing, not what I was playing when I put the app into the background. If it couldn't do that, I'm no better off with the screenshot than I am with a simple Spotify icon,
Regards,
Dave
Hi All,
I'm hoping someone can give me an answer on why there are two programs that pretty much do the same thing, yet have differences that don't make real sense to me.
- The handwriting to text function, one is found using the menu, the other isn't.
- Syncing with Evernote...
1)S-Note asks for email and password when you choose to sync, S-Memo asks for User name and password.
2)S-Memo syncs and you can see the text etc that is editable. However, when you edit this in evernote. This sync is only one way.
3)When you sync with S-Note, it uploads as a .snb file attachment.
I guess I don't really understand why they didn't merge these two apps together?
My goal is that I take handwritten notes, this sync's to Evernote, where I can tidy this up and have as a document. Does anyone else currently do this? Maybe with another app available? (If the Evernote app did this it would be perfect!)
I've read other threads regarding these two apps but nothing has been mentioned about how they are the same, yet different.
well the s-memo is basically useful when you want to write something light and want to do it fast, the s-note app allows you to practically create a book, i mean, you can make a single note with a lot of pages, also, there are the productivity tools, the templates, the handwrite recording and some other things that allows you to personalize your note and helps you to make it the way you want it to be, there could be different reasons you are making a note for, as for your job, for homework, or so... also you can convert your note(s-note) into a pdf or add to it images, you can even attach an s-memo to the note!
SMemo allows you to "press the stylus button, double tap screen" and GET a hovering memo pad over ANY Screen ... I think this is the most useful feature and reason why I still uses SMemo
Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.
I agree the S-memo double tap function is great and really useful, although I still think that merging the two apps together and making this a function of S-Note would make sense.
@jpsb - Great explanation... it kind of increases my frustration with the sync'ing with Evernote, as I would think that the larger documents and meeting notes etc would be what you would rather sync, rather than S-memo small scibbles on-the-fly.
There's another thread been created at the same time along the same topic:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1679330
Thinking of trying out windows phone, have opportunity to swap my note for an 8x, how will I find WP, can I still use my google calendar, mail etc....not to bothered about games.
No chance at a nokia 920 instead of the 8x? Nokia has far superiour extra apps.
Gmail support used to be good but i'm not sure with Google dropping activesync how well it is. Hotmail / outlook push works really well though.
If you configure it before July it will continue to work (GMail Sync via ActiveSync). Everything after that point depends on the next WP8 Update (GDR2) and Microsoft's implementation of CardDAV and CalDAV. What you will lose if reconfiguring to CalDAV/CardDAV will be Push Mail as WP does not support Push via IMAP. Until now there has been no indication that Microsoft would implement it.
If it's not too late I wouldn't recommend it unless you've had a chance to use the phone personally. I'm going back to android asap. Firstly a few little grievances with my Lumia 720.
The notification bar that you're used to in android in automatically hidden with no chance of changing it not to. You'll have to minimize whatever app you're using just to check the time etc.
No forward button in the browser.
It just took me 20 attempts to move the cursor to the start of the sentence after '720' so as I could hit the enter button without highlighting the word 'The' (if I didn't it would have overwritten it.
That's just the start. I understand it is a very new operating system and that it will get better with time but I'm not going to wait for months for things that shouldn't be happening in the first place.
Sounds like a case of PEBTAWIBY (Problem Exists Between Touchscreen And Whatever Is Behind You). Even in apps that hide the notification bar (most don't), you can press-and-hold Back to bring up the task switcher; it has the bar. You can also tap Power twice to go back to the lock screen, it has the bar (and the time in great big numbers). The lack of a Forward button I'll grant you (although Histroy does well enough at some times) but it's trivially easy to add back though bookmarklets; check my sig (also things like View Source). As for moving the cursor, did it never occur to you to tap-and-hold on the text and bring up the cursor mode (same as on both Android and iOS, incidentally)? Single taps are generally intended to select words.
With all that said, anybody making a multi-hundred-dollar purchase without knowing what to expect is making a big mistake. You definitely should try out WP8 before buying.
1- I think all google services will work with no major problems except for google maps navigation which you can replace with HERE Drive, there are also alot of Google maps clients available but no turn by turn navigation AFAIK
2- It is confirmed that the GDR2 update coming in June/July will bring CalDAV/CardDAV support
3- UC brower it is a bit more customizable than IE
Hello. I have a nokia lumia 520 and I have a little problem with my menu (that menu that apears after I swipe to left).
I don't know exactly what I do but now in that menu my apps are sorted by letters. I mean in front of apps that starts with "A" I have a letter "A"... How can I remove that letters? I just want to have my apps without that letters in front.
I hope you understand my problem...
This feature has existed for like 1.5 years and is well documented, by the way... it's called a jump list, and enables you to skip around in your app list (for example, get to apps that start with "T" without needing to scroll through most of the alphabet). It is enabled automatically once you have at least 45 items in the list (this includes things like email accounts, but not stuff that isn't in that list such as individual games, Settings apps, or so forth). To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to turn it off again short of resetting the phone, though. I wouldn't want to - I believe my app list has over 100 items by now - but to each their own (or not, as the case may be here). Try it; you'll probably find it's a lot faster than scrolling or typing a search query.
Yeah, with the list indexed as it is, it is much easier to get to WPCentral or WPTorrent now. Tap the letter, then W.. Boom, you're there!!
Was just re-reading a chapter from my dissertation and went to go read it in the new Office app (unified Word, PP, Excel, Sticky Notes, and Office Lens + some other stuff). Planning on reading while changing songs in Spotify I opened the document and three finger swiped to send it to the secondary screen and it sent the document but kept the home menu on the main screen. If I open another document it does close the previous document on the secondary screen and open the new document on the primary screen. If I close the menu on the main screen to open another app, leaving the document on the main screen, it'll keep the document up as if the app was started on the second screen. I think Microsoft is starting to add dual screen support to their apps and lucky for us some of that code seems to work on the G8X. I think whatever code allows this is the same code that makes it so that on Samsung Dex and other Android desktops it open the document in a new app window vs in the same app window as the menu. I've noticed this behavior in a few Microsoft apps but nowhere else in Dex. I'm sure others have discussed this but it seems like LG basically treats the other screen as an external monitor which take up every new "window" apps produce or is produced by the system when you open something on the second screen. This might also be why other launchers don't work because they can't/don't produce new "windows" that can be put there. Anyways, sorry for ranting on but this is super interesting to me. Thoughts (especially from developers who might actually know the nuts and bolts of this)? Edit: I did a bit more investigation with other MS office apps on Android and none of them exhibit this same behavior even the Word app which on Dex I believe does pop a new window when opening documents like the Office app. Obviously this throws my later theory about windows into doubt.