Database Develop

Moved to Note 3 from Note - a few customization questions

Last night I picked up the Note 3 to replace my original Note i717. I’ve rooted it with designgears’ root. So I’m currently running into a few issues that I’m hoping some of you might have some suggestions on.
1) The note 1 had five icons per row in the home screen, now despite about a third more horizontal pixels, we have 4, and it looks like fewer vertically too. This needs to change. It sounds like there is no way to do this without hacking around...
Should this work? It's for the S3 though, and I worry that things may have changed since then.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2221124
Solved, using modified T-Mo SecLauncher4.apk installed per: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=46635711&postcount=26
2) On the note, it would show that I had text messages or missed calls on the lock screen, and I could swipe to unlock starting from those to go strait to the new message or missed calls. Now I see that I have messages, but I can't seem go directly to it like I could before. How can I get that feature back? From what I've seen so far, I liked the old lock screen better. I don't really know what it's doing with that top part of the lock screen - I may be missing some key insight here.
3) The notification bar is cluttered up with a keyboard icon, "select input method". How do I get rid of this? I know how to select a keyboard, thankyouverymuch.
Wanam/Xposed does it
4) WTF is my magazine? What does it do? Do I want it?
Samsung bloat, but said to cause problems when disabled.
5) How can I make it stop connecting to AT&T Wi-Fi "hotspots", without turning off Wi-Fi entirely? It automatically connects to them, using them instead of the perfectly good 4G signal. This would be fine if they worked, but unfortunately most of them have no connectivity behind them, so internet access just stops when in range if one with Wi-Fi enabled. I know I fixed this before in the note, but I forget how.
Settings -> Wifi -> Advanced, uncheck the obvious option
6) There is an eye in the notification bar. Sometimes it is white, other times it's dimmed. What is this conveying to me? Is this the samsung eye-tracking thing to make it not turn off the screen while looking at it? If so, does it only think i'm looking at it when the eye is white? If so, it's not doing a very good job, because i've seen the white eye only a couple of times for a few seconds at a times.
I was right, and it can be disabled, or Wanam can hide the notification
7) Has anyone had any luck removing the AT&T logo from the back cover without trashing the finish? Maybe acetone? What kind of plastic is it, anyway? It feels like polyethylene or polypropylene from the outside, but the inside feels like something harder than that, so I don’t know.
8) The stupid physical home button activates the screen! Is there a way to wipe the bottom of the screen with the phone on without accidentally unlocking it, short of carrying q-tips around to neatly clean around the stupid physical home button?
Wanam/Xposed can disable unlock on home.
New Question:
9) That really annoying bug where it gets stuck in EDGE mode is still here. If you try to use the internet at exactly the wrong time while leaving a dead-spot (happens a lot with subways in boston), your data connection gets stuck in EDGE, and stays there, potentially for a long time. Rebooting or toggling airplane mode fixes it... but isn't this a pain for everyone who lives around a subway system? How do others deal with this?
10) The package contained a small plastic baggie, containing a small tool made from a strip of metal, about 1 inch long, and an even smaller bag with 5 thin black rods about 3/4ths of an inch long. What are these?
Replacement S-Pen tips, and a tool for replacing them.
Thanks

I don't know all the answers but ill try
1)I think that's a DPI issue at least partially. Root it,install Xposed and the App Settings app.
2)go to settings, device, lock screen to enable lock screen widgets
3)not sure. Xposed might be your friend here
4)more Samsung bloatware. I don't use it.
5)I believe you can turn this off in the wifi settings
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

DrAzzy said:
Last night I picked up the Note 3 to replace my original Note i717.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me, too. I think you're really gonna like this device!
1) The note 1 had five icons per row in the home screen, now despite about a third more horizontal pixels, we have 4, and it looks like fewer vertically too. This needs to change. It sounds like there is no way to do this without hacking around...
Should this work? It's for the S3 though, and I worry that things may have changed since then.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2221124
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't know if that will work, but one alternative is to use a custom launcher.
4) WTF is my magazine? What does it do? Do I want it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably not, but from what I've read, freezing it causes problems with email. One thing you can do is to go into the app, press menu, select settings, and uncheck the box that says "open using the home key." That will at least stop that annoyance.
5) How can I make it stop connecting to AT&T Wi-Fi "hotspots", without turning off Wi-Fi entirely? It automatically connects to them, using them instead of the perfectly good 4G signal. This would be fine if they worked, but unfortunately most of them have no connectivity behind them, so internet access just stops when in range if one with Wi-Fi enabled. I know I fixed this before in the note, but I forget how.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Under settings, wifi, advanced, you uncheck the box that says connect automatically to AT&T wifi.
6) There is an eye in the notification bar. Sometimes it is white, other times it's dimmed. What is this conveying to me? Is this the samsung eye-tracking thing to make it not turn off the screen while looking at it? If so, does it only think i'm looking at it when the eye is white? If so, it's not doing a very good job, because i've seen the white eye only a couple of times for a few seconds at a times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct. I find this feature worthless and have disabled it on my various Galaxy devices.

(Questions not resolved highlighted in orange)
1) Thanks - I have Xposed + Wanam, but it doesn't seem that they allow me to change the number of icons in the grids. I'm studying the dimens.xml and integers.xml - Trying to figure out what everything there means. I think i'm gonna be able to get 6 decently sized vertical rows in... but I need to make sure I know what I'm doing, and don't screw something up.
There is a SecLauncher4.apk and SecLauncher4.odex in the /system/app directory - I've decompiled the .apk, and know how to recompile it - but I'm a little unsure of what the presence of the odex file means in terms of where to go from there.
2) The issue isn't that there's no widget, it's that the widget that's there sucks. Before (on the original note), I could in one motion swipe (in any direction) from the message icon or widget or whatever you'd call it on the lock screen, and land at the new message. Now it seems like I have to tap the messages notification and then swipe in the box beneath it, which requires considerably more dexterity to do with one hand than just swiping away from the widget like I could do before.
3) Wanam does it.
4) Got it! sounds worthless. Actually, might be possible to defang in SecLauncher4.apk - it's got a lot of options related to the magazine.
5) Thanks, got it.
6) Okay, cool. It actually seems to be better than useless, so I'm gonna leave it on for now (until it does something that pisses me off, at least). Wanam can hide the eye if I tell it to, which I probably will.
8) Wanam can fix this.
New Question:
9) That really annoying bug where it gets stuck in EDGE mode is still here. If you try to use the internet at exactly the wrong time while leaving a dead-spot (happens a lot with subways in boston), your data connection gets stuck in EDGE, and stays there, potentially for a long time. Rebooting or toggling airplane mode fixes it... but isn't this a pain for everyone who lives around a subway system? How do others deal with this?
10) The package contained a small plastic baggie, containing a small tool made from a strip of metal, about 1 inch long, and an even smaller bag with 5 thin black rods about 3/4ths of an inch long. What are these?

10. Replacement spen tips and the removal tool.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Mad383Max said:
10. Replacement spen tips and the removal tool.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I'll be damned. Is the removable tip new? Or
did I never even see the tips for my note one?
Still really need help on that first question about modifying the Sec Launcher

DrAzzy said:
Well I'll be damned. Is the removable tip new? Or
did I never even see the tips for my note one?
Still really need help on that first question about modifying the Sec Launcher
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go to the tmob note 3 board. I thought I saw someone mention of a mod for your grid size.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

Mad383Max said:
Go to the tmob note 3 board. I thought I saw someone mention of a mod for your grid size.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, found info on using the T-Mo files on AT&T Note 3 - see link in OP.

[Q] Annoying bugs with my active!!!

So I picked up a stock AT&T active and been using it for a month now. I love the phone but a few annoying things that it does daily on me is really starting to make me want to throw the poor phone! First the screen is way to sensitive sometimes! I try to text and it adds letters or I try to move between my home screens and it will open an app like I tapped on it, but I didn't. Or when I close out my running tasks it will act like I double tapped in that certain area and will open my mail app since it was in that touch zone. Anyhow I have played around with all the settings like "Air View" or "Motions and gestures" under the settings menu. Also the calling contact feature is really pissing me off. Say someone calls me but I miss the call, so I bring up my call log and I tap on the person that called me. It shows the phone icon and usually when you tap that, it suppose to call the person, but no stupid phone goes back to the call log list instead. I have to keep doing this like around 5 to 10 times before the dumb phone will finally decide to call the person! I am running the stock, or at least what came with it, firmware. Android version 4.3 with Baseband of I537UCUBML2. Has anyone else had these issues with this phone? Plus how can I fix this?

kcraptor82 said:
So I picked up a stock AT&T active and been using it for a month now. I love the phone but a few annoying things that it does daily on me is really starting to make me want to throw the poor phone! First the screen is way to sensitive sometimes! I try to text and it adds letters or I try to move between my home screens and it will open an app like I tapped on it, but I didn't. Or when I close out my running tasks it will act like I double tapped in that certain area and will open my mail app since it was in that touch zone. Anyhow I have played around with all the settings like "Air View" or "Motions and gestures" under the settings menu. Also the calling contact feature is really pissing me off. Say someone calls me but I miss the call, so I bring up my call log and I tap on the person that called me. It shows the phone icon and usually when you tap that, it suppose to call the person, but no stupid phone goes back to the call log list instead. I have to keep doing this like around 5 to 10 times before the dumb phone will finally decide to call the person! I am running the stock, or at least what came with it, firmware. Android version 4.3 with Baseband of I537UCUBML2. Has anyone else had these issues with this phone? Plus how can I fix this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off I'll say that ML2 had been known to be buggy. For your first problem, did you make sure Glove Mode is disabled? For your second problem I have no idea. Sorry I can't be more helpful.

If it is in fact stock, do a software update to KitKat and it should fix your stability issues. I can't because of root.

My S5 keeps going to the call logs screen, all the time, on its own?

My S5 seems to be possessed. Its not rooted (cant anyway) no rom, have done absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to the phone other then install my normal apps from the play store.
Yet the phone is constantly, about 20x a day just going to the 'call logs' screen. I've rebooted the phone, logged in and with nothing open poof call logs. It seems to happen more when my fingers are hovering near but not touching the screen, is there some sort of air gesture for call logs that I dont know about ? Its never any other screen, its not like its accidentally hitting the 'back' button. It is starting to get a bit annoying ..

I notice mine opens apps "on its own". Not sure if its a gestures or hover thing or what. Usually gallery or phone, which are right next to each other on my home screen (all the way left). Must have something to do with it.

trichert said:
My S5 seems to be possessed. Its not rooted (cant anyway) no rom, have done absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to the phone other then install my normal apps from the play store.
Yet the phone is constantly, about 20x a day just going to the 'call logs' screen. I've rebooted the phone, logged in and with nothing open poof call logs. It seems to happen more when my fingers are hovering near but not touching the screen, is there some sort of air gesture for call logs that I dont know about ? Its never any other screen, its not like its accidentally hitting the 'back' button. It is starting to get a bit annoying ..
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Click to collapse
YES!!! My Rogers (SM-G900W8) does it too! I thought it was probably because I installed something, but, now that I see you have the issue !!

I posted this same question in the Q&A section regarding the call logs. Ultimately , I factory reset my phone. That fixed whatever the problem was. It was annoying the crap out of me.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

peaster3 said:
I posted this same question in the Q&A section regarding the call logs. Ultimately , I factory reset my phone. That fixed whatever the problem was. It was annoying the crap out of me.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found the problem, it was my galaxy gear 2, every time it 'checked' my phone for new messages it would leave the phone on the call log. I turned off the option to open content on my phone from my gear and all is well now !

I have been experiencing this issue since upgrading to Lollipop on my S5. I too have a Galaxy Gear 2. I have just disabled 'Smart Relay' in the Gear App (which is what I presume you were referring to) and so far all seems good Thanks.

[Q] How can I stop accidental dialing?

How can I keep from accidentally placing a phone call from my Moto X?
Last night I fell asleep with my phone in the bed. Sometime during the night, I accidentally placed a call to someone who had recently called me. I really don't want this to happen again, as the consequences could be highly embarrassing.
Note: I *think* this was just the equivalent of a butt-call, but it's possible that, in my Ambien-induced stupor, I actually placed the call.
I tried disabling the Dialer app, but I don't think that's sufficient, as I could still dial out via People/Contacts. I want to put more barriers between me and making a call.
At the same time, I don't want to disable incoming calls, as I have family members who may need to contact me in an emergency.
Thanks.

How do you pocket dial these days.... Would need to press phone app, a contact and dial. Seems like a very specific chain of stray touches.
Aside from disabling every app that can call, or airplane mode... Not sure how you could do this.
Maybe some of those blacklist apps work for calling out.

KJ said:
How do you pocket dial these days.... Would need to press phone app, a contact and dial. Seems like a very specific chain of stray touches.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm mystified, too.
Maybe some of those blacklist apps work for calling out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll look into some 3rd-party apps and see. Thanks.

O.K., I just installed a fee app called Call Confirm that seems to do the trick. After I dial or after I hit a speed dial item, it asks me if I really want to dial that number. I think it's designed to protect people from drunk dialing, but it should work fro sleep-dialers, too.

Use a PIN or something on the lock screen.

I gave pocket dialed more with this phone... Forgetting to lock after texting and putting it in me pocket.
Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

Just like mandrsn1 said, put a lock/pin on it so it won't do that.

Can't Answer Incoming Calls!

This ones throwing me for a loop
Turbo has been brilliant aside from one tiny issue that i'm only now realizing...
Upon Receiving an incoming call my phone rings & vibrates - but will not display any alert on the screen (or lock screen) that there is an incoming call. If I unlock the phone as it's ringing the normal home screen is displayed and after a ring or two I receive the below "Mobile Data not available" prompt. Pressing ok results in the phone going back to the homescreen with once again, no further dialog to answer/ignore/mute the call (nothing in the notification bar either). Eventually the call will make it to voicemail as i can't answer it, and i get a prompt missed call notification.
Items i've checked so far:
disabled apps - re-enabled to make sure nothing got zapped that's interfering
Mobile data is enabled under settings
OTA Update was applied & Phone works fine otherwise, solid 4G service in populated area...
Thoughts/ideas?
TIA! :good:
Edit: (can't post images/links as i don't have enough posts)
Note the missed call notification icon is displayed from a previous call when as i was trouble shooting:
imgur.(com)/c98SAhO.jpg

coalase said:
This ones throwing me for a loop
Turbo has been brilliant aside from one tiny issue that i'm only now realizing...
Upon Receiving an incoming call my phone rings & vibrates - but will not display any alert on the screen (or lock screen) that there is an incoming call. If I unlock the phone as it's ringing the normal home screen is displayed and after a ring or two I receive the below "Mobile Data not available" prompt. Pressing ok results in the phone going back to the homescreen with once again, no further dialog to answer/ignore/mute the call (nothing in the notification bar either). Eventually the call will make it to voicemail as i can't answer it, and i get a prompt missed call notification.
Items i've checked so far:
disabled apps - re-enabled to make sure nothing got zapped that's interfering
Mobile data is enabled under settings
OTA Update was applied & Phone works fine otherwise, solid 4G service in populated area...
Thoughts/ideas?
TIA! :good:
Edit: (can't post images/links as i don't have enough posts)
Note the missed call notification icon is displayed from a previous call when as i was trouble shooting:
imgur.(com)/c98SAhO.jpg
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried a factory reset? -- Don't install any apps or change any settings, give your phone a ring after the reset, if it goes through then start installing or changing whatever settings, BUT while doing that if there's anything you suspect may alter the phone calls; test it again and see if you can find the culprit.

Solved!
Dialer app had "show notifications" box unticked
Not sure how that happened
for anyone experiencing the same issue:
Settings>Apps>All>Dialer - confirm the notification box is checked
was right about to wipe the phone and reset, glad i stumbled across it:good:

Wished I would have seen this thread yesterday. I had the same problem. Phone would ring, but I had no answer icon show up for me to click on. I finally took the phone into Verizon and they did a full wipe or factory default. That fixed the problem, but, I had to redo everything.
Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Thanks, dude. Girlfriend updated to lollipop and had this exact problem. She was pretty pissed after I found your post so fast, lol.

Shoot2ill said:
Thanks, dude. Girlfriend updated to lollipop and had this exact problem. She was pretty pissed after I found your post so fast, lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My Turbo had same problem. I stopped by Verizon store in mall and 3 people looked at it and they are sending me a new one. After reading this post I checked notifications on dialer app and its fixed. Guess I'll give them the new one back when it comes.