Here's a review of the latest developer preview from the amazing crew back at Mountain View!!!
*fade in*
PRESENTING...
*plays patriotic-ish music*
THE ANDROID L DEVELOPER PREVIEW REVIEW
Starring...
The Disclaimer!
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*honestly I have no idea why the image turned out to be so gigantic.. eh.. just go with it*
The Disclaimer has been known to cause disheartening, worry and anxiety but FEAR NOT! For I have used this phone for a GREAT deal of time (about twenty two minutes and a half) and I've not seem to have any glitches, random hiccups, nauseousness, seizures, so I think this is quite relatively stable..? I may end up erasing this line if I do end up in the care of [H]ouse M.D..
Moving on you'll notice the subtle changes in the colour scheme, fonts and the kinda blue, green, cyan, hybrid status bar.. I think they're inching towards translucency.
And by gosh, I wish I could show you guys the transitions between the pages - it's so smooth, so clean, so beautiful I'd wanna take it out to dinner, then maybe take it back to my place, t.. okay you get the idea.
Czech out that keyboard. The lack of lines almost makes me feel like this date is going nowhere...
And that ripple effect when you tap... Ooooooooh.
That ripple effect kinda starts off like a dot under your finger and in a blink starts spreading all over the selection looking all majestic as fork.
Time to put that password in... Notice the hybrid status bar finally making a decision to stay black.
Daymn Gurl, You got some good ol' ripples.
Well this hasn't changed..
Home Sweet..
You guys, I can't stress this enough, the notification shade has undergone a massive change...
..And the coolest lil thing I unfortunately couldn't get a screenshot of, was when you receive a new notification, or an existing one updates, if you're in the notification shade, you'll see the previous notification sort of fade out and a box-zoom in of the newer notification. It's such a sweet lil transition!
Also tapping on the top right corner now brings down your quick settings/toggles and another tap brings you to Settings. Swiping up and down over the notification shade brings a cool stack UI effect as the notifications get pushed up or down.. You'll see ongoing notifications shown first up with that lil white sorta thin line separating itself from the rest of the notifications because it's too cool and that's just how it rolls.
And this may surprise people but when you now pull down for the notifications, the screen gets an entire dark tinge and this tumblr like UI box shows up above.
Tapping on the quick toggle icons also has a ripple effect and like a circular zoom in to the settings' actions. This is all just to sweet. No wonder Android keeps naming them after sweet stuff.
Overscrolling has another change to it.. and reacts to the position of your finger!
Overscrolling when your finger is to the right,
Left,
And even when moving from a corner to the centre, the overscroll effect sorta follows your finger and changes its height!
Ripple-tastic.
Just a lil more glimpse of these ripples. I'm loving the subtle-ness xD
And multiple tapping on the Android version just brings up a whole lotta love for France..
Whole...
Lotta....
Vive la France.......
Also I dunno if you noticed but in the settings there's a search icon (to the top right) and that brings up this... So I guess you can get to the exact setting you want much quicker!
Meanwhile...
The recents is almost exactly like having multiple tabs open in Chrome, you can flick through them, they stack up, stack down, you can swipe away or X marks the spot..,
But here's the thing. If you've got a lotta swiping away to do, you're more likely than not gonna swipe away the current app you're in because as you swipe, it doesn't push the cards down to go to the more older apps, instead it pushes the stack up, forcing more recents to show up first, and that makes a it a lil inconvenient when cleaning up.
As of now, I love the new subtle changes...
(notice the folders on the home screen have a different pattern of stacking icons now - in a line, instead of sideways)
AND THATS ALL FOLKS!
*cue WB cartoon ending theme*
COMING SOON...
TO AN OPTION NEAR ABOUT PHONE.
I gotta dash. I guess I'll work on this later.
I don't think we need another thread..
Thread closed. Please look HERE for info which "Android L" threads are allowed.
Related
I was just fiddling about with my xda, I was inputting a name into the contacts, I had shift enabled on the onscreen keyboard and I was typing letters in with my thumb... I must've mashed something odd, because all of a sudden a weird balloon popped up, never seen it before on my XDA, showing "next appointment date/time" and what looked like a small battery icon with a line that resembled lightning going through the middle on the left hand side of the balloon... It didn't have the Luna theme (with the blue top title bar), it was pretty monochromatic, and it had a clock in it on the right hand side. It appeared on the top right of the screen.
... Stupidly, I tapped out of it, without taking a screenshot, and I've been unable to replicate the situation (I can't get it back, and it's really winding me up because I'd like to know how I did it in the first place!)
Any comments / suggestions / solutions appreciated =D
Isn't it just the bubble that usually shows when you tap the clock?
When I tap the clock it just shows the Clock & Alarms settings page (the one with the Time and Alarms tabs)...
... This was a small balloon bubble with a black border, white bg and black text, very confused still as to where the hell it came from! :/
christopherwoods said:
When I tap the clock it just shows the Clock & Alarms settings page (the one with the Time and Alarms tabs)...
... This was a small balloon bubble with a black border, white bg and black text, very confused still as to where the hell it came from! :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The bubble you're talking about is the one I get on my JAM when I tap the clock on the navigation bar. Have you tried tapping that? Or did you tap the date bar on the today screen?
I don't have a clock on my nav bar...
... This is my PPC desktop:
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I've never had a clock on the top bar, I've seen it in screenshots of devices running PPC2002 but mine never came with one. Very curious... Did I manage to hit a hidden pixel somewhere or something?
christopherwoods said:
I don't have a clock on my nav bar...
... This is my PPC desktop:
I've never had a clock on the top bar, I've seen it in screenshots of devices running PPC2002 but mine never came with one. Very curious... Did I manage to hit a hidden pixel somewhere or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sounds very wierd :? The clock should be there when you buy the device.
You can add clock, disable clock or add clock & date via registry hacks.
I can't explain how you activated the bubble though.
Well I got it through O2, so it already had some of their own custom 'enhancements' ¬¬ ... The clock and the date showing up together up top are a Today plugin called "clockinfo" which was supplied with it, if memory serves (as is the battery monitor, o2BatteryPlugin, that comes with the O2 Active UI). I managed to stop the O2 Active UI (o2aui in the Today settings) from autoloading at boot, but I still can't find a way to remove the O2 icon from the start bar without starting over with my device config and using a hacked custom cab to get rid of it (it comes as one of the programs that's preinstalled from the SIM or the ROM, whichever it is, before you can even use the phone when you first start it up or after the battery runs totally flat).
The signal strength and signal indicator bars are there forcibly, I've not found any way to move them. If I press/tap and hold down on the O2 icon on the start bar, I can get a dialog which I used to move it to the left some more (by default it's slap bang right in the middle of the start bar, which is totally unhelpful), The icon next to the O2 icon is the Switch app, which I use to kill Internet Explorer before it crashes my XDA if I have more than one window open (nice to know that PIE is as bug-free as IE6 :roll: :wink: ). The rest is just default, I've not added or removed any other icons from the start bar.
Very confused, but thanks for clarifying where it came from somewhat... Could you possibly take a screenshot of what it looks like on your JAM (with Pocket Screen Capture or whatever you use, if you don't already have a screencap app) and stick it on here just so I can make sure that we definitely are talking about the same thing? I want to make sure I'm not going crazy again (don't ask. Haha)
Cheers already for the responses, much appreciated.
Christopher
UPDATE - it WAS O2's customisations that removed the registry keys for the standard WM2003SE clock. I reset my device, did a Corporate install, and it came up first time. I also managed to enable it via a registry hack on the first installation (before I reset the device), so both ways work.
to remove the o2 logo from the top left of the screen, go settings> system >windows>fonts > delete the font
This is a three year old thread.
Closed it.
An improved version of this theme is featured here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2324726#post2324726 (includes different contact view and works much better with v.23 of PocketCM --- and I REMOVED THE PROGRESS BAR FOR SENDING SMS!!)
Here you will also find a keyboard skin I made that goes along nicely with this theme: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2325160#post2325160
Here is a clean and simple Manila-styled theme for PocketCM. It goes along with my Pidgin theme which will be featured here (using rltoday, s2u2 and mortbuttons as well)
Here is a preview:
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the back button is hidden, so just press the upper left hand corner to go back.
Thanks to pauldgroot for a fantastic dialer which I based mine off of.. his is featured here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=395086
I think thats all..
Enjoy!
htctoucher
looks good ill check it out
Wow. Looks very well.
Nice thanks a lot
great work. love the details on the bottom bar.
thank you!
VGA?
What abou VGA? does it work?
no this is only qvga.. I dont have a VGA device to test it on.. if someone does the settings.ini file for it then I can redo the graphics!
glad you all like the theme!
thanks
htctoucher
nice job, thanks a lot.
Seemingly one flaw
In portrait view on my at&t 8525 (qvga display), the SMS button stays enlarged whereas the remaining buttons are shrunken. Additionally, the SMS Icon frequestly disappears and I have to press it a couple of times to make it show properly, but it is still larger than the other bottom row icons. In landscape view, all of the bottom row icons show properly, however, there is an empty black space as though another button should go there. Lastly, in threaded text view, a portion of the shadowing on the text balloons is showing outside of the text balloon to the right.
Not certain if these are just display issues on the particular phone that I have, and I'm really not trying to complain. I like the program very much honestly, and can overlook these oversights. thanks for creating such a wonderful program.
ukiddinmeright said:
In portrait view on my at&t 8525 (qvga display), the SMS button stays enlarged whereas the remaining buttons are shrunken. Additionally, the SMS Icon frequestly disappears and I have to press it a couple of times to make it show properly, but it is still larger than the other bottom row icons. In landscape view, all of the bottom row icons show properly, however, there is an empty black space as though another button should go there. Lastly, in threaded text view, a portion of the shadowing on the text balloons is showing outside of the text balloon to the right.
Not certain if these are just display issues on the particular phone that I have, and I'm really not trying to complain. I like the program very much honestly, and can overlook these oversights. thanks for creating such a wonderful program.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure I get what you are saying entirely..
by "the sms icon stays enlarged".. are you referring to the pressed animation?
also, it should not be disappearing ever.. that is very odd.
I have noticed that shadow, but have not had time to fix it, it would be easy to fix even in paint or something if you wanted to try it out.
the switch to landscape error where there is a black box between the icons is a known bug.. I sent the problem to the developer of the program but he has not gotten back to me with a fix yet.. I suspect it is the program itself
feedback is always welcome!
hope that (sort of) helped
htctoucher
nicely done HTCTOUCHER!!! GOOD JOB!
Can anyone explain how 6.5's Title and Bottom bar are transparent?
I have read several times over the past year that creating transparent bars that would be compatible with multiple themes would be impossible. Rather, the image creator would have to blend their theme with the top and bottom bars for each theme. So someone with some imaging background and has an idea what is inside of 6.5 build 21159 that would allow that to happen could you please explain this to me, thank you in advance.
I noticed this when I was working on my first rom. I have encountered many errors when the device boots over the past day after removing and adding files. This is what it looks like so far.
Last night I was capable of only having the highlighted items appear on the today screen. For example, if I was to select "Phone" it would become centered and the rest (favorites, voice, time and operator, text...) would disappear but I forgot what operations I performed to allow that feature. I was forced to restore all the files. However, it did look nice not having the today screen cluttered.
Cooking a rom is not easy, I learn better by visualizing and "hands on" rather than reading, which appears to be my only resource. I should probably take a few notes. Anyhow I am going to give it a few more attempts.
edit: I forgot to mention this theme is not mine. I do not know where it came from and there was no purpose for a rom to be released with this theme. So I apologize to the theme and icons creators' in advance.
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redbandana said:
Can anyone explain how 6.5's Title and Bottom bar are transparent?
I have read several times over the past year that creating transparent bars that would be compatible with multiple themes would be impossible. Rather, the image creator would have to blend their theme with the top and bottom bars for each theme. So someone with some imaging background and has an idea what is inside of 6.5 build 21159 that would allow that to happen could you please explain this to me, thank you in advance.
I noticed this when I was working on my first rom. I have encountered many errors when the device boots over the past day after removing and adding files. This is what it looks like so far.
Last night I was capable of only having the highlighted items appear on the today screen. For example, if I was to select "Phone" it would become centered and the rest (favorites, voice, time and operator, text...) would disappear but I forgot what operations I performed to allow that feature. I was forced to restore all the files. However, it did look nice not having the today screen cluttered.
Cooking a rom is not easy, I learn better by visualizing and "hands on" rather than reading, which appears to be my only resource. I should probably take a few notes. Anyhow I am going to give it a few more attempts.
edit: I forgot to mention this theme is not mine. I do not know where it came from and there was no purpose for a rom to be released with this theme. So I apologize to the theme and icons creators' in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I, for one, thank you for transparent bars. ( . Y . )
I didn't realize
how much important information could be hidden by those top and bottom bars!
Now I know
will this theme make 6.5 have full transparancy with the top & bottom bars? if so can someone post it? i've tried the registry mod with full transparent images and i couldnt get it to work. thanks
There are many threads talking about this, but this one seems best answer:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=536141
So... What would you like to see on screen lock?
I am researching how to make a lock screen, its current status is the image:
What to add?
Style?
I'm looking for designers to help me, if someone offers: MP
Nice start
What would be nice, music controls like play pause and next track ;-) thats for now
S2U2 for Android
FireZenk said:
So... What would you like to see on screen lock?
I am researching how to make a lock screen, its current status is the image:
What to add?
Style?
I'm looking for designers to help me, if someone offers: MP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
that's a agood idea.
For me, the lock screen should contain my important information such as:
My next meetings
icons showing unread messages, mails, reminders
Control the media player
...
by the way, look at the S2U2 for WM (http://s2u2.ac-s2.com/)
3 words: LockInfo for iPhone
Great lockscreen mod. Wish I could have it on my Evo. Lots of screen room for all that info
Any new texts (tidbits)/emails/last 2-3 missed calls (name + number or just name)
Okay, new versión:
Do you like?
i quite like that
My ideal lock screen would be like my old meizu m8 had, quick pull up to messages, phone pad, and main page plus music controls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve_R9YKuyiY
You should add a button titled "Me" at the top that person can click to call your home phone number or an emergency contact. That would be very helpful for people who forgot their phone somewhere and need to find it.
Sent from my Droid running UD 6.0 and P3Droid's 1100 GHz kernel
FireZenk said:
Okay, new versión:
Do you like?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That. Is. Awesome! If you changed the icons to the glass icons of LauncherPro or allowed custom icons.. :O~
By the way, is the unlock bar final?
Nice start, unlock bar is kinda too long though. Also change "Lock Screen" to "Slide to Unlock". Change the notification bubbles to green like Android, make them optional colors in settings.
Can you give framework-res or other sources of this screen lock?
Maybe a weather-widget would be a nice addition. Furthermore music-controls would be useful (only when playing music).
Actual state:
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Wow, that's looking very nice now. I think the notification icons at the bottom should be a single colour though, rather than the full colour icon, otherwise it looks like an app icon you can just tap.
You can add big clock on the top...
If I may add my $.02 to the mix..
First of all, this looks awesome!
Here's what I would like to see in a lock screen:
Time, Battery Percentage, Date, Media Controls
You don't need the missed call icons or anything, because you can see that on your notification bar...It's wasted space.
I DO like the idea of the "call me" idea with a pre-programmed number attached to it. I think this would even be a great app, linked with GPS and SMS.
**Someone puts in the incorrect unlock code more than 3 times, and it sends a SMS to a predetermined number with your phones coordinates attached.
Update: (Will soon be available in the market, its name: Simply Lockscreen)
The icons in the statusbar and below are not definitive
Also please have a unlock tone, nothing harsh or too low, but similar to the iPhone. Also put your location under or somewhere near the time. Here is probably one of the best lockscreens I ever used on my iPhone, would love to seen somebody implement something similar for Android.
Ive always felt like info on the lockscreen should be of more importance than the actual lock or look of lock. Sorry if I'm going iPhone crazy, but it's not about the actual phone but about the info being displayed. Also give people options to show what they want, IE: Weather, Calender, Emails, Missed Calls, Text Messages since a lot of people like/want different things on there lock screen.
I have an NC, rooted with autonooter, and everything seems to be working ok, but on lots(most) app's dialogs, including the nook popup UI, I will get get white on white text.
Has anyone else seen this or have a fix? It makes several apps a guessing guessing game and checkboxes have no descriptions so I haven't been able to check any of them.
Thanks!
i have the same problem!
me too! * Hoping for a quick fix!*
So, if its not a unique issue, are there people who have working rooted nooks that don't have the issue? I'm assuming that stock/unrooted NC's don't have the issue so is this some setting that needs tweaking when we open up the rest of the android OS?
hypoxichypoxic said:
So, if its not a unique issue, are there people who have working rooted nooks that don't have the issue? I'm assuming that stock/unrooted NC's don't have the issue so is this some setting that needs tweaking when we open up the rest of the android OS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I assumed it was an issue with the rooting process.
Im having the same problem with the long-press pop-up menu in xScope. I had to use trial and error to memorize the location of each option.
Sent from my Nooted friend...
What applications are you seeing this in? I haven't noticed white on white text.
I have noticed that Tasker's action tab has light blue on dark blue that's really hard to read. I think that's the only one I've seen
How do you add a bookmark in xscope? Thanks
I've had this problem with the pop-up windows in XScope and RedditIsFun, although I feel like it must have happened at other times as well. It's always in a pop-up window.
I find the ADW settings screen very hard to read. It's white text on almost white background & I first thought that they were grayed out. Very annoying!
Cheers,
kev
I had it too. I saw it first in an email widget I got off the Market - de.invalidobject.mailwidget or something like that. White on white text on a popup.
Yes. Same here. It is very annoying to see Table of Content with white fonts on white background with my ezPDF Reader. And many pop up screens too.
I feel like the reason for this is because the apps are using the sam sort of theme that the books settings page uses.
The apps are set to be white on black but the book is set to be black on white so they get mixed up.
Sorry if that doesn't make sense it is rather late here.
Sent from my NOOKcolor using the xda app
I found this to be the case in the game Alchemy if you try to get info on items you've created. The popup shows hyperlinks in blue but all other text is white on white and unreadable.
hypoxichypoxic said:
So, if its not a unique issue, are there people who have working rooted nooks that don't have the issue? I'm assuming that stock/unrooted NC's don't have the issue so is this some setting that needs tweaking when we open up the rest of the android OS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I seriously doubt this has anything to do with the nooting, vs just that the default text color is not appropriate for normal Android apps.
I suspect someone can find the way to fix it eventually.
it happens in lots of places
here are some screenshots of what i'm seeing, it seems to be system wide.
No text visible next to the checkbox for what I assume is something like 'set default'
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"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
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In file manager context menu
and here is an example where you can almost see the white text on a settings page
It makes things kind of a guessing game, with possible bad consequences if you choose the wrong option
So, is there a way (setting/app/etc) to change the theme or text color globally or such?
thx!
What I do is I highlight an option which changes the background color of the item but I don't release so I can read what it is, bad part is I have to do it for all menus until I get used to which blank spot I can click. Hopefully we can get this fixed
likearaptor said:
What I do is I highlight an option which changes the background color of the item but I don't release so I can read what it is, bad part is I have to do it for all menus until I get used to which blank spot I can click. Hopefully we can get this fixed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good workaround... I've been also having to use my phone as reference for apps that I use on both such as Tasker.
Such a pain in the arse, but I know help is around the corner. Someone out there with the knowhow is going to change the xml settings for font color soon and share with the rest of us.
likearaptor said:
What I do is I highlight an option which changes the background color of the item but I don't release so I can read what it is, bad part is I have to do it for all menus until I get used to which blank spot I can click. Hopefully we can get this fixed
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's what i've been doing. i'm guessing there may be a png we can edit in the system
I am hoping eventually we will have all kinds of custom themes and then all the menus will be black background like in typical android.