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Root notification bar idea *interactive*

I

icerado

Member
As long as I've been rooting my phone I have noticed we all like to stretch as much out of our phones as possible. I think I have the next "best" thing for ease of use and getting to the things you use most. I'm willing to put the time in I just need some guidance on the way there.

Idea:
So we all love the notification bar, but what if you had interactive icons. I mean without pulling the bar down you can open or start any application you want.

Example:
Click the clock and it opens the alarm (ie beautiful widgets)
Click the battery and it opens your battery manager or the stock usage

I think this would really speed things up without having a bunch of bulky widgets. Don't get me wrong this won't replace widgets but it could help for those who don't like having a ton of screens

More advanced controls could include touching the 3g and changing to 4g/2g/wifi...or the gps and it shows you your location in google maps

So, is this even possible? I was thinking you could build a "dock" like launcherpro that would replace the stock bar.

Thoughts...
 
That's actually a really good idea. But I have no idea how we could go about that on a DX. That sounds like something that would require custom kernels. But I'm not an expert. Would like to hear what others have to say about it.
 
dmiller2007 said:
That's actually a really good idea. But I have no idea how we could go about that on a DX. That sounds like something that would require custom kernels. But I'm not an expert. Would like to hear what others have to say about it.
Click to expand...


A good idea but would require quite a bit of coding I believe
 
that sounds like something that my bb storm had...touch time and clock came up etc. it's not a bad idea, my only thing is the notification area of the the bar is so small. With icons so close, it would probably be a nightmare just trying to select the correct one. esp. for people with larger hands (not me, just saying tho).
 
I don't think you can make the status bar icons clickable.

The OP is right--that would be totally cool if you could :cool: ;).

The best you could do would be to create an "action bar" that would sit just below (or wherever you want it to be) that status bar and include icons and button-click listeners for each to launch the associated app or activity.

Cheers!
 
scary alien said:
I don't think you can make the status bar icons clickable.

The OP is right--that would be totally cool if you could :cool: ;).

The best you could do would be to create an "action bar" that would sit just below (or wherever you want it to be) that status bar and include icons and button-click listeners for each to launch the associated app or activity.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

thats what i was thinking. just make the "action bar" replace the status bar by hiding the status bar (like how launchers can). i didn't know if that would be possible tho. and make it have the same functionality as the status bar, i.e. pull down, visible while within apps, etc..
 
I was kinda thinking it would be a lot of coding. Good thing is I don't seem to be the only person that thinks it can be done. I was thinking start by removing the status bar like said above. They already have the option to slide up and hide the bar, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I have been thinking this over for a few months and with the size of screens now you could easily increase the notification bar 50-100% and hardly notice. It would function and look very similar to your dock replacement apps. I also thought about integrating a music player that would scroll the song name/artist and have ff/rew/play/pause controls as well

I know I'm getting ahead of myself but I'm thinking this could go far enough as to make me a little money once I get a few versions out and polish it up a bit.
 
@dmiller

yeah I was thinking the same thing, I would have a long list of permissions if I was giving access to maps, music, pics, alarm, ect...
 
A (very ;)) quick search of the Android Market shows a couple of apps out there already that implement the action bar (haven't checked any of them out).

Also, apparently Honeycomb implements a System Bar and an Action Bar--which, to me (and what little I could find published re. this), implies that there will be better functionality available in future Android O/S versions (starting with H/C, of course). [doesn't help us know, though, eh?].

Cheers!
 
@scary

way to ruin my day...well I am going to check out the market and see whats available. I think I have at least a few ideas that I have brewing in my head that others haven't touched on yet.

...upon further review of these "action bars" I found there is very little functionality that we don't already have at this point. I saw a few things most notably the calendar in the bar and I didn't like his approach. Maybe I haven't found the app you were looking at, but from what I found I was not impressed. I am more looking for a FULL replacement of the status bar, where what I found was add-ons. I don't want to give away all my ideas but I want to incorporate things like a stock ticker or the music player I was explaining. Plus this would adjust the size of the status bar as well so you should be able to run 2 lines of script/icons...or one large bar for our large fingered friends

@prevlin
I will let you know about beta testing when I get some work started
 
icerado said:
@scary

way to ruin my day...well I am going to check out the market and see whats available. I think I have at least a few ideas that I have brewing in my head that others haven't touched on yet.
Click to expand...

lol...sorry, man ;)...just didn't want you to get too excited if there were already scads of things out there (I've run into this with another developer that I collaborated with...he wanted to develop an app where there were/are tons of existing, similar apps...I tried to warn him, but in the end I just helped him do his thing :p).

It might also be the case that there is a hole or opportunity to do something better or more innovative too (searches for this type of thing seem to yield mixed results, so if you got something working and posted the right kind of search tags, you might get all of the traffic :D).

By the way, here's an interesting example that is similar, but not exactly matches what the OP posted about:

Status Bar Settings - Android app on AppBrain

But it probably shows what is most capable and possibilities if still wanting to use something related to the status bar and/or notification pull-down shade.

It also appears that searching for the term "launch" yields more relevant examples than "status bar" or "notification bar", etc. Here's some examples:

Launch Control - Android app on AppBrain

Launch-X (FREE) - Android app on AppBrain

Cheers!
 
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