Love/Hate the physical buttons

[thetruthkc]

I came from a OnePlus One and was a little weary of the physical buttons on the Active. After owning it for the past 2 months I've had a love/hate opinion of them. I do love that I don't mistakenly hit any of the buttons during gaming or from within apps. But there are times (in car dock, on Qi charger, or holding/using with one hand) that it takes quite some force to push the buttons. While on the Qi charger, to press one of the physical front buttons, it will knock it off the charger. The biggest annoyance is when using the phone with one hand it takes a bit of adjustment of the phone to reach and physically push the buttons - mostly for the back button for me, which I use a lot since it is difficult to reach the upper left hand corner for the 'soft back'.

Anyway, I went in search of a software app to give me software buttons. I wanted something lightweight, non-intrusive, simple and mostly free.

I downloaded a few to evaluate:

1. https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...s?id=com.kimcy92.navigationbar&token=acrPtk9J
2. https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...com.phoenixstudios.aiogestures&token=hfDmHDNt
3. https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...ils?id=ca.yesoft.handysoftkeys&token=RiC19Kkz

I've settled on Navigation Bar - Soft Keys, but not sure I completely like it. It takes between 50-100mb RAM (I'd be fine with 50-60mb), and I like the implementation by Handy softkeys where the trigger point disappears until the screen is touched. The opacity of the trigger on NavBar-Softkeys can be set, but the persistent icon is a little distracting. I could never get AllInOne Gestures to work, for some reason, I couldn't get it to 'enable' in my accessibility settings.

Any other suggestions?

 

[troyamiller]

In troubleshooting a bad Recent Apps button on mine, I found someone recommending "All In One Gestures". I tried it... and I like it a lot. You can assign functions to the hard keys (single tap or long press), the status bar (double tap), or swiping for up to 12 areas of the screen. I just tried it to see if I could pin down my button problem - but button problem aside, I will continue using it - very cool.

 

[thetruthkc]

In troubleshooting a bad Recent Apps button on mine, I found someone recommending "All In One Gestures". I tried it... and I like it a lot. You can assign functions to the hard keys (single tap or long press), the status bar (double tap), or swiping for up to 12 areas of the screen. I just tried it to see if I could pin down my button problem - but button problem aside, I will continue using it - very cool.

Thanks, I'll give it AIOGestures try.

After a whole night of using exclusively NavigationBar - SoftKeys, I like it a lot! My muscle memory is slowly getting used to the onscreen softkey and I find myself not pressing the physical keys as much. 'One-handing' the device is really easy now and I don't have to shift around my grip to depress the physical keys as much. I also think that in the long-run, it'll save some 'wear and tear' of the physical keys. The persistent icon can be adjusted in opacity so while it is there and kind of annoying, I don't mind it now since it brings me awesome functionality.

In some very non-scientific testing, the app is currently running at 10mb ram and the majority it goes between 40-60mb. I've checked on it maybe 10-15 times through the application manager. It was 100+mb twice, but it doesn't seem to be too heavy. What apps do other people use to monitor CPU/Battery/Ram of a particular app over time?

 

[thetruthkc]

After a few days with Navigation Bar-Softkeys, I grew tired of the persistent icon and an extra tap to get the softkeys to come up. RAM and battery drain was no problem for that software package.

I've moved on to All in One Gestures last night and I already think this will be a much better solution. I couldn't install it at first, I had to download the Google text-to-speech module from the Play store so my accessibility settings could allow AIOGestures to work properly.

After configuring the offscreen swipes for Home (swipe bottom), Back (swipe from left or right), and multitask (swipe from either bottom corner), the device is much more usable with one hand and even better not needing to use the physical buttons. AIOGestures also offers a bunch of other options for configuring other buttons (long presses, and double taps). It will even learn the active button and you could configure it from within this app.

So far, this has been the best solution for me. However, some of the Google Play Store reviews mention a big battery drain, so I'm going to monitor it. However, since this brings such good functionality to the phone, I would have to see significant drain not to use it.

 

[jake14mw]

... But there are times (in car dock, on Qi charger, or holding/using with one hand) that it takes quite some force to push the buttons. ...

Any other suggestions?

Can I ask what you do with it in the car dock? This is the most frustrating thing to me about the S6 Active is that there is no more car mode that will announce and read texts to me, or allow me to answer a call with just voice. Very frustrating to come from an S4 that did that very well.

 

[thetruthkc]

Mostly just maps, google music (or podcasts), and an occasional call.

But using the front keys takes a bit of force to press. Not a huge deal, but sometimes it would change my HVAC settings since i use a vent mounted dock that overlaps with some of my HVAC controls in car.

Yah, the MotoX would announce incoming texts which was nice, but I also use ACDisplay which will wake the screen and give me a MotoX like notification so I can glance at the text. Otherwise, it can just wait. Using GoogleNow can help me call someone or dictate a message, but yeah, you have to still wake the screen and hold down the physical home button.