My company makes industrial manufacturing products and we ship Android tablets with an app to control a manufacturing process. Ideally this should be the only app the user sees, and we've been able to do this on handheld devices running Gingerbread but on Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich the system bar prevents this.
My understanding is that on Jelly Bean there is more programmatic control over the appearance of the System Bar but I'm unclear on the details. I read http://developer.android.com/about/versions/android-4.1.html but it still wasn't clear to me whether there was any way to actually hide the system bar under programmatic control.
We're too small a company to make our own ROM (I'm the only Android developer) so we're trying to work with the stock version of the OS.
Thanks in advance.
it still wasn't clear to me whether there was any way to actually hide the system bar under programmatic control
Not permanently. The JB options to remove the system bar on a tablet only do so temporarily -- any user input will cause the bar to reappear. Hence, it is unsuitable for your scenario.
We're too small a company to make our own ROM
If you don't mind my asking, did you hunt for a consultant or firm to do this and not find anyone (or anyone suitable)? Or did you not pursue that angle? A custom ROM, or at least a root-change-unroot process, would be the right solution for your problem. I can certainly see where hiring a full-time ROM slinger might be overkill, but one hopes that there are ways of outsourcing that work.
Related
My Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android Ice Cream Sandwich has nice little counters that appear on the home page shortcuts for Mail etc. telling me how many new messages there are waiting. That's just the behaviour that I want for my own app.
If I've read the Android docs and related questions in SO right, that behaviour is not exposed through Android, but is provided by the launcher itself, so it can't be done directly.
But I have produced the behaviour that I want using an app widget. Now I'm left with the problem of making the app widget layout visually consistent (alignment, text appearance) with the appearance of the regular shortcuts. I can't see a sensible robust way to to this. Anyone?
(Otherwise it looks as though I'll have to make the app widget look sufficiently unlike a shortcut that visual consistency isn't an issue.)
I need to get rid of the system bar on Android 4.1 tablets since the tablets will be in a commercial/retail environment and be used for business. My app will be the only app used on the tablet and it needs as much screen real estate as possible for what we're trying to do. I have searched already and I see that there are ways to do it on a rooted tablet, however since this will be in a business and deployed to several hundred or thousand businesses, I cannot have all the tablets rooted for legal and security issues. (Would I really have issues legally though if I were to root them?)
I know that you can dim the status bar and make the buttons dots but that really isn't optimal.
If there is no way to get rid of it, is it possible to change the status bar icons and functionality? I ask this because our app has a status bar on top and we could possibly move it to the bottom and change the icons and functionality of the status bar to match the app's status bar so no screen real estate is lost.
I have read that 4.2 adds some fullscreen functionality for apps. Is this true? Can the status bar be hidden in 4.2 as opposed to 4.1?
I need to get rid of the system bar on Android 4.1 tablets
That is not possible, except via rooted devices and/or ROM mods. Moreover, the user needs this bar to be there, otherwise they have no access to the HOME and BACK buttons.
Would I really have issues legally though if I were to root them?
StackOverflow is not a law office. Please consult with qualified legal counsel regarding such concerns.
is it possible to change the status bar icons and functionality?
That is not possible, except via rooted devices and/or ROM mods.
I have read that 4.2 adds some fullscreen functionality for apps. Is this true?
Not exactly. The bottom navigation bar (HOME, BACK, RECENTS) can be hidden, but they will return as soon as the user touches the screen. The top status bar (signal strength, battery level, etc.) can be removed via a Fullscreen theme.
I have searched high and low, all the while people telling me that, "no it is impossible to completely surpress the navigation/combo bar on an ICS tablet without rooting it.. and then i find there is an app on the market called Surelock that does exactly this.. Unfortunately i am building a launcher app myself so i can't use their launcher app, but the big question is HOW do they do it? anyone?
Whatever SureLock is doing is exploiting some security hole. Someday, I will take the time to find out what they are doing and will work to get the hole fixed.
I'm developing a tablet app on a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (Android 3.2). The tablet will be dedicated to running this app, which is used in an industrial environment. Our app will "own" the tablet and users can only access device features via our software. We already have a successful app like this running on phone-sized devices running Gingerbread.
On the bottom of the tablet screen Samsung has placed a "System Bar" (N.B.- NOT the Action Bar) and all kinds of other apps and widgets can be accessed from this bar. Is there any way to programmatically access this System Bar, to either modify (depopulate it of all its apps and clutter and just keep the Home and Back buttons), or to hide it altogether?
Thanks in advance.
You can hide the bar programmatically, but it requires root access to do so. This guy wrote an app to do it, and published the source code.
It is possible to remove the mini-apps, but it requires root - remove the APKs that the "mini apps" refer to, and they will disappear from the bar. There is no way to easily or programmatically do this, and your best option is to write a custom ROM with those apps removed. It's a giant pain in the ass.
If you don't need anything specifically from 3.2, then you should be able to track down a stock android 3.1 image that shipped on the galaxy Tab before touchwiz was ready. This will not have the "mini apps" or the screenshot button on the system bar. If you flash that, you won't need to root, as it's a signed image.
Stock Android doesn't support 'badges' (e.g. unread count on a messaging app) that overlay the app icon like on the iPhone. There are a number of questions here on Stackoverflow which confirm this and suggest using a widget.
Whilst widgets are lovely things, they require too much interaction from the user to get in place (all that searching, long pressing etc.) and don't actually change the app icon. So no, that is not an option.
I accept that Android doesn't have app icon badges. However, HTC Sense and Samsung TouchWiz do. I'm looking at my Galaxy S right now, and the app launcher Messaging icon has a badge with the number of unread SMS messages.
Does anyone know how to access this badge functionality individually for Sense and TouchWiz devices? (I expect there are two APIs).
I don't know about HTC but I've written up how to do this on Samsung phones here How to interface with the BadgeProvider on Samsung phones to add a count to the app icon?
Does anyone know how to access this badge functionality individually for Sense and TouchWiz devices? (I expect there are two APIs).
Become an employee of HTC or Samsung, respectively.
HTC might start offering an API for stuff like this through Open Sense. Samsung might start offering an API for stuff like this through their developer site. I am not aware that either are at present and I wouldn't count on it becoming available.
What you are seeing is a feature of those home screens. You are, of course, welcome to write your own home screen where you have this functionality, perhaps even exposing an API for third-party developers to use.
Still no positive answer to this?
It's very strange that they (HTC and Samsung) haven't come up with a way for third-party apps to update their widgets! So we end up with users of third-party sms apps to complain about the sms counter not updating when it should. This is very sad, especially on the Android world where app integration has been made so easy by the framework! Such implementations should be negatively judged by Android community and the Android Alliance!
If anyone has found a work-around for force updating the widgets of the vendor specific sms apps (HTC and Samsung), so the unread sms counters correctly update, and would like to share this knowledge, you are more than welcome!