Database Users

Disabling orientation change on power on and keyboard slide.

Anyone know if it is possible to change the TyTn's annoying habit of making unwanted reversions from landscape to portrait orientation?
On my machine it:
1. Always changes to portrait when the device is switched on, even if it was in landscape when it switched off. Some idiot obviously thought this was a "feature" since it comes up in landscape initially and then switches to portrait as you watch.
2. Changes to portrait when the keyboard slide is closed even if it was in landscape before the slide was opened. This is a useful feature poorly thought through. Auto switch to landscape on open IS logical, but it should not assume you want to go back to portrait when the slide is closed again.
I'd be very happy if I could just disable both these "features", but ideally I'd be able to keep "switch to landscape on slide open", with or without "revert to previous orientation on slide close".

JohnHind said:
Anyone know if it is possible to change the TyTn's annoying habit of making unwanted reversions from landscape to portrait orientation?
On my machine it:
1. Always changes to portrait when the device is switched on, even if it was in landscape when it switched off. Some idiot obviously thought this was a "feature" since it comes up in landscape initially and then switches to portrait as you watch.
2. Changes to portrait when the keyboard slide is closed even if it was in landscape before the slide was opened. This is a useful feature poorly thought through. Auto switch to landscape on open IS logical, but it should not assume you want to go back to portrait when the slide is closed again.
I'd be very happy if I could just disable both these "features", but ideally I'd be able to keep "switch to landscape on slide open", with or without "revert to previous orientation on slide close".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have problem #1, and I wonder if it's being caused by the orientation sensor being triggered at the wrong time. The sensor is magnetic, so if there is a magnet (any magnet) making contact the screen orientation will be landcape. Others here have noticed that even the magnetic closures on the official Tytn case from HTC will trigger the change.
Problem #2 is strictly software and yes, it's damn annoying when a UI designer assumes that the only functionality needed is the one that best fits his/her needs with no regard to anyone else. The only solution I can offer you, short of writing an app to do this yourself is to map a key to orientation switching and switch it yourself once you retract the keyboard. (A side gripe here is why the orientation settings are buried so deep that only a power user can find it).

I think I did see an app for changing orientation but will need to search.
By the way it starts (sometimes) in landscape because the mechanism that changes orientation is a magnet switch. A magnet on the keyboard is moved when you slide it open and operates the switch. Howver since there are powerful magnets in some carrying cases these can operate the switch (as if the keyboard was open) Then when you take it out of the pouch it takes a second or to and reverts to portrait.
You can operate the switch manually by running a magnet along the side of the casing. (not that I'm suggesting that as a solution )
EDIT: perhaps this will help
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1098622#post1098622
Mike

Thanks guys.
I have been able to get a rotation icon on the today screen (iLauncher) and to map rotation to a hard-key using a combination of iLauncher and Resco KeyMapper. But rotation takes a noticable time (seems to redraw at least four times, probably a poor model for the today screen plugin architecture) and it is irritating to have to do it twice when you do not want it at all.
With further experimentation I find it goes according to the slide position when switched on - if you open the slide and then turn on, it always switches to landscape, if you switch on with the slide closed it always switches to portrait. I suppose this makes sense - it reads this magnetic switch at power on and acts accordingly. But if Rob is right, maybe this is a "feature" of one of the utilities I've installed. Next time I have to do a hard reset I'll see if it still happens with the base OS.
I was really hoping there'd be a registry key I could change to modify this behaviour or that there'd be some utility I could buy that allowed me to hook any action I wanted to the slide switch (or none). For example, it would be more ergonomic if it turned on on opening the slide as well as changing to landscape.
See what you mean about the magnet - maybe if I got a strong enough one it would permanently magnetise and stick!

On screen keyboard rotation (slow)

Hello,
I got my hero about 3 weeks ago. I was content with not rooting it and just using what it came with; However, once I saw how slow the keyboard rotation was, I have since been on a quest... trying all the different roms to see if the keyboard would rotate faster.
Just so we are clear, Im talking about the on-screen keyboard on my Sprint Hero (with Google). When I rotate the phone from portrait to landscape, the screen goes dim and then pauses for a few seconds before it rotates. I am kind of interested in the processes that happen when it rotates and I was thinking it just took that long before the accel-meter noticed that the phone had rotated and then once it figured it out, another second or two to redraw everthing.
But then when using the fresh 1.0 rom I noticed that extra animation setting where it zooms the screen out and then it rotates and swings back and forth for a while. When I turn the phone sideways it INSTANTLY zooms out and swings... no-delay. But that whole animation takes a few seconds and actually seems like it takes longer before the keyboard is usable again.
Anyway, I know this is getting long so I will just get to it. Do you guys know of any rom, or setting, or modification to this phone that will stop it from dimming the screen and taking so long before it rotates. My bosses iphone is near instant in it's rotation habits, and that is what I am after. I mean, yea, I love that locale does a lot of extra stuff for me, sipdroid lets me make calls over wifi, and I can use this phone as a remote for XBMC. But if it cannot do these basic things quickly, like rotating the keyboard, then I am going to consider spending my free time modifying my own rom. I am chest deep writing my first two apps for android and was hoping not to have to spend much time on such a trivial thing.
Is it sense? Is it the screen dimming animation? Any directions you can give me that will point me in the direction of giving this phone a stern kick in the butt would be appreciated. As I said, I am not afraid to dive into making my own custom rom, just down want to start that trip if I don't have to.
Thanks for any help you can give me guys.

flexgrip said:
But then when using the fresh 1.0 rom I noticed that extra animation setting where it zooms the screen out and then it rotates and swings back and forth for a while. When I turn the phone sideways it INSTANTLY zooms out and swings... no-delay. But that whole animation takes a few seconds and actually seems like it takes longer before the keyboard is usable again.
Anyway, I know this is getting long so I will just get to it. Do you guys know of any rom, or setting, or modification to this phone that will stop it from dimming the screen and taking so long before it rotates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
/system/framework/framework-res.apk > res > anim houses all of the phones animations.
Ones of particular interest to you would likely be fade_in, fade_out, accelerate_interpolator, decelerate_interpolator.
The down side? These are not human readable xml files, they are in binary. I can tell you that what you would look at changing would be
Code:
android:duration="@android:010E0002"
What I can't tell you is how to change it, because honestly I don't know. You can use axmlprinter2 (google it) to read it, but you can't convert it back to binary.

Thanks, I am checking that out now. I was able to look into all these cookie-cutter animations and see that they all seem pretty sluggish. Hopefully the api is documented/open enough to look into the process and see where all the time is spent. It is just mind-boggling that no one from HTC looked at this and tried to compare the user experience with other phones. I played with the droid a little and the keyboard is instant on it too. I doubt it is just a limit of the hero hardware.
It seems like the stock rotation setting makes the backlight dim and not fade-in or out in terms of animation. Any clue why? It doesn't seem like I can turn it off.
I ran that emulator version for the android SDK that lets you see how your app works when you rotate the screen. Unfortunately it doesn't follow the same routine that the actual phone uses when rotating and is merely for visuals.

Uncontrollable Orientation Behaviour

When applications that are GPU accelerated are switched to full screen, the screen orientation always switches back to default (with the Asus on the Transformer logo on top). This is regardless of the orientation you have set.
For example:
A)
1.) You have rotated your screen upside down
2.) you run Angry Birds
3.) the screen switches back to standard default orientation
B)
1.) You have rotated your screen upside down
2.) launch youtube
3.) play a video
4.) switch to full screen
5.) the screen automatically switches back to standard default orientation
I have upgraded to 3.1 recently and don't seem to remember this being an issue before with 3.0.1 before.
Is anyone else also having this issue?

ok, is anyone with 3.1 NOT having this issue?

I get the same thing happening, and I think I would go as far as to say that it's actually intentional behavior on the part of Asus and Google to make the orientation revert like that. It makes more sense for fullscreen video to default to that orientation so as to ensure that it's consistent with the proper docking position, which is with the docking port on the bottom. Most people who watch fullscreen video for any extended period of time are probably going to dock the device.
Why do you turn the tablet upside down in the first place? I understand that having the ability to rotate 270 degrees is sometimes helpful for games and multi-user applications, I just don't see how using the tablet in its default orientation would pose a problem.

I'm typing on phone so briefly, the reason I need the transformer to be upside is due to the design of the variable angle stand of the official asus transformer skin case.
The case stands by folding in a scalene triangular fashion.
20 degrees above horizontal requires upside down.
75 degrees above horizontal requires right side up.
So most of the time when you use it in your lap, you want only 20 degrees

Applications are allowed to overide the orientation. This is true for most media players. It'll force the screen into the default landscape mode. App controlled so not honeycomb issue
Sent from my Transformer TF101

Sounds like a bit of a design oversight on the part of Asus.
Now as far as fixing it, you only have a few options. While you do have the ability to disable auto rotation on the screen, that's going to cause the tablet to simply default to the 0 degrees landscape orientation. What you need on top of that is a way to manually set your orientation, and so far I've never seen an app or ROM that does that. That's not to say it's impossible, just that I've never seen it done. The other option is to buy the keyboard dock, but that's a little excessive unless you really think you need it.

This is due to the fact that the dev of the app has forced it to lock in that orientation (landscape right side up, there's an app called androsensor that will give you more info). There was another thread concerning the same topic in themes and apps section. Your best bet is to email the app developer when you run into this.
One example is airport mania, if you were holding the device upside down and launched the game, it would force it to run right side up. I sent them am email with a description of what is happening and that the official sleeve (although I don't have one but felt it was with mentioning) is designed so the device is upside down with camera at bottom and charge port at top. Got a reply within the day and an update in the market within 3.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using XDA Premium App

klau1 said:
Uncontrollable Orientation Behaviour
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To much beer, not enough sex

There is an option to lock the orientation in the settings. So once it is upsied down you can lock the orientation and it shouldn't change.
I am not with my TF right now to test this though.

no, that doesn't work.
I don't recall this being a problem prior to the 3.1 update. Having to purposely ask each developer to change the orientation when none was necessary before is simply unacceptable.
Having bought something as simple as a case with it's multi-angle feature, one expects it to work out of the box.

As far as I knew, apps like Moboplayer always stayed in the default landscape orientation during video playback

I don't use Moboplayer much, but as far as I can recall, the Youtube app worked upside down in full screen before.
Can someone with 3.0 confirm?

Anyway to force landscape 90° clockwise instead counterclock?

So far many apps are pretty lax in whether you hold the fire landscape with usb port on right or left. I was holding it to the left since I had it and had no problems.
Now I have a case like a book flap and I prefer the flap ontop hanging back,.usb port on the left. Couple.of.apps force it upside down, having to hold it the other way looks and feels stupid now. Anyone know if there's an app or what.exactly would control that? The kernel?

+1
//Tapatalk.KindleFire//

Found an app, Orientation Control
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.coinsoft.android.orientcontrol&hl=en
This has an override to force the landscape the other way. Only problem I've seen is if you have it set to autorotate like default, then those apps will still rotate counterclock. If you set this to forced, it will do it clockwise but lock and disable the auto rotate.
So an extra step if you know youll be using something for a while and worth manually setting and locking the setting.

my display is stuck in landscape now since yesterday while i was trying to install swiftkey x. i never actually got it installed so i cannot say it is the cause of having the display stuck. i was also tinkering around in nook colour tools, but cannot seem to find anything nook colour tools' settings that fixes my problem.
any feedback is appreciated.

change orientation in Landscape apps CM7

Is there a way to change the landscape orientation of the kindle (using CM7) for full screen apps? More specifically, I have several games that are played in a landscape orientation, but they do not rotate if you turn the device upside down. The design of my case has a sort of stand, but the way its stands up is the opposite direction than most apps seem to default to. Is there a way to change the default landscape orientation?

Fairtrade128 said:
Is there a way to change the landscape orientation of the kindle (using CM7) for full screen apps? More specifically, I have several games that are played in a landscape orientation, but they do not rotate if you turn the device upside down. The design of my case has a sort of stand, but the way its stands up is the opposite direction than most apps seem to default to. Is there a way to change the default landscape orientation?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried doing the same thing and can not find a way to do it. I did try disabling the 90 degree rotation but the games still play in the default landscape mode.

solved my own problem! check out this app here get your device in the orientation you want, and then lock it. it will keep that orientation when you go into apps. however, its not pretty and the simple ui isn't perfect. I'm thinking this would work better...but it costs money...so we'll see. this works for now though