Themes / Apps / Mods

Widgets on the cover screen are granted Settings.canDrawOverlays without the need for permission approval from the user?

With the option off in the app settings, the app never requested the permission and instead simply verified that it was already granted. That is interesting...

and now the big news:

Portrait apps may now be fully functional, if my testing is correct.


The permission approval button when launching the app from the drawer shouldn't be required, but it exists in case it will help with any finicky apps / devices. It will request system settings and overlay permissions.

System settings permission will allow the widget to temporarily disable the automatic rotation option, while the overlay permission creates a fake view over the widget that is locked in portrait and steals focus from the widget to avoid it forcing the layout back to landscape. This will not, however, prevent apps with landscape support from functioning normally.

A new caveat I found is that, when charging, tapping power and waiting won't exit the current app. I do not intend to address this right now. The reason being that the controls to have the power button return to the widget also force a screen timeout to return to the widget and can cause issues with the app being displayed when opening the phone.

A quick and dirty workaround to change apps when charging is to simply open the phone a bit. This will reset the widget without breaking the expected functionality.

As it stands, the power button and a timeout will not kill the current app unless they exceed two seconds and will not kill the app at all when charging. This allows long-term use of a single app, which fits most use cases. Other options to switch apps, such as volume button overrides, are also being explored.

@ChrisChoi314 it appears your list of incompatible apps was lost in the cleanup. If you still find any, you can post the list on the issue for it.

twistedumbrella said:

I don't know how much more can really be done inside the limitations Samsung placed on the cover screen. It may be as close as it's going to get until they lighten up.

In my opinion, there's not much more that really needs to be done. This launcher has made the cover screen almost as functional as the larger Moto RAZR 5g cover screen. We can also use workarounds for some of the limitations. For example, I press and hold the power button, then release it while keeping my finger on the fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone. We don't have to remove the screen lock for the launcher (you already made us aware of the screen lock workaround). I also configured bixby dictate to initiate using the power button as a workaround to not having keyboard functionality on the cover screen. I use this method to "type" in any text field. So, for example, I can open my messaging app on the cover screen, and create a new text message or respond to a text message without opening the phone. This works in just about ANY text field in ANY app. This launcher delivered a huge jump in cover screen functionality.

luigi90210 said:

Except I'm using swipe or no lock screen(both supported configs according to your OP) and the bug is occuring

Sounds like you should relearn how to read instead of blaming the user for reporting a bug with your app because I clearly stated that I disabled the lockscreen entirely and still couldn't launch apps without either restarting the phone or removing the widget and enabling it again

It's not my job to bug report for you, I'm doing you a favor by telling you about it, don't be rude and blame me for experiencing a bug you wrote into the code...

Click to expand...

I'm trying to understand your issue to fix it. I'm not obligated to release free software or provide you with any support at all. If you choose not to report a bug and you're the only one that appears to be facing it, how much are you hurting anyone else?

... I don't even know how to respond to this.

EDIT: Resolved

Thanks to whoever made the YouTube video. I have been working on improving the initial startup / return loading. It shouldn't require a restart. That is definitely inconvenient. I don't believe it does now, but I will start throwing that into the testing.

The next big feature planned is to try prioritizing apps with notifications. This will likely be second to adding some form of indicator.