Feature suggestions: on-screen buttons toggle

[ambvaes42]

Hello Sony and other readers of this message!

Recent information has been showing that the ICS update for the Xperia S (the one that will be arriving in about a month) contains largely the same software as the Xperia GX has been shown with in demonstrations. The Xperia GX no longer has dedicated buttons, but uses the ICS on-screen keys.

I think that might mean that all of the applications in the update will be completely ready to be used without dedicated hardware buttons. I'm not the greatest fan of the Xperia S hardware buttons. They're okay, but unfortunately after just over two months now with my S I still find myself needing two or three tries before I hit the buttons properly.

What I'd like to ask is the following thing.

In any future update of the Xperia S, could we perhaps have an extra option in the "Xperia" menu in Settings that would enable the ICS on-screen keys? I know it sort of breaks the design of the Xperia S, but it could also be nice for us who'd like to move to the 'new' system.

I'd imagine it to provide the following options:

• Hardware buttons only (default)
• Hardware buttons + virtual (on-screen) buttons
• virtual (on-screen) buttons only

From what I've seen on XDA it shouldn't prove to be too hard to implement, and if the Xperia S and GX software have as much in common as I think they do, it shouldn't introduce any issues for users either.

Could this be given any consideration?

Tack så mycket!
Ambroos

[Uliwooly]

check this thread and the video

http://talk.sonymobile.com/thread/38259

Don't forget to mark the Correct Answers & Helpful Answers

[ambvaes42]

Yeah well I did see the video, and that's where I first noticed how 'ready' for on-screen buttons the software is. I just didn't want to make it obvious since we're not actually supposed to have seen that video

I do hope however the feature request will still be considered! What do you think of it uliwooly?

[Uliwooly]

to be honest I never liked the onscreen buttons, since they take part of the screen that I rather have to see videos, pictures, websites, etc. but I think they should add this option or better yet have an optional home launcher with that option on the market. that way users who doesn't want to use this, won't have to deal with a heavier launcher.

Don't forget to mark the Correct Answers & Helpful Answers

[ambvaes42]

Well the nice thing is it doesn't even have anything to do with the launcher. If you root your phone you can enable the on-screen buttons by just setting some switches in a text file. All the necessary things are already there, right in ICS, they just have to be enabled. This means that it would come at no performance cost whatsoever.

(A regular Market app also wouldn't be able to enable the buttons without root access.)

The reason why I ask is that I don't want to root my phone. I did it before with my Neo, and I always found it to mess something up, so I stopped doing it.

[Uliwooly]

Interesting, have you tried that with Sony's ICS? Sony has a tendency to mod Android a LOT and delete apps and many other things from the original code

Don't forget to mark the Correct Answers & Helpful Answers

[ambvaes42]

I personally haven't tried it, but many people on XDA have tested it with the ICS build, and it really is just a few changes in an XML file packed in framework-res.apk. Because the launcher and many other things haven't been updated on the 2011 devices the results aren't always as nice, though.

In AOKP a toggle is present in the standby menu, so in theory it should be possible to modify the values on-the-fly, but I can imagine it can take a few hoops to make it work.

[Uliwooly]

those are great news, then it shouldn't be so hard for Sony to allow users to have this, but then again how would the whole system react to this. It might be easier on the Xperia S than the 2011 Xperias.

Don't forget to mark the Correct Answers & Helpful Answers

[brunojcm]

I created a MOD on XDA to enable the on-screen buttons:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1738094

Given the work I had to mod it, I don't think it's trivial to implement an option for that. I want to be wrong saying this, though.

[ambvaes42]

I think this is even more relevant now that the ICS update is actually here. It looks like all apps would work really well with the on-screen buttons enabled!