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[Tutorial] How to Turn Off Capacitive Buttons + Lights and Use On Screen Nav

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58K views 21 replies 8 participants last post by  durham  
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I have seen a bunch of posts regarding the capacitive buttons and on screen navigation buttons. Love them or hate them, this is how you can turn them off.

First off the only way right now (that I know of) to get on screen nav buttons is AOKP. I will leave that up to you on how to get that installed.
As for turning off the capacitive buttons this is how I did it.
1.On AOKP go to Settings>Navigation bar>Enable bar. If you don't do this first you wont have a way to navigate when the capcitive buttons are off.
2. Download a root file explorer. Root Browser Lite --> http://goo.gl/b9ISW This is what I will use.
3.Load up Root Browser and navigate to system>usr>keylayout. We will be looking for a file called "sec_touchkey.kl".
4. Select it and hit "Open as..." then "Text file" then "RB Text Editor"
5. Now we see this:
Code: 
<br />
key 139		VIRTUAL<br />
key 158	 VIRTUAL<br />
key 102   HOME<br />
key 217   SEARCH<br />
All you have to do is option out the keys you don't want to work with a #. So if you are like me and think the home button is fine, it will look like this.
Code: 
<br />
#key 139		VIRTUAL<br />
#key 158	 VIRTUAL<br />
key 102   HOME<br />
key 217   SEARCH<br />
6. When you have the ones you want optioned out just tap the little disk icon in the top right. It will ask for root rights, grant it, saved.
7. Now just reboot and DONE!

Your keys should no longer work. They will still light up, but you cant use them.

Now onto the lights. Fellow Rootzwiki frequenter Jaxidian came up with this little work around and was kind enough to share it.

1. Go into Settings -> Display -> Custom Backlight Settings -> Edit other levels... -> And set every "button" field to 0 and save.
2. Turn your brightness settings to "Auto" either via your statusbar widgets/toggles or via the standard Settings -> Display settings.
3. Go back to Home, turn your screen off, wait a second and turn it back on. Notice that the button lights stay off! :)
If you like to keep keep your screen brightness at Auto, then you're done! :)
4. Now turn your brightness back to a manual setting. Notice that your buttons light back up. :-( That's okay.
5. Turn your screen off, wait a few seconds, then turn it back on.
6. Now they should be off and will remain off until either you reboot or you toggle the Auto field again (which toggling it simply brings you back to step 5 to fix again).

Thanks Jax!
Hope this helps anyone that hates the capacitive buttons or just misses the on screen nav from the Gnex like I did. If I missed anything please let me know. Cheers!
 
#4 · (Edited by Moderator)
Perfect except for the button lights staying on (as you already noted). Fortunately, this even seems temporarily fixable (until you reboot).

Do this:
  1. Go into Settings -> Display -> Custom Backlight Settings -> Edit other levels... -> And set every "button" field to 0 and save.
  2. Turn your brightness settings to "Auto" either via your statusbar widgets/toggles or via the standard Settings -> Display settings.
  3. Go back to Home, turn your screen off, wait a second and turn it back on. Notice that the button lights stay off! :)
    If you like to keep keep your screen brightness at Auto, then you're done! :)
  4. Now turn your brightness back to a manual setting. Notice that your buttons light back up. :-( That's okay.
  5. Turn your screen off, wait a few seconds, then turn it back on.
  6. Now they should be off and will remain off until either you reboot or you toggle the Auto field again (which toggling it simply brings you back to step 5 to fix again).

Not perfect but very easy. :)
 
#5 ·
Jax. Did you do your method after disabling the keys? Because when I first installed AOKP I turned off the lights, then I turned off the buttons and they lit back up. Not sure if the light mod has something to do with the keymapping or not. How long did it take you to figure that out? Crazy option changes. Good work!
 
#6 ·
I followed your steps and then started playing with ways to disable the lights. I actually stumbled upon it pretty quickly. I noticed that the "Current Value" in the "Edit other levels" screen said -1 and then my thought process went like this: "If it thinks it's -1 bright outside, how can it adjust the brightness dynamically? Hmm, I bet that's because I have it set to manual. i wonder what it does if I go to Auto - it should use these values then. Oh, hey, the light goes out, as expected. Well, at least it works on Auto - back to 100% we go. Yup, here they come back, darn." And then I went to write all of this up. Before I hit Submit, i turned my phone back on and noticed the lights then stayed out. I rebooted and back they came. I reproduced a few times and then altered my post before hitting submit, and there you have it! So yeah, it was luck. :)
 
#12 ·
Old thread but still applicable. Just an update, though. To make this mod work *well*, instead of using my previous method for turning off capacitive backlights, instead go: Settings -> Device Options -> Sensors -> uncheck "Enable keys backlight". Works much better this way and persists across reboots. :)
 
#13 · (Edited by Moderator)
Just so we're clear... That's TW ROMs right? (edit: I was wrong, they're AOKP steps)

CM based ROMs - Settings > Advanced > Screen > Toggle Backlight

Edit: Also, flashable zip for on-screen keys & disable capacitive buttons

http://forum.xda-dev...d.php?t=1918166

You still have to turn off the backlight to the capacitives
 
T
#18 ·
For those of you commenting on the lights staying on for the soft keys, any aokp version after build 4 shouldn't have this problem. The keys will always light up when u first turn on the device but once everything loads they'll turn off

Sent from my SCH-I535 using RootzWiki
 
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