# WidgetLocker



## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

So I love my Nexus, and I love the Codename Android ROM.

However, lockscreen replacement apps don't seem to play too nicely with the Nexus. Either they don't work, or, like WidgetLocker, the soft keys don't go away when the lockscreen is displayed. I don't know if it's just because WidgetLocker isn't updated for ICS yet, or there's just no way at all to hide the keys, but I'd like some thoughts.

When do you guys think that WidgetLocker will be updated for the Nexus? And do you think that when that happens, we'll be able to hide the soft keys? I'm pretty picky so this is actually a big deal. I already bought the app and used it on my Incredible 2 for several months and I love it, and I want to use it even more on my Nexus.

I don't even like to use replacement launchers because they show the menu soft key all of the time.

Anyway, thanks in advance. I know this post is kind of sloppy, but I just woke up haha.


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## nklenchik (Dec 1, 2011)

2302jason said:


> So I love my Nexus, and I love the Codename Android ROM.
> 
> However, lockscreen replacement apps don't seem to play too nicely with the Nexus. Either they don't work, or, like WidgetLocker, the soft keys don't go away when the lockscreen is displayed. I don't know if it's just because WidgetLocker isn't updated for ICS yet, or there's just no way at all to hide the keys, but I'd like some thoughts.
> 
> ...


Well, if you think about it, if it's working for the Nexus, they updated it for the Nexus. I figure softkeys would show up because on mine I have it set to "hold back for 5 seconds" and it unlocks, just in case.


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## miketoasty (Jun 10, 2011)

I have no trouble using it with AOKP. Used the "Root Helper" which may or may not have made a difference.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

nklenchik said:


> Well, if you think about it, if it's working for the Nexus, they updated it for the Nexus. I figure softkeys would show up because on mine I have it set to "hold back for 5 seconds" and it unlocks, just in case.


Not exactly. The Nexus can run apps that aren't updated for ICS yet. There are still many bugs in the app that seem to be specific to the Nexus, which shows that it has not been updated for the device. The last update was only 4 days after the ICS source code was released. It doesn't take that short of a time to update an app for a new Android version.


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## nklenchik (Dec 1, 2011)

miketoasty said:


> I have no trouble using it with AOKP. Used the "Root Helper" which may or may not have made a difference.


They actually disappeared?


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

miketoasty said:


> I have no trouble using it with AOKP. Used the "Root Helper" which may or may not have made a difference.


Root Helper only does specific things that you choose though, and it doesn't help with hiding soft keys or touching the power menu or anything like that.

I managed to just hide the "Recent Apps" button, but that was all I could do.


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## miketoasty (Jun 10, 2011)

nklenchik said:


> They actually disappeared?


In terms of the soft keys? No, and I guess I am not really answering your concern but I don't worry about them.


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## CZonin (Sep 25, 2011)

Widgetlocker works fine for me except for the softkeys. Would really love to find a way to make them disappear.


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## Despyse (Jan 12, 2012)

Well, if you think about it, every other phone has unremovable softkeys. So idk why they would make an update solely for the nexus, just to get the option to remove them.


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## oddball (Jan 21, 2012)

Has anyone contacted Kevin at Teslacoil to see if he has a fix or is working on one? He is always pretty quick to respond to user concerns and he may not even know that people are having issues


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## JRJ442 (Jun 8, 2011)

oddball said:


> Has anyone contacted Kevin at Teslacoil to see if he has a fix or is working on one? He is always pretty quick to respond to user concerns and he may not even know that people are having issues


I would think he'd know about the issues though. TeslaCoil makes Nova Launcher for Nexus. He's had to load WidgetLocker and try it I would think. But no. I definitely haven't contacted him. Would love it see it fully functional.


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## nklenchik (Dec 1, 2011)

Despyse said:


> Well, if you think about it, every other phone has unremovable softkeys. So idk why they would make an update solely for the nexus, just to get the option to remove them.


Yeah I was thinking about that too, but the stock lockscreen is softkey-free. Still, can't beat widgetlocke's customization.


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## oddball (Jan 21, 2012)

JRJ442 said:


> I would think he'd know about the issues though. TeslaCoil makes Nova Launcher for Nexus. He's had to load WidgetLocker and try it I would think. But no. I definitely haven't contacted him. Would love it see it fully functional.


My thought was that unless someone complained he might not consider it an issue. Part of the fun of widgetlocker is the customization. He might think people are pleased with it. I use the softbuttons from widgetlocker all the time on my tablet and never even considered it a possible issue with the softkeys on the nexus


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

Despyse said:


> My thought was that unless someone complained he might not consider it an issue. Part of the fun of widgetlocker is the customization. He might think people are pleased with it. I use the softbuttons from widgetlocker all the time on my tablet and never even considered it a possible issue with the softkeys on the nexus


Tablet soft keys wouldn't be a real bother in my mind. The screen is so big that you don't really pay attention to the soft keys in specific when you're at the lock screen. However, the Nexus's screen is very small compared to a tablet and the keys are more in your face.


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## Despyse (Jan 12, 2012)

2302jason said:


> All future devices that come with ICS straight-away are supposed to have on-screen soft keys, so the ability to hide them in WidgetLocker would make sense. It's not like the Nexus is the only device that will ever have the soft keys.


Yes... I know. But the next ICS device isn't out yet. Therefore there is only one device so far... Lol.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

Despyse said:


> Yes... I know. But the next ICS device isn't out yet. Therefore there is only one device so far... Lol.


It's still a pretty popular device, and it is a flagship.


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## Spaniard85 (Jun 25, 2011)

I loaded up WidgetLocker today, and it's pretty laggy. Tried every governor that available with my current kernel, and nothing seems to make it better. Turned it off for the time being. Anyone else experiencing the lag?


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

FWIW, hiding the softkeys is something that ICS doesn't exactly allow you to do. It does allow them to be hidden while the touchscreen sensors aren't being engaged (i.e. watching Youtube). However, the moment you touch the screen, the softkeys come back. This is how ICS is designed and there's not a whole lot that WidgetLocker can do about that. Custom AOSP-based ROMs could provide a mechanism to do what you want but that type of functionality is very purposefully not allowed in ICS.

Imagine what would happen if an app hid your softkeys and then had a bug which prevented them from being shown again. Your only option would be to reboot your phone. But what if that app ran when you booted up your phone? Now you can have a single buggy app essentially cripple your phone. And yeah, we "hackers" could fix it but the average Android user couldn't.

Long story short, don't expect this to happen. Ask all you want but Google has tried to make this very thing impossible to do by third-party apps and nothing other than the lockscreen gets to be an exception.


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

Spaniard85 said:


> I loaded up WidgetLocker today, and it's pretty laggy. Tried every governor that available with my current kernel, and nothing seems to make it better. Turned it off for the time being. Anyone else experiencing the lag?


Often times, such lag is caused by having your min freq set too low or by using auto-brightness.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

Jaxidian said:


> FWIW, hiding the softkeys is something that ICS doesn't exactly allow you to do. It does allow them to be hidden while the touchscreen sensors aren't being engaged (i.e. watching Youtube). However, the moment you touch the screen, the softkeys come back. This is how ICS is designed and there's not a whole lot that WidgetLocker can do about that. Custom AOSP-based ROMs could provide a mechanism to do what you want but that type of functionality is very purposefully not allowed in ICS.
> 
> Imagine what would happen if an app hid your softkeys and then had a bug which prevented them from being shown again. Your only option would be to reboot your phone. But what if that app ran when you booted up your phone? Now you can have a single buggy app essentially cripple your phone. And yeah, we "hackers" could fix it but the average Android user couldn't.
> 
> Long story short, don't expect this to happen. Ask all you want but Google has tried to make this very thing impossible to do by third-party apps and nothing other than the lockscreen gets to be an exception.


Well couldn't developers use the same technique that the Camera app uses? So that there's just 3 dots instead or something? I'm sure there's a way. I think Google should have at least allowed devs to hide the soft keys if the app replaces the lockscreen.

And about the lag, I'm pretty sure it's because WidgetLocker isn't made for HD resolutions yet, so the effects and everything else will seem jittery and whatnot.


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

2302jason said:


> Well couldn't developers use the same technique that the Camera app uses? So that there's just 3 dots instead or something? I'm sure there's a way. I think Google should have at least allowed devs to hide the soft keys if the app replaces the lockscreen.


That should be doable (speculation - don't know for sure) but that tends to not be what most people mean by "hiding" the navbar - they tend to think more like the Youtube style which won't work for a lockscreen since you have to touch it.


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## Redflea (Jun 7, 2011)

Jaxidian said:


> That should be doable (speculation - don't know for sure) but that tends to not be what most people mean by "hiding" the navbar - they tend to think more like the Youtube style which won't work for a lockscreen since you have to touch it.


Not sure what the issue is, Widget Locker does hide the soft keys, see my screen shot.

























Sent from my HP Touchpad running ICS


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## Jaxidian (Jun 6, 2011)

Redflea said:


> Not sure what the issue is, Widget Locker does hide the soft keys, see my screen shot.
> 
> View attachment 17733
> 
> ...


You're running in tablet mode. I think this entire discussion has been in regards to Phone mode.


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## Redflea (Jun 7, 2011)

Jaxidian said:


> You're running in tablet mode. I think this entire discussion has been in regards to Phone mode.


Holy posting in to many forums, Batman!

I was jumping around and forgot that I had moved back to the Nexus forum.  Disregard, I wasn't paying attention in class. If it helps, it works great on my Touchpad!









Sent from my HP Touchpad running ICS


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

Jaxidian said:


> That should be doable (speculation - don't know for sure) but that tends to not be what most people mean by "hiding" the navbar - they tend to think more like the Youtube style which won't work for a lockscreen since you have to touch it.


Oh, I never wanted that. I just wanted the nav bar to be completely black, but the white dots I mentioned before would be okay too. I don't want fullscreen mode haha.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)




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## nklenchik (Dec 1, 2011)

2302jason said:


>


Awesome


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## clarkkkent434 (Aug 30, 2011)

The update is already out there for beta. To get the beta go to settings > Long-press volume down for Experimental > Beta Access > Public. My widgetlocker works smooth and less lag with this beta update. This is also how to get new lockscreens before they are released to the market like 8way ICS lockscreens which the developer is working on.

Sent from my Droid Nexus.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

clarkkkent434 said:


> The update is already out there for beta. To get the beta go to settings > Long-press volume down for Experimental > Beta Access > Public. My widgetlocker works smooth and less lag with this beta update. This is also how to get new lockscreens before they are released to the market like 8way ICS lockscreens which the developer is working on.
> 
> Sent from my Droid Nexus.


I never knew about that! I'm gonna try it right now. Thank you so much.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

Well, the beta isn't helping anything here. Maybe the feature isn't in the current beta release.


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## edsped (Jan 28, 2012)

Holy shit, I had no clue about the beta mode. Guess one of the beta updates made Root Helper work for the GN because it's working for mine now. Thanks, there's no way in the world I would have ever discovered this otherwise.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

Ugh. I just want the new update to hide the soft keys :'(


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## clarkkkent434 (Aug 30, 2011)

2302jason said:


> Well, the beta isn't helping anything here. Maybe the feature isn't in the current beta release.


2.2.4beta2 is the beta with the galaxy nexus fixes.

Sent from my Droid Nexus.


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## clarkkkent434 (Aug 30, 2011)

edsped said:


> Holy shit, I had no clue about the beta mode. Guess one of the beta updates made Root Helper work for the GN because it's working for mine now. Thanks, there's no way in the world I would have ever discovered this otherwise.


That's what I think root helper does. Now off we can get the update for no keys we will be gold.

Sent from my Droid Nexus.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

clarkkkent434 said:


> 2.2.4beta2 is the beta with the galaxy nexus fixes.
> 
> Sent from my Droid Nexus.


I didn't notice any major fixes. The stock lock screen still shows up a lot, sliders are still laggy (including the ones that come with the app), and there's no way to hide the soft keys like the next official update will have. Hopefully the official update will fix all of this.


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## clarkkkent434 (Aug 30, 2011)

2302jason said:


> I didn't notice any major fixes. The stock lock screen still shows up a lot, sliders are still laggy (including the ones that come with the app), and there's no way to hide the soft keys like the next official update will have. Hopefully the official update will fix all of this.


Kevin the developer told me he release all the new feature in the beta before the go to the market to get all the bugs worked out. So just keep checking the beta for your fix.

Sent from my Droid Nexus.


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## 2302jason (Jan 22, 2012)

clarkkkent434 said:


> Kevin the developer told me he release all the new feature in the beta before the go to the market to get all the bugs worked out. So just keep checking the beta for your fix.
> 
> Sent from my Droid Nexus.


I shall do that. Thank you


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## idle0095 (Jul 18, 2011)

root helper is working for me. hides the nav keys.


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## jjhiza (Oct 22, 2011)

Root helper is hiding the Nav buttons, but not the Nav bar itself, like I see in so many screenshots...any ideas guys?

Galaxy Nexus - Slim Bean alpha 4


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