save screen space - allow swipe to access main menu instead of taking up lots of space
  • Vote Up1Vote Down andrew_james_heardandrew_james_heard
    See the screen capture - for me the main menu (hamburger) icon is generally on a line by itself - often a waste of valuable screen space. Could an enhancement be considered to make better use of the screen space, and allow (maybe a setting tick box) to allow a swipe to reveal the main menu instead of keeping the icon displayed? This mechanism is used by lots of other apps.
  • 24 Comments sorted by
  • Vote Up1Vote Down luboslubos
    Let's say we already had working fullscreen&immerse mode but we weren't able to decide if hide infopanel too so we dropped it.
    image
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hvdwolfhvdwolf
    That's because your (older?) phone is showing those buttons as soft buttons inside the screen.
    On my phone, and most modern phones, the buttons have become "hard" buttons on the phone itself in their own touch-sensitive area and no longer in the screen. Exactly for the reason you are complaing about: to preserve more screen space.
    Take a look at my screenshot
    For me the buttons are invisible in the touch-sensisitive part below the actual screen. Once I touch them they lid up. Because they are outide of the screen they are not in the screen capture.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down andrew_james_heardandrew_james_heard
    Thanks hvdwolf. But I am not talking about the hard or soft buttons (Back/ Home/ Apps) at the very bottom of the screen, but the line above that which shows in my screenshot the main menu (hamburger) icon.

    I have many other apps where a left-to-right swipe gesture is used to show the main menu. It is a quite common method for accessing the main menu. I assume the designers of these apps have used this method for exactly the reasons I describe - to save screen space.

    BTW my phone is less than a year old, and when rotated the soft buttons are repositioned at the bottom of the new screen, which is a quite nice design feature. But this is all unrelated to my initial post.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down tomastomas
    swipe will move map, or do you mean something else?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down OldieOldie
    Where Andrew has its so called Hamburger symbol (the three white horizontal lines), there I have in my Xperia Active (which has hardware buttons and ICS) a black line as hvdwolf has it. It is used for text messages when navigating, especially indicating next street to follow etc. So it is only "useless", when not navigating. I can live with it, how it is now. I wonder if Andrew has a separate and additional text line when navigating. If yes I understand his proposal, that this would be a waste of space.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down andrew_james_heardandrew_james_heard
    Oldie - yes, as per your experience.

    Tomas - yes, I can see that a conventional Android swipe is problematic - for most apps a swipe displays the main menu, but in an app like MFN where swiping is already used for panning, there would be confusion between whether to pan or whether to display a menu. So my swipe suggestion is not a good one.

    But the underlying issue of making most effective use of screen space still remains - that is - the so called Hamburger symbol (the three white horizontal lines) takes up a fixed amount of space that most of the time could be better used for displaying the map. Maybe. Everybody is different, and as a product matures, making changes some people will be happy & others will be upset.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down RoldorfRoldorf
    On my Samsung tablet the menu button appears superimposed on the map at the top right hand corner, whereas on my phone it appears on a separate line at the bottom taking away space from the map. Maybe we could have it the same on the phone as on the tablet?
  • Vote Up0Vote Down crocodilefarmcrocodilefarm

    Does the menu-button's position depends on the Android-Version? On my Nexus 7 with KitKat 4.4.4 the menu-button is located (like Roldorf's) at the top right corner of the screen.


     

  • Vote Up0Vote Down luboslubos
    Menu button is on top right corner on tablets or bottom left on phones without context menu button(three dots).
    Note: some custom ROMs or chinese phones indicate context menu button incorrectly
  • Vote Up0Vote Down andrew_james_heardandrew_james_heard
    Roldoft - your observation of "Samsung tablet the menu button appears superimposed on the map at the top right hand corner" would save space on my Xperia Z1 KitKat 4.4.4 phone.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down OldieOldie
    I have a tablet now also. The menu is on the right upper corner. Nevertheless there exists the same line on the downside of the screen, which is empty, when not navigating but shows the street names when navigating. So only the menu button top right does not save space. It even consumes more space on small screens, even it is somewhat transparent.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down RoldorfRoldorf
    One way to save space would be to hide the soft buttons:- back, home and recent after say 5 seconds. Touching navigators 'menu' button would bring them back.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down luboslubos
    @Roldorf - it is possible only on Android 4.4 and higher
  • Vote Up0Vote Down crocodilefarmcrocodilefarm

    @lubos -  I've got Android 4.4.4 on my Nexus 7 Tablet. how can I hide those three buttons? They keep on the screen the whole time NavigatorFree is running.


    Any setting required or is there just the technical possibility for you to add this function in future versions of MF?

  • Vote Up0Vote Down luboslubos
    @crocodilefarm - ehm, you have no chance to do it with any public build
  • Vote Up0Vote Down RoldorfRoldorf
    There is an app on google play called GMD full screen Immersive mode (free), no root required. I have not tried it. There are some issues with full screen mode one of which is the keyboard not operating on some apps while in full screen so it needs to be turned off and then back on again. For all you others this app only works on kitkat and higher. Will try it out over the weekend.

    Edit: Just tried it and it works fine, removes top and bottom bars. To restore bars swipe down from top.  To temporary restore bars swipe from right (defaults). You need to restore bars to use the keyboard for search etc.

    Motorola Moto G 2nd generation Android 4.4.4
  • Vote Up0Vote Down andrew_james_heardandrew_james_heard
    +1
    Nice on Roldoft. Works on Xperia Z1 with Android 4.4.4.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down chattiewomanchattiewoman
    Is this something that can be solved my MapFactor inside app?
    Because since my new phone (Xperia Z3 compact with Android 5.0.2 - no "old" phone!) I see that too:
    image
  • Vote Up0Vote Down RoldorfRoldorf
    @chattiewoman
    GMD immersive works on 5.0.2 as well.
  • Vote Up0Vote Down chattiewomanchattiewoman
    Yes, but I still hope there is a cure, not a kill of symptoms :P
  • Vote Up0Vote Down hvdwolfhvdwolf
    It should be possible from MNF. There are more apps who can do that.

    It's from the manifest.xml
    android:name=".Foo"
    android:label="@string/foo"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen">

  • Vote Up0Vote Down chattiewomanchattiewoman
    Mh, I was not requesting a full screen mode, but to get rid of the almost empty line caused by the symbol with three lines
  • Vote Up0Vote Down luboslubos
    this empty line is used for street names, we are going to remove it in future(as I know)
  • Vote Up0Vote Down chattiewomanchattiewoman
    Riiiiight! Sorry, I just forgot about that.
    I'd suggest to remove it by option only, then.
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