I’m quite sure it has been requested before, but still have to ask (or maybe I’ve missed the possibility?):
would it be possible to have the status bar act as an overlay (when it’s transparent then widgets could be seen behind it)?
When the status bar is set to be hidden and is brought up by the menu key, then it can be seen as an ovelay, but not when it’s been set to show.Â
(Just realized that this can actually be achieved when hiding the status bar and the toggling it back to visible via gesture or shortcut)
And a bug I just found: when I’ve hidden the status bar, pressed menu (status bar becomes visible), disable the menu key from toggling the status bar = status bar is always visible. Even expanding the notification tray doesn’t hide it (usually after closing it the status bar hides itself – accessed via gesture if hidden).
And anothor feature request – could the “expand notification tray” action go straight to the notifications if the status bar is hidden, at the moment the first time reveals the status bar, the second opens notifications.
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Which device and android version are you using?
I’m asking because I can do that with the new KitKat feature. I have an option to make ‘transparent status bar’ as you said, it is on the screen, but transparent.
About your latest suggestion…did you try the ‘Expand notifications tray’ shortcut from LL?
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Hi, TrianguloY!
The transparent isn’t the problem, oh, right – international S4 with stock 4.3.
Maybe this is more understandable – I create a colourful widget (say lime green) and put it at the top of my screen. IF I have the status bar hidden, the it’s at the real top of the screen, if I toggle the status bar on/off (not through the setting, but a shortcut or a gesture) the the status bar appears on top of that widget. But IF I have enabled the status bar via settings (=not hidden) then the widget gets pushed down and the wallpaper can be seen behind the status bar. This also causes the cell size to change.
It would be nice to have an option to have the status bar act as an overlay – widgets and icons can be seen under it.
Yup, that’s the one I was using. I can make a video to illustrate the second suggestion and pictures to illustrate the first one! Just say the word! =D
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I think I understand what you mean. Regarding the overlay, this can be configured from code, so plugging a settings on it should be possible. In the future a new “status and navigation bars” section will need to be created đ
Regarding the notification tray, I am afraid that nothing more can be done on this because this is a non public and non standard feature, and I don’t have an array of phones to experiment with this unfortunately.
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Taavo Allik, Pierre HĂ©bert:
From what I know (of course I can be wrong) transparent status bar was first introduced in stock android in 4.4
4.3 and before don’t have this ‘stock’ feature. Of course there are a lot of ROMs that implemented it, and Samsung was one of them.
What I want to say, is that the transparent status bar in Samsung behaves that way, I think it’s better to say ‘status bar with the wallpaper as background’
If I’m right, you can’t do anything without being root. I hope I’m not.
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Yay for the first, ohh nay for the second! =D
Not quite following how the notification tray (also commonly reffered to as the notification drawer, right?) is non-public and non-standard feature….That it’s hugely different on different versions, makers etc?
But it’s always there at least and the opening action shouldn’t (in my mind) differ throughout android’s vast versions? Does it really differ?
Your response to the second suggestion made me seriously doubt if we’re talking about the same thing. But I’m no developer, so I can only see what’s on the surface =D
At the same time it’s hard to see how we could be talking about different things =D
Anyways, too bad for the second, it’s quite annoying to have to swipe down twice to see the notifications when the status bar is hidden vs once when it’s not hidden.
Thanks for your response!
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TrianguloYÂ I’ve always thought is became possible with 4.3 (or maybe even 4.2), anyways it doesn’t look like “status bar with wallpaper as background” to me. Check out these screenshots:
https://plus.google.com/photos/114112002598766270899/albums/5980198669005427185?authkey=CLOkyOC7vs_UHw
I titled the pictures according to the status bar settings (hidden/not…) so that it would be easier to make sense of these.
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Taavo Allik Ahhh! I see now (and also I can test it on my Samsung 4.2 tablet)
I thought…why when you only check transparent….Samsung, of course.
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Taavo Allik the problem with the notification tray (in its expanded state) is that the method to show it is not public (it exists, but is not documented). As a consequence it is not required to work the same way on all devices (or even work at all). Each manufacturer can add specific behavior to this (and do). On some devices the status bar need to be shown for the notification tray to be displayed, on other devices not, on some other devices you need to wait a bit, etc.
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Pierre Hébert Thanks for explaining this to me, now I understand!
Well…that sucks!
Kinda surprising that there are not-so-out-in-the-open parts in android, especially for such an important part of the experience.
I’ll try to live with swiping twice then! =D
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