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DroidPlanner / Tower

Ground Control Station for Android Devices
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.droidplanner.android
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Samsung tablet UI - menu iyems #1032

Closed andrewmoni closed 10 years ago

andrewmoni commented 10 years ago

I had a probem with my samsung tablet - prior to 2.7.2. RC1 - in that the menu items did not appear. Although I can now access the menu by pressing the hardware button to left of home there is no indication whatsoever in Drone Planner UI that there exists an additional menu available. My screen does not show the 3 dots or give any other indication that there is a menu available. There should be an additional specific button within the application rather than relying on something built into android. I went a long time before I found out that 'disconnect', load and save mission were on this additional menu - and I wait to see if other things appear in there at different times!!! I appreciate this is probably samsung specific in that other tablets and phones probably have the 3 dots visible - but nevertheless samsung is not a small itsy bitsy device!!

arthurbenemann commented 10 years ago

Android hides the overflow menu button in case the device has a hardware butto, so its not really a bug. But I agree that this can cause problems, I have replied to a bunch of emails because of this.

So let's change this issue to: can we ove4ride the android default behavior, and always show the "three dots" button ?

m4gr3d commented 10 years ago

Might be possible through http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20444596/how-to-force-action-bar-overflow-icon-to-show.

Though @andrewmoni, it's worth pointing out this is not a bug of the app. The android system guidelines has, for a while now, been pushing toward deprecation of the hardware menu button in favor of soft menu button exactly to avoid the situation that you encountered. Samsung is notorious for doing their own things, and the best way to protest against their behavior is by voting with your wallet.

We develop against the android system/API. By not relying on it like you're suggesting, we run the risk of creating countless bugs on other devices just to counter one of Samsung design flaws.

andrewmoni commented 10 years ago

I agree - a much better suggestion!!

On 2 September 2014 07:18, Arthur Benemann notifications@github.com wrote:

Android hides the overflow menu button in case the device has a hardware butto, so its not really a bug. But I agree that this can cause problems, I have replied to a bunch of emails because of this.

So let's change this issue to: can we ove4ride the android default behavior, and always show the "three dots" button ?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/DroidPlanner/droidplanner/issues/1032#issuecomment-54108086 .

andrewmoni commented 10 years ago

If I understood the link correctly, the last workaround given should work on all devices including samsung, and provide a consistent 3 dots presence with associated overflow menu items, and would therefore be worthy of consideration in DP.

On 2 September 2014 07:41, Fredia Huya-Kouadio notifications@github.com wrote:

Might be possible through http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20444596/how-to-force-action-bar-overflow-icon-to-show .

Though @andrewmoni https://github.com/andrewmoni, it's worth pointing out this is not a bug of the app. The android system guidelines has, for a while now, been pushing toward deprecation of the hardware menu button in favor of soft menu button exactly to avoid the situation that you encountered. Samsung is notorious for doing their own things, and the best way to protest against their behavior is by voting with your wallet.

We develop against the android system/API. By not relying on it like you're suggesting, we run the risk of creating countless bugs on other devices just to counter one of Samsung design flaws.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/DroidPlanner/droidplanner/issues/1032#issuecomment-54108944 .

m4gr3d commented 10 years ago

Since it's not part of the api, there's no guarantee that all devices support the hack, hence no guarantee it'll work on all devices. Additionally, any future updates to the system might break the hack. If you read the comments in the provided link, CommonWare lists good reasons why this is not a good idea.

The second solution in the link provided a good alternative, on the other hand it implies hacking the hardware menu functionality to get it to work as it does now.

I'm much more inclined in updating the ui, instead of hacking around with the menu system. With android L new design guidelines, that update will allow us to stay consistent with the updated android ui guidelines.

arthurbenemann commented 10 years ago

I'm closing this issue. As @ne0fhyk articulated this would take us out of the guidelines, helping a smaller part of the userbase (and probably causing problems for others). Also there is the point that users with hardware menu buttons should already be used to the behavior on their devices for other apps.