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customize the home double tap

E

ecnahc

New Member
as a user of power strip, i was extremely frustrated when i realized that the native double-tap function overrides whatever you set power strip to. coming from a droid 1 and cyanogenmod, i knew that there must be a way to take this function over.

after doing a lot of searching i came across this:
Disabling/customizing the double tap home - Android Forums

in that post zlandau mentions to edit a line in a database table in /data/data/com.motorola.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db

line 352 has a value of 'double_tap'.
zlandau mentions to change that value to "<program>/<activity>"

assuming that this method will work for what i want to do [restore double tap to power strip], i'm not sure how to call the app properly.

if someone's able to help me out with this i'm pretty sure it will benefit everyone, as it will finally provide a means to disable/customize the function.
 
ecnahc said:
as a user of power strip, i was extremely frustrated when i realized that the native double-tap function overrides whatever you set power strip to. coming from a droid 1 and cyanogenmod, i knew that there must be a way to take this function over.

after doing a lot of searching i came across this:
Disabling/customizing the double tap home - Android Forums

in that post zlandau mentions to edit a line in a database table in /data/data/com.motorola.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db

line 352 has a value of 'double_tap'.
zlandau mentions to change that value to "<program>/<activity>"

assuming that this method will work for what i want to do [restore double tap to power strip], i'm not sure how to call the app properly.

if someone's able to help me out with this i'm pretty sure it will benefit everyone, as it will finally provide a means to disable/customize the function.
Click to expand...

If you do not use the voice command app then you can just get rid of it. I believe thats taking over the home double tap.
 
QuickDesk and Launcherpro: A solution for them to work together

Okay, I finally figured out a solution for this. You all were very close and it was thanks to your suggestions that I found a solution. So here it goes...

To customize the home double tap (Hard Key) to function properly with:
Launcher Pro and QuickDesk ...or any other app with intended in-app overlay capabilities such as Power Strip in your case.

The trick is to do the reverse of what you guys were trying:
Make QuickDesk assigned to open using single tap home
Make Launcher Pro assigned to open using double tap home
​
This way, when you launch your overlay app, it will function as its suppose to without closing out of your current app.

1. To make QuickDesk work with single tap home:

  • QuickDesk>Menu key>Preferences>Behavior Settings
  • Check the box for "Swap Home Key Action"
  • Favorite Launcher --> Launcher Pro
  • Check the box for "Home Key Hack"
  • Check the box for "Fast Startup Mode"
  • Uncheck the box for "Persistent Mode"
    • If Persistent Mode is enabled it will effectively kick Launcher Pro out of the memory so that every time you want to go back to your home screens it will take a second or two to reload all your widgets and such. Enabling "Fast Startup Mode" keeps QuickDesk in the memory so that when it launches it wont have to reload; but this setting wont affect Launcher Pro.
  • Double Tap Timing --> Set the Value to 1 (ms)
    • This tap timing setting fixes an issue that WiseSalesman pointed out to me in post #14 of this thread.
2. To make Launcher Pro work with double tap home:

  • Change Launcher Pro to not respond to a single home key press
    • Preferences > Behavior Settings; set the 'Home key action' to 'do nothing' and uncheck the 'Home key to default screen'
  • Using a file manager (Root Explorer or Astro work well); navigate to settings database which contains the entry for double tap function:
    • data/data/com.motorola.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db

  • When you try to open the file you will prompted to download SQLite Editor unless you already have it installed, utilize the button on the prompt window to navigate to the download location. After you have installed SQLite Editor, navigate back to the settings.db file:
    • data/data/com.motorola.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db

  • Find 'double_tap' and edit the entry to start launcher pro, the entry format is; "<program>/<activity>"
    • So for launcher pro this would be:
    • com.fede.launcher/com.fede.launcher.Launcher

  • Alternatively, for those of you having trouble downloading SQLite Editor, simply email the settings.db file to yourself, edit the file in Wordpad or Microsoft Access (on your computer), then email it back to your phone; copy the file and then paste it in the location where the original settings.db file resides, overwriting it when prompted to do so (its probably a good idea to make backup of the original file first).
  • Reboot; when it starts up the first thing you see is QuickDesk because essentially your device thinks this is your home app now but its all good -- Simply double tap home and launcher pro will open.
  • Now whenever your in any app and want your QuickDesk, just single tap home, it will open without closing your currently open app. Whenever your want to get back to your Launcher pro home screens simply double tap home.
  • Tada!dancedroid
  • **Takes a little getting use to but it actually makes sense if your going to be launching your overlay app more often then going back to your home screens; a really good idea would be to simply make a shortcut on your quick desk for launcher pro, that way even if you accidentally use a single tap, you can just press the shortcut for launcher pro.**
Hope this helps out. Check out post #18 of this thread for alternate solutions.

*Check out all the other apps I use and love: My Apps
 
Thanks WugFresh for the detailed instructions. I'm in the process of trying it, but for some reason SQLite Editor is not available for download from the market (it looks like it's available, but the app file doesn't exist when you download it), and it's not free.

Conversely, can't you change the double tap setting to PowerStrip or QuickDesk instead of the other way around?
 
No problem, anytime I end up spending a long time on a tech related issue, I always assume that I am probably not the only one struggling. If people didn't post their solutions I probably would never have been able to solve half the issues I have dealt with; hooray for tech forums!

As for your issue finding SQLite Editor, I neglected to mention how I found it originally. I simply was trying to open the settings.db file after I located it (with no previous knowledge about needing an app to do so) and the android phone itself gave me a message, something along the lines of "you need SQLite Editor to make changes to this file" and on that message screen there was button that linked to the download page. I never assumed that you couldn't just go ahead and download it normally. As for it not being free, I think that you are actually right now that I think of it; I must have downloaded some free app around the same time and got it mixed up. Sorry for the misinformation.

As for your question about doing the reverse; making the double tap work to open QuickDesk or PowerStrip; that was my original course of action, however when I tried that out, the double tap did indeed launch QuickDesk however it also closed out of the underlying app which completely defeats the purpose of having the overlay app all together. Please note that I only tried this with QuickDesk as I am not a fan of PowerStrip, so I suppose there is a chance it could work with that.

I think the reason why it works the way I configured it, is because the single tap button doesn't disturb the currently open app, whereas the double tap function will initiate the overlay app but only at the moment the second tap occurs, I think that the operating system has no way of distinguishing the first tap of a double tap procedure, from whatever its programmed to do for a single tap. Maybe it is actually possible and you have to mess with the parameters in QuickSet for how fast or slow the double tap needs to be, like maybe if its supper fast it would work. But I still don't think that would work unless there was some way to specify the parameters for a single tap; like, launch single tap function if and only if a second tap doesn't occur within <some time range>; as far as I know there are no ways to set that in Launcher Pro, so I simply went with the reverse procedure, setting Launcher Pro to open with a double tap, and Quick Desk to open with one tap.
dancedroid

Its a good idea to put a shortcut for Launcher Pro (using Launcher Pro activities > Launcher Pro > LauncherPro.Launcher) in your QuickDesk that way you never really have to use the double tap.

Hope that helped answer your question.

-WugFresh
 
WugFresh said:
Okay, I finally figured out a solution for this. You all were very close and it was thanks to your suggestions that I found a solution. So here it goes...

To customize the home double tap (Hard Key) to function properly with:
Launcher Pro and QuickDesk ...or any other app with intended in-app overlay capabilities such as Power Strip in your case.

The trick is to do the reverse of what you guys were trying:
Make QuickDesk assigned to open using single tap home
Make Launcher Pro assigned to open using double tap home
​
This way, when you launch your overlay app, it will function as its suppose to without closing out of your current app.

1. To make QuickDesk work with single tap home:

  • Open QuickDesk>Preferences>Behavior Settings
  • uncheck "Double Tap for QD"
2. To make Launcher Pro work with double tap home:

  • Change Launcher Pro to not respond to a single home key press
    • Preferences > Behavior Settings; set the 'Home key action' to 'do nothing' and uncheck the 'Home key to default screen'
  • Make sure you have SQLite Editor installed (its free)
  • Using a file manager (Root Explorer or Astro work well); navigate to settings database which contains the entry for double tap function:
    • data/data/com.motorola.android.providers.settings/databases/settings.db

  • Find 'double_tap' and edit the entry to start launcher pro, the entry should be into format; "<program>/<activity>"
    • So for launcher pro this would be:
    • com.fede.launcher/com.fede.launcher.Launcher

  • Reboot; when it starts up the first thing you see is QuickDesk because essentially your device thinks this is your home app now but its all good -- Simply double tap home and launcher pro will open.
  • Now whenever your in any app and want your QuickDesk, just single tap home, it will open without closing your currently open app. Whenever your want to get back to your Launcher pro home screens simply double tap home.
  • Tada!dancedroid
  • **Takes a little getting use to but it actually makes sense because your going to launching your overlay app far more often then going back to your home screens; a really good idea though is simply make a shortcut on your quick desk for launcher pro, that way even if you accidentally use a single tap, you can just press the shortcut for launcher pro.**
Hope this helps out. I know that they made it very difficult to remap hard keys on the droid x. My next mission will be to figure out how to remap the long press search function (but I am not very optimistic based on what I have found on the internet so far).

*Check out all the other apps I use and love: My Apps
Click to expand...

Since I can't get SQLite Editor installed (I managed to find an apk file for the app, but it doesn't work after install), I tried editing the settings.db file on my PC. After trying 5+ different database editors, I finally found one that will open it correctly, but I don't see the double tap entry anywhere. I'm lost...
 
I got the same message to download SQLite Editor when I opened settings.db in Root Explorer, but the app is now unavailable for some reason.

Got it. It's unfortunate it can't work with double tap like the multitask tray on the iPhone, but I guess your solution is the second best way.

I'm hoping SQLite Editor will be available sometime soon because I can't seem to find the double tap setting on my PC's database editor, and it would be really nice to have either QuickDesk or PowerStrip working on my phone. Thanks again for your help! :)
 
One last thing I forgot to mention; this is assuming you actually get this to work the way I did.

To avoid QuickDesk launching at start-up, and go directly into launcher pro as usual. Download and install the program:
Startup manager. The developer is kind of shady because when this app originally came out, it was a full version, then he made an update to revert it to trial. Even though I had the previous version, I still chose to update and get reverted to trial mode and cough up the 2 bucks (or whatever it was) because this program is actually really good; its the only one on the market that functions as its suppose to.


  • I've been using this app primarily to stop Backup Assistant from starting up because its not advised to remove it (or change extension to .bak) like all the other bloatware apps that comes pre-installed with this device, and also to stop Voicemail because Google Voice is way better for managing voicemail (not to mention free).

But for this situation, it actually becomes even more useful. The program enables you to control user start up apps, system start up apps, and a third category called customize; this section gives you the ability to add your own start up items. Simply add LauncherPro to this list and at your next start up when you unlock your screen you will go directly into Launcher Pro rather than having QuickDesk come up. I suppose this is not really necessary because this only occurs once (at start up) but its another nice way to retain the original functionality of your device before applying these home button tweaks.

Also, this is kind of off topic; but if you really want to customize your phone and make it do anything you want try out: Tasker
This program is truly one of the most amazing apps to ever be released to the android market. In relation to this thread, you can use this app to take over hardware controls such as the camera button (make it launch an app, a menu, or anything you want).

Ok, thats all for now.

-Wug
 
Wug -

I got this to work using your instructions, but there's just one issue - when I double tap to go "home" to LauncherPro ... it goes home, and then pops up QuickDesk over it! Then, I have to press the back button to drop the overlay any time i want Any idea what I might be doing wrong here? Thanks.
 
WiseSalesman

Yeah, with the latest update of QuickDesk I had that happen to me too and I was really confused for a little bit, but I eventually figured out how to fix it so here it goes:
There are some new setting options in the latest release of Quickdesk which need to be configured properly.
​
  • QuickDesk>Menu key>Preferences>Behavior Settings
  • Check the box for "Swap Home Key Action"
  • Favorite Launcher --> Launcher Pro
  • Check the box for "Home Key Hack"
  • Check the box for "Fast Startup Mode"
  • Uncheck the box for "Persistent Mode"
    • If Persistent Mode is enabled it will effectively kick Launcher Pro out of the memory so that every time you want to go back to your home screens it will take a second or two to reload all your widgets and such. Enabling "Fast Startup Mode" keeps QuickDesk in the memory so that when it launches it wont have to reload; but this setting wont affect Launcher Pro.
And the fix to the problem:

  • Double Tap Timing
  • Set the value to 1 (ms)
I know that this doesn't make sense because if your double tap function is set to Launcher Pro and even QuickDesk recognizes this with their setting "Swap Home Key Action" then why would QuickDesk retain any control over the double tap feature? But they do, and by setting the double tap timing in QuickDesk to 1 ms (unless you have some lightning fast tapping capabilities) will eliminate this problem; QuickDesk will only launch with a single tap, and Launcher Pro will launch with a double tap (for all double taps greater than 1 ms --if you want to get technical).

I don't think this was intentional by the developer of QuickDesk, so in future releases changing this double tap timing setting may be redundant but as for now this is the way to configure it.

That should make everything work. Enjoy!
 
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