[Galaxy Tab 2 General] Caldair:
I must say that the new official JB from Samsung is a great rom, really snappy and beautiful, but my enjoyment of it has been hampered (until now!) with the silly "phablet" interface and its ridiculous placement of buttons, etc. The flashable mods kicking around on the forum do not work for me on this build, and have their own caveats anyway...

So...

A new way

:

First let me say that this method is a little tedious but the final results are well worth it IMO.

*If you want the quickest, easiest TabletUI on rooted stock then see this post*

Secondly, I will not be responsible for any damage to your device. The modifications work for me. You use them at your own risk.

Ok. Now what you'll all want to see! Here are several thousand words worth of pictures:

So how did I do this you ask? Well my friends come along and I'll explain.

First my device info: P3113 running stock 4.1.1 from here, rooted with CF-Auto-root and running official CWM 6.0.2.3.

**This should work for anyone with a P31XX tablet running a rom with a stock samsung JB kernel. (Probably won't have good results with a rom that has been heavily graphically modified already.)See confirmations below.**

Prerequisites:

Your device Must be rooted and have busybox.

(Edit: Having a backup launcher installed before you start is a good idea in case TouchWiz craps out temporarily)

1> We are going to install the Xposed Framework. Follow these instructions

completely

(steps 1-6) and if you want check out the original thread here and

don't forget to thank these guys as all the credit goes to them!

Don't be afraid that this was originally for the GSII it works perfectly on my Tab 2.

2> Now that you have the Xposed framework all set up run Xposed App Settings and navigate to Touchwiz Home, select it and in the next window enable the toggle in the top right to allow modification of its properties. Now set the DPI to 160, leave the other options, click save, then yes.

3> Follow the process in 2> to set Google Play Store to 160 DPI. (This is important. We are going to change the system DPI and this will kinda break Play Store otherwise!)

4> Using your method of choice edit your build.prop. Modify this entry and only this entry:

ro.sf.lcd_density=160

to read:

ro.sf.lcd_density=133

5> Now reboot your device (I also wiped cache/dalvik but I don't think its necessary).

I don't think you should have any of the issues i did with Touchwiz. But if you do have it FC repeatedly you can do like I did: used Search gesture from home screen (swipe up from buttons back/home/etc) searched for Nova Launcher and installed via Play Store, opened, tapped "Just Once" when asked about default launcher. Then killed Touchwiz App, wiped its cache/data and rebooted then set Touchwiz as default again.
​

6> Disable the Quick launch softkey by Settings/Display/Quick launch. This is to avoid graphical overlap in portrait mode, but it is purely cosmetic and you can keep quick launch active if you prefer. (If you want to instead remove the mini app launcher arrow check out this post. Thanks ketut.kumajaya!) Also you may want to set large font by Settings/Display/Font Size.

7> Go through your apps 1 by 1 to see if they look alright with the 133 DPI or if you need to revert to the default 160. Follow the procedure in step 2> for each app you wish to change. For some system apps (Settings for example) you will need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

8> Enjoy your tablet again! And you can even have some fun playing around with app-specific DPI settings. You may find, like I did, that you prefer almost all of your apps in the 133 DPI mode, ie Gmail, Youtube, Contacts, Calendar, Maps, Browser, Settings.

Some additional info:

As an added bonus with Xposed App Settings you can now control the screen DPI and size for almost any application independently of the system/OS. This means that in some cases you can use an app in either tablet or phone mode and use the different resources for each! Have fun playing around with applications and get them tweaked to your preference!

If you want to you can adjust the DPI for System UI. This can get you larger system buttons and notifications/shade. However the width of the nav bar does not scale with the buttons so there are graphical inconsistencies.

Don't adjust any settings for Android System with Xposed as this will lead to System UI FC's (which are a pain in the ass!)

I have only tested this on Stock P3113UECLK7 but my gut tells me that this procedure should work on all 7" Tab 2's running stock. You will just have to be brave like I was and try it out for yourself!

Update: working on P3100 as well(thanks sozofriend1234!)

Update: working on P3110! Thanks haller!

Update: working (and looking sweet!) on kwbr espresso 3110! Thanks artoner974!

Update: Working with KK-Boot Custom Boot Image! Big thanks to karaern for being brave and trying this! (I was too chicken myself;), but I am running it now and it is Awesome! Thanks ketut.kumajaya for KK!)

FYI, I set the following additional apps to 160 DPI:

Camera (necessary, I think)

Polaris Office (highly recommended)

Peel Smart Remote (highly recommended)

Internet (put it back because quick control was just too small)

MiniTaskcloserService (fixes transparent line through popup task closer!)

Photo Editor (Had an FC while editing that went away after I set it bak to 160)

Probably some other system apps need to be changed but I have a lot of them frozen or uninstalled.

Update

: Using Xposed App Settings, set System UI to 134 DPI and reboot, to make your notification shade (popup) look like it should...

...again! (notice the filled bar for screen brightness, "indicator lights" under power control toggles)

Update: Check this post to see how to get back ALL the filled slider bars!(ie: volume popup indicator)

The only graphical irregularities I see are the mini apps dock being funny looking/cut in landscape and small mini app launcher arrow. (*if you use the filled slider fixes here)

Check out my 170 Dpi TouchWiz! I think it fills the screen nicely at this scale.

Get the Split or Floating keyboard from the Tab2 10.1! Check this post!

Update: Now that you have Xposed Framework running on your device there are other modules besides Xposed App Settings that you have at your disposal. Check them out right here. I am currently using the Alternate App Picker from here. It replaces the popup that asks about default apps which in JB requires you to tap "Just Once" every time with the one from ICS that just has the "Default" tick box! Install any modules like with Xposed App Settings, ie: Install apk, then enable it in Xposed Framework Installer and reboot. :highfive:

Edit: Changed the recommended dpi setting for build.prop from 130 to 133. This is the highest you can set it and keep the tablet ui and,to me, it just seems like everything looks good at this setpoint. Updated Screens with 133 dpi.