yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
No problem ... i was able to download that xml file from one of your other threads whose pre-requisite too was to have these very same 2 files to be present on the device.

I opened your RN app and the drop down did open on the top left book icon ... but this opens only one time ... Does one have to reconfigure using NTMM so it opens every time ?
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
I downloaded and installed the apk (1.1.1) from the first post. It runs fine for me. Did you get and approve the SU prompt?

There's nothing special to be done with NTMM other than assign the app to the "reading now" soft button.

Did you by any chance reinstall over a previous installation when you were having trouble? If so, you need to do a complete uninstall before reinstalling on apps like this with toggles. If the toggle variable has been messed up it will stay that way unless you do a fresh install since installing over an existing app of the same version preserves the data (like the state of the toggle variable).
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
@nmyshkin ... thanks i figured ... Is it just me or the Nook Book Button app seems to be a little quicker(about 2-3 seconds) quicker than your RN app to show the drop down menu on invocation.

Not sure if its just me and my device or its across the board.

Cheers.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
No, it's not just you. I could change it like I did QuickTiles so that it responds more quickly but as I don't use it any longer, I have never revisited it. It would involve an "always on" overlay of the button.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
Oh you can make it snappy ? Thanks whenever you find time to work on this request, please do remember to make it fast and responsive ...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
I might be able to make it more responsive. What I should have pointed out is that you are observing the difference between a system call and the startup of a user app. Assign any

app

to a hard/soft button with NTMM and you will see the same kind of delay. It's not NTMM or anything but the response of the device itself when opening a user app. Sometimes it's a little faster, sometimes really slow, but it can never be immediate as calling something that is part of the underlying system.

The approach I used for speeding up the response of QuickTiles is, I think, not such a good idea here. Putting an invisible "hot space" in that corner which would be there all the time could create problems. I'll see what else I can dream up. The Kindle app is also a challenge. It doesn't seem to register itself with the activity picker for .mobi files (I guess we'd have to include .azw also...), so that will need to be addressed, possibly in a tiny helper app like the one written long ago to enable the stock reader to open from a tap on a book in a file manager.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] Renate:
Did you look at the AndroidManifest.xml? You could patch that and re-sign it.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Yep. It is completely lacking in mime type and path pattern statements. So that's a first point of possible intrusion. I imagine that like all of the "book selling" reader apps, it's not designed to open from a file call. That way you miss the parade of "buy these!" at the bottom of the screen.

But I'll give it a go.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] Renate:
Well, where were the intent filters to begin with? The stock must have to handle something somewhere. If there were no intents in BookReaderActivity initially, just shovelling them in won't do anything. The code still has to react to the intent.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Sorry for the delay. I really wanted to finish the dictionary project before getting distracted with something else. But I did play around a little with the Kindle app. It's not designed to function as you desire, of course. You're supposed to look at all the nice books Amazon wants to sell to you each time you open the app. As you say, however, if you "exit" the app with the "n" button, the reader process remains in the background (just like the B&N reader process) and a new call to the app opens the reader to the last place, rather than the main library screen. So let's leave it at that. I don't have the knowledge to try to convince the app to behave as we'd like, so we can meet it half-way.

I've attached a copy of the traditional app with your custom specifications. Uninstall any other versions you may have tried out before installing this one. The app has dependencies on the Kindle app, Nook Clear Screen, and the MIUI App Drawer so they need to be resident for it to install.

I will put together a hopefully more responsive version in the next day or two as soon as I can remind myself what all went into that when I updated QuickTiles and adapt it to the RN Menu.

In the meanwhile, let me know if you'd like any changes in wording.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
Wow !!! thanks @nmyshkin ... thanks a ton ...

App Drawer Works perfect

Kindle App works like a charm ... opens the last book that was open !!!

Reading Now works ... opens last book on Nook Reader

Clean Screen ... works too

The NookBB (NookBookButton) app and its responses are fantastic, if its sources(reverse engineering) are consulted then your RN App will become THE choice for everyone else, as currently it opens as an app with a few page refreshes delaying the pop up(dropdown) further...

Nevertheless ... I love this custom option to jump from Kindle to Nook books and its a thrilling experience, super efficient to make that switch ... (unfortunately I can't jump from nook book to kindle as the Book Button isn't accessible from the Nook Reader as the topbar wouldn't show up(if only touching the open book would bring up the whole topbar, for currently it only brings up the glowlight/wifi quick setting and time information) if only the whole topbar showed up then, direct access to Apps, Screen refresh, Read Kindle, Read Nook would have turned your RN App one monster of a UX(user experience) ...

The only way i can access the topbar is ...

1. if i hit the 'n' button and choose settings, library, shop, etc, as the back button mapping does not take us out of the open book in the default nook reader ...

2. One can single touch the open Nook Book and select 'more' form the book menu(I think its manageable from here)

A fantastic App @nmyshkin ... you can please upload this app you've customized for me specifically with the 4 custom options, just like you have the 3 NookManager version ... you never know some other users may love it !!!

As far as wording is concerned ...

App Drawer >> Apps

Reading Now >> Read Nook

Read Kindle >> Read Kindle

Clean Screen >> Refresh Scrn ... do they sound better ?

Also would it be a good idea to reduce the wording font size a pt. or two ?

PS : Is there any way i can make such minor modifications to the apk myself ... I am a CS grad from eons ago(1998 batch), but professionally turned a Banker and Now work as a Brand and Design consultant ... Having said that i think I know my way a little around designing icons and UI/UX elements ...

FYI ... I have a fully functional Android Studio and Android SDK fully updated on my daily driver linux machine... hence i was wondering if i could make these subtle modification's like changing Icons and Font sizes, etc ... of course with you help finding my way around your code ... for i don't have any true coding experience besides what i coded as an undergrad ...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
You're welcome. Nice to hear something positive about my work.

The more responsive version will solve this problem as the upper left corner where the soft button is on the status bar will be touch-active whether the bar is displayed or not.

Actually, you can fully customize the menu appearance, if you like. All you need is a good graphics editor. Currently the font used is Arial, 12 pt., bold. Unfortunately I don't have the Gil Sans font used by the NST system for the screen and Windows did not like the font I pulled from the NST itself, so Arial was the closest option I had.

This was one of the first apps of this sort that I made with Tasker and my intention was to make the menu "fit" with the other display elements as much as possible. Looking at it again, I may have erred on the size a bit, comparing to the menu in the Library for example (bunch of screenshots below). Also, the font weight is not quite right. The regular Arial seemed too wimpy while the bold is just a bit too much. Anyway, you can use the bmp I have provided as a guide and take it from there.

If you want to change the size a bit, that's fine. I can accommodate that before I recompile the app.

If you'd rather not get into all that, I can make changes based on your preferences.

Attempting to disassemble the app would not be helpful. I couldn't tell you how Tasker's App Factory does its magic, but from my end of the process app construction is done with a series of instructions similar to a high-level programming language like MBASIC or PASCAL along with the ability to create graphic elements in "scenes". The results can be exported in xml and if you look inside the compiled app you will find a folder stuffed with all the xml code. How this is used to deliver what we experience as "app behavior" is a mystery to me, but the discovery of Tasker and gradually learning to use it has opened up many possibilities for the device--for me, at least, whose aging brain has no interest in tackling JAVA or traditional app creation.

BTW, do you ever use your device in landscape mode? If not, removing the orientation check from the RN Menu app will shorten response time a bit.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
I tried touching the top left corner when the Nook reader book was open, but that corner ins't touch-active ... sadly it isn't triggeing your RN app ... while you are reading the book ... I even tried touching the center of the book which brings up the bottom book menu banner and on the top right corner the Glowlight touch-active area shows up ... I just wish the top left corner of the Read Now button could be invoked from here too just like the glowilight ... I am referring to when the Nook reader as an open book ...

oh ... i thought you were creating apk's from using android SDK on some IDE ...

If you are doing it on Tasker, would you have installed this tasker app and taskers app factory plugin on your nook or some other android device ?

Please download from here ... Gil Sans font ...

Please try size 10 ... if on the NSTG it looks too small then 11 should do the trick ... but if this time if you are using the Gil Sans font from the above download then you need to check how that font looks in those sizes ... a matter of trial and error.

The above names with the Gil Sans font or 10 or 11 size arial font ... with the following attached icons for the 4 entries should improve the UI further ... hopefully

Please use the attached files for the respective icons ... and see if you can use the names as mentioned in the attached image

No I don't use the lanscape mode ... So you can remove orientation check to reduce the response time for my version of the custom app.

thanks a ton ...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
No, that won't work with the version you have now. The more responsive version I am working on now will do that. I think you will like the improvement in response time based on my testing so far.

I have an ancient (paeleolithic, actually) version of Tasker that runs--more or less--on the NST. Working with scenes is a little frustrating because of the screen response and that's one reason I go to background images if a screen does not need interactive elements (like the Dictionary app did). The oldest version of App Factory requires Android 2.2, but it will run on my KitKat non-phone phone, so I can move the xml files from one device to another after testing and debugging the Tasker routines and then compile with App Factory.

Thanks! I'll give it a try.

The story of my life with Android.

Looks really good! I should hire you :)
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Check the attached image. I was surprised to find that this drop-down is significantly smaller than the one in the stock library. I guess I felt it was too big when I first tried it. A font size of 10 is really too small. See what you think about this in the context of the overall screen.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
you know where to reach me ... :)

This is just puuuuurfect !!!

In a good visually appealing design ... proportions w.r.t. the overall design is everything, It is the very distinction between an appealing design as against a repugnant one !

As our device is a 6" screen the current font sizes you've adopted in this screenshot is bang on !!!

Wow ... that's really ancient, Is that old version something I can install too ? Please share the link for the same ... as fer the Tasker App Factory ... i don't have a phone that runs kitkit ... however i think i can fire up a virtual device with a hardware configuration that supports the Tasker App Factory that you are using ... Please share the link to the app factory as well ...

Oh ... ok ... so are you saying an open book in the default Nook Reader the top left corner will have touch-reactiveness ? that would be the best thing, to happen to our NST/G ... if you can pull that off ... that will actually remove a very big impediment in the effort to design an easy UX(user experience)

What are you reading 'Now' from the Nook Library ?

What are you reading 'Now' from the Kindle Library ?

the above two which could mean

'Nook Reading Now'

'Kindle Reading Now' ... the omission of 'Reading' ... makes it shorter and sweeter ...

combining the above 2 contexts ...

'Nook Now'

'Kindle Now'

... wordings seem to mean and fit Just PERFECT !!!

Please share this new version of RN app you've been developing ... with the new wordings, font and iconSet ... all in the more responsive version(hope the landscape delay is removed as i don't use it at all, i can always use the standalone app for those rare occasions )

@nmyshkin ... If you are able to pull this one right through the center ... then i have some simple suggestions that you can consider in your grander scheme of things ... we can discuss the same over DM ...

Excited to try and test this new and promising version !!!
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] Renate:
That border looks a bit weird. How are you drawing it? There's a white edge on the top and corners. There are some strange

notches" on the left side. It's always best if you can draw lines with integral width. The dotted lines are two fine to work well.

Is this whole graphic pre-composed?
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
Hello @Renate ... I am not sure how @nmyshkin has used the icons i provided in this dropdown construction ... only the 4 icons i've attached in my previous post are constructed uniformly ... the dropdown image of all the menu items was only as a mockup and wasn't to be used, I did compare @nmyshkin's test screenshot and i think he has not used that mockup image ...

@Renate ... are there any specific guidlines in exporting png's specifically for our NST/G's ? ... in the sense of dpi's, dimensions, formats, etc ? ... if so please let me know to the resource so i can export png's ideal for our devices.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
@nmyshkin ... if you are using the whole image with the menu's i had created for mockups within your tasker scheme of things, then please discard the previous one as it wasn't accurate, it was thrown in as a quick mockup, of an earlier screenshot you had provided ...

Please find this new one I am attaching here ... this is accurate ... the white corners you can try using this if you indeed are using the whole dropdown image ...

PS : I've tried to match the lines of the stock Nook UI ... found in the 'Home', 'Library' & 'Shop' screens ...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
@nmyshkin ... if you are using the whole image with the menu's i had created for mockups within your tasker scheme of things then please discard the previous one as it wasn't accurate was thrown in as a quick mockup of your earlier screenshot you had provided ...

Please find this new one I am attaching here ... this is accurate ... you can try using this if you indeed are using the whole dropdown image ...

PS : I've tried to match the lines of the stock Nook UI ... found in the 'Home', 'Library' & 'Shop' screens ...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
Concept : RN app access directly from within an open book in the stock nook reader.

would be great if this could be achieved in reality ...

Disclaimer : The image is only for illustrating the implementation and not an achieved functionality..
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] Renate:
But that image has to get scaled and that's where it starts looking ugly.

Why don't you draw the image actual size, then you know what you have.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
That's exactly what it does. From the Kindle reading screen also--or anywhere else.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Every silver lining has a cloud.

Every ointment a fly.

Immer etwas.

u.s.w.

I should be done but I've run into a snag. The "reading now" button sends an intent to open the last-read book. I'm using that same intent for the "Nook Now" menu option. But for some reason it does not like to comply from inside some other app (like the Kindle app, etc.). It gets confused with the page position, wants to start over or (worst case) just refuses to start the reader. You have not seen this behavior because you can't get to the button from the Kindle app in the version you have, but if you try from the App drawer (assuming you don't have it set to full-screen) you'll perhaps see what I mean.

In my Bookcover screensaver app I use a routine to get the currently open book once one is selected from the Library. Issuing an "open file" command for that book appears to dodge the problem, bypassing the problematic intent. The last page is correctly remembered.

BUT, to work it assumes you always

start

a book from the Library. Is that how you use your device?
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
are you by any chance planning a floating bubble implementation on top of every app ... except that this won't be floating but instead fixed to the top-left area(the Reading-Now) icon area ?

Huh ! ... nifty idea i must say ... and all this with the tasker app ... even more amazing !
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
hmmm ... switching from KIndle app to Nook Reader open book isn't a problem in my current version ... when the kindle book is in full screen ... a simple tap brings the topbar and along with it exposes the controls on it ... Reading Now area, Back and Menu & Glowlight & Wifi touch areas !!!

I'd say don't bother trying to achieve the switch from a full screen kindle open book ... a simple tap on the book to bring up the topbar is good enough and does not bear heavy on the UX flow ... I'd say ... don't waste time on it

If only you can get the RN menu to show up from a Nook Reader open book, even here you don't have to attempt to get your idea to work on a full screen open book ... even here when we tap on the full screen book the top area shows up (where the Glowlight & wifi) area is exposed ... In this state if you can get the RN Menu to open up when the top-left corner is touch invoked that should be good enough ... all other use cases will have a visible topbar and no problem invoking your RN App ...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Hmm....I'm not seeing that behavior from the Kindle app. I

do

get the right page if I go from the App drawer. OTOH, I'm seeing something I've never seen before (using my device with the UK ROM because the other two are busy with other projects and actual reading!). A notice about syncing to the last read page or staying where I am. Never have seen that on my US devices before under any circumstances. I guess I'll have to try this app on one of my other devices and see how it behaves. If that's OK then I'll transfer the Tasker routines over and see if that runs properly. If it does, I'll pretend none of this ever happened and have the app ready for you.
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Erm.....something seems a bit hinky with this, but give it a shot and see how it works for you.

1. Uninstall the previous version.

2. Use NTMM to reassign the "reading now" button back to "Default".

3. Install the new app.

4. Tap on the app icon in the App drawer. You should get dumped back to the home screen and see a toast indicating that the app is activated.

Two things have now happened: 1) there is a transparent overlay which covers the "reading now" status bar button, and 2) an instruction has been added to the device boot sequence to place this overlay after boot. So unless the system kills the app for some reason, you never need to tap on the app icon again. This works very well for me with QuickTiles. It results in a much faster response because the main activity of the app is the placement of the "hot spot". So it's already running when you touch the area. And the "hot spot" is always there whether you can see the status bar or not.

Potential problem: some app which is running full-screen decides that the upper left corner of the screen is a great place to use for a button. Unlikely, but not impossible. Therefore a long-press on that corner will deactivate the "hot spot" for 1 minute (just hold a finger there until you see the screen notification). That would theoretically allow you to access a feature which would otherwise be blocked by the transparent overlay.

5. Now tap away and test it. I've seen some really squirrely behavior trying to go from reading in the Kindle app directly to reading in the stock reader. I seem to have better luck with with the status bar visible. But a couple of false tries really seems to make the device mad.

Something's just not right. It's like something wants to be reset or killed, or whatever. Not happy with it...
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] aiamuzz:
I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT @nmyshkin !!! :o

ITS A DREAM COME TRUE !!!

ITS JUST AWESOME !!!

the first touch after configuring the NTMM key mapping ... gave the activated message after that its like magic !!!

Someone else should try and test this !!!

JUST WOW !!! THANKS WON'T CUT IT !!! WOW !!!

and yes i forgot in the magical madness of switching from ... kindle to nook to kindle to nook to kindle to noot to kindle to nook to kindle to nook to kindle to noot to kindle to nook to kindle to nook to kindle to noot to kindle to nook to kindle to nook to kindle to noot to kindle .... that this is really snappy its almost instant your earlier version was a cart and this seems like a jet !!!
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] nmyshkin:
Really?! I can't imagine why it is behaving so poorly on my devices. 'Tis a puzzlement.

But...I'm glad it is working for you. I aim to give satisfaction :)
[Nook Touch Themes and Apps] Renate:
I'll take your word for it that switching between Kindle and Nook reader is something useful.

On an unrelated note: I have a 16 key keypad on my truck's steering wheel that switches instantly between various apps using Bluetooth.

I have three different mapping apps and a bunch of status screens for various things.

Also, brightness, volume and sleep.