[Samsung Galaxy Tab A series Guides, News, & Discus] gooberdude:
Will do... though it's been a wild ride with roller coaster events leaving me just about to kick the efforts all out the door.

Excuse the bad typing... explained at the bottom of this reply.

First of... 5.1.1 is an odd animal to get use to from 4.4 and 7.1 variants of android.

I did not realize that 5.1.1 was an abortion in the community efforts to mod and support. Most of the info I grabbed as I started was too outdated and hard to find good stuff was lost over time, server cleanup and lack of dev file space for continuing on for future builds.

So, after dumping xposed for 5.1.1 and going odex based stock, I am satisfied with hown far I have gotten.

Example... with xposed I was able to get private mode to function but... had not much reserved memory available in root storage. Even though the specs given on theach T280 state 1.5MB, which is wrong... it has plenty of room to hold more apk and .so files.

To keep speed and allow for optimum system storage use, I gave up xposed and dived into mixing 10 different stock firmwares from Samsung.

Here is a small list of known working stock firmwares, that allow transplanting apks and mostly library files over to our devices. J1, J2, J3, A3, A5, Note4, Tab S, Tab A series... both 2015 and 2016 models.

I found some custom ROMs that were odex and deodex factory firmwares, that had no disclaimer on useage.

To get missing quick settings features, I had kept an old SQL editor to patch the system db with all the useful toggles and removal of unnecessary ones.

Mirror link 100% functional, and 98% of all Accessibility features are available and operational. Finger Spen in all apps that support spen. Yes, that means the internal photo studio editor that plugs into gallery will fully function. Though I miss the 4.4 version on kitkat, as the later versions are simplified in options, like adding notes behind photos and quick file management features. WFD, Nearby, Ultra Power Saving, Side Key Panel, Full featured multi windows. Backdrop, Smart Face and Signature lock, Smart Cover, and Universal Switch are unlocked and functional.

Care Mode is 50% functional, as the tablet is not a phone, so Maps and Music are fully functional only. Bonus! Voice link via S6 S Voice. It's fully functional with out any issues that I can tell. The only issue is screen DPI to launch S Voice directly from the launcher. Found that the drawing function dumps when hour glass is extracted for screen write. I guess a simple resizing of the images within the apk will correct the FC. I am not a developer and do not mod apk files, even though from what I gather, is one of the simplist mods one can in customizations.

Since Drive Link is a UI to S Voice internals, just use Drive link to do most all of your S Voice needs. No modifications nended to S Voice apk.

Also Voice Wake is part of the package... which allows interaction between Drive Link on voice commands. Without it, you need to touch the mic to wake up S Voice when using Drive Link.

At this time... I need to find a proper WithTV package (note 4 has issues), a proper display.so lib, a way to enable gestures... I had it going in xposed with a few unknown files lost when over written while testing. Don't recall what rom I extracted from, so some day I may stumble upon it once again. I vaguely recall, the ROM was based from India, or TW. May have to look into touchwiz framework patch to get Smart Stay, Smart Pause and Smart Scroll functioning. It's not a priority as I never used them, and don't use S Browser.

SNote should work, since finger input for spen functions. Only if a developer would make an app to enable finger input as air touch enable. Example... double tap spen detatch/attach toggle. Then I can add Spen SDK and permissions to use my finger for Spen features. I had tested with stock settings menu, and it does have over 50% of the features hidden and S Pen is one of them, just no switch to detect input.

As for private mode... from what I gather, it may be that I need to flash my tablet with a clean fresh factory build and patch to enable private mode firstly. In my mad attempts to keep storage space from being consumed by uneccessary files, I recall deleting an odd file that happened to be a database file created by Private Mode. Once deleted private mode will no longer function. A factory wipe may recover, but in my case there is something changed that needed a full wipe and clean install.

I was not so keen with the Tab A setup UI, so I tested with various Phone models, the A5 and A3 setup UI is like stock but has a slightly better layout and added features that stock does not have.

I did not bother to try enabling Internet Calling and Messaging. Mostly because the last time a developer tried to do something like that, they ended up not being able to compile a working mod. So its all beyond me on diving into such a thing. There is more than just adding a dialer interface.

Well that's pretty much all I can recall in a nutshell. I am going to mess with correcting the Samsung keyboard issues from one of the framework files I am using. Its locked my popup symbols for multiple entry, which would be nice if I had a use for that feature. I have to tap away from the symold list to close the list and then type. Also even more annoying is the spelling and auto correct has greatly became touchy. It seems it wants to correct incorrectly on even the simplest words. Thus my writing looks bad, especially on long paragraphs like on this reply.