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jeudi 9 mars 2017

Termux – The Ultimate Linux Terminal Emulator for Android [XDA Spotlight]

Have you ever wanted a complete Linux terminal environment on your Android phone? Not just a terminal emulator with basic commands, but a comprehensive Linux command-line environment with all the utilities and packages you've grown accustomed to? If so, then Termux is the answer.

Termux is a powerful terminal emulation software, which is similar to the popular Terminal Emulator app, but it also includes an extensive Linux Package Collection. Termux's package management system is much like Debians Advanced Package Tool (APT) in that you can search, install, and uninstall with the command apt. Termux installs just a few basic packages out of the box, to reduce APK size on the Play Store, but allows you to install any extra packages that you desire. While there are several alternatives to Termux on the Google Play Store, none of them offer nearly as many packages as Termux.

Left to Right: Apt, FFmpeg, Vim

Termux – The Linux Terminal Emulator for Android

Termux packages are built using Ubuntu 16.10, so this means that developers can compile any existing software from their machine and then add it to the package manager for anyone to download. It is a very simple and elegant solution to what otherwise could be a complex and difficult problem. One amazing side affect of this is that once the software is compiled, you have full fledged versions of the software rather than half-baked, ported versions of desktop Linux packages.

For example, I use the command line on my Mac as I prefer to have my hands on the keyboard 90% of the time. I therefore use keyboard shortcuts and terminal applications to get most of my work done. I prefer to use Vim as it's an amazing text editor and has plugins for nearly everything including Microsoft .NET! I have various plugins that I use daily and I've tried some of these with Vim installed in Termux – with great success. Everything I tried works exactly as I expected. One of my favorite plugins is CtrlP, a powerful file finder, which worked beautifully in Vim on Termux.

Termux gives you a bash terminal by default, but if you are like me and prefer Zsh for its advanced features, FISH shell is also available. Multiple different shell types is certainly welcome.

Anyone that has used a terminal emulator application on Android knows the pain when you need to enter special keys to control the terminal such as CTRL or ESC. These keys aren't displayed on the standard touch keyboards used on android devices (save for Hacker Keyboard). Termux developer Fredrik Fornwall, though, has a very novel solution to this. He has bound CTRL to the Volume DOWN key and other special keys like ESC to the Volume UP key. Therefore, by pressing Volume Up + the touch keyboard 'L' you can input the terminal command CTRL + 'L' which clears the terminal window. The ESC key is sent by pressing volume UP + 'E' key for example. You can view all the keys available in Termux on the developer's website.

I also use SSH in Termux to connect to my personal VPS servers. Although there exist other Android applications such as JuiceSSH and ConnectBot, having a proper SSH connection via OpenSSH in a proper terminal environment is better in my opinion. Termux enables you to create multiple sessions so I can have my server connections on one session and my local environment on another session.

If you like to develop in the terminal, Termux has you covered there as well. I installed python on my phone with Termux's package manager and was writing python code exactly the same as I would on my remote server.
What something slightly heavier, such as developing with NodeJS? Termux has support for NodeJS as well, and it goes even further by supporting popular stacks such as Express. I was able to install a full NodeJS/Express/Bootstrap environment and host a simple website on my device.

I was also able to install and use Ruby as well, however I did run into problems when I was initially installing Rails. Fortunately, I was able to get Rails running on my device with the help of the Termux Google+ community which is very active and a great source of help if you get stuck. To put it bluntly I am extremely impressed with Termux and its package management system. It provides an amazing package list that is constantly growing; I haven't missed any packages that I use daily so far. I did however notice that the popular SCREEN terminal multiplexer was not available but the alternative (and in my opinion better) TMUX is available.

The device that I tested all of this on is not a flagship phone, either. I am using my Xiaomi Mi Max with 4GBs of RAM and a Snapdragon 650 SoC, along with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard. The main reason I am using this phone is because the Xiaomi Mi Max has a 6.44″ screen, giving me a decent real estate to work with. With the setup shown above I can comfortably do some serious work on the go.

The most amazing thing about Termux is that it is completely free – there are no in-app purchases or advertisements. Although, you can purchase some of the add-ons which have a small fee, to support the developer and improve upon the already-impressive functionality of Termux. The addons so far include:

Termux:Task – Integrating Termux with Tasker
Termux:API – Allows Termux to integrate with existing Android APIs (such as reading your SMS messages in the terminal)
Termux:Widget – Execute Termux scripts from the home screen
Termux:Styling – Customize the appearance of Termux
Termux:Float – Allows a floating Termux window

Termux is now a permanent installation on all of my Android devices; it allows me to have a fully functional terminal and development environment on my local device. I spend a lot of time developing on remote servers, but sometimes you are in a situation where you cannot connect to a server. Recently, I took a trip to New Zealand which involved an 11 hour flight there and back. If I had Termux installed at that time, my flights could have become a 22 hour-in-total coding session.

Download Termux on the Play Store
List of Available Termux Packages (Or Build Your Own)
Check out the Termux Google+ Community

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How to Enable System UI Tuner to Modify the Status Bar in EMUI 4+

After years of minimal customization options, Android Marshmallow finally introduced some basic customization features that had existed in custom ROMs for ages through the inclusion of the System UI tuner.

This feature is included in all Android 6.0+ Google devices, and in order to access it you need to pull down the status bar and long-press on the gear icon until it spins, after which the System UI Tuner menu will appear in Settings.

Inside the Android Marshmallow System UI tuner, users are able to modify the quick settings tiles, edit the status bar, or start demo mode. With Android Nougat, the quick settings tile editor was moved to the notification dropdown and demo mode was moved to Developer Options. Furthermore, Nougat's UI Tuner also introduced Do not disturb options, a toggle to enable split-screen swipe-up gesture, and power notification settings.

While these are certainly some useful features, some OEMs don't feel the same way. OEMs such as HTC, Samsung, and Huawei remove access to this feature because some of the available features conflict with what's available in their software. However, that doesn't mean there isn't any use for System UI Tuner in non-Google devices, especially for non-rooted devices.

Fortunately, at least for Huawei/Honor devices, you can enable System UI Tuner without needing root access. This is because EMUI only removes the normal way to access the UI Tuner, but the activity is still there. That means we can directly launch the activity to start UI Tuner, even though the normal trick where you have to hold the quick settings gear icon no longer works.

Although this method is tested on Huawei/Honor devices running EMUI, it is possible it may work on other devices where System UI Tuner is hidden. You'll have to try it out for yourself to verify.

Enable System UI Tuner in EMUI

As mentioned before, we will be directly launching an activity to start the UI Tuner (com.android.systemui/.DemoMode). Although there are a large number of ways you can launch an activity, I have written this guide to use a very simple method. All you have to do is download Activity Launcher from the Google Play Store.

Open up Activity Launcher and change the view mode to see "All activities." Next, scroll all the way down to System UI. Tap on it to expand the list and see all available System UI activities. Look for the demo mode activity. Tap on that and it should open up the hidden System UI Tuner.

Alternatively, you can enable/access most of these settings through ADB commands. In order to use ADB, you'll need to download and extract the ADB binary onto a folder on your computer. Next, install Hisuite onto your machine so it can grab the necessary drivers for your phone. Then, enable USB Debugging in Developer Options (if you haven't enabled it, go to Settings –> About phone and tap on Build number 7 times). Open up a command prompt in the directory where you saved the ADB binary (right-click in the folder and select "open command prompt here") and type "adb devices" without quotes. Your phone will ask you to grant your computer ADB access, hit yes and your phone's serial number should show up in the command prompt when you re-type "adb devices."

Now that you've got ADB set-up, here are the commands you'll need:

Enable Demo Mode:

  adb shell settings put global sysui_demo_allowed 1

Disable Icons from Status Bar:

  adb shell settings put secure icon_blacklist "comma-separated-string-of-icons-to-remove"

Show Do Not Disturb Toggle in Volume Slider

  adb shell settings put secure sysui_show_full_zen 1

No matter which method you use to control the UI Tuner, you can now play around with any of its available options. I've gone through the options myself already, and in my experience (at least with the Android 7.0 Nougat version of System UI Tuner), the only real use here is to disable certain status bar icons or enable the do not disturb toggle in the volume slider.

Most of the other functions do not work at all. You can't enable the toggle to show seconds in the status bar clock or enable the split-screen gesture. Furthermore, the battery icon can't be modified nor can you enable the power notification settings, however, EMUI offers these functions natively so that's not too big of a deal.

To conclude, it's easy to see why OEMs such as Huawei disable the System UI Tuner in their software. Given the plethora of customization options available, it doesn't make much sense to provide access to a settings menu that conflicts with their stock offerings.

However, there are still some features you can take advantage of. For me, I liked being able to hide the Bluetooth, Work, Do not Disturb, and other icons from the status bar to make for a more clean UI experience. You may like the quick option to enable do not disturb from the volume slider. Whatever your reason is for wanting to access the System UI Tuner, I hope this tutorial has helped you do that.

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The LG G6 Has Awkward, Jaggy Display Corners… Here’s the Fix

LG's newest engineering miracle revolves around the LG G6's display, as the company ditched the modular functionality it introduced with the LG G5. This tall display has QHD levels of pixel density on a 2:1 ratio, flanked by thin bezels.

Moreover, LG implemented rounded corners to make the device even more attractive to the eye. Something that reviews aren't as quick to point out, and that unzoomed photographs don't really show, is that these corners aren't quite pixel-perfect.

Note: This "defect" (if you could call it that) was found on pre-production units in South Korea and at Mobile World Congress, as well as in our review unit. Consumer-ready versions might show different levels of jaggedness and a different transition from side to corner. However, we have no reason to believe that's the case with the information we have thus far.

To be more specific, the transition from the straight side of the display to the rounded curve of the corner is very jarring, making for a not-quite-smooth transition that ends up taking away from the novelty of the form factor. Moreover, if you look very closely at arc of the corners (which is admittedly hard without good vision or a close-focus camera, but we invite you to zoom on the picture to the side), the curve's pixel placement doesn't seem as smooth as you originally think. It's not a huge issue, mind you — one can certainly enjoy the phone without even noticing such detail. But as once you see it, you will keep seeing it — this is the fate I've accidentally instilled in fellow editors that I pointed out the issue to.

It's not a cause for concern, and there might be variations among units, but so far our editors have seen this pattern in all of the G6 devices we've checked out. That being said, there is a slightly-surprising yet not wholly-unexpected fix to this, and it involves a popular app category that has surged with the advent of screens with rounded corners.

You've probably heard of the app Cornerfly by XDA Senior Member flyperinc on a reddit post or listicle by now, but if you haven't, the concept is simple: Cornerfly introduces black overlays on top of your display's corners to emulate the feature, although the functionality only truly lends itself to devices with either good contrast ratios or AMOLED screens, and black fronts. And they must be truly black, too, as the app doesn't fare quite well on the "Quite Black" Pixel for example. The result can be very a e s t h e t i c on devices like the OnePlus 3T (with black front). But even if your device already has curved corners, it can benefit from such an app, as the LG G6 demonstrates. Indeed, an app like Cornerfly can soften up the rough corners LG's manufacturing process couldn't address, and with LG's quality display, the app compliments the screen much better than it does with rectangular displays.

As you can see in the example above, the transition from the rectangular sides to the rounded corner is made much smoother and less "boxy", though not on the default curvature radius that comes with Cornerfly's free app. If you want to smoothen it the way shown above, you need to tune up the curvature slider to 18 or so, which sadly requires a $0.99 purchase from the Play Store; alternatively, you can use a different free application to achieve the same result. The fact that LG's newest display has such amazing black levels and contrast makes this little trick even more effective, and while I haven't tried it on a white LG G6, I know that there is a black border around the display which should mask what's actually happening as well as my black unit does. Because of the fact that the display is already curved, there's isn't much of the overlay showing up anyway, so at most you will see very few "black" pixels light up if you look for them in a dark room.

I think this shows the strength of software and how many of the features OEMs invest so much time and resources into can be replicated through software (though not universally, and sometimes not as effectively). An example in a similar vein that comes to mind is how EIS implementations like Google's can put many OIS-ready smartphone cameras to shame. Ultimately, we love apps and services that make our devices able to experience what the newest flagships are offering, even if the solution isn't perfect. In rare cases like this, the imitation itself can be used to perfect the newest flagship itself.

What do you think of rounded corners on smartphone displays? Tell us in the comments!

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PSA: Play Services Update Broke Titanium Backup & Substratum. Here’s a Fix.

Recently, a lot of users of certain popular root applications such as Titanium Backup and Substratum began experiencing some rather odd issues.

Suddenly, Titanium Backup would become stuck at 0% when trying to restore applications, and Substratum users noticed that themes were failing to apply. Some users believed that the issue was related to USB debugging being enabled, but disabling that feature didn't help either.

All rooted users of these app-restoration apps across a wide spectrum of devices began having these issues at around the same time, so it was clear that the problem wasn't with the apps themselves. Substratum team members George G and XDA Recognized Developer Nicholas Chum surmised that these force closes were likely related to a recent Google Play Services update. Following that train of thought, they've discovered what appears to at least be a temporary fix to this problem.

The fix is pretty simple and straight-forward. All you need to do is navigate to the "Verify Apps" section located in Settings-> Google-> Security. Once you reach the "Verify Apps" section, disable the feature. Then head over to Developer Options and un-check the "Verify Apps over USB" option. That's it. After successful completion of both of the steps above, you should have Substratum and Titanium Backup working flawlessly on your device once again.

As Google is apparently beefing up the security of their 'Verify Apps' feature on the server-side, downgrading the Google Play Services application will not work. But now that we have a fix for our rooted users, this should be a satisfactory compromise for those users. Just be extra cautious about what applications you are installing, because to enable this fix you are intentionally disabling Google's security feature.

As far as developers interested in Substratum are concerned, in a G+ post Nicholas Chum stated that developers might want to take a look at this commit to know how the issue was meant to be fixed. If, however, the OMS7 rootless commits have already been merged, the commit linked above can be ignored.

Did this fix work for you? Let us know in the comments below!

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How to Install Dual Boot Patcher on the ZTE Axon 7

XDA Senior Member `SBR` has a guide to walk you through the process of installing Dual Boot Patcher onto the Axon 7. There are some known issues though, like encryption and boot UI not being supported, as well as possible issues with PINs and passwords in one of the ROMs, so be sure to check the OP.

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Gboard Update Brings Emoji and GIF Suggestions, Improved Voice Typing, Google Translate Access, and Improved RTL Features

Gboard, formerly known as Google Keyboard, has been the primary go-to keyboard for many users since the integration of Google Search features.

And now the latest update to Gboard brings a whole new set of features. Version 6.1 brings emoji and GIF suggestions right in the suggestion strip on top of the keyboard, making it easier to convert your text into more expressive icons or a GIF.

The new update also brings improved voice typing with an updated interface that makes it easier to switch back to regular texting. For themes, you also get new scenes to choose as backdrops along with a promise of more new themes to arrive in the future.

There's also a new Translate functionality built right into the keyboard as well, and it's accessible through the quick feature menu. This will allow you to translate words and phrases right as you type!

Finally, additional support for right-to-left languages has been added in, namely allowing for search functionality for web, GIF, and emoji. Users who are accustomed to RTL languages can now expect Gboard to support their language with features that are up to par with conventionally supported languages.

To download the latest Gboard app, head on over to the Play Store. Alternatively, you can download the update from our very own XDA Labs on your Android smartphone.

Have you tried out the latest Gboard update? How was your experience? Do you like the new features? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Google Blog

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UMIDIGI Z PRO Presale Starts with Official Unboxing

UMIDIGI Z Pro is the first flagship released under the UMIDIGI brand name (previously UMi), shown for the first time at MWC a few days ago. The phone carries the same powerful specs of the UMi Z, featuring the Helio X27. It also adds a brand new dual-camera lens setup that looks pretty cool from what we've seen. The company also shared a brand new unboxing video. Check it out.

The Dual-Lens Camera Setup

This device shows that the SONY 13mpx dual-camera lens technology is not just a gimmick, but actually has some really interesting features like:

The "3D Capture" mode, to literally move the picture after it has been taken and view it from a different perspective
The "Live Photo" Mode, the first Android device packed with iPhone's "Live Photo", which also makes a short video of what happens a few seconds before and after the shoot
The "Pure Black and White" shooting, which doesn't produce just a de-colored picture, but uses a dedicated B&W sensor to make a real Black and White photo
The "Re-Focusing" capability, which lets you adjust the focus after the picture has been taken

If that's not enough, Mediatek's new ISP paired with a quad-LED flash and dual camera pixel-binning technology on both lenses, doubles image brightness in low-light conditions.

The selfie camera, with a Samsung 13MP sensor and a soft light LED, guarantees good quality selfies even in difficult situations.

Pre-sale Starts, Just 4,999 Units Available Worldwide at $249.99

Pre-sale starts on March 9th and will end on March 27th. During this time, it's possible to get the UMIDIGI Z Pro with a 50$ discount, at a great price of $249.99.

If you are not interested in all the new camera features, you can get the UMi Z with an even lower price tag of $229.99.

Both phones, cameras aside, share the very same hardware: Flagship deca-core CPU Mediatek Helio X27 2.6GHz, 3780mAh battery in 8.2mm slim full metal unibody, 4GB RAM and 32GB ROM with up to 256GB TF card extend memory, SHARP 5.5 full-HD Display, touch ID 2.1, quick charge, dual sim and a SAMSUNG 13Mpx front camera with soft light LED.

Availability is limited because the first production run will be small, so don't miss the chance to get one of these great phones.

Shop at one of these stores to get your own Z Pro:

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