Usability: Save vertical screen space?

[daniel3000]

Hi all,

many apps that have a menu and some icons / tabs on top take 1/3 to almost half of the screen height for those elements, leaving only the lower 2/3 or half of the screen for real work (example: Metal app for displaying Facebook content).

Also, in many other apps there are icon bars that are way too large compared to the actual working space in the GUI of those apps (example: Aqua Mail when displaying the list of E-Mails).

Is there a way to reduce the height of such GUI elements to make such apps use the screen real estate in a better way?

Thanks,
Daniel

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[gymbo]

You should be able to enable developer mode and change the dpi-setting there. It is set at something like 436 (I think) originally, I have it set at 550 now (which is the largest setting that allows Agenda to work at all, and I still have full "tablet" "interface" working on a few other apps). This of course affects the size of ALL displayed items, so you will probably need to adjust the font size up as well. And all icons gets smaller as well, which I think is an advantage, because you can fit more on each homescreen. A few apps get problems with custom dpi-settings, but you will have to test that for yourself. I don't have any real problems with my apps and the 550-setting. Other than that, I am not aware of any way to change the size of the icons for just a specific app, unless that app itself has some kind of setting for it.

[zsalab2]

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This is aquamail with 511 dpi. The bars remain but are smaller.

[inmontanis]

If you have time and a bit of programming knowledge (html/xml/scripting is enough, just to have a sense of understanding), you can install APK-Editor and try editing the resource-files of the app you want to change. (You have to do it after every update of this app - or don't update the app anymore. I changed the height of some rows in a GPS-Logger-App.)