[davidr]

If I am running unhacked (out of the box) PDN, does the notification area serve any useful purpose? Mine is always empty when I look at it.

 

[davidr]

bump.. no answer so far..

 

[oozeeh]

i dont think there's any use for it unhacked. it doesnt charge using usb so no point unmounting.

 

[derelicte]

the sole purpose of the notification area is to taunt you. laugh in your face. you know you should be able to click on it, but you can't. yet you try, again and again and again.it is evil...

 

[clockworx]

[quote name='derelicte;28054]the sole purpose of the notification area is to taunt you. laugh in your face. you know you should be able to click on it' date=' but you can't. yet you try, again and again and again.it is evil...[IMG]http://www.slatedroid.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/IMG][/QUOTE'] This is correct. We should write a hack that just scrolls "HAHAHAHAHA" across the top.

 

[derelicte]

now that I have that off my chest, I'll try to provide a useful answer.there is a bug in pd's notification bar that prevents it from working most of the time. however there is a trick to enable it temporarily.put the novel to sleep with a quick flip of the power switch. then wake it up again with another quick flip of the power switch. when it comes back on, you should be able to drag the down the notification bar.I've had about a 25% success rate with opening the bar. therefore I just have learned to just use it for status.

 

[cosmos]

I use a a slightly different approach to get the notification bar to scroll.. It works 100% of the time for meInstead of the quick flip... use the long flip. The menu comes up Power off or cancel.. If you hit cancel the notification area works as designed until you power off.

 

[geebekazoo]

Yup, right on cosmos!

 

[olddognutrx]

[quote name='derelicte;28061]now that I have that off my chest' date=' I'll try to provide a useful answer.there is a bug in pd's notification bar that prevents it from working most of the time. however there is a trick to enable it temporarily.put the novel to sleep with a quick flip of the power switch. then wake it up again with another quick flip of the power switch. when it comes back on, you should be able to drag the down the notification bar.I've had about a 25% success rate with opening the bar. therefore I just have learned to just use it for status.[/QUOTE']I'm more inclined to believe, based on my debugging of the Novel, that Pandigital meant the status bar notifications to only be visual and not for any interaction. I made an attempt to create an app that would enable interactive notifications like on Android phones, but my debugging and review of the logcats showed Pandigital has set a permission level on the StatusBar Manager that will not allow apps to enable full statusbar functionality. So, for the time being, canceling a power off sequence is the best solution to get statusbar notifications to fully function.

 

[davidr]

Thanks for the replies.. I know how to get the notification area to appear (from past posts) but what is it for? Mine is always empty.. what (if anything) is supposed to be there.

 

[gadgetrants]

Thanks for the replies.. I know how to get the notification area to appear (from past posts) but what is it for? Mine is always empty.. what (if anything) is supposed to be there.

That's a tricky question for me because I've added a number of Android apps (e.g., Gmail, Bar Control), which use the notification bar quite a bit. So I use mine, not only for returning home but also to check notifications. On my Droid, I also use it for weather notifications/alerts, system status messages, etc. Your PDN is stock, right? Are you using the native email application? I wonder, if you get a message, whether an icon appears on your notification bar. -Matt

 

[geebekazoo]

If you have applications that can take advantage of it, they will scroll alerts through it. For example, I've been fiddling around with the LookOut antivirus / anti-malware package. If I install an .apk, LookOut scans the software being installed and, if it passes muster, flashes a message like "Package OK" in that notification area!

 

[davidr]

I'll check.. if I ever get wi fi working again!! Thanks for the info.. I suspected it was primarily for the non-standard PDN features..

 

[tadroid]

I use a a slightly different approach to get the notification bar to scroll.. It works 100% of the time for meInstead of the quick flip... use the long flip. The menu comes up Power off or cancel.. If you hit cancel the notification area works as designed until you power off.

I discovered a combination approach of the above two that seems to also work 100% of the time to activate the notification bar. Like cosmos, I use the 'long switch' until the power off / cancel box pops up. If you then use a double 'quick flip' of the power switch as derelicte mentions, the PDN comes back up with an active notification bar. Actually, once you do the first 'quick flip' and the screen goes black and the PDN enters sleep mode, no matter how long you wait to do the next 'quick flip,' the PDN comes back up with an active notification bar. As stated before, no method of notification area activation seems to last through a reboot. Also, I kind of worry about wear and tear on my volume key with the back/menu hack and any of the three notification area activation hacks, all of which involve the power button to some degree. In the case of any power button use, in a hack or otherwise, I highly recommend not releasing it quickly to the point it 'snaps' back, but using a smooth 'sliding' motion with your finger/nail engaged through the entire range of the switch's motion.

 

[tadroid]

Thanks for the replies.. I know how to get the notification area to appear (from past posts) but what is it for? Mine is always empty.. what (if anything) is supposed to be there.

I use Smart Bar now, which utilizes the notification area, and do so for a couple of reason you may find valuable. Previously, I had no knowledge of the Home button's many uses. After exposing my ignorance of Android in another thread, I was told that on a 'normal' Android device, a press and hold of this button allowed you to see all the active apps, and that you could pick one to go directly to. With the volume button hack, I was able to go 'back' to Home, but not to return to an app I had backed away from (like an open Web page in the Browser, or an email I was reading).Now, I can pull down the notification area, select the Smart Bar 'Show recent Apps' function, and go directly to still active apps I had previously been using, at the state they were in when I as last there, providing I didn't exit them but merely backed away from them (or, via the Smart Bar function 'Go home,' went directly to the Home screen). This provides, in a way, the same sort of 'alt+tab' task switching capability you have in Windows and lets you use Androids multi-tasking more fully.And, in combination with tools like Smart Bar, the notification area can do a lot to make up for the lack of buttons on the PDN. I now have a volume control function to make up for the hijacking of the volume key, a wifi on-of toggle which helps with the sometimes flaky PDN wireless, and various other neat and useful capabilities Smart Bar provides me from wherever I am (the bar is ubiquitous!).