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Hi everyone, this video is about my system for implementing
Active Notifications, a cool feature of Motorola's
2013 flagship smartphone, the Moto-X.
Motorola's Active Notifications surfaces
app notifications such as those from GMail, SMS
and instant messaging onto the lockscreen automatically
and momentarily without having to touch the phone. Since then, there is now an
app on the Play Store called DynamicNotifications
which unlocks this for Android 4.0 and up phones.
There are a few reasons why I don't use this app.
Number one: the screen lights up all the time
for every app that you configure it for. Number two:
notifications don't show a useful peek at that the content of the notifications.
Number three: some user reviews
indicate that experience is not always consistent and
the app is memory hungry. Another personal reason of mine is that
on my Galaxy Nexus phone here, I have been using a custom ROM
called SlimKat which has the app that I'm about to show you
that is built into the system. The objective of my method
are to split the notification in two stages thereby allowing me to
identify types of notifications and choose whether to touch the screen
to see the details. Keep in mind that
it makes sense for me because my phone here has a notification LED
at the bottom. My system consists of two apps which can be found on the Play
Store:
DashClock Widgets
and DashNotifier for DashClock.
A third app called Light Flow
is also necessary but in my case what this app does
is also built into the SlimKat ROM.
First, find and install DashClock & DashNotifier from
the Google Play Store. DashNotifier is an extension of DashClock so make sure
you install DashClock first.
And if you need to, install Light Flow as well.
The links to these apps are included in the description below. Once DashClock is installed
turn your screen off and back on, tap on the gear
to access DashClock's settings. At the bottom
tap "Add Another Extension" and select
"DashNotifier 1". Drag it further up
in the list. On the right,
tap "Settings" and then select the app
that you want notifications for. In this example I have chosen Gmail.
You can choose the custom icon or
you just use the app's icon. Under "Extension Title Format"
I would go for either the "App name with count",
or "Notification title with count",
it's up to you.
"Clear on unlock" should be checked so that the notification goes away as soon as you
decide to go to your home screen
and the app to deal with it. If you want this to behave very much like
DynamicNotifications
you would want to enable "Turn screen on",
but this is not what I'm trying to do. Once the settings are done
get out and configure Light Flow. Light Flow allows you to control the notification
LED in terms of the color and pulse behavior.
I won't be showing you how to do this in Light Flow but
here are similar settings found in this ROM that I'm using.
You can see that GMail is configured green with
a normal pulse rate.
The first stage is that I get a visual but subtle indication of my new mail
arriving in the form of the LED at the bottom. The screen hasn't lighted
up yet
but I already know that there is new mail. I can then
activate my screen and check out notification
right here and peek at the content of the new mail.
If I tap on it, it will lead me to GMail
which is the same behaviour as DynamicNotifications.
Now let me show you how it looks like for WhatsApp.
The LED lights up again, I know it's WhatsApp
and here it is.
So in conclusion my system allows me to choose which apps deserve my attention
beyond the first stage
and also whether I want to preview the notifications or not
depending on my situation. Personally seeing my screen light up for those times
new mail arrives but I don't feel like looking at the screen
and yet knowing that the screen is on for a couple of seconds just irritates
me.
Not to mention waste a little bit of battery power. Try this out and let me know
what you think.
Is a complicated? Or is it an overkill? Do you have a better method to share?
Comment below and subscribe. Thanks for watching.