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Guide: Make landscape mode automagically work better on Android (change DPI; no root)


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If you are like me, you're an Android enthusiast and you love how the keyboard on the F(x)tec Pro1 makes it feel like a miniature laptop. However, you must have also noticed that most of Android isn't built for landscape use. I've thought about it for a bit, and I decided to make a Tasker profile that seamlessly changes DPI when the keyboard is opened. Assuming your close-up eyesight is fine, this allows much more information to be displayed on the screen in landscape mode, and gives Chrome desktop-like tabs at the top (basically a tablet mode). Since I am loving it so much, I bet there's at least one other person out there who would love this, too!

 

Requirements:

  • This lovely keyboard phone
  • Android OS (only tested on LineageOS 18.1)
  • Tasker
  • SecondScreen
  • An ADB connection to the phone

Steps:

  1. Install the aforementioned apps
  2. Run SecondScreen; follow the in-app steps to allow it to WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS using ADB
  3. Go into SecondScreen's settings, and enable setting a custom DPI value (be careful to only pick normal values later; this can mess up your device!)
  4. Make two profiles in SecondScreen: one for portrait (here, 380dpi), and one for landscape (here, 280dpi; allowed freeform mode)
  5. Make a Tasker profile based on state: Keyboard Out
  6. Add enter & exit tasks with plugin: SecondScreen; load each of these profiles accordingly
  7. ...
  8. Profit!

Your Android phone now feels even more like a mini laptop with the keyboard opened, and it works great in portrait mode, too. You can also use SecondScreen to change resolutions (useful for HDMI connections), but be careful to always be able to return to the native resolution of the device. Tasker also has a built-in method to change DPI, but for some odd reason this wouldn't work on my device/OS. You might want to check whether this works for you, since that'd be one app fewer to install.

Let me know if I've missed something, or if you have something to add!

688683930_Screenshot_20210217-104239_Photos2.thumb.png.8cb04df7d2b23fd12ab8fcd6cd3e9f1f.png

This post was written entirely on my mini laptop F(x)tec Pro1. My hands are tired. That's enough thesis distraction for now...

Edited by Longcat
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I guess I don't use my Pro1 in portrait enough to understand the problem this is addressing.  I use my Pro1 in landscape 95% of the time.  I'll snap out the keyboard even to type "OK" 😄  I have my display size set to "smallest" in settings and I get a goo deal of screen real estate, in either landscape or portrait, but certainly landscape.  I mostly do all my settings for landscape.  I don't really care a whole lot about hoe things look in portrait.  The very few apps I use that insist on portrait orientation (generally, if I find one, I look for replacements), I just split screen.  Never really had many problems.

Or is this all about HDMI out, which I don't use?

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I'm still figuring out when I want to use the physical keyboard (for now, mostly for fun or when browsing the web), other times I simply use Google Keyboard which is much faster for me with suggestions on, to text friends and such. I personally want my F(x)tec Pro1 to feel like any other smartphone in portrait mode, with apps and in-app buttons being quite large, and be able to switch to the physical keyboard when I want more of a laptop/productivity feel for the device, with the display size and fonts being much smaller, and getting the full desktop sites in Chrome.

This guide is mainly for people who want to combine the two slightly different use cases for the device, so less for people who already use the Pro1 mostly in landscape, or mostly in portrait mode.

As for HDMI out, that's something that the SecondScreen app can also help with (to get the aspect ratio right for your monitor), but that's not the point of this topic 🙂

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Wow that Gmail look, I was trying to get it back since I first saw it on my Photon Q back then.

I don't really like how secondscreen mess android setting and don't put them back like they were before it start but the result are pretty more like what I thought this phone would look like at the beginning when the dpi is at 280.

I'll give it a longer shot trying to get it to put back the parameter correctly.

Thanks for this find

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Yeah but the cool thing with tasker is the auto adjust on situation, I made one more task when the phone connects to my car Bluetooth everything is bigger and it start music too. 

For the OP I can understand the idea the phone act a lot more like it should. In portrait or landscape the size is normal and there is no special needs to be precise on touch on the screen. Then when you need more productivity and get that keyboard out everything follow for the time you need it and get back to normal when it close. 

I'm probably getting old on this and don't want my phone up to my face every time I use it. Like I said before I used to have a lot of details on a much smaller screen (Photon Q), back then I really liked it 

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  • 2 months later...

I may have forgotten to mention there's a toggle in the settings that ensures display changes with a reboot. On my Pro1, this setting wasn't necessary, as the display changes took place almost instantly.

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  • 2 years later...

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