Add a Menu and Forward Button to the Nav Bar in Android O for Enhanced Web Browsing Android O’s can be used for a, but it’s especially useful when you are changing the navigation keys contextually. In our tutorials, we are focusing on finding situations where adding new nav bar keys can enhance your app experience, and today we’ll show you how to add a menu and a forward button to the nav bar when using Google Chrome. These buttons will greatly enhance your web browsing experience, because it beats having to reach all the way to the top right to tap the menu overflow button. Thanks to Eli Irvin for being my guinea pig and getting this screen capture. As you can see above, two new nav bar keys are added to the navigation bar, but only while using Google Chrome. The left key opens Chrome’s menu (using ) while the right key will trigger the “forward” function (using ) in the browser. Unlike some of our previous tutorials, we aren’t utilizing any custom icons in the nav bar, so you won’t have to go and download anything extra apart from the required apps below.
We’ll show you how to replicate this setup on your own device so you can learn how to make your own custom nav bar configurations, but we’ll also provide a download link at the end of the article if you would rather skip to that. Note: this is incompatible with our previous tutorial on when using Chrome. You can pick either that Profile to use or this one depending on your preference, but not both. Adding Menu/Forward Buttons to the Nav Bar while using Chrome. Requirements:. ($2.99).
Windows 7 allows you to search for a file or program on your hard drive directly from your Start menu using a Windows process known as Windows Search. On the top menu bar. In the next section you will add one or more choices (menu items) for your letterhead, envelope, fax forms, etc. Right-click on the top menu bar (the one with. Back to the Menu Editor you may have to click in a blank area of the Menu Editor window to make the window active again. An add-in can add an item to the menu bar at the top of the home page. The item that the add-in defines in the menu bar is typically associated to a content page. The item can point to the Default.aspx page, or it can point to a custom.aspx page.
Tasker is necessary because it is the automation app we’re using to detect what application we’re in and send commands through the SecureTask plug-in, which is what will handle changing our navigation bar. Once you’ve installed both applications, we need to set both of them up. In order for Tasker to detect what application we’re in, we need to grant its Accessibility Service. Doing so is very quick, simply go to Settings – Accessibility and look for “Tasker” on the list of Services. Enable the Accessibility Service.
Next, we need to grant SecureTask the ability to modify system settings on our device. In order to do so, we have to grant SecureTask a special permission known as WRITESECURESETTINGS which is normally inaccessible to regular applications, but can be granted manually by a user through the use of. Thus, you’ll need to have ADB up and running on your machine to get this working.
Fortunately, granting this permission is only a one-time thing, and you’ll need SecureTask if you want to follow along any of my other contextual Android O-related nav bar tutorials (of which ), so it’s definitely worth doing it. Setting up ADB The first thing you’ll need to do is download the ADB binary for your particular OS.
Once you’ve downloaded them, you need to then make sure you have the if you’re on Windows. Once you’ve extracted the binary to a separate folder and have installed the driver, we need to next enable USB Debugging on the smartphone. In order to do so, open up Settings and go to About Phone. Tap on Build Number 7 times until you get a dialog telling you that you’ve unlocked Developer Options.
You can access Developer Options in Settings now. Apparently in Android O, you have to enter your pin/password before you can open Developer Options. Do so and look for USB Debugging, then enable it. Now plug in your phone and open up a command prompt in the same directory where you extracted the ADB binary. (Windows users, hold shift+right-click in that folder and select “open command prompt here.”) Type adb devices into the command prompt.
What Commands Are In The Menu Bar
You’ll see a message that the ADB server is being started, then on your phone you’ll see a prompt asking you to grant your computer ADB access. Now when you enter adb devices into the command prompt, you should see your device’s serial number, if so then you were successful. Granting WRITESECURESETTINGS to SecureTask With an ADB command prompt opened up, enter the following command to grant SecureTask the requisite permission. Adb shell pm grant com.balda.securetask android.permission.WRITESECURESETTINGS SecureTask will now have the ability to modify system settings without root access! Now we’re ready to move on to Tasker.
Setting up the Tasker Profile Open up Tasker and press + to create a new Profile and name it something like “Toggle Chrome Extra Keys”. Select the Application Context. Scroll the list and select your browser app (in my case, I selected Chrome). After you add your app and back out to Tasker’s main screen, Tasker will ask you to attach an existing Task or create a new one.
Create a new Task but don’t bother giving it a name. Once you’re in the Task editing screen, add the following two Actions:. Plugin – SecureTask – Secure Settings. Action: Write. Setting: secure sysuinavbarleft. Value: key(82:com.android.systemui/). Plugin – SecureTask – Secure Settings.
Action: Write. Setting: secure sysuinavbarright. Value: key(125:com.android.systemui/).
Once that’s done, you can exit back to Tasker’s main menu. We will now finish out this Profile by adding an Exit Task to it, which will trigger when you leave the Chrome app. This Exit Task will clear the nav bar of these icons. Add an Exit Task by long-pressing on the existing Task that you just added to the Profile.
Tap on “add exit task.” Create a new Task, and then add the following two Actions:. Plugin – SecureTask – Secure Settings. Action: Write.
Setting: secure sysuinavbarleft. Value: null. Plugin – SecureTask – Secure Settings. Action: Write. Setting: secure sysuinavbarright. Exit back to Tasker’s main menu, and you’re done. Tasker will now display the menu and forward keys while using Chrome, and clear them when not using Chrome.
Download and Import As with all Tasker related tutorials, we will be providing the XML file you can download and import. Download the.prf.xml file from AndroidFileHost below and save it to your internal storage. Open up Tasker and long-press on the Profiles tab up top until you see an Import button. Tap on that and look for the XML file you just saved, then select it to import it.
Make sure you have Tasker’s Accessibility Service enabled and have granted the WRITESECURESETTINGS to SecureTask as mentioned in my article, otherwise this Profile will not do anything on your phone! If you’re wondering what other useful keys we can add to the navigation bar more useful in Android O, check out our other!
The Bookmarks toolbar is hidden by default. To turn it on or back off:. Click the menu button and choose Customize.
Click the Show / Hide Toolbars Toolbars dropdown menu at the bottom of the screen and select Bookmarks Toolbar. Click the green Exit Customize button. Add bookmarks to the Bookmarks toolbar. Go to the page you want to add to the Bookmarks toolbar. In the address bar, click the site icon and drag it onto the Bookmarks toolbar. Re-order bookmarks on the Bookmarks toolbar To change the position of an item on the Bookmarks toolbar:.
Click on the bookmark or folder you want to move and drag it into position. Add toolbar items to the Bookmarks toolbar The Bookmarks toolbar can have items other than bookmarks added to it. For more information, see.
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