Access to settings from status bar

asked 2015-09-26 18:14:10 +0200

dave
876 ●13 ●18 ●21

updated 2016-10-26 15:25:53 +0200

jiit
2678 ●32 ●58 ●59

  admin

Now that Sailfish 1.9 has a status bar, would it be possible to enhance it by allowing the status icons to be used as interactive controls (rather than just read-only information) to access related settings? (This would start to get back some of the functionality that I have missed from my last Symbian ^3 phone..)

For example:

• Tap the time to open the clock (to allow you to set/change alarms)
• (Reposition the time over to the left slightly, and also show the date (in short-form) Day Date Month (eg, Sat 26 Sep) in the status bar, and allow the date to be tapped to show a notification with your next calendar entry and a button to then open the full calendar from there)
• Tap the mobile network (eg, 4G) symbol to go to mobile network settings (eg, to switch from 4G to 3G, etc, if in weak signal area)
• Long-press on the mobile network symbol to enable flight mode (and the same for the flight mode symbol, when present, to switch networks back on)
• Show Bluetooth and WiFi symbols at all times, but ghosted if disabled. Tap to enable/disable (given the small size of the status bar icons, and the need to tap fairly precisely, possibly have a combined pop-up menu for both, with larger icons to select which of these to change would be the better interface?)
• Long-press on the WiFi symbol to enable/disable internet sharing (hotspot)
• Show GPS symbol at all times, ghosted when disabled. Tap to enable/disable.
• (Tap on the battery status to enable/disable power-saving mode (if such a thing were implemented..))

I am sure I am not alone in needing to change many of these settings quite frequently, and at present, I need to leave the Settings application running pretty much constantly and then dig down to change the settings (even with these settings moved to the Favourites section of Settings, it is still quite a cumbersome and time-consuming process). Since we can now see these status indicators more easily, it would seem sensible that we should actually be able to make practical use of them.

(I know that some people were quite against the idea of a status bar. I think that the way it has been implemented, so that it only shows on the home (and lock) screen, and not in apps, is a reasonable compromise, as the home screen is only a swipe away from within an app.)

The 1.1.9.28 release notes say that the Tablet (but not the Phone) will allow settings to be added to the events screen. This is certainly a help, but since the phone does not have this functionality (lack of screen space?), being able to access similar shortcuts from the status bar would be very useful.