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I guess you're right, but there's nothing about intents that assumes the homescreen would be replaceable. That the homescreen is launched via intents must have
by MatthewPhillips 14y ago
I guess you're right, but there's nothing about intents that assumes the homescreen would be replaceable. That the homescreen is launched via intents must have been a conscious design decision, right?
- wvenable 14y agoIt was definitely a conscious design decision. It's basically the intent of what happens when you press the Home button. The UI for the end-user is identical as for every other intent (and managed the same way in the settings). If you install a new application that handles the Home intent, the next time you press the Home button you get the usual "What app do you want to use to handle this" dialog with the "Just once" and "Always" options.
- gknoy 14y agoMore importantly, if I've selected "Always", how do I change it back to the old way later? Are intents something I can access and change in the normal system settings?
- wvenable 14y agoYup. The system is a lot easier to work with than file associations in Windows.
- brian_cloutier 14y agoWell, there's still a pain point there. To change it back to the old way you have to go to settings, then hit "Apps", then scroll to find the home screen app you no longer want, then hit its "Clear Defaults" button. There's never any text that explains "this will let you choose a homescreen again", or really anything that will help you know to look for the Clear Defaults button.
- BHSPitMonkey 14y agoUninstalling it will also accomplish this, which I expect most people will do if they want to get rid of it. I do agree that it should be more straightforward within Settings, though; It would be nice to go to Settings > Home Screen and have the first option be something like "Choose which Home Screen software to use".
- brian_cloutier 14y agoWhile that works in this case, it's only because Facebook breaks their functionality into multiple apps. If "Facebook" registered a homescreen, instead of "Home" registering it, then how would you remove the default? Sure, you could uninstall facebook and then reinstall it, but that's a pretty painful workaround. Another use-case that should be fixed, the instagram app has registered to intercept browse intents for its domain. So, clicking on a link in twitter will show you that picture in the instagram app. The problem is when badly written apps do this, urls like http://instagram.com/developer/ http://instagram.com/developer/ will also open the app, but it will notice it doesn't know how to handle that url, and either quit or crash. Sure, developers should know better. But I'd really love a way of saying "for the next intent that fires, let me chose the default again". You could toggle this flag and then hit home to reset the homescreen app. Or you could toggle this flag then hit an instagram link and say "just for this one link, use chrome". Unfortunately, while that would be a fantastic tool for developers, it's probably not a practical solution. There are enough edge cases that it would be hard to implement, and very hard to educate users on how to use.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoI've always had a ton of problems with defaults and intents. To this day I still have certain intents that ask me every single time, no matter how many time I choose a default.
- brian_cloutier 14y agoDo you have an example by any chance? I've noticed this but it hasn't happened to me in a while.