So i just bought Asus rog phone 6d and im extremely bothered by the lack of the back ,home and whatewer is the 3 one called buttons on the news androids. Is this something you all got used to with time or does this still bother you( IT really fells much less intuitive compared to the old 3 buttons ,alghtough preferably i would love to have both since the back gesture seems kinda usefull )?
I think there’s a setting to bring back the buttons, if you want that.
Settings -> System -> Gestures -> System navigation
Oh my God, thank you. I hate the gestures. I’m constantly going back when I’m just trying to scroll or turn pages
Yeah this is what I do. I tried gestures but I really prefer the buttons.
Hello fellow cat! Correction fellow lazy cat
😺😴
Same for me, I think there are a lot of us 😀
I just haven’t been able to get use to gestures instead of the buttons.
There’s two of us! Really the minority in this thread. For me there was no guide so i was extremely confused at first. Then I found it interfered with one of my most used apps that featured similar gestures so I turned it off and never went back.
My phone offers gestures but not by default and I’ve got zero interest. I’m really glad it’s an option and I hate all the companies that think they know better than all their users and force their visions on them.
Yeah, totally this! Also, I’m just super uncoordinated and I was constantly swiping in slightly the wrong direction so it never did what I wanted it to do. You know where you stand with a button 😆
I’m still using buttons too. I never understood why people would want universal gestures for back and home while using apps that are also controlled by gestures. Just give me the dedicated buttons.
Just stick with the gestures for a week or so. You’ll get used to it. Wouldn’t want to go back to the button row anymore.
I’ve tried, it’s not for me, I’m always accidentally swiping.
Removed by mod
You can still use the 3 button layout but I really wouldn’t recommend it. Gestures are quicker and easier.
I prefer gestures but I don’t like them - it’s too easy to swipe out of an App when you’re actually trying to do something else like pull out a side menu or switch along a carousel, or interact with something (e.g. swiping mail away). I tried to reduce the sensitivity of the gestures and then they became too useless.
Unfortunately a lot of apps still aren’t designed with gestures in mind (mainly side swipes) and need optimising. Hopefully this will improve over time. I’m guessing carousels in particular are now no long practical in Android.
I don’t know about your phone, but there is probably a setting to enable button navigation.
However, I was in similar situation when I bought my phone, I even enabled the buttons at first. Then I thought to try gesture navigation for sometime, and now I love it. It’s much easier and faster in most cases.
Just use the standard navigation bar
You’re looking for settings --> navigation bar
I had that for about half an hour, but I wouldn’t want to switch back. Gestures all the time
Not sure since I don’t have the phone, but does this apply? https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1041064/
Gesture all the way
Definitely try gestures.
Being able to “go back” from a gentle swipe at any height is a blessing for the small hand. The rest of options are really, really intuitive.
Unless you have some mobility issues, you’ll never come back after a week.
it frequently misfires when I don’t want it to and fails to fire when I do. I used it for a couple of months and then went back to buttons after getting frustrated.
i’ve no mobility issues, but i can’t stand that back gesture. it interferes with the ability to open drawers; and i can’t spam it quickly to get out of a “deep” page in an app
gestures do have pros (for instance, the ability to hold and scroll through recents) but the back gesture just seems straight up worse to me
it interferes with the ability to open drawers
It’s funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven’t come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn’t really “officially” recommended?
Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn’t that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn’t interfere with the system gestures
It’s funny, but I tried looking around the old Material Design guidelines and I haven’t come across any mention of swiping to open a drawer. I know it was on Android Developers, but it appears that from the point of view of the design team, it wasn’t really “officially” recommended?
i found this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140110123608/developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation-drawer.html (alternative link in case archive.org is down) - i presume they removed it from the old spec when they introduced the gesture navigation, so people don’t use it because it interferes with the gestures?wait never mind i misread this paragraph. i presume it wasn’t in the design spec as a) it’s an interaction behaviour, not a visual design behaviour, and b) it was also a thing in holo design (& older[?]), so they didn’t consider it part of the “material design spec”?
Regardless, Discord, IMO, offers a better implementation for side sheets, as the metaphor isn’t that you drag something from beyond the screen into view, you just drag the view itself to the side and that reveals the side sheet. And it works in the middle of the screen so it doesn’t interfere with the system gestures
it’s not a bad idea if you’re working around gestures, but it means you can’t have something where you swipe between tabs when not from the edge, and get the drawer when from the edge
or, for example, swiping to reply/forward in a messaging app, or upvote/downvote on a lemmy client
(also, subjectively, it’s kind of a bit ugly)
i presume it wasn’t in the design spec as a) it’s an interaction behaviour, not a visual design behaviour, and b) it was also a thing in holo design (& older[?]), so they didn’t consider it part of the “material design spec”?
Yesn’t. Material Design 1 and 2 guidelines have a bunch of sections regarding interaction, way more than M3 (although M3 guidelines aren’t “finished” yet), but they lack a section regarding that gesture in particular.
Like, M1 guidelines mention swiping on content to swap tabs, heck, you can even find the same on the current Material Design 3 guidelines
I think it was a conscious design decision from the Material Design team to not use that gesture in particular? Because it isn’t due to conflict with other components, in the tab guidelines they call attention to be careful when the content itself is swipeable.
it’s not a bad idea if you’re working around gestures, but it means you can’t have something where you swipe between tabs when not from the edge, and get the drawer when from the edge
or, for example, swiping to reply/forward in a messaging app, or upvote/downvote on a lemmy client
(also, subjectively, it’s kind of a bit ugly)
I mean, you already can’t have certain gestures with other gestures. Like you can’t (or shouldn’t) have swipe on a card to upvote at the same time you have swipe content to change tabs. I’d argue this restriction is better for the user because with discord’s implementation it is very clear what the trigger area is, because the entire view is the trigger area.
Yesn’t. Material Design 1 and 2 guidelines have a bunch of sections regarding interaction, way more than M3 (although M3 guidelines aren’t “finished” yet), but they lack a section regarding that gesture in particular.
Like, M1 guidelines mention swiping on content to swap tabs, heck, you can even find the same on the current Material Design 3 guidelines
fair enough. although in that specific example you could construe that as a warning of unforeseen conflicts, rather than a recommendation to implement swipe gestures. like, it doesn’t say “use swipe gestures for navigating between tabs”, it just mentions it as though it’s something the dev should already know (in the m1 guidelines, not m3 i guess)
I think it was a conscious design decision from the Material Design team to not use that gesture in particular? Because it isn’t due to conflict with other components, in the tab guidelines they call attention to be careful when the content itself is swipeable.
possibly? although i still maintain it’s likely that they saw it as part of holo, so there was no need to respecify it for md? the same that they don’t specify that you can scroll down to move the content field? especially as all of google’s own apps supported that gesture
I mean, you already can’t have certain gestures with other gestures. Like you can’t (or shouldn’t) have swipe on a card to upvote at the same time you have swipe content to change tabs.
yes; but my point is that it reduces the available actions for no discernible benefit. it’s not like they’ve added some spare buttons in the old place, like maybe bringing back the old universal menu button.
I’d argue this restriction is better for the user because with discord’s implementation it is very clear what the trigger area is, because the entire view is the trigger area.
maybe? i’m not sure about that though, as the hamburger button is on that side, and the drawer appears there; and i’d say “the edge from whence the drawer appears” is a lot clearer than “just any old fucking where”, but maybe that’s me
Alright, but wasn’t the tab gesture also available on the holo era?
yes; but my point is that it reduces the available actions for no discernible benefit. it’s not like they’ve added some spare buttons in the old place, like maybe bringing back the old universal menu button.
The benefit is less conflicting gesture triggers occupying the same area. A swipeable card/list-item has the entire card/list-card as the visible trigger. A Tab has the entire content as the trigger area. The Navigation Drawer gesture is an invisible area that can be placed on top of the visible triggers of other components.
maybe? i’m not sure about that though, as the hamburger button is on that side, and the drawer appears there; and i’d say “the edge from whence the drawer appears” is a lot clearer than “just any old fucking where”, but maybe that’s me
The issue is that the hamburger button is not the only button that can appear in that that place, a back button is common on that same area. The trigger area isn’t the width of a button, but the width of a very specific button, and worse, it extends far beyond the edges of the button and shares the same height as the screen.
I do see your point that “anywhere” isn’t an improvement, but I have to disagree, as that is fundamentally the same gesture to swap tabs, and you can predict the area trigger as being “just any old fucking where”.
Alright, but wasn’t the tab gesture also available on the holo era?
honestly i couldn’t say with absolute certainty, but i don’t think so?
The benefit is less conflicting gesture triggers occupying the same area. A swipeable card/list-item has the entire card/list-card as the visible trigger. A Tab has the entire content as the trigger area. The Navigation Drawer gesture is an invisible area that can be placed on top of the visible triggers of other components.
i’m not entirely sure that i’m following this correctly, but assuming i am: it’s the same number of gesture triggers
- old design
- swipe from edge: nav drawer
- swipe from anywhere: switch tabs (or whatever)
- tap back btn: navigate back
- your design
- swipe from edge: navigate back
- swipe from anywhere: nav drawer
- missing input: switch tabs (or whatever)
The issue is that the hamburger button is not the only button that can appear in that that place, a back button is common on that same area.
that’s a fair criticism
The trigger area isn’t the width of a button, but the width of a very specific button, and worse, it extends far beyond the edges of the button and shares the same height as the screen.
this i’m also not sure what you’re saying? it seems like a good thing to me - it takes up no space, and can be accessed from any height
I do see your point that “anywhere” isn’t an improvement, but I have to disagree, as that is fundamentally the same gesture to swap tabs, and you can predict the area trigger as being “just any old fucking where”.
i wasn’t strictly saying that, i was more refuting what i thought your point was: that “it’s not a discoverable gesture unless it’s tutorialised, because most people won’t randomly swipe in from the edge”; which i think in most instances is a very fair point, but in this specific instance i think it is discoverable because the drawer pulls in from the side. (source: i discovered it without a tutorial, or reading the md docs)
- old design
You just made me try it out, it’s… Interesting. Hard to get used to, but I like the extra screen space.
Give it a week. You shortly will not go back.
Unfortunately, I will in fact unintentionally go back every 5 seconds because it always misfires.
Past two phones I’ve had (Galaxy Z fold 3 and OnePlus 7 Pro) I’ve had the option for gestures or buttons.
I always pick gestures, I get more screen real estate and the gestures feel good and intuitive.
If you don’t like them, change it, that’s the benefit of Android, you can do what you want.
Not to mention how often the on screen navigation buttons would just burn in. There’d be a permanent outline where they normally are if you were to view any full screen media.
Definitely made sure to enable gesture navigation on my current phone and that hasn’t been a problem.
I was about to consider trying this on my phone and then I read your comment and realized my phone is 3 years old and has had the buttons in the same place (portrait) for 95% of the time it’s screen has been on and it will 100% have burn in.
Is screen burn in still a problem for modern phones in 2023?
Yup i found the setting. Thank you all. Alghtough i will try to use gestures for a while since i see few comments saying they got used to them,maybe i will also get used to them alghtough i have my doubts( Particulary beacuse i like to move between apps quite often ,quite fast,and thats the worst gesture of them all )
You don’t need to go via the task switcher at all with gestures, swipe along the bottom, left or right, instead of up, to go directly to the previous/next app. Much faster than the buttons and the main reason I was excited for gesture, as I’m also a huge mobile multi-tasker.
Ohhh that i did not notice. That changes things quite significantly
Try gestures. They get easy after a time. Pro tip: to open hamburger menus tap and hold left edge of screen for 0.5s and pull it out to the right. Works every time and no accidental back swipes.
A diagonal swipe also works.
Oh, i havent tried that. Thanks for the tip
These tips are very helpful! Thanks. Any others?
Not that i can think of atm.
I very quickly got used to the gesture controls, and now appreciate the extra screen space.
Gestures are great and intuitive, definitely give it a bit more time before changing back imo!
I prefer gestures. But if you like buttons just go to settings and turn them on.
Had the same initial reaction to Pixel. But its really grown on me. The swipe to go back is awesome. Having said that, there is a setting to get the buttons back, in case this doesn’t grow on you
