[Q] DPI Scaling and Stock Apps

Nosferatu. · Jul 24, 2014

As title states, it seems the stock apps are a little pain in the (you know what) to prevent the phone from doing what I want.

There's no custom ROMs yet so I'm more-or-less just playing with the stock ROM to get things working.

It seems like I can't get the DPI to go beyond 530 without annoying the stock apps. Stock is 640 DPI. DPI scaling makes full use of the stupid high resolution of the screen. I couldn't stand out of the box two notifications and bam you're scrolling in the notification tab. Add a few icon notifications and the whole bar is taken up. Silly for such a high resolution phone.

Bunch of Xposed tweaks later and bam. It works like a charm (including play store). Go below 530 DPI and the stock apps crash (see photos). Anyways smarter than me to figure this one out?

Photos tell a lot. It's night and day difference and now an awesome phone.

STOCK BIG FONT (removed some of the bloat)

THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD LOOK STOCK (DPI in the 400s)

THEN BAM!!!

EDIT: GOT IT. 530DPI is the limit. Now if someone smarter than me can figure out how to get the apps to play nicely I'm down. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with it as is.

Left: 530DPI / Right: 640DPI (stock)

AngryDinosaur · Jul 24, 2014

480 dpi amd 1080p

Sent from my SGH-T889 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

hello00 · Jul 24, 2014

install apps setting from xposed

Sent from Mars

Nosferatu. · Jul 24, 2014

hello00 said:
install apps setting from xposed

Sent from Mars

I did. Wasn't playing nice. Which apps would I have to set? (Phone, messaging etc.??) What settings do you throw those at?

partylikeaninjastar · Jul 24, 2014

Nosferatu. said:
I did. Wasn't playing nice. Which apps would I have to set? (Phone, messaging etc.??) What settings do you throw those at?

What I did was do system wide 530, then set LG Home to 640 (anything lower looks wonky). As far as I can tell, everything works at 530. If you want other apps at a lower DPI, if I were you, I'd just change their settings on an app by app basis through App Settings.

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

Nosferatu. · Jul 24, 2014

partylikeaninjastar said:
What I did was do system wide 530, then set LG Home to 640 (anything lower looks wonky). As far as I can tell, everything works at 530. If you want other apps at a lower DPI, if I were you, I'd just change their settings on an app by app basis through App Settings.

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

Awesome thanks.

orbitalcomp · Jul 24, 2014

I've done pretty much the same thing as you guys, rooted and used Texdroider to change system-wide DPI to 530. It looks perfect, all stock LG apps work fine, nothing out of place except for that stock Smart Alert / Weather widget, which is fine with me since I use the weather-only widget anyways.

Stock LG launcher with Xposed, and I didn't have to use App Settings to change the launcher to 640, it doesn't need it. I simply used G3 TweaksBox to change the home page layout grid to 5x6 to make it match the looks of the stock 5x5, and the app drawer to 5x6 to take advantage of the extra screen real estate. With just a few tweaks, I have my phone now looking almost identical to my old G2 that was running the same stuff.

One other thing I did is edit the build.prop settings just as mentioned here:
http://xdaforums.com/verizon-lg-g3/general/mod-add-apps-support-to-splitview-t2825776

This lets every app work in Multi Window mode, which is the way it should be. After doing this, I used App Settings to force rotation on the normally-landscape Slingplayer. Now I can have Slingplayer on the top third of the screen in portrait mode while using Chrome on the bottom two-thirds. Perfect!

No crashes or issues with anything so far...

Mi|enko · Jul 24, 2014

For those of you that changed your DPIs, are you having any problems with the Play Store? Normally, when I edit my DPI, I also install the multi-DPI play store; however, with this device I get gapps FC's by doing that. Just wondering if the stock Play Store starts limiting apps with the DPI change.

pychobj2001 · Jul 24, 2014

I have a quick circle case...and I like 530 dpi...but it jacks up the quick circle...I don't know what app to put back to 640 with xposed and "app settings" anybody know?

Sent from my T-Mobile G3!

Previous Smart Phones: SDA/Juno/G1/HTC HD2/Vibrant/SGS2/SGS3/Nexus4/Nexus5

partylikeaninjastar · Jul 24, 2014

pychobj2001 said:
I have a quick circle case...and I like 530 dpi...but it jacks up the quick circle...I don't know what app to put back to 640 with xposed and "app settings" anybody know?

Sent from my T-Mobile G3!

Previous Smart Phones: SDA/Juno/G1/HTC HD2/Vibrant/SGS2/SGS3/Nexus4/Nexus5

My guess is SystemUI

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

Mi|enko · Jul 25, 2014

partylikeaninjastar said:
My guess is SystemUI

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

Isn't that like the primary thing you want to be at the lower DPI? lol

pychobj2001 · Jul 25, 2014

Mi|enko said:
Isn't that like the primary thing you want to be at the lower DPI? lol

My thoughts exactly..I hope it's not integrated into system ui...then changing the dpi doesn't do much if I have to have that at 640....maybe I'll just keep trying different app dpi changes...unless aosp comes out..then this circle case might be useless if I switch to aosp

Sent from my T-Mobile G3!

Previous Smart Phones: SDA/Juno/G1/HTC HD2/Vibrant/SGS2/SGS3/Nexus4/Nexus5

Mi|enko · Jul 25, 2014

Also, when adjusting the DPI, I run into this problem. . . and bear with me, as it's a little strange. If I edit the DPI, I can still get into the app settings; however, if I click an app to review it's data, I immediately get a settings FC. Additionally, my external SD is no longer accessible on the device. I'm thinking these are related, but it's still a weird issue nonetheless. Going to try forcing the DPI of settings with App Settings and see if this changes the experience at all. Will report back.

Edit: Couldn't figure it out. Nothing makes sense as to why individual app settings crash and the SD card can't be accessed when lowering the DPI. So, what I did instead was set the DPI back to 640 and then went in and individually lowered the DPI for all the apps I wanted (SystemUI included) down to 530 via App Settings. No force closes, SD card is readable. . . all is right in the world.

orbitalcomp · Jul 25, 2014

Mi|enko said:
Also, when adjusting the DPI, I run into this problem. . . and bear with me, as it's a little strange. If I edit the DPI, I can still get into the app settings; however, if I click an app to review it's data, I immediately get a settings FC. Additionally, my external SD is no longer accessible on the device. I'm thinking these are related, but it's still a weird issue nonetheless. Going to try forcing the DPI of settings with App Settings and see if this changes the experience at all. Will report back.

Edit: Couldn't figure it out. Nothing makes sense as to why individual app settings crash and the SD card can't be accessed when lowering the DPI. So, what I did instead was set the DPI back to 640 and then went in and individually lowered the DPI for all the apps I wanted (SystemUI included) down to 530 via App Settings. No force closes, SD card is readable. . . all is right in the world.

That's strange that you're having so many problems, I haven't had a single issue or FC with anything. My Play Store works fine, I saw you were also asking about that.

Do you have Xposed installed? If so, what modules?

This G3 was by far the easiest phone to root and tweak that I've ever owned, I've got it running exactly the way I want and am not even interested in trying a different ROM.

Mi|enko · Jul 25, 2014

orbitalcomp said:
That's strange that you're having so many problems, I haven't had a single issue or FC with anything. My Play Store works fine, I saw you were also asking about that.

Do you have Xposed installed? If so, what modules?

This G3 was by far the easiest phone to root and tweak that I've ever owned, I've got it running exactly the way I want and am not even interested in trying a different ROM.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly. I have just about every high end phone imaginable, but this is my first non-nexus LG experience (not to mention QHD) and the first time I've had these problems. DPI's usually the first thing I change on any device, ironically.

At first, I thought it was the apps I was removing and maybe breaking some dependencies, but narrowed it down to the DPI over the last couple days. Even did a fresh flash today. The moment I changed the DPI and rebooted, I got a gapps FC @ boot. Couldn't access individual app settings and SD wouldn't mount. And it was the only customization I made.

Here's a screenshot of the modules I'm using.

orbitalcomp · Jul 25, 2014

Mi|enko said:
Yeah, I'm not sure exactly. I have just about every high end phone imaginable, but this is my first non-nexus LG experience (not to mention QHD) and the first time I've had these problems. DPI's usually the first thing I change on any device, ironically.

At first, I thought it was the apps I was removing and maybe breaking some dependencies, but narrowed it down to the DPI over the last couple days. Even did a fresh flash today. The moment I changed the DPI and rebooted, I got a gapps FC @ boot. Couldn't access individual app settings and SD wouldn't mount. And it was the only customization I made.

Here's a screenshot of the modules I'm using.

View attachment 2869317

Out of that list of modules, I'm only using App Settings and G3 TweaksBox, plus Pandora Patcher. That's all I'm using. I haven't used TiB or anything else to free or move any stock apps, I simply used the built-in Disable feature for 4 or 5 harmless apps.

I ran Purple Drake on a Mac and did the TWRP install and root check boot image option. I wonder if any of those things I did or didn't do had anything to do with how mind's running?

Also, the G3TB I'm using is the version from the Play Store, not the beta from the xda thread...mine just updated to v1.1 this morning.

Mi|enko · Jul 25, 2014

orbitalcomp said:
Out of that list of modules, I'm only using App Settings and G3 TweaksBox, plus Pandora Patcher. That's all I'm using. I haven't used TiB or anything else to free or move any stock apps, I simply used the built-in Disable feature for 4 or 5 harmless apps.

I ran Purple Drake on a Mac and did the TWRP install and root check boot image option. I wonder if any of those things I did or didn't do had anything to do with how mind's running?

Also, the G3TB I'm using is the version from the Play Store, not the beta from the xda thread...mine just updated to v1.1 this morning.

I thought it could've been an over customization thing as well. But the fresh flash with only the DPI being changed killed that theory. No xposed, no modules, no app deletion, etc. Mine was rooted with PD on a Mac as well. It's all good though. Leaving the DPI alone and just editing via App Settings has gotten me the same results without the problems I was seeing.

chakra · Jul 26, 2014

Mi|enko said:
I thought it could've been an over customization thing as well. But the fresh flash with only the DPI being changed killed that theory. No xposed, no modules, no app deletion, etc. Mine was rooted with PD on a Mac as well. It's all good though. Leaving the DPI alone and just editing via App Settings has gotten me the same results without the problems I was seeing.

I had the same bug, I couldnt open the settings to uninstall apps. settings opened, but you couldnt open the actual app settings.

I fixed it by doing a nandroid backup, doing a factory reset, then loading the backup I just made and settings worked again, no other changes made?

I found this out when I first rooted the G3 and had another big issue, could not solve it, did a factory reset, loaded my first nandroid, but it was corrupted, so I did another full wipe and loaded the nandroid I made before I did my first factory reset (the one that I had issues with) but it worked great all problems gone.

kchino · Jul 26, 2014

So, the posts in this thread have been very helpful. DPI is usually one of the first tweaks that I administer to any rom. I'd found zero success in using my normal modification of editing the build.prop file directly, I started getting force closes from system apps even when not going below 530DPI. Using App Settings module in Xposed to modify Android System rectified this for me, all is right now. :good:

orbitalcomp · Jul 26, 2014

Changing the DPI of the G3 really transforms it, so much so that I would have a hard time going back to stock DPI now. I had done this once before on my G2 and Note II and loved the results, but those were also not as large to begin with. The G3 comes out of the box as if it's designed for visually impaired users.

One other subtle tweak I did was set my status bar to solid black using G3 TweaksBox. Not only does it match the black nav bar now, but I think it just looks better than that gray color LG uses by default in non-LG apps.

[Q] DPI Scaling and Stock Apps

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