Android By Russell Holly May. 7, 2014 3:30 pm
Regardless of your opinions when it comes to how manufacturers “enhance” Android with their custom user interfaces and features, one undeniable casualty in the effort to make things better is the notification tray. Don’t worry though, there are tools out there to help you reclaim all of that wasted space so that your notification tray can go back to doing what it’s supposed to do: show you notifications.
For the most part, your notification tray is supposed to be split right down the middle. On the left hand side you see notifications for things from apps that have something to tell you, and on the right you have system information designed to let you know what your phone is doing. In a perfect world, there would be less on the right so that there’s room for things on the left to spill over.
Instead, we see HTC, Samsung, LG, and several others making it so the opposite happens, leaving you with one or two spaces for notifications before you get an overflow notification that hilariously takes up one additional space to let you know that you have to pull the tray down to see your notifications. On top of this, Android’s persistent notifications function allows app developers to keep an icon in your notification tray to serve up expandable notifications when you open the tray. The end result is a mess, but for the most part it’s a manageable mess.
[h=3]How to clean up your notification tray[/h]This first tip is not so much a solution as an avoidance. One of the icons in the right hand side of the tray that will take up space no matter what you do for absolutely no reason is the alarm clock. It sits up there on the right side of the tray any time you have an alarm set, but only if you are using the clock app that came with your phone. That clock app has special permission to put an icon up on that side of the tray, so if you use a different alarm*app from the Play Store that icon will go away.
If you find that you are never going to use the clock app that came with your phone ever again, you can go into your apps settings and disable or delete it entirely depending on what phone you have. It’s right up there with turning things like NFC and Bluetooth off when you aren’t using them, but if all you want is a couple of icons gone this is a good place to start.
Some are extremely handy to have around depending on what you are doing, but many persistent notifications are just in the way for no good reason. Maybe you’ve got WiFi calling on if you’re a T-Mobile subscriber, or you’re using a smartwatch and there’s a connection confirmation icon floating in your notification tray. Removing these are easy — just press and hold on the notification in your tray and select the only button that pops up when this happens. You’ll be taken to the app settings for this function, were you’ll be able to disable the notification without disrupting the app in any way. If you find later on that you need to restore that notification, you can go back into your app settings and just hit that check box again.
One of the strengths of Android has always been the ability to install third party alternatives for things you don’t like, and the notification tray is no different from the rest of the OS. Apps like Super Status Bar completely replace the notification tray with a custom app that you can adjust to show whatever you want. You can control the battery readout, location of items on the bar, and even place widgets of your choosing in the notification tray. You lose whatever features your manufacturer has included in their notification tray as a tradeoff, but the ability to completely customize your experience might just be worth it to you.
The “nuclear option” for notification tray optimization is of course to root your phone and either use apps to forcibly remove icons from the top bar or install a custom version of Android that isn’t quite so cluttered. CyanogenMod’s notification tray is a shining example of an ideal setup for users who want as little clutter as possible, with no crazy icon for NFC and control over your battery and clock icons so they are either gone completely or just take up way less space. Going this route is a lot more work depending on your phone, but if you’re able to use the One Click Installer for CyanogenMod than there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get what you want in an afternoon.
It may seem a little odd to focus so much energy on your notification tray, but at the end of the day that’s the part of your phone that you use most often. It’s job is to offer you a glance at what has been going on since the last time you looked at your phone, and the more space your phone has to dedicate to showing you that information the better your overall mobile experience will be. Reclaim your notification tray, and enjoy liking your phone more than you do right now.
More...
For the most part, your notification tray is supposed to be split right down the middle. On the left hand side you see notifications for things from apps that have something to tell you, and on the right you have system information designed to let you know what your phone is doing. In a perfect world, there would be less on the right so that there’s room for things on the left to spill over.
Instead, we see HTC, Samsung, LG, and several others making it so the opposite happens, leaving you with one or two spaces for notifications before you get an overflow notification that hilariously takes up one additional space to let you know that you have to pull the tray down to see your notifications. On top of this, Android’s persistent notifications function allows app developers to keep an icon in your notification tray to serve up expandable notifications when you open the tray. The end result is a mess, but for the most part it’s a manageable mess.
[h=3]How to clean up your notification tray[/h]This first tip is not so much a solution as an avoidance. One of the icons in the right hand side of the tray that will take up space no matter what you do for absolutely no reason is the alarm clock. It sits up there on the right side of the tray any time you have an alarm set, but only if you are using the clock app that came with your phone. That clock app has special permission to put an icon up on that side of the tray, so if you use a different alarm*app from the Play Store that icon will go away.
If you find that you are never going to use the clock app that came with your phone ever again, you can go into your apps settings and disable or delete it entirely depending on what phone you have. It’s right up there with turning things like NFC and Bluetooth off when you aren’t using them, but if all you want is a couple of icons gone this is a good place to start.
Some are extremely handy to have around depending on what you are doing, but many persistent notifications are just in the way for no good reason. Maybe you’ve got WiFi calling on if you’re a T-Mobile subscriber, or you’re using a smartwatch and there’s a connection confirmation icon floating in your notification tray. Removing these are easy — just press and hold on the notification in your tray and select the only button that pops up when this happens. You’ll be taken to the app settings for this function, were you’ll be able to disable the notification without disrupting the app in any way. If you find later on that you need to restore that notification, you can go back into your app settings and just hit that check box again.
One of the strengths of Android has always been the ability to install third party alternatives for things you don’t like, and the notification tray is no different from the rest of the OS. Apps like Super Status Bar completely replace the notification tray with a custom app that you can adjust to show whatever you want. You can control the battery readout, location of items on the bar, and even place widgets of your choosing in the notification tray. You lose whatever features your manufacturer has included in their notification tray as a tradeoff, but the ability to completely customize your experience might just be worth it to you.
The “nuclear option” for notification tray optimization is of course to root your phone and either use apps to forcibly remove icons from the top bar or install a custom version of Android that isn’t quite so cluttered. CyanogenMod’s notification tray is a shining example of an ideal setup for users who want as little clutter as possible, with no crazy icon for NFC and control over your battery and clock icons so they are either gone completely or just take up way less space. Going this route is a lot more work depending on your phone, but if you’re able to use the One Click Installer for CyanogenMod than there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get what you want in an afternoon.
It may seem a little odd to focus so much energy on your notification tray, but at the end of the day that’s the part of your phone that you use most often. It’s job is to offer you a glance at what has been going on since the last time you looked at your phone, and the more space your phone has to dedicate to showing you that information the better your overall mobile experience will be. Reclaim your notification tray, and enjoy liking your phone more than you do right now.
More...
