Swipe Navigation Gesture has been introduced on the Android 9.0 Pie OS version officially for FullView user experience. While most of the Android devices which aren’t running on Pie or higher, don’t have this feature. Therefore, the XDA Developers members have developed a custom navigation gestures app without root access on any Android device running Android 5.0 or above. However, it requires a couple of ADB commands in order to disable the stock navbar and enable gesture navigation. The app was running on stable update v1.15.10 for some time. Now, the updated Navigation Gestures 1.18.4 version has been released and it brings a bunch of new features and some of the bug fixes as well.

New Update:

Previously XDA members were working on stability issues more than new features improvements. But after the v1.15.10 update, developers has focused on performance, app crashes, bug fixes, and more. Now, the latest version release is official and offers some interesting customizations with your app settings.

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Release Highlights

The new update offers a whole bunch of performance improvements for a smoother experience. There’s a new Compatibility option available in the app in order to help run the app. Additionally, users can now place the pill on top of the native navigation bar according to their preference.

Now, let’s take a look at the new navigation gestures app features and bug fixes details as well.

  • Better App-Change Detection
  • Added a setting for better app-change detection. This option makes use of Android’s Usage Stats API to detect the work efficiently. Enable it from Settings -> Experimental Settings -> tap on “Improved App-Change Detection”. (It may drain battery juice heavily)
  • Complex Gestures
  • There are also 8 new “complex” gestures:
  • Swipe Up & Right or Right & Up (+ long variant)
  • Next, Swipe Up & Left or Left & Up (+ long variant)
  • Swipe Down & Right or Right & Down (+ long variant)
  • Swipe Down & Left or Left & Down (+ long variant)
  • These new gestures work in both normal and split pill modes.
  • Repeat Long-Swipes
  • Added an option to allow long-swipes to repeat until you lift your finger.
  • Settings Search
  • Navigation Gestures has a lot of options in the settings. It can be hard to find something you’re particularly looking for. Added a Settings Search feature in this version.
  • Behavior
  • With plenty of new features, the app has some changes in behavior as well.
  • Clear Settings when Restoring Full Backup
  • The Backup & Restore feature will now clear all of your current settings before copying the backup from one to another if you’re changing your device or do a factory reset.
  • Per-App Pill Color Reliability
  • In the v1.18.4 update, a new experimental feature called Per-App Pill Color was introduced. Now, in the Navigation Gestures 1.20.16 version, developers have improved the per-app pill color reliability. The flickering issue might reduce up to some extent.
  • Redesigned Gesture Detector
  • A newly redesigned gesture detector for the pill. The pill now moves both horizontally and vertically at the same time. This means you could start a swipe-up gesture, but you may drag the pill to the right instead (Right & Up complex gesture should be enabled). That thing will work.
  • Pill Hiding/Fading
  • The pill is more reliable and responsive now. Therefore, you can have the pill hide and fade at the same time.
  • Don’t Move Pill when Keyboard Shown
  • The “Don’t Move Pill when Keyboard Shown” option to work more reliably on more devices.
  • Compatibility
  • The new compatibility feature helps you to fine-tune Navigation Gestures for your device to work properly on every Android device with various hardware and software.
  • Switch Apps Delay
  • The Switch Apps action is a newly introduced feature. Android doesn’t have a direct way to switch to the previous app. So, the Navigation Gestures has to simulate a double-tap of the Recents button. This option allows you to set the delay between the two taps yourself. You can also experiment with longer and shorter double-tap delays.
  • Accessibility Event Delay
  • Navigation Gestures relies on events reported to an Accessibility Service to know when the screen content has changed. While Android allows a minimum delay between events to be set. The shorter delay let Navigation Gestures to work faster but reduces battery life.
  • Cut-Off Volume Dialog
  • Android 9.0 Pie has redesigned the volume dialog by moving it to the right side of the display that looks cool and minimal too. Due to this, when you use a fullscreen app in landscape mode on 9.0 Pie, the volume dialog will be partially offscreen. The new compatibility option will temporarily show the navigation bar when the volume dialog is on-screen under thee specific conditions.

[su_spoiler title=”Navigation Gestures 1.18.4 Features”]

  • Added a setting for better app-change detection. This option makes use of Android’s Usage Stats API to detect the work efficiently. Enable it from Settings -> Experimental Settings -> tap on “Improved App-Change Detection”. (It may drain battery juice heavily)

  • There are also 8 new “complex” gestures:

  • Swipe Up & Right or Right & Up (+ long variant)

  • Next, Swipe Up & Left or Left & Up (+ long variant)

  • Swipe Down & Right or Right & Down (+ long variant)

  • Swipe Down & Left or Left & Down (+ long variant)

  • These new gestures work in both normal and split pill modes.

  • Added an option to allow long-swipes to repeat until you lift your finger.

  • Navigation Gestures has a lot of options in the settings. It can be hard to find something you’re particularly looking for. Added a Settings Search feature in this version.

  • With plenty of new features, the app has some changes in behavior as well.

  • The Backup & Restore feature will now clear all of your current settings before copying the backup from one to another if you’re changing your device or do a factory reset.

  • In the v1.18.4 update, a new experimental feature called Per-App Pill Color was introduced. Now, in the Navigation Gestures 1.20.16 version, developers have improved the per-app pill color reliability. The flickering issue might reduce up to some extent.

  • A newly redesigned gesture detector for the pill. The pill now moves both horizontally and vertically at the same time. This means you could start a swipe-up gesture, but you may drag the pill to the right instead (Right & Up complex gesture should be enabled). That thing will work.

  • The “Don’t Move Pill when Keyboard Shown” option to work more reliably on more devices.

  • The new compatibility feature helps you to fine-tune Navigation Gestures for your device to work properly on every Android device with various hardware and software.

  • The Switch Apps action is a newly introduced feature. Android doesn’t have a direct way to switch to the previous app. So, the Navigation Gestures has to simulate a double-tap of the Recents button. This option allows you to set the delay between the two taps yourself. You can also experiment with longer and shorter double-tap delays.

  • Navigation Gestures relies on events reported to an Accessibility Service to know when the screen content has changed. While Android allows a minimum delay between events to be set. The shorter delay let Navigation Gestures to work faster but reduces battery life.

  • Android 9.0 Pie has redesigned the volume dialog by moving it to the right side of the display that looks cool and minimal too. Due to this, when you use a fullscreen app in landscape mode on 9.0 Pie, the volume dialog will be partially offscreen. The new compatibility option will temporarily show the navigation bar when the volume dialog is on-screen under thee specific conditions.

  • Overlay Navigation Bar

  • You can adjust the pill to place with app elements near the bottom of the screen. The new “Overlay NavBar” option in the Experimental Settings will place the pill on top of the navbar. It will blackout the navigation buttons automatically.

  • If you’d like to keep your navigation buttons, you can deactivate the “Blackout” option.

  • Make sure to turn off “Hide Navigation Bar” before enabling this.

  • This option only works for devices that have a software navigation bar. (physical navigation buttons not supported)

  • Per-App Pill Color

  • The new Experimental Setting called “Per-App Pill Color” offers you to set the color of the pill on a per-app basis. Any apps not selected will use the color set in Appearance.

  • Accessibility Button Action (Root)

  • The Android Oreo or higher version offers an accessibility icon to the navigation bar which can be enabled/disabled from the device settings. Unfortunately, Android doesn’t allow normal apps to invoke this action. If you have rooted your handset, you’ll see two new actions: open the chosen accessibility interface and select which one to show.

  • Keep-Alive

  • If your Android device system and aggressive RAM management process killing the Navigation Gestures every time, the new “Keep-Alive” option will come in handy.

  • Go to the Compatibility settings and enable it to start a foreground service that should keep the app alive with the RAM Management.

  • Restart App

  • Sometimes the app gets unstable for some reason. Developers are working on it. If you find any problems with Navigation Gestures, open the app and tap the “Problems?” button. Scroll down and tap the first option in the “Something else?” category to restart the app.

  • When restoring settings from a backup, Navigation Gestures will also prompt you to restart the app.

[/su_spoiler]

  • You can adjust the pill to place with app elements near the bottom of the screen. The new “Overlay NavBar” option in the Experimental Settings will place the pill on top of the navbar. It will blackout the navigation buttons automatically.

  • If you’d like to keep your navigation buttons, you can deactivate the “Blackout” option.

  • Make sure to turn off “Hide Navigation Bar” before enabling this.

  • This option only works for devices that have a software navigation bar. (physical navigation buttons not supported)

  • The new Experimental Setting called “Per-App Pill Color” offers you to set the color of the pill on a per-app basis. Any apps not selected will use the color set in Appearance.

  • The Android Oreo or higher version offers an accessibility icon to the navigation bar which can be enabled/disabled from the device settings. Unfortunately, Android doesn’t allow normal apps to invoke this action. If you have rooted your handset, you’ll see two new actions: open the chosen accessibility interface and select which one to show.

  • If your Android device system and aggressive RAM management process killing the Navigation Gestures every time, the new “Keep-Alive” option will come in handy.

  • Go to the Compatibility settings and enable it to start a foreground service that should keep the app alive with the RAM Management.

  • Sometimes the app gets unstable for some reason. Developers are working on it. If you find any problems with Navigation Gestures, open the app and tap the “Problems?” button. Scroll down and tap the first option in the “Something else?” category to restart the app.

  • When restoring settings from a backup, Navigation Gestures will also prompt you to restart the app.

There are a couple of bug fixes as well in this new version update. Take a look.

  • Crash Fixes
  • The new v1.20.16 update will fix some of the bugs and improves the user experience over performance. Now, you may get lesser crashes while changing the settings and using this app.
  • Performance Improvements
  • Navigation Gestures freezes up occasionally on the older or lower-end devices. The performance should increase with this new version and the user may notice lesser errors like Navigation Gesture stops responding.
  • Hide Pill when Keyboard Shown
  • The pill hiding issue when the keyboard shown bug has been fixed now. You can use it again on the v1.20.16 update.
  • Sensitivity
  • During the development and testing process between the release of v1.15.10 and v1.18.4, the gesture sensitivity was decreased hugely when the pill was aligned to the bottom of the screen. It could be done by enabling the ‘Full Overscan’ option. But not all devices are compatible with that option. Now, the developers have fixed this issue. If you had turned on Full Overscan in the v1.18.4 and now you want to disable it, you can do this.
  • Miscellaneous
  • Make sure the Show NavBar with Keyboard option is disabled when Overlay NavBar is turned on.
  • Keep note that holding the pill to show the navigation bar while screen pinning is active actually works.
  • Fix up some animations as well.

[su_spoiler title=”Navigation Gestures 1.18.4 Bug Fixes”]

  • The new v1.20.16 update will fix some of the bugs and improves the user experience over performance. Now, you may get lesser crashes while changing the settings and using this app.

  • Navigation Gestures freezes up occasionally on the older or lower-end devices. The performance should increase with this new version and the user may notice lesser errors like Navigation Gesture stops responding.

  • The pill hiding issue when the keyboard shown bug has been fixed now. You can use it again on the v1.20.16 update.

  • During the development and testing process between the release of v1.15.10 and v1.18.4, the gesture sensitivity was decreased hugely when the pill was aligned to the bottom of the screen. It could be done by enabling the ‘Full Overscan’ option. But not all devices are compatible with that option. Now, the developers have fixed this issue. If you had turned on Full Overscan in the v1.18.4 and now you want to disable it, you can do this.

  • Make sure the Show NavBar with Keyboard option is disabled when Overlay NavBar is turned on.

  • Keep note that holding the pill to show the navigation bar while screen pinning is active actually works.

  • Fix up some animations as well.

  • Crash Fixes

  • Since the last stable release, 1.15.10, developers have been working hard to fix crashes as many as possible. Wait for the next release for fewer crashes.

  • “Don’t Hide NavBar on Lock Screen” and “Don’t Show on Lock Screen” Fixes

  • On some devices (notably devices running EMUI 3.x) has a weird issue where Navigation Gestures acts as the device is always on the lock screen. This version should fix this issue.

  • Performance Improvements

  • On older and lower-end devices, animations should be smoother than earlier.

  • On all devices, battery usage should be lower from now.

  • Navigation Bar Height on Android 10

  • With Android 10’s new gestures, it’s possible to change the navigation bar height to be much shorter. Navigation Gestures 1.18.4 is now able to detect the change in the navigation bar height, so it can properly hide the navigation bar.

  • Switch Keyboard Action on Android 10

  • If your device running on Android 10, you may have noticed that this action was broken on v1.15.10. It’s fixed now in v1.18.4 and should work properly again. Please note that the action requires the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission on your navigation gestures.

  • Since the last stable release, 1.15.10, developers have been working hard to fix crashes as many as possible. Wait for the next release for fewer crashes.

  • On some devices (notably devices running EMUI 3.x) has a weird issue where Navigation Gestures acts as the device is always on the lock screen. This version should fix this issue.

  • On older and lower-end devices, animations should be smoother than earlier.

  • On all devices, battery usage should be lower from now.

  • With Android 10’s new gestures, it’s possible to change the navigation bar height to be much shorter. Navigation Gestures 1.18.4 is now able to detect the change in the navigation bar height, so it can properly hide the navigation bar.

  • If your device running on Android 10, you may have noticed that this action was broken on v1.15.10. It’s fixed now in v1.18.4 and should work properly again. Please note that the action requires the WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS permission on your navigation gestures.

Conclusion

If you’re running an Android phone below Android 9 Pie but above the Android 5.0 version, then this navigation gesture app will come in handy for you. Just follow the installation steps from the Google Play Store of the app download page and run the ADB commands as mentioned. XDA Developers has provided the app for free on Play Store with basic features. For premium add-ons, check out the paid app as well.

[googleplay url=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xda.nobar”]

[googleplay url=”https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xda.nobar.premium”]

Source: XDA