Better support for devices with wide notches
Summary
I am proposing a better support for devices with notches within /e/.
I am proposing this as a user of a phone with a relatively large notch (Pocophone/Beryllium).
- AOSP-Android-**Oreo **had no means onboard yet to deal with a notch. So, in the /e/ Oreo build typically the majority of icons just vanishing behind the notch. That was petty dull.
- Under AOSP-Android-**Pie **(and /e/) there are luckily some basic presets foreseen how to deal notches. Concretely that means: as soon as there are more icons (on the left and right side of the notch) than space available to display them, little dots are coming up to indicate that icons are hidden. Furthermore, once the user is opening the pull-down menu, all icons from the right side of the screen are displayed. This is an easy solution.
Even under Pie - for phones with large notches 2 observations can be made:
- There are almost all the time the little dots shown to indicate that some information is hidden.
- The 'dots' take a lot of space themselves (space that is already limited).
My proposal is to make an option available within the /e/ settings for a minimalistic status bar. A minimalistic status bar could include
- ...on the left side of the notch: Only the current Time.
- ...on the right side of the notch: Either (1) only the **Battery **icon or (2) icons for Battery, Wifi, GSM signal. In case of a dual SIM usage there would be 2 GSM signal icons. Ideally, all other icons would still be available within the pull-down menu (as foreseen in Pie).
This feature would be helpful for phones with large notches but as well for users preferring a tidy home screen that is reduced to essential information.
Relevant screenshots
