Clock in the status bar. How to Hide Status Bar Icons on Android Devices
Greetings, dear readers and admirers of Helpix. Today I present to your attention a tweak for pure Android - GravityBox version 3.5.7 for Android 4.2 (4.4 and 5 have their own versions) from the developer C3C076.
Applications for decorating the graphical interface of the operating system have always been, are and will be... there. There are resources. But nevertheless, the demand for them, as well as the supply, does not dry out. At one time, Android was served under the guise of fully customizable GUI to suit the tastes of the end consumer - you and me. At this point in time (it was 2015 in the morning), there are a lot of applications for decorating and transforming Android, well, just a lot. You can change everything, and not just change the picture on your desktop.
There are also various tweak applications for optimizing the performance of Android (in general, there are tweaks for any OS, but we are talking about Android for now). Stock Android does not have all the settings we need and want.
Many manufacturers of smartphones and tablets, especially large ones (Samsung, Sony, LG, Lenovo, HTC, etc.), have long taken the path of developing their own, supposedly unique user interfaces for Android. You buy, for example, a Samsung smartphone and get TouchWiz. And along with HTC, Sense comes into play. Lenovo installs, you won’t believe it, Lenovo Launcher on its devices (I wonder if this is an ambitious name or if there just wasn’t enough imagination for another name?). The proprietary user interface, of course, gives the user much greater customization options, as well as a more pleasant and beautiful (controversial point) appearance. But do you like everything about the proprietary firmware? Or is there something you wouldn’t mind changing? But, as you know, you can’t please everyone. And manufacturers tend to make their firmware (launchers, user interfaces) not only effective, but also spectacular, which is not always beneficial.
In addition to branded firmware, there are so-called custom or unofficial firmware. The meaning is the same, but the premises are diametrically opposed. Branded firmware comes from the manufacturer and imposes something of its own on us. Custom firmware is handicrafts made by enthusiasts (singles or small groups), designed for the needs of ordinary users. The enthusiasts themselves are the same users as we are, only they know and are able to do a little (or not a little) more than us. The advantages of unofficial firmware are many additional functions (useful and cosmetic) and programs, often root rights, as well as speed of operation and so on. But glitches are not uncommon, so there’s no need to hide them.
It is with these intricacies of thoughts that I bring you to the topic of today’s review. After all, you don’t have to reflash it, you can install GravityBox and change the stock (and not only stock) firmware beyond recognition. Completely unrecognizable both in appearance and partially in functionality. You can selectively customize the firmware of your device so that it suits exactly your tastes, preferences and desires, and not the tastes of guys from Samsung, Lenovo, LG, Google and others.
What can GravityBox do? Is it worth the trouble? After all, the device will have to be rooted, without this there is no way. The list of GravityBox capabilities is quite wide and large; just look at the main form:
That is, you can:
As you can see, you can do such a lot of things that you’ll get pumped up! Or you'll fall. You will fall off your feet from surprise or lose heart at the sight of a brick that you will now have to reflash to revive it. Therefore, I will repeat the developer: do not install GravityBox until you have made a full backup of the system. I made a backup - go for a walk safely.
So, let's throw ourselves into the abyss of settings and modes. But let's start with the initial data, that is, with our experimental subject. This is a Lenovo P780 with Android 4.2.1 on board and Lenovo Launcher installed on top.
It should be noted that GravityBox is not guaranteed to work on Samsung TouchWiz, HTC Sense, MIUI and LeWa. Not guaranteed, but not prohibited either. I tried installing GravityBox on a Samsung 3 Lite tablet: many functions did not work, but many felt right at home (especially the settings for the status bar, fan menu and navigation bar). On some devices, GravityBox may not even start. Lenovo Launcher was unable to do anything against GravityBox and surrendered to the mercy of the winner in almost all positions.
And one more thing. You haven't forgotten, have you? Remember that all this
I’ll note right away that I won’t rewrite or screenshot every single setting, otherwise it won’t be a review, but a multi-volume instruction manual. I will mention simple and uninteresting settings in a word or two. Let's get started.
Lock screen settings
In the "Lock screen background" section, we configure, of course, the background of the lock screen. Filling with color, standard (from the desktop) and custom wallpaper, last screen as wallpaper, disabling the lock screen shadow - all this is selected here. Everything works, only I didn’t like the last screen as wallpaper on the lock screen because it takes too long to think (while it’s taking a screenshot, while it’s applying it, etc.).
The "Unlock Ring" section is more interesting. And the item “Unlock ring shortcuts” is interesting.
If you've ever been annoyed by the clutter of icons at the top of your Android home screen, good news: there's a way to fix it.
It turns out that there are 3 secret settings for Android users, and one of them will allow you to hide or show icons in the status bar. You can also rearrange the contents of the Quick Settings panel from the drop-down menu (status bar) as easily as making a small but important adjustment to the Android battery indicator.
You won't find these settings poking around in the standard settings screen. Instead, you first need to unlock the hidden UI settings (System UI Tuner). Here's how to do it.
How to open System UI Tuner
First, slide down the Quick Settings panel at the top of the screen, then press and hold the settings button (the one that looks like a gear) in the top right corner of the screen.
Press and hold the Settings button until you see a small wrench icon appear. Hold the Settings button long enough and a small wrench icon will appear next to the Settings button. Once you see the wrench, click on the Settings button again, then scroll all the way down to the new settings section - System UI Tuner.
When you first launch System UI Tuner, you'll see a warning that says (excerpt) "these features may change, break, or disappear in future updates" and "proceed with caution." Click Got It to continue and don't worry, you can always disable System UI Tuner if you don't want to bother with such "experimental" settings in Android anymore.
Once you have turned off the warning, you will have access to the System UI Tuner settings. Let's take a tour.
Re-sorting the Quick Settings panel buttons
You probably already know how to open the Quick Settings panel using a two-finger swipe down from the top edge of the screen. What you may still not know is that you have the ability to add, remove, and rearrange Quick Settings panel buttons, at least using the System UI Tuner.
You can rearrange or hide any quick settings buttons you want, all with a little help from System UI Tuner. Click Quick Settings on the System UI Tuner home screen and you'll see the standard Quick Settings button bar.
To move a button, press and hold, then drag it over another button, the two locations will move. To hide a button from the Quick Settings panel, press and hold it, then drag it onto the delete icon. To bring back any removed buttons, click Add Tile, then click the button's name.
If you want to return the old Quick Settings buttons, tap the three-dot menu button in the top right corner of the screen, then tap Reset.
Status bar control
If all the icons - Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, alarm and do not disturb - in the Android status bar are too large, System UI Tuner will help you reduce them.
Simply tap the switch to hide a specific icon from your Android device's status bar. Tap the status bar settings to see a list of ten status bar icons, ranging from Casts and Hotspot to mobile data and airplane mode, each with its own toggle. By default, each icon is enabled; To disable the icon, simply turn off the switch.
You can disable almost any icon in the status bar except the battery indicator and clock.
If you want to more accurately track your Android device's battery charge, you can use the System UI Tuner to add a percentage indication to the stock Android icon.
A simple System UI Tuner will add a percentage value to the Android battery icon. Return to the main System UI Tuner screen, then tap Show Battery Level. Once you do this, you will see a small percentage on the battery icon at the top of the status bar.
Deactivating the System UI Tuner panel
Google doesn't make any promises about removing features from its hidden System UI Tuner. As you may recall, a pop-up message when you launch Tuner warns that any and all of its customization options may change or disappear at any time.
If you'd rather not worry about when your favorite new settings will disappear, you can simply delete them in advance. On the main System UI Tuner screen, click on the three dots button in the top right corner of the screen, and then click Remove from Settings.
You can always change your mind, of course; Just go back to quick settings by swiping down and press and hold the Settings button.
Content
Some time ago, on the World Wide Web, I read an article that once again compared the Windows and Linux operating systems. In addition to various objective pros and cons, that article expressed a very interesting, original thesis. Linux is better because the clock shows seconds as well as minutes. Behind all the comedy of the situation lies, by and large, a sad truth. The standard Windows clock is pretty limited and doesn't really tell you the seconds. Standard Windows and Linux Tools
It's no secret that in Windows XP the clock is located in the system tray. They display hours and minutes. The design of the clock directly depends on the current system theme. You cannot change the background or clock font separately. When you hover your mouse over the clock, a tooltip appears with the current date. Double-clicking opens their properties. You can change the current time and date, select a time zone, enable or disable automatic daylight saving time, and synchronize data with exact time servers.
When it comes to Linux, it's best to consider the two most popular desktop environments, KDE and GNOME, which include time display tools. Clocks in KDE come in four varieties. The first and second methods, called “simple” and “digital” respectively, provide time display using numbers. You can also display the current date. The differences between the two modes boil down to the presence of additional styling in “digital” watches. You can change the background textures, add a shadow and a blinking minutes and seconds separator. Analog watches imply the presence of a dial. At the bottom of the indicator you can place the date and current day of the week. It is possible to enable anti-aliasing of graphic elements. The “inaccurate clock” mode allows you to look at the time not in the language of numbers, but in colloquial phrases. “What time is it?” - the question is mentally asked, and the eyes are drawn to the area of the system tray. “It’s ten to one,” the clock politely answers. You can adjust the degree of inaccuracy of the watch by introducing new phrases into its vocabulary, for example, a joyful cry of “day off!” 
Left-clicking on the clock opens a compact calendar. The right mouse button is responsible for calling up the context menu, from which you can launch various time setting tools.
Setting up the clock and system time software module is represented by various tools. In the second case, the root password is required. 
The clock included with the GNOME desktop environment can operate in a standard 24-hour mode, as well as display UNIX time and Internet time. The second and third options are not popular modes accessible to the uninitiated user.
The clock is set using a compact dialog box. You can turn on the display of seconds, and in relation to the 24-hour mode, also display the current date and time in Greenwich Mean Time. 
From all of the above, it is easy to conclude that the KDE and GNOME time display tools have more advanced capabilities than their standard Windows counterpart. However, this injustice is more than eliminated by a large number of applications from third-party developers. Programs that expand the capabilities of time display in the Windows operating system will be discussed in this guide.
The actions of alarm clocks may vary. If you only want to hear the sound, you can select playback through the standard speaker of the system unit (you can specify the tone frequency and its duration) or launch an audio file in WAV or MP3 format (you can specify the file on your hard drive). The program includes a rich set of preinstalled sounds. In addition, saying the time out loud is allowed. For this purpose, the Speech API built into the system is used. If you do not have one installed, then this module can be downloaded from the official website. Russian speech language is supported. Time is spoken by a pleasant female voice, a bit reminiscent in intonation of EVA from the game Command & Conquer. Finally, the last option is to play the music CD in your CD-ROM drive.
In addition to alarm sound actions, you can assign other types of operations by selecting them from a predefined list. You can launch or close any application, change the theme of the described program, hide or show clocks and reminders, synchronize time, execute Winamp commands and much more.
By default, the program speaks the time out loud every half hour. You can turn on your voice at any time using the Win+S keyboard shortcut, which can be changed in the program settings.
The program supports displaying timer reminders. Their appearance resembles yellow sticky notes - notes attached to monitors in offices. You enter some text into them. You can specify a URL. In this case, after the reminder is displayed, using a separate context menu command, you can open the address in the browser installed on the system by default. The appearance of notes can be customized. You can change transparency, background and text colors, and font. In addition, you can make sure that the window with the note is always on top of all other windows. It is also possible to prohibit its movement across the screen.
AceClock XP supports the creation of timers. Their job is to count down time. You need to enter a name for the timer and set it for a specific time, up to a maximum of 9999 hours. After it starts, the countdown can be displayed in a special window. If you don’t want to see it, you can turn on hidden mode, and only when the countdown is completed, a corresponding message will appear on the screen.
A very interesting feature of the AceClock XP program is the Calendar. This is exactly what the module, which independently calculates the number of days between any two dates, is called tenderly and affectionately. A similar task often faces secretaries, HR specialists, and accountants. Under normal conditions, problems are solved by manually counting the number of days on any calendar. The program in question performs a similar operation on its own, saving the user from tedious, monotonous work.
The program supports the creation of several profiles. Each Windows user can have their own set of settings.
You can change any hotkeys supported by the program. By default, three actions are offered.
AceClock XP supports creating a contact list indicating users' birthdays. You can schedule a reminder to be sent when a holiday occurs. The program does not contain tools for importing contacts from any external applications.
AceClock XP was created by Russian-speaking programmers and, as a result, has a competent, convenient Russian interface, as well as detailed Help. Thanks to its wide capabilities, thanks to a thousand pleasant little things, this program can replace a whole group of specialized utilities without any reservations.
It is worth noting one serious drawback of AceClock XP. When the program is running, serious problems begin in the system. While saying the time out loud, some applications, such as games, crash with an error. Several popular programs also crashed on startup if AceClock XP was in memory. The program is very interesting, but before deciding to purchase it, you need to carefully check the system for the absence of conflicts.
August 12, 2014 at 5:07 pmProblems with time and time zones in Android and ways to solve them
- System administration
- Tutorial
Let's say you've been using Android for a long time, and therefore it may seem that it copes perfectly with time synchronization tasks - alarms go off on time, there are no obvious time deviations, etc. However, are you completely sure where Android comes from? actually receives data about the exact time and time zones? If you have any doubts about how this works, welcome to cat.
Android has two problems with time: its unpredictable synchronization and the need to update time zone data even in the latest version of the OS.
Background: Android is a mobile OS based on the Linux kernel, it easily connects to the Internet and, of course, one can assume that time synchronization is carried out using NTP, however, this is not the case. Historically, Android was intended to be used exclusively on mobile phones (think version 1.6). At the same time, only by the 3rd major version did it acquire an interface for tablets and other progress began towards unifying the interface and OS hardware. However, even versions 4.4 and Android L receive time signals using the same methods that the Nokia 3310 and other earlier GSM/3GPP phones received them, i.e. from cell towers when registering on the network (when connected to the tower). At the same time, tablets or other devices without a communication module, in principle, do not have the ability to synchronize time automatically.
Unfortunately, in order to teach Android to synchronize time completely automatically using NTP, we need root access because there is currently no API for accurately setting the time in Android.
Let's get started. The first thing you need to do is turn off time synchronization with the mobile network. At the same time, I recommend leaving the time zone setting in automatic mode, and turning it off only if there is a guarantee that the device will operate in stationary mode.
Screenshot of the settings window “Settings -> Date and time” of Android 4.x version:
Next, you need to install the ClockSync application, which will act as an alternative to the time synchronization daemon using NTP.
Screenshots of the ClockSync program window before synchronization (left) and after (right):
The screenshots show that the difference with the exact time turned out to be quite small, however, there are different situations, for some the time on the device can even float back and forth because the operator did not bother to put things in order on his BS.
After making sure that everything works, we’ll set up automatic synchronization in the ClockSync program. To improve accuracy, I recommend enabling the “High Accuracy Mode” and “Only via WI-FI” options. If with the first option everything is clear from the description in the program (see screenshot below), then I recommend enabling the second option primarily not for reasons of saving mobile traffic, but because the mobile Internet is not able to guarantee at least some stable delays.
A little more about accuracy:
The still widespread mobile Internet of the 2nd (GPRS/EDGE) is, in principle, unable to provide stable transmission delays. Even the Internet of the 3rd (3G) and, to some extent, 4th (LTE/LTE-advanced) generations, when the network or communication channels between BS are heavily loaded, which is a typical situation for large populated areas, cannot guarantee stable delays. Therefore, even with approximation, the final accuracy of time setting can be worse than a fraction of a second and can even easily reach several seconds.
Screenshot of automatic synchronization settings in ClockSync:
In connection with large-scale changes in time zones in the Russian Federation in the fall of this year, it is necessary now to think about updating information about them on all devices, and if there are no problems with supported desktop OSes, then in Android even the latest version of the OS contains outdated data. To make sure of this, install TimeZone Fixer and observe an unsightly picture.
A screenshot of the TimeZone Fixer program running on Android 4.4.4 (Cyanogenmod firmware dated August 4, 2014), which clearly shows that the data in the firmware is out of date:
A little bit of common sense and concern for users:
The author of the TimeZone Fixer program warns us that updating time zone data files can completely “break” the device and even gives recommendations on how to protect yourself from additional problems, although the cases of problems are isolated and very specific - this is really good care for ordinary users.
That’s the only reason I included this piece in the article; although it is not directly related to the problem, it is a really good example of caring for users. At the same time, the warning about versions 4.3+ is caused by only a small number of reviews about the program for devices with new OS versions, so please be sure to write a review about this application after use.
After updating the time zone data, the program will offer to reboot, however, I recommend rebooting the device yourself through the system menu since the program performs a reboot that is actually equivalent to a reset, which, although with a low probability, can lead to problems and data loss.
I will be happy to answer any questions or make additions that the community deems necessary, however, I would like to avoid overloading the article with additional information in order to adhere to the format of a compact guide to solving a specific problem.
UPD: This instruction completely solves the problem of time zones only for versions younger than 4.4. From version 4.4, additional patching is needed, while the issue is at the stage of exploring the possibilities for creating a user-friendly solution.