Part 1 of the Android 2600 projectI set out to make a simple frontend for Android by customising an existing launcher (Nova Launcher) in combination with other utilities. Aim was to completely strip away all of the Android components (Dock, Status Bar, Navigation Bar, Search Bar, Home Screen, Lock screen, icons, widgets etc) and simply have one page per system with a themed background. Games for each systems will be run via shortcuts which are given images (screenshots or boxarts). Rather than litter the screens with game shortcuts I opted to use a hidden folder on each page. Having only this one item on each page allows the user to cycle through systems with one press of the controller (left or right).
It was possible to strip down most of the Android screen elements by configuring
Nova Launcher. Config details are posted below.
I used the
full!screen app to hide the status bar and the icons that appear in the touch areas.
The OS I am using is Android v4.1 (Jelly Bean) on a rooted device. Refer to
part 2 for the hardware and firmwire I'm using.
Screen is set at 1980x1080 at 60hz with HDMI output. The device supports other screen resolutions.
I made a custom boot animation and applied it using the
Boot Animations app. For now, I simply use a static gif image but it is also possible to generate an intro from an animated gif. There are some examples of ready made intros at
http://androidbootanimation.com/It is also possible to change the boot logo which appears briefly before the boot animation. For this I will need to modify the boot image (firmware) and reflash the hardware. I'll take a look at that later.
To allow multiple wallpaper backgrounds (one per system) I installed
Multipicture Live Wallpaper and made some of my own HD backgrounds.
I've attached my Photoshop template (EDIT: oh no i haven't - it's too big) and the JPEG backgrounds can be viewed at
http://imgur.com/a/hmxbz#0I include the system name as part of the background image in bottom-right corner. Originally I had used the system name artwork on the games folder but it wasn't quite big enough. The hidden games folder is in the same location, bottom-right.
The games folder is hidden by simply setting its image to be a 1x1 pixel transparent gif.
Nova Launcher allows shortcut creation for some applications including most of the console emulators that I have installed. After creating a shortcut, I apply artwork and move the shortcut to the hidden games folder.
I used
Font Installer to change the default Android font - which is used for the game names.
I've installed these emulators so-far.
* ATARoid
* NESoid
* SNESoid
* GENSoid
* N64oid / Mupen64
* PCE (PC Engine/Turbografx)
* GAMEBoid
* GEARoid (Gamegear and MasterSystem)
* FPse (PS1)
I'm mainly focussed on consoles for this project. There are many other emulators on Android for me to test including MAME, NEOGEO, CPS, NDS, Saturn, Amiga, C64, GBC, PSP, Scumm
I made some notes on setting up:
<SETTING UP>
Install these apps:
* Nova Launcher
* Nova Launcher Prime - optional
* full!screen
* Multipicture Live Wallpaper
* Font Installer Root
* Boot Animations Root
Run full!screen app and apply these settings:
* full!screen mode > On
* Autostart > On
* Show notification > Off
* Set opacity (of touch areas) > 0% (to hide the home button/corner buttons)
Run Font Installer app:
* Install Dekar font (or the Droid font maybe to match the android|2600 logo)
In Android Settings:
* Display > Auto hide systembar
* Display > Font Size > Large (or Huge)
* Screen > Screen Scale > Extend to Max (if you have a black border to remove)
* Screen > Output Interface > HDMI (it was the only option)
* Screen > Display Mode > 1920x1080p-60
In Nova settings:
* Nova > Select Default Home as Nova Launcher (if not set already)
* Desktop > Desktop Grid > 5x5
* Desktop > Width Margin > None
* Desktop > Height Margin > None
* Desktop > Persistent Search Bar > Never
* Desktop > Home Screens - Create a screen for each system
* Desktop > Lock Desktop > On
* Drawer > Inifinite Scroll > Off
* Drawer > Advanced > Remember Position > On
* Dock > Enable Dock > Off
* Dock > Show Divider > Off
* Dock > Show Scroll Indicator > Off
* Folders > Label Icons > On
* Look and feel > Show notification bar > Off
* Look and feel > Scroll Speed > Relaxed
* New Apps > Auto Add Shortcuts > Off
On Desktop:
* Remove all widgets
* Remove all app icons (can still access all apps with long left click on desktop)
* Set the active wallpaper as "Multipicture Live Wallpaper"
Change settings of the live wallpaper, we want to have individual settings for each screen.
* In screen settings > Add inidividual settings (this creates screen 1 settings)
* In the screen 1 settings, set picture source to JPEG image of first system e.g. NES
* Set crop/resize ratio > show entire picture
* In Drawing Settings > Transition Type > None (Fade and outside-cube work well too)
* Repeat these steps for all other system screens
</SETTING UP>
Would be cool for others to replicate this setup and suggest ways that it can be improved.
One thing I'd like to improve is to have bigger boxarts/screenshots for the game images. AFAIK it is not possible to increase size more than 130% unless I start hacking at the launcher .APK file and force some changes that way.
Can anybody help me to create an intro animation using the Android 2600 logo?
I made a short video of the frontend on my main project thread. I'll try to post some pics of this running on my TV soon.