Option to hide the top toolbar during AAC use

[juanjofau]

I would like to propose an option to hide the top toolbar in Asterics Grid (Edit, Fullscreen, Lock, Search, etc.) during normal use as an AAC communicator.

On an Android tablet, this toolbar takes up a considerable amount of screen space, in addition to the Android system bars. In my case, the user is a child and never uses these functions during communication. This space would be much more useful for displaying additional pictograms.

The current fullscreen option is not a practical solution for this scenario on Android. When the tablet is locked and unlocked, the browser exits fullscreen mode. Also, a simple swipe-down gesture can exit fullscreen. Since the user is a child and does not manually activate fullscreen again, in practice this option ends up not being used.

For this reason, I downloaded the Asterics Grid source code and made a small modification to test a possible solution.

The logic of my prototype is as follows:

• When the system is unlocked: everything works exactly as it does now. The top toolbar remains visible, both in edit mode and outside of edit mode.
• When the system is locked for normal AAC use: the top toolbar is hidden, leaving that space available for the communication grid.
• Two small floating buttons are displayed:
• one allows the system to be unlocked again using a multi-tap sequence, giving the caregiver access to the toolbar;
• the other allows the user to enter or exit fullscreen mode when needed.
• When fullscreen mode is active: only the fullscreen button is displayed, allowing the user to exit fullscreen. The unlock button remains hidden.

This way, the normal Asterics Grid interface remains unchanged when it is unlocked, and the toolbar is only hidden when the system is locked for everyday AAC use.

In my testing, these floating buttons have worked very well and do not interfere with the user's normal use of the communicator. They remain accessible when needed, while staying out of the way during normal communication.

The result works very well for my use case.

I have attached several screenshots:

1. Current situation on Android: the space occupied by the Android interface and the Asterics Grid top toolbar.

2. My prototype: the toolbar hidden during locked use.

3. Access to the toolbar: the floating controls used to unlock the system and manage fullscreen mode.

4. Fullscreen mode: only the button to exit fullscreen is displayed.

Would it be possible to consider adding an option such as “Hide toolbar during use”, while keeping a simple mechanism for the caregiver to access it when needed?

[juanjofau]

I have also attached a file containing the changes I made for the prototype mentioned above, in case it is of interest or useful for reference.

The changes are very simple. The intention was only to create a functional proof of concept to test the idea in practice and see how it worked in real use.

changes.md

[klues]

Hello,
thanks for your idea and implementation. I like the idea of better using the screen space 👍
I've just sent you an invitation for the Github repository. So you could push your changes to a branch like 859-hide-top-toolbar and then create a Pull Request. This will trigger an automatic beta build, which I and other people then could directly test. And I will also be able to directly see and review the code changes.

[juanjofau]

Gracias por la invitación al repositorio y por la propuesta de crear una rama y una beta para poder probar los cambios.
He preparado una versión de prueba del prototipo actual:

https://gridbeta-github.asterics-foundation.org/juanjofau/859-hide-top-toolbar

Primero hice una prueba sencilla en la que, al pulsar el botón de bloquear, la barra superior se ocultaba automáticamente.
Después probé una segunda opción: añadir un pequeño selector en la barra de herramientas para elegir qué ocurre al bloquear la interfaz.

• Si el selector está desactivado, el bloqueo mantiene el comportamiento actual y la barra superior sigue visible.
• Si el selector está activado, al bloquear se oculta la barra superior y aparecen los controles flotantes para desbloquear y gestionar la pantalla completa.

De momento, el estado del selector no es persistente y vuelve a su valor por defecto al recargar. Si se mantiene esta opción, la idea sería guardar su estado de forma persistente en el dispositivo.

En la opción más simple, sin selector, el comportamiento sería fijo: siempre que se bloquee la interfaz, la barra superior se ocultaría automáticamente. En ese caso no sería necesario guardar ningún estado adicional de forma persistente, porque la propia variable de bloqueo sería suficiente para decidir si la barra debe mostrarse u ocultarse.

El control flotante de pantalla completa funciona de forma independiente: siempre aparece al entrar en modo de pantalla completa, aunque la interfaz no esté bloqueada y aunque el selector esté desactivado.

La duda principal es si tiene sentido conservar las dos posibilidades o si, estando bloqueada la interfaz, sería mejor ocultar siempre la barra y dejar únicamente los controles flotantes necesarios. Como en modo bloqueado la mayoría de las acciones de la barra ya no se pueden utilizar, quizá mantenerla visible no aporte demasiado valor, salvo que en el futuro se añadiera algún control adicional que sí resultara útil en ese estado.