I have a friend from out-of-town visiting this weekend, so I may miss tomorrow’s call.
Regarding 3.0, I brought this up last month, but wanted to mention it again. The removal of the “Back Button Behavior” User Interface setting, without alternative navigation options, makes it much more inconvenient to open the nav drawer. It requires you to tap the top left corner. It would be nice if A) the removal could be reverted, or B) some alternate means of navigation between screens could be added.
You can still swipe to open the navigation bar, even with gesture navigation. Just swipe slightly diagonally. See gif for demonstration of all swipe directions. This works in all apps that have side bars.
This does not work on my Pixel 7, running Android 13, on a recent develop build.
Have you increased the sensitivity of the “back” gesture setting on Android’s settings screen? The screen says “Higher sensitivity might conflict with any app gestures”.
Moved discussion to a new topic
I had it at normal sensitivity. I changed to low, and was finally able to open the navigation drawer. However, it still takes me several attempts. It is also much easier to trigger with my thumb than with my pointer finger.
IMO this is still a significant step backwards in usability.
Getting easier to trigger the nav menu the more I try. Will probably be much easier once I train my thumb properly.
I personally have yet to use the new build being discussed, but I depend on back button behavior setting — as do many AntennaPod users. I access pods by tag/folder drop-downs in the side nav/drawer, which also allows me to see new episode count at a glance (an important workaround for new ep notif bugs). It’s imperative that ease of opening and closing side nav retains both options.
Since we can’t depend on phone manufacturers to remain consistent, especially as more companies deviate from stock Android (RIP OnePlus), it’s risky to remove such a stable uniform feature. As we can already see, Samsung is being it’s usual petty self & not playing well with others. Unless back gesture/button needs to be utilized for diff app function going forward (other than exiting), it’s harmless to simply leave it be as an option.
I also gotta represent my people with tendonitis and thumbs: Android moving hamburger menu to top-left & only alt is extending thumb to middle-left edge for swipe, is murdering our thumb-joints (except for lucky left-handed peeps). It’s an accessibility issue. Phones are [still] getting bigger, wallets getting smaller, and hands remain the same. Mine have hypermobile joints (fun party trick, but painful existence in thicc phone-era). However, lots of people dislocate thumbs repeatedly throughout their day by over-extending thumb across screen while fingers grip phone. Most don’t notice until tendonitis develops.
Some final considerations for not killing the back button:
), finding something to knock shit off the top shelf with? You get the idea.
I for one really appreciate the thoughtfulness & creativity behind making swipe gesture diagonal to avoid accidental swipes. I look forward to getting this in an update, but it’s gotta come with back button option lifeline. These navigation tools fundamentally work in tandem. Due to app’s central design around side nav menu (which is technically a drawer, FYI) — nothing can justify removing back button menu functionality. Arguably, back button nav setting should be enabled by default, given its utility is so intuitive to Android users that I almost deleted this app right after download 3 yrs ago out of frustration… until I found this setting — b/c I couldn’t accomplish much before accidentally exiting the app over & over & over again! Thank God I went thru settings before uninstalling, because I love this app.
Both features can, and should, coexist. New menu gesture will be major improvement, but only if back button isn’t arbitrarily removed just to hardily nudge OG users into dependency on singular gesture. If it ain’t broke, don’t remove it! I beg you.
The world needs more gestures — not less!
I doubt it’ll make much of a difference - not that I have the gall to complain about such a great free product! - but I just wanted to add my 2 cents and say that I am also very disappointed to see the “swipe to open menu” option disappear.
Additionally, the “diagonal swipe” mentioned by @ByteHamster does not work on my device (Asus Zenfone 9 running Android 13, which for what it’s worth is supposedly very close to stock Android).
(I did check the sensitivity of the “back” gesture setting on Android’s settings screen, and it is at the default (medium) setting.)
I agree, I want the back button behaviour setting back. I don’t even use gestures, I still use my 3 button navigation bar. But swiping my thumb to get the hamburger menu actually hurts me, and despite not using gestures, I can’t trigger it reliably.
I would rather use the back button instead.
I’ve got a big phone and small hands, having the back button swipe to show the side bar is a must.
Swiping diagonally does not work on my phone unfortunately, and doing an L shaped swipe is a hit and miss. Please leave that setting in AntennaPod.
Arguably, back button nav setting should be enabled by default, given its utility is so intuitive to Android users that I almost deleted this app right after download 3 yrs ago out of frustration
Wow, I just discovered this option today after having that same painful experience for the last year. This should be the default. In addition, with an opened drawer, swiping to the right twice should exit the app, swiping to the left close the drawer.
Whatever is done, could we be sure to keep the behavior to open the navigation drawer with the back button? I use this incredibly handy shortcut dozens of times a day and I’d be intensely sad to see it go.
To anyone who hasn’t tried, I highly recommend giving it a shot. You get the best of both worlds: retaining the normal Android behavior of rewinding through the app component stack, with the added bonus of opening (and closing) the drawer when the stack bottoms out — all while not having to reach for any awkward part of the screen, or indeed change your hand placement at all. The only thing you lose is the ability to close the app with one or two back gestures, but for those who rarely or never do this, it’s amazing. It’s so useful, I find myself wishing it was the standard Android behavior for all apps…maybe some day.
The only change I would add is to allow users to always rewind just one more step (if applicable) into a chosen home view (for me it’d be Queue), so that that view was quickly accessible from anywhere through back gestures alone…but this is a minor wish & likely deserves it’s own topic.
(I hope I won’t hijack the topic but I was meaning to ask about back-button behaviour and this topic popped up.)
I’m still on the last stable version and there is one thing that was bugging me for a long time - going back to the “main view” (i.e. queue in my case). I consider it the starting point and where I operate and manage episodes to listen. Sometimes I venture to particular podcast to see list of the episodes or other general sections (episodes, subscriptions, downloads). By default, if I’m in non-main section, using back simply closes the app and then it opens in that section. I can configure back button to open drawer.
I’n my case, ideal flow for the back button would be:
For example k9mail does it like that (without opening the drawer): if I’m in the inbox/unified inbox in closes the app but if I’m in any non-inbox folder then it first goes back to inbox/unified inbox and then closes the app.
@wojtek Glad to hear I’m not the only one. AntennaPod actually breaks Android standards by not letting you return to where you were previously in the navigation stack. As I said, it’s not the biggest deal, and AP is still the best podcast player, but I think this should be looked at someday as I’ve heard a number of people bring it up now. Even after years of daily use, it still catches me unaware multiple times a day.
Workaround: AP exports shortcuts for many of its activities, letting you trigger them via any of a wide range of 3rd-party, launcher-type apps out there. If you have Samsung, I highly recommend their amazing One Hand Operation + as it simply can’t be beat in terms of polish, convenience & low-level integration with the OS. One swipe from the edge brings up my queue from literally any screen in any app, even the lock screen. I also like Panels, though dozens of other options exist.
I believe in version 2 you have a settings in user interface to choose what happen when using back button.
I am using beta version and I am on 3.0.2. Now the settings has been changed (I don’t remember when) to set your default screen when opening AntennaPod. The default is home and when tapping back button you get back to previous screens until you reach your default screen and then it closes.
You are correct there was a setting and it has 5 options but they are not as expected - the default quits the app and on reopenign returns where you were (selected podcast for example). There is another one that opens the drawer but it’s just that - open and close the drawer without changing anything…
Oh! that sounds awesome and basically what I’m looking for <3
Just got updated to 3.0.2 from f-droid and it works as expected now! <3
Thank you 
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