One of the biggest selling point of Android is its open source nature, that allows users to customize the OS to suit their own needs. Of course this requires a certain degree of technical competency that a lot of “regular” users lack. Luckily, actual “computer scientists” have been working hard to create custom ROMs for the everyday user to enjoy.
One such group of custom ROM creators is Team Kang, responsible for bringing to you the Android Open Kang Project (AOKP). The AOKP ROMs provide extensive customization and have gone from strength-to-strength in over 30 builds, to become one of the most popular Android custom ROMs around.
If you were impressed with Team Kang and the AOKP so far, the next customization takes it to a whole new level.
The three-button navigation bar on Android 4.0 devices has, till now, served as a replacement for physical menu buttons. But with the AOKP build 30, that is not the case anymore. The latest release from Team Kang brings the possibility to fully customize the navigation bar, with features including:
- Increase the number of buttons on the navigation bar from 3 to 5
- You can customize each button to assign other actions (apart from the standard back, home, and app list) as well as applications
- You can also include separate long press actions for every button
- You can customize the icons of these buttons
- Integration with NovaLauncher actions
- Fixed T9 dialer
- Fixed ROM Control issues with saving images
- Speeding up default animation
- Added option to disable camera sounds
Of course, flashing your device with a custom ROM comes with a set of standard warnings. There is always a small risk of something going wrong, leaving you with a previously-expensive brick. Always remember to backup your device before going through with custom ROM flashing, and being somewhat familiar with the process helps.
What are your thoughts? Is the customization of the navigation bar important to you? What are the first apps or actions you will add to the navigation bar?
