Shortly after Facebook announced the Chat Heads feature of Facebook Home, the folks behind ParanoidAndroid started expanding that idea into a new take on multitasking. HALO was the result, but it was exclusive to ParanoidAndroid. I say was, because HALO has just been open sourced.
[EMBED_YT]https://youtu.be/d5WljHcOyXs
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The code has been added to a Github for other ROM developers and curious users to play around with. HALO is still in beta, but the feature set has come along quite well in recent weeks. The code in Git still needs some cleaning up, though. Support for the tablet UI and PIE could use some work too. After seeing no show-stopping bugs, all changes available in Git have been merged with the main PA branch. ParanoidAndroid lists the full alterations as follows:
- HALO has white & blacklists now. Blacklists prevent apps from pinging through HALO. Whitelists do the same but only allow pinging when you explicitly allow it for individual apps.
- Everything is silenced
- Dismissal of notifications has been improved
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PA Wallpapers has been taken out of the rom and can be downloaded for free on Google Play Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.paranoid.wallpapers - DCHSPA symbol when the DCHSPA network is being used.
- Dirk Rettschlag's Quick unlock
- PIE option for empty angle (the start gap)
- Brightness dialog updates
- StatusBar Date/Time layout changes
- Option to use volume keys to control media volume anytime
- Launcher does not need to be started when you go in and out of full screen (no more black flicker)
These points are of most interest to current ParanoidAndroid HALO users. Everyone else can look forward to seeing this interesting feature make its way into other ROMs soon.