Gadgetory

who doesn't love a little Monday evening Android customization I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is how to customize the soft neva Gatien buttons on your Android device customization is one of Android strongest suits it's the only platform that truly puts the power in the hands of its users and allows them to create a truly customized and personalized experience there is literally no end to the number of changes you can make to your device's UI you can change the launcher the keyboard the theme of the keyboard the ROM recovery and practically every pixel of the device's interface until recently however there's been one part of the Android UI that's not quite as easy to change the soft navigation buttons sure there have been customized navigation buttons in various roms since CyanogenMod 9 most notably paranoid android with integrated PI controls if you want a truly custom experience paranoid Android is definitely worth checking out but if you want something that's much more plug-and-play the easiest way to customize your navigation buttons is with solved key Z it's an application that can be downloaded from Google Play in a matter of seconds though there are some caveats the application itself is a dollar ninety-nine it requires root and it requires busybox to be installed if none of that turns you away soft key Z is certainly worth checking out simply download the application and open it when the super user prompt appears grant the application permission and read through the tutorial if that's your sort of thing before you do anything else you may want to consider hitting the backup button at the top of the app which will backup your stock button configuration to go one step further as it should be second nature to anyone who mods regularly it's a smart idea to also perform a nandroid backup before beginning as this will alter some framework files if you somehow lose your original back up you can simply restore the nandroid backup and start over once you've taken care of all the precautionary steps you're ready to start customizing your navigation buttons simply open the application hit the Skip start soft easy button press Continue and begin selecting the style of navigation buttons you want you can choose an entire set mix a match or you can even import your own again now is a great time to hit the backup button before you get started just so you can get back to the original configuration once you have selected the soft buttons you want simply press the check box your phone will perform a quick soft boot and once the boot finishes and you slide past the lock screen you will see the brand-new navigation buttons you picked out neat and simple to revert to the stock button configuration open the application again press the backup button at the top and simply select apply backup the phone will once again reboot and when it does the original soft buttons will be back in place and if you want to test your skills you can attempt to make your own buttons like I've done here I'm a huge fan of the Roboto typeface so it created some minimal text buttons with the Roboto light font and also made some in red and all lowercase that's going to wrap it up if you enjoyed the video be sure to click the thumbs up button below and subscribe if you want to see more videos like this one in the future follow us in all the usual places twitter google+ and facebook at pocket now I'm Taylor Martin you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i'll see you soon