Several options I'm searching for but cannot find on /e/OS. Help!

Using /e/OS Settings
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Hello, I’m a new /e/OS user. I’m rather happy with it, but there are some things I dislike and I want to know if it is possible to add or modify something to get thoses kind of options.

1°) When I’m opening an application, and I finish to use it, I simply want to close it directly, but there is no cross on the right top to close it like on microsoft windows. So I have to click the square on the bottom of the screen to finally see the cross appearing. I hate this, I would like to close the app immediately in one simple click, rather than keeping the app opened or closing it in 2 operations. Is it possible to parameter the system in order to make the cross always appearing on the right top of the app ?

2°) The telephone numbers are wrongly displayed. the purposed format is like 612-345-678, but in France that’s unreadable, we use to express numbers like that : 06 12 34 56 78 or +33 6 12 34 56 78.
Is it possible to reparameter this correctly to the french standard ?

3°) The telephone volume of my S9 is often too high for my ears, even at minimum volume when I’m calling someone. Is it possible to get more volume steps to get more confort at low-volume settings ?
This is very problematic for people like me with sensitive ears

4°) Is it possible to force the energy saving mode constantly ? Because when I’m charging the battery, the energy saving option resets to OFF and it bothers me to re-put in to ON each time the battery is charged.

5°) I would like to reduce to the minimum the processor speed, in order to save more energy, because I’m mainly use the phone to call or to send sms, and for those applications, there is no need for high CPU speed. It doesn’t matter for me if the phone reacts more slowly, I just want a phone with better autonomy.
Like my old Nokia 302 that I charged only each 5 days after 7 years of intense use.

6°) Is there an app which secures and blocks all personal data, even if an app is asking for access to some datas ? This would allow to use some apps which are in my opinion too much curious about my private life. Example : Some apps may ask access to my sd card. No problem if I agree to save a file into it ( I should be aware of it), but I don’t want any application to look what’s inside.

Thanks for all your advises.

Fred

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Welcome to Android.

1*) Given that Android and Windows are about as far apart as night and day, it doesn’t make much sense to compare any kind of features or functionality. That said…
Android apps have never really been much about completely closing/exiting. One has to hit Recent/Overview button and swipe away the apps from memory (using X isn’t really necessary).
Some apps, especially recent browsers, be they Firefox/Mozilla-, Chromium-, or WebView-based have exit/quit items in their menus that completely close them. The majority of Android apps don’t do that. You’ll have to live with swiping them away or just use the Clear All button that’s usually available.

2*) Could be wrong but I don’t think phone numbers are wrongly displayed, per se. I believe there’s a standard display across the board. Being that Google (owner of Android OS) is a North American entity, it uses the standard 10 digit format (North American Numbering Plan). That might be something you’ll also have to get used to.
But I really can’t say if it’s changeable.

3*) Far as I know volume steps are not a part of LineageOS of which /e/OS is derived (at least with versions I have). You’d probably have to be rooted and use a third party tool to get that functionality. There’s an old thread about volume steps somewhere in the forums.

4*) Energy saving mode I don’t know about or use.

5*) Changing CPU speed almost certainly requires a rooted device and various tools to do so.

6*) You seem to describe physical access to data (storage, location, camera, contacts, calendar, etc.) then yeah, don’t allow permissions willy nilly to apps. Only allow permissions that you know the app needs to function. You get a little more control over permissions using Privacy Guard (on LOS-based ROMs - short for LineageOS) or AppOps (on other custom ROMs).
Sometimes apps will have access to more permissions than what is shown via a ROM’s settings.
Once again, root may be required along with various tools to further control app permissions.

Hope some of this helps a bit. Quite sure there’s a few things I don’t know much about.

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1°) This is just the Android way of doing things.
You’ll have to live with that, unless somebody here could name an additional App which perhaps can add what you want as an overlay which can close the currently used App with a tap. I don’t know something like that, and Android Apps usually use the complete screen real estate including the corners, so how somebody imagining such a feature would go about realising it I can’t really see. Perhaps with a button combo.

2°) I’ve only seen such weird phone number formatting in contacts added in Signal by Signal itself so far, not in Contacts and the dialer, but I sync all my contact data to my phone from Thunderbird on my PC, perhaps the reasonable number format I see in Contacts and the dialer just gets imported this way.
I see no setting for the phone number format used in Contacts. If you edit the numbers to look reasonably formatted to you, do they stay that way afterwards?

3°) No idea.

4°) Not that I know. It looks to me like battery saver capabilities are designed to help you to keep the phone alive until you can charge it again, they are not meant as a constant setting because they keep the phone from functioning fully in its intended way.
To get near to what you want without any tinkering the system doesn’t expect and could react badly to, you can set the Performance profile to “Efficiency”, which among other optimisations will already reduce CPU power (as per the description displayed for it), or to “Power save” for maximum power savings.

5°) As you already know you need root for a chance to control this directly, without root you can have a look at the Performance profile instead (see above).
And comparisons to completely different devices from the distant past won’t get you anywhere, don’t expect this battery life from current smartphones if you really use them. Just having them idling around in standby for days is possible, though.

6°) No idea.

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2- With the correct region set on the device, does your phone dial and connect to numbers in your stored contacts (regardless of how they are displayed)?

4- In Android 10, there’s a setting under Battery saver and Performance to enable Extreme power saver, which will “Restrict device performance and background activity to save power.” (I use this at all times.) There’s also an option to enable it only when the phone drains to a certain percentage, chosen by the user.

Another option, which possibly entails unintended consequences, is to enable Developer Options (by clicking 7 times on the device Build number in your settings), then limiting the number of background processes that can run at once. I wouldn’t recommend this option, though.

6- Check out either of these apps: Blokada 5; TrackerControl. After you add some available blocklists, either of them can monitor and block any questionable background connections you want. You also can blacklist any connection manually.

Again, you can deny or limit permissions for each app on your device from within the settings app.

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Yes, the telephone dials and connect to numbers even if they are badly displayed.
All my cell phones before this one displayed as expected in France. Not this S9 with /e/OS, even if the correct language is set on the device (french). I don’t know though if there is a possibility to set the region.

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Hi @FredW,

Regarding the way numbers are displayed … I have an old version of /e/OS (0.7), but if the number is saved as +33 6 12 34 56 78 in “Contacts”, then it is displayed in the same way in the “Phone” app. (I had a look at Signal, and even in this app the French numbers are displayed as in “Contacts”, but the remaining ones as 123 - 456 - 789…).
My understanding is that phone language is not relevant (mine is set to English).

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Maybe the problem is when I imported all my telephone numbers. I had to sent it to the /e/ cloud then transfer it to my phone (thing that I disliked a lot because I don’t want to use clouds).
I don’t know now how to change this… When I’m looking at first sight at those badly displayed numbers I cannot recognize them immediately because my brain is trained to 2 digits pair…It is really annoying.
I may erase all numbers and import them again without the cloud which probably modified all my numbers to its standard. Is there a procedure to import again all numbers (more than 300 .vcf files) to the phone without the cloud ?

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The Contacts app has an option to import from the SIM card, so if your contacts were stored on the SIM, then it should have been possible to import them without a cloud.

There is also the option to export as .vcf and import from .vcf. Check the Settings in Contacts.

I think this is typically set in the initial phone setup.

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12345678901234567890

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The only way I’ve found to fix this is to modify each contact on my list. You only have to erase the first “0” and re-write it and the whole phone number will display as you wish.
I’ve also found that every new phone numbers entered displays the correct way, while all imported contact only display wrongly.

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None have option to export to the SIM card ?

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Android by default only imports from the SIM card.
Some phone vendors might add saving/exporting to SIM card to their own Android OSes, but this is proprietary.
There might be third party Apps capable of this.

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Hi @FredW,

I need to find an old post I published about the way I used to transfer the contacts from the old telephone to the new one, but basically, I copied the vcf files (exported the contats from the “Contacts” app of the phone) to a USB memory stick connected with an adapter, and then imported them… No issue, it was fast and easy (even for a newbie as I am), avoiding the use of any online service (which was what I was looking for).

I hope this can help.

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I guess it was this post:

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Mine shows;

Import contacts from

.vcf file

SIM card
(my phone number)

Perhaps it only appears if you already have stored contacts on the SIM.

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Turns out it’s not a button combo, it’s long-tapping a button …