Substratum Public Release 953 Brings Support For Xperia Devices Running Nougat, Showcase Tabs & More

The Substratum app received an overhaul to its user interface earlier this month. Substratum v930 got rid of the side menu and replaced it with a menu bar at the bottom. v930 also included a feature to close the theme by pulling down on its screen. The Substratum team have gotten rid of the pull down feature in v953. Other improvisations made to the user interface in this release are listed below:

- Improved readability of names in the Theme Store
- Splashscreen now fades into the main theme screen
- Wallpapers, showcase and themes now stagger their loading animations one by one, and will fade from grayscale to color.
- Snackbars on the main UI will move on top of the bottom bar
- On OOS, ensure that the navbar is properly colored

The major feature introduced in this release is support for theming Sony Xperia devices running Nougat. Sony has had support for theming on its devices (Xperia Themes) since the days of Jellybean, but unlike Substratum, Xperia Themes only modifies the looks of Android system and some core apps (like Clock). Substratum now supports Sony Xperia devices in the "legacy mode", which means that you need to have root access to use a Substratum theme on your Xperia.

On a side-note, Sony has played a vital role in helping Substratum work without root on Oreo. Sony contributed the Runtime Resource Overlay (RRO) to AOSP in 2014 and in the developer previews of Marshmallow and Nougat, Google included RRO based dark themes. However to everyone's dismay, the dark themes didn't make it to the stable release of either Marshmallow or Nougat. With Oreo, native support for RRO was introduced and thus Substratum could theme Oreo powered devices without the need of root.

Left: Old UI, Right: New UI

While the general user interface of the Substratum app was refreshed earlier this month, the Theme Showcase section still retained its old design. With v953, the Theme Showcase section has received several design updates. The horizontal navigation bar has now been replaced by a vertical menu which can be pulled out from the right edge of the screen. Nicholas Chum described what users would be able to find in each of the new showcase tabs.

New showcase tabs: Below will be the new showcase tabs that will be updated by the team to promote new apps/themes amongst our community!
- Featured Themes: For new themes and upcoming stars!
- Featured Apps: For amazing apps that our contributors would like shown
- Themers Collective: The community collection of themes hosted on our Play Store account
- Team Themes: Themes created by team members!
- Clear/Dark/Light: Category based themes
- Google Apps: Collection of theme ready apps
- Samsung: Collection of Samsung-ready/compatible themes
- SystemUI Tweaks: Previously called Plugins, but now more categorized
- Other Tweaks: Also from Plugins, more categorization
- Wallpapers: Wallpaper packs

Once again, there are a plethora of improvements for Samsung users. The boot up time of Substratum has been improved for Sungstratum users. A bunch of bugs have been ironed out which should make using Substratum on a Samsung device just as speedy as that on AOSP based ROMs.

You will get a yellow screen if you
have Lucky Patcher installed

If you try to open a dated theme on Substratum v953, you will get an error message stating that the theme isn't licensed. This is because the theme hasn't been updated to the new Substratum template and Substratum v953 won't allow you to run themes based on old templates. If you end up getting this error, you should either update the theme from the Play Store or ask the theme designer to update the theme.

Substratum v953 is currently rolling out on the Play Store. If you haven't got the update notification yet, you can update manually by grabbing the APK from here. Before updating the Substratum app, make sure to uninstall any overlay you might have enabled for the Substratum app. In case you forget to do so, you will have to uninstall the overlay from Settings > Apps (make sure to enable 'Show overlays' from under the three dotted menu).

Source: Nicholas Chum
Via: XDA

[Featured image credits - XDA]

Krittin Kalra

Krittin Kalra is a 20 year old Android freak. Striving for passions, chasing down his dreams and living a life without regrets is his sole mantra. A bit moody, he also does custom ROM reviews for AndroGuider. Currently pursuing his B.Tech, he aspires to follow his heart.