Can't resize Target widget to 2x1

[ezio-melotti]

Pre-submission checklist

• I am submitting a bug report, not a feature request.
• I have searched for similar issues, but did not find any matches.

Description

I used to have (and in fact still do) several 2x1 (width 2, height 1) Target widgets. Today I accidentally resized one, and I am now unable to bring it back to 2x1, even though it allows me to set it to 1x2 (width 1, height 2). Creating a new target widget only allows for 1x2, and it's also marked as such in the widget select screen (see screenshots below).

In addition -- and the reason I reported this as a bug and not a feature request -- the widget is unreadable as 1x2 (see attached screenshot) but looks fine as 2x1.

Steps to reproduce

1. Long press the home screen and select "Add widget"
2. Select "Habits" and the "Target" widget
3. Place it on the home screen and try to resize it to 2x1

Alternatively, if the Target widget is already on the home screen:

1. Long press the widget
2. Try to resize it by dragging the borders

System information

• Phone: Samsung S23
• Phone Operating System: Android 14, One UI 6.1
• App version: 2.2.1

Additional details

I found a few related discussions and a closed issue:

• Bring back smaller streaks widgets #1625
• widget size: reduce minimum vertical dimension #2096
• minimum widget sizes #835
• Allow widgets to resize to 1x1 #797
• Loop 2.3.0 - 1x1 Checkmark Widget #2164
• Widget size change disfunction #930

In summary, it seems that:

• The widgets were initially designed with a minimum size limit (2x2?) because the content would have been to difficult to see otherwise (at least on old phones with small screen resolution);
• Samsung One UI didn't respect the minimum size limit and allowed users to set smaller sizes, and this worked fine for several widgets despite the restrictions (probably on phones with higher screen resolution);
• At some point, Samsung started respecting the minimum size limit, forcing the users to have bigger widgets (unless they had already set them to a smaller size before the update);
• In minimum widget sizes #835 (comment) @iSoron seems to agree on removing the size limits.

I'm not familiar with Android development, but by looking at the code and the changes in #1514 I noticed that:

• The Checkmark widget (which allows 1x1) has minHeight/minWidth of 40dp:
  

  uhabits/uhabits-android/src/main/res/xml/widget_checkmark_info.xml

  Lines 21 to 23 in 107c898

  	<appwidget-provider xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  	android:minHeight="40dp"
  	android:minWidth="40dp"

• The Target widget has minHeight/minWidth/minResizeHeight/minResizeWidth of 80dp (seemingly implying 2x2):
  

  uhabits/uhabits-android/src/main/res/xml/widget_target_info.xml

  Lines 21 to 25 in 107c898

  	<appwidget-provider xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  	android:minHeight="80dp"
  	android:minWidth="80dp"
  	android:minResizeWidth="80dp"
  	android:minResizeHeight="80dp"

• The targetCellWidth/targetCellHeight are not set (not sure if they are useful though);
• Despite both sizes being set to 80dp, the OS shows the size as 1x2, even though the initial intention seems to have been having 2x2 as minimum size.

Note that this likely applies to other widgets as well -- I only tested it with the Target widget and since I has some "old" widgets still set to 2x1 I can confirm that the widget works fine as 2x1 (something I can't confirm for the other widgets -- but see e.g. #1625 for the Streak widget).

In addition, if updating the minHeight/minResizeHeight to 40dp is enough to fix the issue, I can create a PR to do that, but I won't be able to test it locally.

Screenshots

This shows two "old" 2x1 widgets on the left, and a "new" 1x2 widget on the right:

This shows the widget selection screen, with the Target widget marked as 1x2:

TL;DR

The devs wanted to set the minimum widget size to 2x2, the users wanted to (and could) set it to 2x1/1x1 (and it worked fine), Samsung now wants to force them to use 1x2 as minimum size (which doesn't quite work).

Removing the minimum size limit should make everyone happy.

[ZornHadNoChoice]

I'm the exact opposite! I can resize the target widget to 2x1 but not 1x2.

It might be a device issue:

• Device: POCO F5 Pro
• OS: Android 13
• Loop version: v2.2.0

[ZornHadNoChoice]

I just tested and here are the minimum possible sizes:

I didn't know about some of these so I'm pleasantly surprised!

Edit: Also note that if the name of a habit is too long, it makes the widget content smaller:

[ezio-melotti]

I checked on my phone, and the minimum sizes match the ones showed in the widget selection screen that I posted in my first message (i.e. all 1x2 except the Checkmark that is 1x1):

@ZornHadNoChoice: if your widget selection screen shows the widget sizes, do they match with the ones you observed?

If I understand correctly, the size of each grid slot depends on the screen size and resolution, whereas the minimum size of the widget is fixed (80x80dp). Therefore, depending on the display size and resolution, the widget might need a variable number of slots.

The Android docs says:

Each widget must define a targetCellWidth and targetCellHeight for devices running Android 12 or higher—or minWidth and minHeight for all versions of Android—indicating the minimum amount of space it consumes by default.

and

targetCellWidth and targetCellHeight: define the target size of the widget in terms of launcher grid cells. If defined, these attributes are used instead of minWidth or minHeight.

It also says that a 1x1 grid slot is roughly 57x102dp in portrait and 127x51dp in landscape (depending on the screen size), so our 80x80dp widgets would need at least 2x1 to fit (not sure why on my phone is 1x2 though).

[ZornHadNoChoice]

if your widget selection screen shows the widget sizes, do they match with the ones you observed?

No, all of them are 2x2 except for the checkmark widget which is 1x1.

[iSoron]

Thanks for the report. The bug here is that Samsung is allowing widgets to be 1x2. They should be 2x2 minimum.

[ezio-melotti]

Would you consider reducing the minimum allowed size to 1x1 -- or at least 2x1?

The widgets already work fine at these sizes, and me and other users used 1x1/2x1 before Samsung started enforcing the limit.

[ZornHadNoChoice]

They should be 2x2 minimum.

But the 2x1/1x1 widgets in my screenshots above work almost perfectly. The only thing they need is to adjust the habit name so that everything fits.

I have been using the smaller sizes for a while now and they're just better in every way.

[iSoron]

Commit e82bd47 increases the minimum widget size so that they cannot be resized below 2x2 on Samsung phones. I'm not against designing 1x1, 1x2 or 2x1 graph widgets (frequency, streaks, etc), but they do need to be redesigned with such small sizes in mind; the fact that these sizes were allowed at some point on some phones was a bug, not intended behavior. When designing such small widgets, we need to ensure that all text is legible, and that they work reliably across multiple phones. Simply removing minimum size constraints is not a viable option.

[ZornHadNoChoice]

Please reconsider. Those who don't like it can just make the widgets bigger, but people like me and the OP will have to wait (or not update), possibly forever.

I'd say that keeping them as they are (or even better, giving them a minimum size of 1x1) is the best temporary solution. Perhaps they can be hidden behind an "experimental feature" setting.

[iSoron]

I'd say that keeping them as they are (or even better, giving them a minimum size of 1x1) is the best temporary solution. Perhaps they can be hidden behind an "experimental feature" setting.

Sorry, but you're asking me to ship an implementation that is known to be broken (specifically, if we allow widgets to be 1x1, 1x2 or 2x1, then we know that some text will be rendered with a size that is way below accessibility recomendations and that some charts will have completely broken layout). You also need to understand that Loop is installed in more than half a million active devices, with a wide variety of screen sizes; just because 1x1 widgets may look acceptable in a particular phone, it doesn't mean this solution works in general. If anyone wants to design a proper 1x1, 1x2 or 2x1 version of these widgets, I can include it in the next release.

Perhaps they can be hidden behind an "experimental feature" setting.

I don't think this can be made configurable; it's in a static XML file, read by Android before app launch. It also reminds me of xkcd 1172.

[ezio-melotti]

Sorry, but you're asking me to ship an implementation that is known to be broken (specifically, if we allow widgets to be 1x1, 1x2 or 2x1, then we know that some text will be rendered with a size that is way below accessibility recomendations and that some charts will have completely broken layout).

Please reconsider, for the following reasons:

• Over the years, I used the app on multiple phones, with multiple screen sizes, with both 2x1 (when it was working before Samsung "fixed" it) and 1x2, and I've never seen anything that could be considered "broken" -- i.e. I saw no weird clipping, overflows, crashes, or anything else that I would consider "broken".
• In all these cases the font size used for the habit name is clearly legible, it is not smaller than the 1x1 checkmark widget, and it's bigger than the default text already used for days/months/percentages/etc. text in the other widgets (even when they are 2x2 or bigger).
• I also did additional tests with long habit names (both multiple words and single long word) and the text never gets too small nor has other issues.
• I searched the issue list and found no reports or complaints about small widget being broken (and I found a few screenshots that show small widgets that render clearly).
• There are instead multiple issues, discussions, and PR either requesting smaller widget sizes or to add back the ability to make them smaller (including Add a 2×1 widget showing time elapsed since habit last ticked #526 and adding support for 1x2 widget size for history widget #1514 that I did not include in the list of the original message).

To the extent that I was able to verify, I see no issue with font sizes or widgets being broken at 2x1.

You also need to understand that Loop is installed in more than half a million active devices, with a wide variety of screen sizes; just because 1x1 widgets may look acceptable in a particular phone, it doesn't mean this solution works in general.

This is a valid point and I understand your concern, but I'm unfortunately unable to test on more devices myself.

Would it be possible to test this with an emulator (or with an even older/smaller phone, if someone has one), setting a small screen size and/or resolution to check if the widgets are broken?

Alternatively, it should be possible to change the DPIs in the developer's setting, but I'm not sure if you would consider this kind of test reliable enough.

In conclusion, reducing the minimum size to 2x1 would give users the flexibility to choose what works best for them. If they find the font size or content too small, they can always opt for 2x2, but forcing 2x2 removes that choice entirely.

[ZornHadNoChoice]

I searched the issue list and found no reports or complaints about small widget being broken (and I found a few screenshots that show small widgets that render clearly).

I'm completely with you, but to be fair, the person in that issue specifically complained that "the checkmark widget titles are extremely small"!

[ezio-melotti]

FWIW I just got the OneUI 7 update on my Samsung phone, which seems to have increased the space between widgets, making all the widgets smaller in size (similar to the "narrow" version seen in #1514). The number of slots they take is the same. This is especially noticeable with the checkmark widgets.

As a consequence, the text in all widget also got smaller. Luckily this doesn't bother me too much, since -- even if small -- it's still readable, but might bother other users.

Click to expand for screenshots

Before (OneUI 6)	After (OneUI 7)

Notice how the widgets, the space between the lines (e.g. between "Today" and "Week"), and the text are smaller, and how the space between the widgets increased.