• What's New/Recent Changes
• Quick Start Guide
• Overview
• Preferences
  • SoftKeys Service
  • Virtual Home Button
  • Physical Home Button
  • Visuals and Layout
  • Notification Bar
• Error Messages

• 1 - Notification bar
• 2 - Service popper This button can be dragged around the screen to reposition it. Tap to show/hide the service bar. Long-press to enable/disable the D-Pad, if enabled the D-Pad will show and hide along with the service bar.
• 3 - Service bar Main hardware button input. You can drag this by the "Close" button. Long-press on the "Close" button will change the orientation to either horizontal or vertical.
• 4 - Home activity/Home button interface The main interface that shows when you open SoftKeys. By default, if assigned as your main launcher, this will come up if you double-press the hardware home button.
• 5 - Service D-Pad/Custom Buttons This bar is enabled and disabled by long-pressing on the Service Popper. You can move this window by dragging on of the top two corners where there are no buttons. The +/- will show or hide more custom buttons. To configure the custom buttons, long-press on + or -. There are 2 special ConnectBot macro buttons, CB: Tab sends dpad-center + i (ctrl i = tab) and CB: Escape send dpad-center twice, which will make ConnectBot send escape.

SoftKeys has a lot of options so you can use it the way you like.

These options control the always visible on-screen service. That includes the service popper, and the service bar.

• Run Service: Enable or disabled the on-screen service. When disabled, the only way to use SoftKeys is through the home-button interface.
• Run Service at Boot: This option only effects operation if you do not use SoftKeys as your default launcher. If you want to only run SoftKeys as a service and use a normal launcher, enabling this option will cause SoftKeys to automatically start on boot up.
• Size: Choose how big the service icons are. By default, they are the same size as all icons on the device, but you can make them bigger or smaller here.
• Draggable Popper: Enabling this option allows moving the popper around the screen, if disabled, the popper will no longer respond to drag events and will be locked in place.
• Draggable Service: Enabling this option allows moving the service bar around the screen, if disabled, the service bar will no longer respond to drag events and will be locked in place.
• Draggable D-Pad: Enabling this option allows moving the dpad around the screen, if disabled, the dpad will no longer respond to drag events and will be locked in place.
• Button Bar Transparency: Set the transparency level of the service bar while on screen. Usually you will want the service bar to be only a little transparent so you can easily identify the buttons.
• D-Pad/Custom Transparency: Set the transparency level of the service D-Pad while on screen.
• Popper Transparency: Set the transparency of the service popper button. Usually you will want the service popper to be partially transparent so it doesn't obscure the screen.
• Auto Hide: If selected then the service bar will automatically hide after you select a button.
• Auto Hide After Back: If left unselected while the Auto Hide option is selected, then hitting the back button will not auto hide the bar, but all the other buttons will. If selected then hitting back will also auto hide the bar.
• Transparent Background: Hide the service bar background and leave only hovering buttons.
• Orientation: Set preferences for changing the service bar to be horizontal or vertical by default. Choosing one of the "Adjustable" options means you can long-press on the close button in the service bar to change orientation. Choosing Last Orientation will use whatever you last rotated it to during normal use. This is the default.
• Extra Custom Keys: Configure custom keys that show under dpad. You can also configure them by long-pressing the plus button under the dpad.

These options control the behaviour of the virtual home button in both the main SoftKeys interface, and the on-screen softkeys service.

• Normal Press: The launcher to open when you press the virtual home button.
• Long Press: The launcher to open when you long-press the virtual home button, if you want easy access to two launchers.
• Return After Back: For the SoftKeys home button interface, checking this box will make it re-open the interface if you select the virtual back button. This does not effect the SoftKeys service.

These options control what SoftKeys does when you press the physical home button on the device if SoftKeys is set as the default launcher. These settings only have any effect if SoftKeys is the default launcher.

• Home Button: This sets the physical home button behavior. By default, pressing home will pass through to your selected "Normal Press" launcher. Double-tapping the physical home will bring up the SoftKeys home interface. You can change this to be the opposite, single press for SoftKeys, double-press for launcher.
• Double Press Time: How many milliseconds to wait for the second home button press.

These options control the layout of the buttons and any visual elements like themes.

• Theme: Select theme. Themes can be downloaded and installed from the market, and can change the icons and layouts of the interface.
• Exit Button: If selected, then an exit button will appear in the SoftKeys home interface. If unchecked, then there will be no exit button. You can press the physical home button to exit SoftKeys if you have to exit button.
• Prefs Button: Enables the preferences button in the SoftKeys home interface. Without this button you can still access Preferences through the SoftKeys menu or by long-pressing on the black background above the SoftKeys buttons near the middle of the screen.
• Volume Up Button: Enables an increase volume button on the service bar and in the home interface.
• Volume Down Button: Enables a decrease volume button on the service bar and in the home interface.
• Volume Sleep Button: Enables a sleep button on the service bar and in the home interface.
• Blur Behind: If enabled, the background will be blurred when you bring up the home button interface. This tends to be slow on many devices and is off by default.
• Dim Background: Dims the background behind the home interface. This is a fast operation and makes it obvious when SoftKeys is the main activity. If unselected then the windows behind the home interface will show through like normal but you will be unable to interact with them because SoftKeys is actually controlling the whole screen when in the home interface.
• Recent Apps: Select to toggle the Recent Apps at the top of the home interface. If your device has a disabled Recent Apps (typically long-press home) then turning this on will give you similar functionality, as the Recent Apps will show at the top of the SoftKeys home screen, and you can tap on the icons to launch them.
• Change Button Order: This will bring up another configuration screen allowing you to assign the order of the home/menu/back/search buttons. This is the order they will show up both in the service and in the home interface.

SoftKeys can also add notifications to the notification bar that will send virtual key presses.

• SoftKeys Button: Add a notification to launch the home interface to the notification bar.
• Menu Button: Add a notification to to press "menu" from the notification bar
• Home Button: Add a notification to to press "home" from the notification bar
• Back Button: Add a notification to to press "backu" from the notification bar
• Search Button: Add a notification to to press "search" from the notification bar

This error means SoftKeys was unable to find a system component it needs to operate. The two main components are SuperUser and the input script. Most android devices come preinstalled with the input script, and if your phone is rooted it usually has SuperUser installed as well. However it's possible to have a rooted phone and not have SuperUser installed. If this is the case then SoftKeys will probably not work correctly.

Usually what will happen is the virtual home button will work, but menu/back/search will not. If this is the case, make sure you have a working SuperUser installation.

This means the policy manager on the device is disallowing the file check. You might see this instead of seeing the "Failed to find file" message. This means you may or may not have the required parts, but SoftKeys can't tell. SoftKeys may or may not work. If it doesn't work right, it will behave as explained above in the "Failed to find file" section.

Something happened and SoftKeys was unable to obtain root access, which is required to send key events to other applications. Maybe something is wrong with your SuperUser installation, or you have denied SoftKeys root access when the SuperUser prompt was shown. In this case, it will function as described under "Failed to find file" because it will be unable to execute the required commands as root.