Instructions for customizing notification sounds / vibration for sideloaded apps on Kompakt

[damian1]

I’ve seen a few people ask about customising which notifications make a sound or vibrate on the Kompakt. Hopefully these instructions help if you want to have sideloaded apps installed, but disable some of the notification sounds and/or turn off vibration.

Here’s how:

Disclaimer
Please be careful and don’t trust random people on the internet. The steps below unlocks some of the underlying Android functionality which could be used to make your phone unusable - so be careful digging around with Activity Manager. So this is all at your own risk.

Step 1: Sideload F-Droid
You probably already know how to sideload apps. If not, see my instructions here: Instructions on how to sideload apps on Mudita Kompakt
Sideload F-Droid from https://f-droid.org/ which is an app store for free and open source apps.

Step 2: Install Activity Manager
Open F-Droid, click the Search icon at bottom right, and search for Activity Manager. Then click the install button.

Step 3: Open Activity Manager
Go back to your Kompakt home screen, tap Apps, then open Activity Manager. You will see a list of all of the installed apps and their activities.

Step 4: Open Settings (com.android.settings)
You can type in the search box at the top to find this quickly. There will be an option called Settings [com.android.settings] - tap on it.

Step 5: Open Settings$NotificationAppListActivity App notifications
There is a long list to scroll through here. So I recommend you use the search bar at the top of the screen. I searched for “notification”. The one you are looking for does have a bell icon on the left to make it easier to identify. Tap on “Settings$NotificationAppListActivity App notifications”

Step 6: Choose the app you want to change notification settings for
After tapping “Settings$NotificationAppListActivity”, the app notification settings will open. This is a standard Android menu which is normally hidden on the Mudita Kompakt. You’ll see a list of all of your installed apps. Tap on any app that you want to modify the notification settings. In this example, I’ll tap WhatsApp.

Step 7: Modify the notification settings
This is standard Android settings. You’re able to turn on and off notifications for the entire app, or just type by type (e.g. you in WhatsApp you can change settings for group chats separately to direct message notifications). Note that not all of these settings are supported by the Mudita Kompakt.

Step 8: Uninstall Activity Manager (optional)
Just to tidy up again, you might want to uninstall Activity Manager, using F-Droid.
Open F-Droid, click “Settings” at the bottom right, click “Manage installed apps”, tap “Activity Manager”, then tap “Uninstall”.

Alternatively, you could just hide it by opening your Mudita Settings, clicking “App Layout” and turning off Activity Manager.

Bonus: Secret FM Radio
Another little hidden gem inside the Mudita Kompakt is an FM radio. This is normally hidden, as it’s not e-ink optimised. While you’re in Activity Manager, you can also go to FM Radio

And then open the .FmMainActivity

This reveals a hidden inbuilt FM radio. You just need to connect wired headphones to listen!

[frank_1226]

That’s very useful! Thank you!

[dawn]

This was incredibly useful, thank you!

[Minimalmann79]

something is wrong with this app now, there is a new update and when I try to find the sms app to silence the notifications I can’t find it in the search area

[jimorij]

This worked for me too, thank you. I was getting annoying notification sounds during the night from a side-loaded app.

[sleepbyslowdive]

Very happy about the bonus part you added about the radio!

[sleepbyslowdive]

Recordings of the FM automatically go into the music folder. You have to rename the file extension to 3gp or m4a for it to play (need to do that in a file manager app, not the music app).