0

I want to use an external keyboard to navigate the quick settings menu blind to turn on Screen mirroring (aka Smart View). I can enter this menu using Win-Q but getting a known focus or selecting Smart View is the next step.

A Samsung Galaxy S6 is fully operational except it has a black screen (dropped by the kids). External mouse and keyboard are working fine and if I can just press the smart view icon on the Quick Settings the screen will mirror and I'll have full control. I am testing using the keyboard on my own identical phone so I can do it blind on the affected phone.

Most usefully, Win-Q directly opens Quick Settings. Also of interest is Win-N which gives a visually identical result but with a different focus (somewhere in the notifications obvs).

But, after pressing Win-Q focus seems to be a bit random. Sometimes it's under the screen brightness, sometimes it's the Settings icon itself. Direction arrows work fine to navigate, as does tab. Typing alpha (W for Wi-Fi) unfortunately seems to not move focus (wouldn't that be perfect). For the purposes of working blind I'd like to know where focus is absolutely, even if it's just a starting point.

Is there a keyboard input I can use after Win-Q to either:

  • ideally, select the Smart View icon, or the Smart View text. Is there way to type "S" to do this? or
  • less ideally but still useful, set focus to, say, the top left icon (wireless on this phone)?

Or is there some previous action such that pressing Win-Q gives a known focus (such as power cycling the phone)?

Unavailable alternatives:

  • debugging is not enabled
  • MHL is in theory not supported by the phone; I don't have a cable to try it
Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

I was searching for quick settings images of Galaxy S6 and at the time it only displays 10 quick settings. So to make it work, I believe you must had previously added "Screen Cast" in the list of 10 items.

I guess your best shot is to find the correct combination of arrows and enter. I tested here and typing "S" don't do anything on quick settings.

I have a galaxy A70 (which is much newer, I know) but the starting point is a search button. To go to start a screencast I did the steps:

  1. Win-Q
  2. Down (3 times) - to get to quick settings
  3. Right (2 times) -> Enter - to go the second column of the second page of quick settings and selecting it
  4. Down -> Enter -> Enter - to select the first device found and confirm you want to cast

I also remember that holding home key was a shortcut to call google assistant. Have you tried that?

Improve this answer
1
  • Thanks. On the working phone, Win-Q "usually" dumps me on Samsung smart things and Up x 2 gets me to wifi. But sometimes focus is on the settings icon, and moving from there is weird, but easy enough with vision. I was hoping there was a way to explicitly select Smart View, or explicitly select the top left setting icon (wifi for me). In our environment there will be only one device to cast to, so simply enabling smart view will auto-select that and done. If I activate google assistant and say "enable smart view" google dutifully reads me Samsung's instructions instead of doing it.
    – gloopy
    Sep 30, 2021 at 2:39

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .