Initialization settings
Control how your app behaves when it loads — gestures, status bar, safe areas, and the loading spinner
Initialization settings
Go to Initialization settings in starti.app ManagerWhat are initialization settings?
Initialization settings control how starti.app behaves when your app starts up and while it runs. From this page you can decide which gestures users are allowed to use (like zoom and rotation), how the status bar looks, how the safe areas at the top and bottom of the screen are handled, and whether a loading spinner is shown while pages load.
The page is split into three sections: In-app behaviour, Status bar & safe areas, and Spinner.
Your changes are saved automatically as you make them. You can follow the save status in the top bar of starti.app Manager.
Saving your changes is not enough on its own — you also need to publish them before they appear in the app. See Publish your changes below.
In-app behaviour
Under In-app behaviour you control what the user is allowed to do inside the app's web view. Turn each option on or off with its checkbox:
- Allow zoom in the app — lets users pinch to zoom in and out.
- Allow screen rotation in the app — lets the app rotate when the user turns their phone.
- Allow dragging of elements in the app — lets users drag elements (for example images) around in the app.
- Allow overscroll bounce effect — the "bounce" that happens when you scroll past the top or bottom of a page.
- Allow highlighting of elements and text in the app — lets users select and highlight text.
- Allow swipe navigation between pages — lets users swipe left and right to move back and forward between pages.
For most apps that should feel like a native app, it's common to turn off zoom, the overscroll bounce, and text highlighting, so the app feels less like a website. Try the options that fit your app best.
Status bar & safe areas
The status bar is the strip at the very top of the phone where the clock, battery, and signal are shown. The safe areas are the spaces at the top and bottom of the screen that sit around the notch, the home indicator, and rounded corners.
Status bar
- Hide status bar text — hides the clock, battery, and other text in the status bar.
- Dark status bar content — makes the status bar text and icons dark instead of light. Use this when your app has a light background at the top, so the text stays readable.
- Light status bar content — makes the status bar text and icons light. Use this when your app has a dark background at the top, so the text stays readable.
- Auto — lets the app choose light or dark status bar content automatically, based on the background colour of the top safe area.
Auto can't be used when you remove the top safe area. In that case, choose Dark or Light manually.
Upper and lower safe area
You can configure the top and bottom safe areas separately. For each one you have:
- Remove safe area — removes the safe area on that side, so your content extends all the way to the edge of the screen.
- Background color — the color shown in the safe area. Pick a color that matches your app's design. (This is only used when the safe area is kept, not removed.)
Safe areas control how the app's content lines up with the physical edges of the phone. If you want to fine-tune this from the code side of your app, you can read more about the safe-area settings in the SDK documentation.
Spinner
The spinner is a small loading animation shown while a page is loading. This section is at the bottom of the page.
- Show spinner — turns the loading spinner on or off.
- Show spinner after (ms) — how long to wait before the spinner appears, in milliseconds. A small delay means the spinner won't flash on screen for pages that load quickly. For example,
500means the spinner only appears if a page takes longer than half a second to load. - Spinner color — the color of the spinner. Pick a color that fits your app's design.
- Exclude spinner on domains — a comma-separated list of website addresses where the spinner should not be shown (for example
example.com, shop.example.com).
The spinner options for delay, color, and excluded domains only apply when Show spinner is turned on.
Publish your changes
Your settings are saved as you edit them, but they won't reach the app until you publish them. At the top of the page you'll find two buttons:
- Publish to Development — publishes your changes to the development app. This is used for testing your changes. The development app is a separate app (not the final app your users have) that looks like your app and lets you test changes before they reach your users. You need the development app to see your changes here. Read more in Download test version of the app.
- Publish to Production — publishes your changes to the real app that your users have.
It takes about 10–15 minutes from when you click one of the buttons until your changes appear in the app. Remember to publish to Development or Production — otherwise your changes will not become visible in the app.