I know... I know... but why?!
Why not?! For the time being, I'm barely using 4, so why the extra 3?! Any way to get it down to 5 for now?! Until more is needed?!
Try LauncherPro
Umm just curious but just don't go to the last left or right screen. The home button can take you back to the middle and you are good to go?
Launcher Pro is an alternative but perhaps you like Sense...well..Refer to first suggestion.
mrmomoman said:
Umm just curious but just don't go to the last left or right screen. The home button can take you back to the middle and you are good to go?
Launcher Pro is an alternative but perhaps you like Sense...well..Refer to first suggestion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously I know I can avoid the last 2 screens, but I was wondering if it was possible in order to avoid going to that screen by accident. It would also make it easier to select the proper screen when pinched out.
How different is Launcher Pro?! The only reason I like Sense is due to the widgets they have. Will the same ones work with Launcher Pro?!
Just switch to LauncherPro.
akarol said:
I know... I know... but why?!
Why not?! For the time being, I'm barely using 4, so why the extra 3?! Any way to get it down to 5 for now?! Until more is needed?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally hear you. If widgets weren't starting to get so big I think I would be pretty happy with 3.
No, Sense widgets will not work with LauncherPro (or any other launcher) but there are some good market replacements. Also LauncherPro is moving towards having it's own set of widgets that replace most of the functionality of sense, which I think is a great idea.
It is probably possible that someone could open up the Rosie (Sense Launcher) apk and edit a line somewhere to tell it to only have 5 screens, but I haven't ever seen anyone do it. It would only be usable on a rooted phone too, since Rosie is in the Nand, and you can't change it out without root.
ADW.Launcher. how many desktops would you like today? 1 or 7? with adw it's your easy to make choice. along with many many other swell customizations.
i have reduced my total number of desktops as well. i use SmartShortcuts to condense my more commonly used apps and place those icons on the adw bars.
it will have the same issue with widgets. if a widget has been written specifically for Sense it won't work. however, there are many nifty cool things in the marketplace.
for example you you can use:
SmoothCalendar - a calandar widget (there are many on the marketplace depending on style preference)
Beautiful Widgets - many folks love this product. (not a free product)
DigitalClock Widget - what i use to get time/date on my screen.
SmartShortcuts - allows me to keep a very clean main desktop...the 4 visible icons pull up custom application groups. (see chess screenshot)
i would also suggest trying out:
QuickDeskBETA - see screenshot with all the icons? that is QD, it will popup over top of any existing window simply w/ a long press of the search button. so i can turn on my screenshot tool without going all the way back to main screens or turn on 4G without having to exit the browser.
one last thing, i would suggest that you install either launcherpro or adw and play with em. what will happen the first time is this. when you click on the home button it will ask you which launcher you wish to use (Sense, adw or launcherpro). there is a check box that says 'make this choice default' ... check that button when you feel semi confident as to which launcher you wish to use. 2 days later when you decide that you want to try using Helix2 (or whatever) simply go to Settings -> Applications -> Manage applications -> go to the current default laucher and "clear defaults" (see the adw screenshot)
Related
Does anyone running non hero roms use any of the home replacements out there like sweeter home, dxtop, panda , ahome or any other ones?
i used open home recently on JACxROMv1.3 to change the ugly palm pre app tray. it worked for a while, but then it really started making the phone lag.
Open home was great but im using now stock home on CM3.9.10 build.. its better
http://sweeterhomeskins.blogspot.com/search/label/Themes
Nope, only used aHome on 1.1 before I rooted. Using the stock launcher on Cyanogen 3.9.11, loving global search
Advanced Launcher + Ted's Hero. I found all of them slow compaired to a themed phone.
Open Home is awesome... But it slows your phone down way too much
With Cyans ROMs a home replacement may not slow down the phone too much. The CPU scaling could help with the slowdown issues. There may be a little slowdown, but I doubt it would ever be slower than a stock build not running a home replacement.
I use the Home program that comes with the sdk samples. It's only got one home screen, an app drawer (lower right) and 3 icon spaces that list your most recent apps. It's all very basic and it's got a bug where it loses the wallpaper when you switch portrait-landscape, but here it is anyway if you want to try it. I'll be using this app as the base for a launcher i'm working on (I'll add 4 more home screens, widget capability, I'll turn the "recent apps" strip into a scrollable "favorites" strip, and maybe toss in some default, full screen widgets (like hero's, kind of like search is bundled as a widget for Launcher). It'll be a good long while though, i'm still brushing up my java.
to install this, connect your phone, put it in your C:\, and do:
Code:
adb remount
adb push C:\Home.apk.zip /system/app/Home.apk
jubeh said:
I use the Home program that comes with the sdk samples. It's only got one home screen, an app drawer (lower right) and 3 icon spaces that list your most recent apps. It's all very basic and it's got a bug where it loses the wallpaper when you switch portrait-landscape, but here it is anyway if you want to try it. I'll be using this app as the base for a launcher i'm working on (I'll add 4 more home screens, widget capability, I'll turn the "recent apps" strip into a scrollable "favorites" strip, and maybe toss in some default, full screen widgets (like hero's, kind of like search is bundled as a widget for Launcher). It'll be a good long while though, i'm still brushing up my java.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Would defeat the purpose of a home replacement. Whole point is to make it look pretty. I'm not sure how the default home and a home replacement program interacts. If the default home runs in the background even when using a home replacement, then a lighter weight default home could help the system run faster.
ahome doesnt work at the moment on latest cyanogen experimental roms, DXTOP is nice i like the "diamond" shape screen layout, the speed is good but can sometimes be a little slow loading apps in launcher, sweeter home looks amazing the preview one is not really usable but a preview 2 will be out soon and it has amazing potential with being able to customise so many aspects of the layout. I loved the standard home with advanced launcher but am having issues with the advanced launcher i think where screen goes black. Currently i am on panda, I had tried this when it came out and really didnt see the point but it has come along and has some very nice touches will probably stick with this until I can resolve the issues with advanced launcher, overall speed is good on the home replacements but the standard home is the quickest, the launcher is so smooth and there is no lag at all.
I'm using dxtop... its pretty quick now.
I was having lag issues many iterations of CM and dxtop ago. But both are working very well with eachother now. dxtop also added a categories view for the tray and you can have live folders of those categories on the desktop.
The dev is also constantly working on this to optimize it and add features. (I beta for him)
I would like for a home replacement to incorporate the sense UI bar.
I am beta testing SweeterHome right now. IT IS AWESOME. The new and improved SH will have some options that will just blow the others AWAY! (IMHO)
With the current Beta options I only need to use about three of my total screens (with widgets and ALL)... And, the third screen is used for the Application Grid.
I'll be sure to post something in the Apps section when it comes available.
There are some seriously great new options in the new SH and the image handling has all been updated - so, it works much faster.
There are a few features that just blow me away. But, I have to wait to speak about them until the app is ready!
I would really like one or two more sliding panels. is there a way to add another panel?
Also are themes just background/icon packages or do they change more?
Excellent question, i myself would like a couple extra slides. Although, i believe there is already a thread created for that.
From the aHome themes I've downloaded, its the icons, background and skin of the bottom tab when you slide up that are changed.
The only way I know of adding more panels is to download either Fresh Fase or Panda.
Try the following thread it will give you options to have 2-10 slide panels.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=538871
Ive been thinking about the same thing. But that thread says the app is unstable.
MurderDeathKill said:
Ive been thinking about the same thing. But that thread says the app is unstable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the advanced launcher works ok. used it before, no issue then..
str4vag said:
i think the advanced launcher works ok. used it before, no issue then..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I currently use it on a stock, unrooted MT3G. No problems.
You need to load an alternative launcher. The stock one only supports 3 home screens.
Advanced Launcher is now stable though it is a bit slower than the stock one if you make heavy use of submenus. It scrolls the screens as quickly as the stock launcher... it is just the submenus that are slower. I have 62 apps in 5 submenus.
I use it with 6 screens and have no issues.
if you use cyanogenmod's rom you can apply this updated advancedlauncher.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=577651
It worked great for me, although now I use my own modified launcher with less tweaks to make it slightly faster. And installing aHome, PandaHome or OpenHome will make your OS slower.
Home problems are solved
Search the market for Home++. I've tried them all and this works the best. You get up to 7 screens. Have the option of allowing the wallpaper to scroll with the screens or sit still, choose which screen is the home screen, use the apps clock and calendar or the stock one, power strip at bottom with quick launchers, and theres almost no lag.
Best i've used yet. Can't hurt to try it.
ADW.Launcher
So, after trying out a few Home Launchers, I have settled upon ADW.Launcher. I must admit, I didn't think anything would be able to replace Helix Launcher, but ADW has all of the speed, eye candy, tweaks, and features that I am loving right now! I also love the feature of Tag Home, which has labels for your different apps when you open the drawer, so I do wish it had that. But aside from that one feature, everything else on ADW OWNS!!!
- It can have up to 7 screens (9 would be great though).
- You can hit nexus style buttons on the bottom to flip to the next screen, instead of sliding with your thumb across the screens (which sometimes hits icons and launches them instead of sliding, I guess because our screens aren't the most sensitive anymore - always happened to me, so I appreciated this navigation option. Does anyone else have this problem? Or needing to swipe a few times to get it to go to the next screen?).
- Since we don't have multitouch, we can't pinch-to-zoom out on our home screen to preview all of our screens. ADW overcomes this via TWO Preview methods:
Method 1: When you hit the home button from any of the screens, or...
Method 2: You can preview JUST the screens to the left or right of whichever screen you are on at the moment, by holding down on the nexus style buttons on the bottom-left or bottom-right, flanking the dock
- The animation of the screens sliding left and right looks awesome.
- You can choose either Galaxy Spica S style navigation of your apps, or the 3-D Fly-In (which I prefer), when you open the drawer. Unfortunately, no option for just sliding the drawer up I don't think.
- You can choose which of your 7 screens (or 5 or 3, whatever) you want to be your "Home" screen (very cool!).
- Customizability:
-you can adjust the speed that you change screens
-you can adjust the "overshoot"
-you can adjust the speed of the Fly-In when opening drawer
-you can adjust the tint of the docked icons
-you can adjust the size of the docked icons
-you can hide the app titles
-you can show or hide the background screens when apps or the app drawer is open, and also adjust the shading of them
-You can customize almost everything!!!
- There are still more features that I haven't discovered yet
I found the creator's thread here, he's an xda member of course
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=645550
And a Youtube video here of many of the customizable features:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5gRgpuQE_k
I just installed ADW.Launcher from the Marketplace.
Please feel free to leave your Home Launcher reviews in this thread if you like! Tell us why you have chosen what you have, and which features are particularly important to you and why. Hopefully this will help people or newbies to be able to weed out the less useful or non-working launchers. Maybe I'll start a poll too
Reserved. Just because I've always wanted to be in a position where I can "reserve" posts like devs lol.
Thanks for the post. Id like to see some reviews of the other launchers in this thread.
Launcher Pro is Good As Well. 2.1 only though
thebulletfromhell said:
Launcher Pro is Good As Well. 2.1 only though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How about a review?
Just tried it out for myself. Great launcher. The only thing I miss from Helix is the double tap to preview. The button isnt super hard though. ill have to make my way to the dev to suggest
blindguyinanorgy said:
Just tried it out for myself. Great launcher. The only thing I miss from Helix is the double tap to preview. The button isnt super hard though. ill have to make my way to the dev to suggest
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which launcher are you talking about? If it's Launcher Pro, then yeah, I agree with you, that's why I went back to Helix, and since then have stuck with ADW. I love the preview!!
helix had preview with double tap on background. preview does rock
I am looking for two things that I am not sure if they exist or not:
1. Is there any tool/hack/app/magic that will switch to a different wallpaper depending on which home screen you are on at the time?
2. Additionally, I don't see a way to create shortcuts on the home screen that will allow me to launch the app drawer, or to "jump" to a specific home screen.
Does anyone have any ideas if these are possible or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Thanks!
If you're using the (stock) Sense launcher, I don't know of any way to customize the wallpaper on a per (home)screen basis. Not sure if any third-party launcher does. I do know that Launcher Pro lets you disable the wallpaper scrolling.
The little triangle on the bottom left of the curved bar (next to the "Phone" button) opens the app drawer.
The stock launcher, besides allowing you to use the HTC widgets, offers practically no customization.
I've been using Launcher Pro for the last week, and have been very happy with it (disclaimer: if you've updated Qik, your default launcher setting frequently goes into the bit bucket (at least with the updates before the latest, which I have not tried). ADW Launcher is also very good, but I was getting intermittent force closes with it.
HTH,
-Jerry
#2 I don't know if you knew this put if you 'squeeze' the screen it shows an overview of the screens.
elegantai said:
#2 I don't know if you knew this put if you 'squeeze' the screen it shows an overview of the screens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, yes. Forgot about that one...
Launcher Pro also does that, and you can also do a double-tap of the home button in Sense, for the same function.
ADW will let you assign that function to an up or down swipe on the screen, along with (or) some other choices.
Cheers,
-Jerry
adw allows you to assign a 'swipe up' and 'swipe down' command. i use them to access my preview screen (ie: see all desktops) and to show/hide notification bar.
great tool. lots of fun options to muss with.
regarding your questions
1) i dont think so. i think of it was one wallpaper covering 5 workspaces. not 5 different desktops.
2) try adw
I upgraded my Note to the Note II. On the homescreen of my Note I, I can place 5 icons in a row on the homescreen.
Now, with the Note II, I can only place 4 icons in a row on the homescreen, and the dock has 5!
Is somewhere an option, so I can place 5 icons in a row on the homescreen too?
None that I found, TW launcher doesn't even have settings AFAIK. If you want more, get either a modded TW (maybe SGS3 forums) or a completely different one.
freemini said:
None that I found, TW launcher doesn't even have settings AFAIK. If you want more, get either a modded TW (maybe SGS3 forums) or a completely different one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One of the nicest things about Android that gets taken for granted is the ability to customize your user interface. While most folks tend to stick to app icons for launching their apps, Tagy offers an alternative approach: a tag cloud. Tagy is actually a set of widgets that let you specify a list of apps, contacts, or bookmarks to appear in a single widget. Then, as you use the widget, the items you use more often will get bigger.
henklbr said:
Is somewhere an option, so I can place 5 icons in a row on the homescreen too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This can be remedied by simply downloading and using a different launcher.
Android allows the user to completely change the UI by using different launchers.
There are many launcher apps available in the market, but 'Go Launcher' is my personal favorite.
Just download 'Go Launcher' and install it. Once you run it and set it as default, you can change the grid size to anything you want (10x10 max). It even allows you to get rid of the dock, (which I really like), since I have no use for the dock icons on screens other than the home screen.
For instance, I currently have a 4.3" phone with no dock row and a grid size of 8x5 icons and no icon labels. Works very well for me.
One side effect is that you won't be able to use any apps or widgets that need the TW framework to run. I have never used a TW ROM so I don't know any more specifics.
In any case, if you don't like the new launcher, you can change it back to the default TW by going into 'Apps' settings; select the current launcher app and click on 'Clear Defaults'. Press the 'Home' key and this will prompt the system to ask you to choose a launcher. Simply choose your default TW and go back to your original screen. You can do this unlimited number of times without any problems. This will allow you to try out different launchers available in the Play Store.
Good Luck!
i'm using Nova launcher, and have it set as 7 down by 6 across... 5 custom dock buttons for ease of access at the bottom finish it off for me
basically the same setup as i had on the Note really lol
M
OMG, I wish I had seen this thread prior to purchasing my AT&T SGNII. SMH