Develop Bugs

[Q] Multiple launcher question

please forgive me if this sounds silly or has already been asked/answered. I have searched the forums but couldn't find anything related, maybe due to it being either a given or silly question.
What's the rule-of-thumb when it comes to running multiple launchers? If one is currently active, are the others running in the background? Should I be concerned with battery and memory resources?
I currently main Go Launcher EX, but have also purchased ADW Launcher EX (loved it on the Eris), and Launcher Pro Plus. All are installed... I switch between them occasionally, and tend to go back to Go Launcher EX.
Rom = Magnolia 1.3.2

no takers??
thanx anyway.

I'm not sure either, but I use titanium pro, and it lets you freeze the launchers or apps you aren't using, so they don't appear in the app drawer. When you want to use it again, just defrost it. Hope this helps.
HTCInc-redibly re-ENGINEERED

baboonsRus said:
I'm not sure either, but I use titanium pro, and it lets you freeze the launchers or apps you aren't using, so they don't appear in the app drawer. When you want to use it again, just defrost it. Hope this helps.
HTCInc-redibly re-ENGINEERED
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanx for the advice! I'll use Bloat Freezer to disable the ones I'm not using!

I'm not positive but once you set one as your default launcher I'm pretty sure the others you have installed do not run in the background. So you shouldn't have to worry about battery life if you have more than 1 downloaded and installed. I am using Go EX now but I also have adw ex installed. Have you checked out the honeycomb theme for go launcher ex? I like it a lot.

I use LauncherPro and I know when I switch over to rosie every now and then, the HTC loading screen appears for a few seconds before showing my home screens, so it's not running in the background (at least not at any capacity worth noting). If you switch constantly without ever rebooting your phone it may be a different story.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA Premium App

I have 4 currently installed and notice no difference from when I first got my phone.
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App

awesome! Thanx for the replies! I've removed Launcher Pro and kept Go EX and ADW EX. At the moment, I haven't figured out how they're different, but like Go EX better because it doesn't do the 180 degree screen flip thingy. I remember ADW having an option of disabling that on my Eris, but I haven't been able to find it.

I am not familiar with Launcher.
If I have multiple launcher on my phone, do I able to switch between them from time to time?
Do I need root rights to do this?
I am using HTC sense and would like to try android default launcher or others.

maxi0361 said:
I am not familiar with Launcher.
If I have multiple launcher on my phone, do I able to switch between them from time to time?
Do I need root rights to do this?
I am using HTC sense and would like to try android default launcher or others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup you can switch between them as often as you'd like no root permission are required.

Home switcher for froyo works great.
HTCInc-redibly re-ENGINEERED

If its not you're main launcher, its not running..no need to freeze the others

Sense launcher - RAM usage

Hello,
I switched to APEX launcher instead of Sense, and was looking for the RAM usage of both.
Seems like the Sense launcher uses (on my device) arount 67MB of RAM vs 36MB for APEX.
I also noticed that the Sense launcher remains cached in the RAM even if you use an other launcher.
I cleared the cached Sense launcher via:
Options\Apps\Activated Apps\Menu => Show cached processes
There you should be able to select HTC Sense and click stop, to free the RAM\Cache.

I froze the Sense launcher, all the widgets, lock screen and settings using Titanium backup (required root). The phone with Apex launcher shows a saving of 100MB after a reboot.

Bigmille said:
I froze the Sense launcher, all the widgets, lock screen and settings using Titanium backup (required root). The phone with Apex launcher shows a saving of 100MB after a reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After freezing of sense, do you notice any better battery?
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2

I only cleared the sense launcher out of the cache to free up RAM when using an other launcher.

Sckank said:
After freezing of sense, do you notice any better battery?
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure, but I'm sure less memory use means less power consumed.
I did under-clocked the CPU to 1.2GHz and changed the governor from on-demand to interactive. This saves on battery and make the phone runs cooler without any noticeable performance drop.

Launcher Redraws / Reload

I've tried the V6 supercharger script, nova, and apex. NONE of them eliminate launcher redraws. It's so annoying!
The only launcher that provides a smooth stock experience with no redraws is...the stock launcher. Why? I love the features of the other launchers, especially being able to back up my homescreen. But the redraws kill the experience. Why is it so hard for aftermarket launchers to replicate the experience?

Whaa...
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

ro.HOME_APP_ADJ=1
Try adding this to your build.prop. I had the same problem and this little tweak locks the home screen in memory works great for me. Pay attention, that you don't mess something up in your build.prop!!!
Sent from my R800i using XDA

I believe Apex has the option to lock the launcher in memory, if not do the build.prop tweak in the post ^ mine.

Hydrony said:
ro.HOME_APP_ADJ=1
Try adding this to your build.prop. I had the same problem and this little tweak locks the home screen in memory works great for me. Pay attention, that you don't mess something up in your build.prop!!!
Sent from my R800i using XDA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Add. "ro.HOME_APP_ADJ=1" right? I I might use this cause it annoys me too
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

Try a less intense kernel too.

Wow. My nova launcher rarely redraws. Rarely. And when it does its quick.
let it be.

Laucher reloads and redraws are the results of Androids wonderful memory management. You'll have to find a launcher which locks in the memory, but by doing so, other apps will auto-kill faster than usual.

When I run nova or anything other than stock launcher, system panel shows its process as "perceptible" and using 40mb of ram while stock launcher has a process running too. Essentially I find its running both launchers, being more prone to kicking it out of memory.
Also on 4.0.1 this happened with the stock launcher getting redrawn. On 4.0.4 it seems to be fixed almost completely.

I still don't have perceptible in my sys panel and my nova usually hovers around 42ish and Max around 50. But I did buy the nova prime and set it as default. No sign of the other launcher unless it is system UI which hovers around 25mb.
let it be.

Yeah I'm jealous then. I been messing around tonight and can't get it to stop showing like that.

RogerPodacter said:
Yeah I'm jealous then. I been messing around tonight and can't get it to stop showing like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is why I freeze/uninstall all launchers except the one I'm using in Titanium backup. Though you shouldn't really have to, because Android should kill off the old launcher process eventually (when it needs more memory for something else) and it shouldn't return unless you manually switch back to that launcher. But I freeze it anyways just to ensure it doesn't interfere with anything. I freeze a lot of other Google/Android services that I don't use too.

I have been using apex launcher since the beginning on my galaxy nexus. However after android 4.2.2 update, I found that redraws have been really frequent and annoying.
The same happens on my nexus 7, especially after using memory hog apps like the "new hangouts" (really, really poorly optimized...)
Indeed apex reloads always, after exiting from hangouts.
Recently I tried also nova launcher (importing all settings from apex, so my configuration is identical), and I have to say that nova has much less redraws with respect to apex (both on galaxy nexus and nexus 7).
For example when rotating the screen from portrait to landscape, I don't experience any visible redraw with nova, while apex was redrawing quite often...
So far so good, I decided to switch to nova, even if I liked apex really much

wetter app caused launcher redraws
I also had frequent launcher redraws on my GN... the issue came with Android 4.2 and got MUCH worse with the recent 4.3 update (i'm on stock rom).
yesterday I removed the widget from wetteronline.com's "wetter app" I had on my homescreen - and surprise! I could not believe it, did not have a SINGLE launcher redraw since then (2 days heavy use) what a relief...
so I still think it is a bad memory management issue in Android, but maybe it is worth trying if one of your apps or widgets is contributing to the problem.
Galaxy Nexus i9250, Stock Android 4.3 Build JWR66V

[Q] How to add/remove homescreens

Hello guys,
I was wondering, on HTC One V how can a user add or delete home screens?
By default the OS (Android 4.0.3) comes with 5 home screens (in the middle the main one with the caller/mail/messages/clock etc and the rest have widgets already applied)
I cannot see a remove button
If this "issue" can only be resolved by a 3rd party application (launchers) can you please recommend a FREE and very stable launcher?
Thanks a lot!

duculetu said:
Hello guys,
I was wondering, on HTC One V how can a user add or delete home screens?
By default the OS (Android 4.0.3) comes with 5 home screens (in the middle the main one with the caller/mail/messages/clock etc and the rest have widgets already applied)
I cannot see a remove button
If this "issue" can only be resolved by a 3rd party application (launchers) can you please recommend a FREE and very stable launcher?
Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can't add or remove the 5 homescreen on the stock HTC Sense launcher. I think you need to install 3rd party launcher such as Apex launcher, Nova launcher ect, if you want custom homescreen number. my recommendation is Apex launcher. install it for free at Play Store and if you like additional features you can install Pro version.

1. For the One V you can't add/remove homescreens. Maybe because of an inferior version of Sense 4.0 .
2. You can try launchers(Apex,Nova,GO). But it uses a big chunk of your RAM so you might see a bit of performance loss.

Slinkee said:
1. For the One V you can't add/remove homescreens. Maybe because of an inferior version of Sense 4.0 .
2. You can try launchers(Apex,Nova,GO). But it uses a big chunk of your RAM so you might see a bit of performance loss.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Big chunk? GO launcher barely uses 20mb...

1ceb0x said:
Big chunk? GO launcher barely uses 20mb...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my phone shows that Go Launcher uses 42MB and Go Locker uses 10MB.

why are ICS launchers painfully slow?

I often get the circling arrow type of refresh notification when trying to open the drawer in launchers like Apex and Nova. I have the latest radio and set my build.prop to keep launcher in memory. I have almost 200 apps. Is there any way to make ameliorate the problem? It "refreshes" way too often and takes way too much time. I've been using Smart Task Bar and even when installing new apps, as far as I can recall, it has never made me wait to show all apps. What do you guys think is the problem here? Would moving apps to SD help? I vaguely recall it makes the startup slower.

You cannot lock the home launcher process in memory via the build.prop like you can with GB in ICS.
Second, I feel like Smart Taskbar is hijacking the launcher process and as such your home launcher is not getting the appropriate priority it needs to stay in memory. Every time you see the app reloading animation that means your launcher has been killed and has reloaded.
You should try V6 Supercharger to reprioritize your home launcher and unfortunately, uninstall Smart Taskbar since if it's using the launcher priority you will always have to deal with a reloading launcher since it'll be killed very often.
On a different device (and possibly Android version) I'm sure Smart Taskbar would be great, but if it's sitting behind all your tasks, all the time, it's using up memory, which is why your launcher keeps getting killed.
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium

Apex launcher has been fine for me, and I'm at around 160 apps now.
"Move to SD" moves the app to the FAT32 portion of the SD card, which would be much slower overall. I'm using SD-ext which still shows as installed to internal, but all the apps are on an sd-ext partition of the SD card (moving to SD would be pointless from there as it's already on the SD just on a faster/leaner ext4 partition). Besides some applications simply do not like being stored/run from a FAT32 partition.

Thanks for the replies. Although when flashing andromo I picked to have supercharger installed, following your advice, I chose to reinstall via directions from the supercharger thread with script manager and the .sh file. Works better now with less refreshing of launcher. Added bonus, global touch responsiveness significantly improved.
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium HD app