Develop Bugs

home replacements

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.
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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!

Launcher Reviews

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
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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
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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

Any way to have 5 homescreen rather than 7 in Sense?!

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.
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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)

[Q] Dumb down defy? + w/ wificalling

I convinced my dad to get a waterproof smartphone for the free wifi calling.
Its his first smartphone and he wants me to lock down the phone so he doesnt mess anything up. Hes quite talented that way.
This thread says some of the roms dont have tmobile uma wifi calling
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=931972&page=3
I dont have the post count for that forum.
In new to android and dont know which rom to use? Motorblur has to go lol.
Phone has a red lens.
He doesnt have a data plan only wifi. He will mostly use wifi for calling but might read email and check weather once in a while but wont be surfing the web or playing games or anything.
If i could i would like a launcher with a single home screen with only about 10 apps and they would be locked from moving. There would be a largish call dock icon on the bottom and a clock widget near the top. The notification bar would have the date and a longer battery icon.
While on the home screen, the menu button would turn a flashlight on and off and the search button would launch the music player. Hitting the home button five times and entering a password would bring up the list of all the installed apps so i could go to the settings or market etc to change things.
The notification bar woud have slightly bigger icon and when swiped down would also show wifi and bluetooth controls like on my moms samsung galaxy. Also liker hers the lock screen would change to the puzzle piece swipe when theres a new message.

Get a custom launcher like Go Launcher EX and hide all the apps you dont want to use from the launcher
Stuff like browser I is a bad idea to remove, just hide the icon to launch it.
For WiFi intensive, I'd suggest going with a stock Blurless Froyo, since CM7 could have some issues when using WiFi.

Adw ex has an option to lock the homescreen so nothing moves. You can set it to be one page and lock it.
Sent from my MOTWX435KT using XDA App

adw launcher works pretty good! I was able to remove all but the one main desktop screen and then lock it. Had to set desktop overshoot to 0 to stop screen from bouncing when flicked.
Where would i ask for the following requests.
-Wider dock bar icons. having 3 or 5 dialer icons on the dock looks crappy lol.
-taller dock bar icon.
-menu button turns a flashlight app on and off
-search button launches a music player app
-home button works normally and goes home, if pressed 30 times in a row then brings up menu for me to get to settings/wallpaper/unlock/app drawer.

I am not sure on ADW EX but Go Launcher EX have the option of changing the dock background. Just use a picture with just 2 or 3 icons as back ground and use transparent icons. I set this way to mimic original DEFY launcher home with just Phone and Contacts in the dock bar. Attached the files here. Got it from here only but forgot the original post.
*** Note sure if I have explained it properly here

Try Launcher 7. You can lock the screen so icons can't be moved, and hide the rest from the app list. MIUI it's simple and easy to use, was great for my wife to learn Android, CM7 can get kind of confusing for some people.
Swyped from my MIUI 1.9.23 Defy

Angelus47 I dont like launcher 7 cant put enough icons/tiles on one screen.
Does MIUI have tmobile wifi calling app?
pprakash Is it better to have button image on the dock background and transparent icons over or is it better to cut the button image across several icon sized wide pieces.
In adw launcher the dock background is set by the theme. Im not sure how to create a theme. On the other hand if i didnt scale the split icons pieces to the right size there would be gaps between them I think.
Right now i have one visual voicemail on the left, one messaging on the right and three dialers in the middle.

perhaps i could find where the images for themes are stored and replace the dock backround image for the default theme.

tmiket said:
pprakash Is it better to have button image on the dock background and transparent icons over or is it better to cut the button image across several icon sized wide pieces.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With Go Launcher EX I find having the single image as background provided slightly bigger images rather than using individual icons. But I have attached individual icons as well here hopefully it helps you ..

Infine scroll on home screen + Scrollable Wallpaper

1. I have disabled the bixby screen on the left, however after that I can not switch screens when I swipe left. Is there any setting I can change to make scrolling continuos.
2. Wallpaer once set on Home screen remains static, is it not possible to keep the wallaper moving as well when user scrolls from one home screen to another. The query is in regards to wallapers which have more width then height.

I use nova launcher for these things, give it a try, you may install the free version, and you will be able to infinite scroll deaktop pages and scroll the wallpaper, and many other interesting customizations

winol said:
I use nova launcher for these things, give it a try, you may install the free version, and you will be able to infinite scroll deaktop pages and scroll the wallpaper, and many other interesting customizations
Click to expand...
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I already have Nova Prime was thinking of using as less apps as possible and hence was looking for an inbuilt solution.
Thanks anyways.