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Playing with the Desire rom on my HTC HD2 and have hit some questions that I need to google for answers. I'm hoping for some help to see what normal is & what can be tweaked & so on.
- When my device is off and I get a sms page, I get a sound notification & a vibration - but the screen doesn't turn on. Is this normal or a bug in the way I am using the rom on my HD2?
- When I turn on the device, on the lock screen I see a bit of the missed page - but no way I can see to jump to the sms message. I can just unlock the phone & manually go see what it was. Would like a 1-step solution. This normal?
- The hardware buttons at the bottom of my device can light up (and do in Windows Mobile) but not running Droid. Once again, dunno if it's a bug in the way I'm using Droid or if the Desire simply doesn't have light up hardware buttons.
- I check a few web pages daily for WinMo news & new apps. Anyone have recommendations of must read Android web pages?
I know I had some others that I've forgotten already.
I will be researching these questions myself (as 3 kids 3 & under permit) & if I find answers I will post them myself. Thanks for your time.
First two are normal and you just need to slide down the notifications tray at the top to get to messages.
steve228uk said:
First two are normal and you just need to slide down the notifications tray at the top to get to messages.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Much better then trying to figure out a bug.
Good time for me to look into lock screen replacements. Any suggestions?
Edit:
Made this my research project of the night - going to test out WidgetLocker Lockscreen.
Program launcher question - I dislike the big list of programs all mixed together. I'd like to make a folder/subfolder structure so I click on the main button, then pick games (possibly then breaking it down into game types, etc).
Are their apps that replace the program launcher portion without replacing the whole home screen?
If not, how about a program that is just a stand alone launcher? IE - I run the program from a shortcut & get the feature I'm looking for?
Found one that does it perfectly - 'Folder Organizer'
Also like the WidgetLocker lockscreen. Love using the Photo Gallery widgets that cycle through pix every 30 minutes.
Little by little I'm getting there.
I took me a while to get used to it too but you have to adopt the homescreens for your favourite apps where you can have folders, icons, widgets, and shortcuts. I only ever dive into the app drawer for the odd app I rarely used but like Calculator.
If you click Menu > List it'll alphabetise it and you can scroll using the bar too!
Just want to give a couple of suggestions for sites to check out to keep up-to-date on Android news.
www.engadget.com - Sure, they cover a vast number of topics but I find that they report a lot of the top Android news as well. Plus, it's always good to stay informed with other tech stuff.
www.pocketnow.com - These guys used to be strictly a Windows Mobile site. But they've since expanded their coverage to include Android and Apple stuff. Lots of good videos on their youtube channel.
www.androidcentral.com - Strictly Android-only site. They give decent App recommendations from time to time.
Quick question - when I pull the power to my phone (say after charging @ night) - it turns on! Any setting to keep it from turning itself on when I pull the power out?
I've never had it turn on if it was off!
Hey guys, just wanted to spark a convo and how you think MS can or will evolve the Live Tiles. I beleive they will get boring after a while. They should spice them up with some different transitions and movement. Will there ever be a change to the way our tiles are setup and viewed? How can they keep the homepage interesting, innovative, and quick for the user without following the footsteps of the grid format?
937dytboi said:
Hey guys, just wanted to spark a convo and how you think MS can or will evolve the Live Tiles. I beleive they will get boring after a while. They should spice them up with some different transitions and movement. Will there ever be a change to the way our tiles are setup and viewed? How can they keep the homepage interesting, innovative, and quick for the user without following the footsteps of the grid format?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Make all of the tiles animated, including phone, Internet, mail, and basically all of the defaults. It doesn't have to do anything useful, just look cool.
937dytboi said:
Hey guys, just wanted to spark a convo and how you think MS can or will evolve the Live Tiles. I beleive they will get boring after a while. They should spice them up with some different transitions and movement. Will there ever be a change to the way our tiles are setup and viewed? How can they keep the homepage interesting, innovative, and quick for the user without following the footsteps of the grid format?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm curious why you think they would get boring. Live Tiles are just a way for an app to display information, they are only as boring as the apps that are using them.
I would like to see support for apps to use doublewide tiles though, and perhaps animations (like the people, music, and other stock apps have) instead of static images. We really just need more APIs and multitasking.
Imagine stuff like the following
1. Check-in tiles that automatically update when your friends are checked in nearby or there is a popular place, deal, etc
2. Traffic apps that show a near-live map on a tile
3. Exercise apps that show a near-live counter of calories burned, miles run, or speed
There is a lot that can still be done, IMO.
Screw the animations. How about useful information.
Instead of a simple number how about the phone tile show who called?
How about the messages and email tile showed the messages or detail.
Because right now they're basically huge ass icons with numbers.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
PG2G said:
I'm curious why you think they would get boring. Live Tiles are just a way for an app to display information, they are only as boring as the apps that are using them.
I would like to see support for apps to use doublewide tiles though, and perhaps animations (like the people, music, and other stock apps have) instead of static images. We really just need more APIs and multitasking.
Imagine stuff like the following
1. Check-in tiles that automatically update when your friends are checked in nearby or there is a popular place, deal, etc
2. Traffic apps that show a near-live map on a tile
3. Exercise apps that show a near-live counter of calories burned, miles run, or speed
There is a lot that can still be done, IMO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like your ideas, you got something going there, we can build off of that, reason i made this thread to reflect on ideas as such
They look and work fine for me.
vetvito said:
Screw the animations. How about useful information.
Instead of a simple number how about the phone tile show who called?
How about the messages and email tile showed the messages or detail.
Because right now they're basically huge ass icons with numbers.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These ideas should definately be implemented, I totally agree
falconeight said:
They look and work fine for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They work for me well also but im thinking 5-6 years down the road, how will they change this will they keep the metro look or how can they improve on what we have is my question? Scrolling can sometimes be a pain especially when you have tons of stuff pinned.
How about specific hubs like how they have in the marketplace for categories, Depending on what category you download from it will go to that hub to help minimize the amount of scrolling. Jkust a thought. Kinda like how iOS takes a icon and its several similar apps in the one icon
937dytboi said:
They work for me well also but im thinking 5-6 years down the road, how will they change this will they keep the metro look or how can they improve on what we have is my question? Scrolling can sometimes be a pain especially when you have tons of stuff pinned.
How about specific hubs like how they have in the marketplace for categories, Depending on what category you download from it will go to that hub to help minimize the amount of scrolling. Jkust a thought. Kinda like how iOS takes a icon and its several similar apps in the one icon
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dotn think they will change it, because its a smartphone , with tiles, icons ect. i dont know in any way how else they can change it , without rendering the phone functions useless
IMO, wp7 UI is already an evolution from IOS and android. this is where the best it can get.
many years ago, during the nokia symbian early 2000s days i used to yearn for a phone interface which runs like those nice flash websites u see on the net, almost half a decade later, we have it now - WP7. This is the closest u can get .
Another possibility i see , are those maybe in windows phone 8 , we will see those widgets , floating widgets like weather which may pop up when u unlock on the start screen
stuff running on the lock screen ,
overall i only see a a possible change in looks in the future, maybe 3D tiles or customizable widgets, tiles , ability to choose to display what u want to see on the tile
falconeight said:
They look and work fine for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I agree with you as of not but, the color selection is lame, I want to customize my phone a little. Right now besides using a hack to change or add colors, there is no way to really do that.
I would like to see some type of texture or something to jazz up the tiles a little.
They work great now but, just need a little tweaking in my eyes...
Magpir said:
I dotn think they will change it, because its a smartphone , with tiles, icons ect. i dont know in any way how else they can change it , without rendering the phone functions useless
IMO, wp7 UI is already an evolution from IOS and android. this is where the best it can get.
many years ago, during the nokia symbian early 2000s days i used to yearn for a phone interface which runs like those nice flash websites u see on the net, almost half a decade later, we have it now - WP7. This is the closest u can get .
Another possibility i see , are those maybe in windows phone 8 , we will see those widgets , floating widgets like weather which may pop up when u unlock on the start screen
stuff running on the lock screen ,
overall i only see a a possible change in looks in the future, maybe 3D tiles or customizable widgets, tiles , ability to choose to display what u want to see on the tile
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its called HTC Sense 3.5. Its stunning.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
LexusFman said:
Make all of the tiles animated, including phone, Internet, mail, and basically all of the defaults. It doesn't have to do anything useful, just look cool.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cannot disagree more. WP7 metro is about simplicity and information. It looks good because it's no flare, all business. Leave themeing to the modding community (whenever we get past the rooting stage that is). The best thing for microsoft to do is increase tile functionality without jeopardizing the 'ease of use'.
My one idea is; implement the option, per app, to have a new pinned tile go either to the top, or to the bottom. For example, notes and to-do could auto pin to the top, everything else to the bottom. That way if I want something on top, I don't have to scroll down to find it, then drag it up.
Or maybe 'pin tile' should bring up a zoomed out edit screen, you tap twice where you want the tile.
Another thing; that black empty space on the right. Make it into a scroll bar, so you can navigate faster.
---------- Post added at 01:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 AM ----------
vetvito said:
Its called HTC Sense 3.5. Its stunning.
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmm HTC sense for android is fat and not that good. (Interesting that Sense for WinMo had more functionality and was much better... but I digress.) What's more, android's widgets aren't that great either. The whole point of android initially was widgets, but now I have an app that I use and a separate dedicated widget, for the same function and purpose, for nearly everything. I had a newsreader app, and since the author never bothered to make a widget, I had to go find a widget. Or I did that, until I realized that widgets were useless. None of them mesh together, a lot of them take up a lot of space and offer very little functionality, they slow down your phone and eat your ram.
Now with wp7 and tiles, nearly every app implements good tile practices, and with tiles there is no issue of things taking up too much space or being ugly.
It seems to me that for the most part, android and android devs have left widgets behind. WP7 will embrace the tiles for... always probably.
My number one issue with Live Tiles is that developers can't change the police size on them (confirmed by a few devs I asked). So many tiles who flip to show you information are just as useless as non live tiles because they show incomplete information.
Just now I'm looking at my phone and all my pinned news feeds show cut off titles which is pretty stupid.
Peew971 said:
My number one issue with Live Tiles is that developers can't change the police size on them (confirmed by a few devs I asked). So many tiles who flip to show you information are just as useless as non live tiles because they show incomplete information.
Just now I'm looking at my phone and all my pinned news feeds show cut off titles which is pretty stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By 'police' I wasn't sure if you meant font size? Or Tile width?
As a developer you're limited by Microsoft to hardly any text on the front of a tile (and only in one specific position), and only the option of a large-ish font on the back of a tile (often too big as you say to display say a full news headline).
You can see what a developer is allowed to change on a tile here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh202948(v=vs.92).aspx
i.e. a single number, a small bit of text on the front, some text on the back, and a background image. I think it's too limiting at the moment.
You can get round these limitations a bit by dynamically generating the tile background (for front or back) as an image (e.g. of some smaller font text). That's not easy to code though, especially if you're trying to dynamically generate the image on the phone through say a wp7 background agent. It's a bit easier doing it on a server - but that means it won't work when there's no mobile signal. Having to generate the whole thing as an image (especially just to display smaller font text) also feels a little bit like using a sledgehammer to knock in a nail.
Similarly I think Microsoft should let developers create double width tiles - they could even make it a marketplace certification requirement that the user should have an option of specifying single/double width tile in the app. As long as the user has the option of choosing I can't see the harm.
Microsoft should be giving developers full and easy access to what happens in those 173 by 173 squares of tile pixels. Perhaps even give the user the option in-app as to whether the developer is allowed to make the Tile animate or not - I think then Tiles would become a lot more interesting.
Yeah I meant font size, sorry I'm French
On your app (loving it by the way) the text on the back is usually fine because it displays scores but on BBC News or WPCentral for instance you only get half a headline or something like that which is totally useless as you then need to open the app to know what's going on. It goes against the concept of Live Tiles, I don't get it. On the other hand, on the Me tile the font size adapts to the text there is to display so it is possible, it's just Microsoft not giving access to devs, totally stupid.
link68759 said:
I cannot disagree more. WP7 metro is about simplicity and information. It looks good because it's no flare, all business. Leave themeing to the modding community (whenever we get past the rooting stage that is). The best thing for microsoft to do is increase tile functionality without jeopardizing the 'ease of use'.
My one idea is; implement the option, per app, to have a new pinned tile go either to the top, or to the bottom. For example, notes and to-do could auto pin to the top, everything else to the bottom. That way if I want something on top, I don't have to scroll down to find it, then drag it up.
Or maybe 'pin tile' should bring up a zoomed out edit screen, you tap twice where you want the tile.
Another thing; that black empty space on the right. Make it into a scroll bar, so you can navigate faster.
---------- Post added at 01:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 AM ----------
hmm HTC sense for android is fat and not that good. (Interesting that Sense for WinMo had more functionality and was much better... but I digress.) What's more, android's widgets aren't that great either. The whole point of android initially was widgets, but now I have an app that I use and a separate dedicated widget, for the same function and purpose, for nearly everything. I had a newsreader app, and since the author never bothered to make a widget, I had to go find a widget. Or I did that, until I realized that widgets were useless. None of them mesh together, a lot of them take up a lot of space and offer very little functionality, they slow down your phone and eat your ram.
Now with wp7 and tiles, nearly every app implements good tile practices, and with tiles there is no issue of things taking up too much space or being ugly.
It seems to me that for the most part, android and android devs have left widgets behind. WP7 will embrace the tiles for... always probably.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lie much? For every tile on WP7 I have a widget. Left Widgets behind? What planet are you on?
Tiles offer absolutely no function, only partial information.
Mesh together? Nearly every app implements good tile practices? Sure they do, sure...
Sense is fat and not that good? However your other post perfectly describes Sense.
But yeah
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
link68759 said:
I cannot disagree more. WP7 metro is about simplicity and information. It looks good because it's no flare, all business. Leave themeing to the modding community (whenever we get past the rooting stage that is). The best thing for microsoft to do is increase tile functionality without jeopardizing the 'ease of use'.
My one idea is; implement the option, per app, to have a new pinned tile go either to the top, or to the bottom. For example, notes and to-do could auto pin to the top, everything else to the bottom. That way if I want something on top, I don't have to scroll down to find it, then drag it up.
Or maybe 'pin tile' should bring up a zoomed out edit screen, you tap twice where you want the tile.
Another thing; that black empty space on the right. Make it into a scroll bar, so you can navigate faster.
---------- Post added at 01:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:54 AM ----------
hmm HTC sense for android is fat and not that good. (Interesting that Sense for WinMo had more functionality and was much better... but I digress.) What's more, android's widgets aren't that great either. The whole point of android initially was widgets, but now I have an app that I use and a separate dedicated widget, for the same function and purpose, for nearly everything. I had a newsreader app, and since the author never bothered to make a widget, I had to go find a widget. Or I did that, until I realized that widgets were useless. None of them mesh together, a lot of them take up a lot of space and offer very little functionality, they slow down your phone and eat your ram.
Now with wp7 and tiles, nearly every app implements good tile practices, and with tiles there is no issue of things taking up too much space or being ugly.
It seems to me that for the most part, android and android devs have left widgets behind. WP7 will embrace the tiles for... always probably.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flare sells phones though. I'm not talking about a super flashy animation that doesn't do anything but I think most of the default tiles can be pretty static and boring compared to the useful stuff. My favorite tile on WP7 is the people hub because it's constantly moving and changing even if it doesn't do anything. If every tile was like that, Windows Phone would stand out to the average consumer more than it already does.
LexusFman said:
Flare sells phones though. I'm not talking about a super flashy animation that doesn't do anything but I think most of the default tiles can be pretty static and boring compared to the useful stuff. My favorite tile on WP7 is the people hub because it's constantly moving and changing even if it doesn't do anything. If every tile was like that, Windows Phone would stand out to the average consumer more than it already does.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, the animation of the People tile has seemed pretty useless. There doesn't seem to be any meaning behind what people are displayed and why. If there is, I haven't seen it. I love the People Hub, but the Tile just doesn't provide much value to me.
To me, I would much rather have settings to determine which people would show on the tile. Then disappear once acknowledged, like the email indicators. So, if a contact updates Facebook, I may want to see it. But, I don't care if most of my contacts update things. So, in an ideal world a persons picture would only appear if they had updated something. Then it would be hidden and remain hidden once I acknowledged it. Then if something else would be updated, it would appear. And the users this would apply to would be set by me.
Effectively the animation of the People Tile just seems like noise.
Animation for the sake of animation is just distracting and consumes additional power.
I want the ability to control the app from the tile itself. Kind of like toggle switches.
Hardware limitations
Hi all
I think that some of the limitations on Live tiles are due to hardware considerations. Regular live tiles are limited to one background update per 30 minutes. This is because MS is keen to maintain performance and battery life. I think that as hardware improves, particularly mobile processors, we will see live tile functionality expand.
Cheers
andrew-in-woking
I think touchwiz has come a long way. It really adds alot to stock android in my opinion, and im not just talking about the s pen additions.
The dialer, the whole phone app in general, all the motion settings...
What I want to talk about are issues that people have with touchwiz in general, meaning, reasons that you would jump ship to a custom rom, and I'd like to see if anyone would have solutions to these issues.
Ill give you a few examples of my own experiences.
1) I need to have a battery percentage in the status bar. So when youre running any rom worth its salt, there's an option for that. I was going through the settings on the note 2 and there it was, built into the touchwiz settings... im curious to know when this was added because im pretty sure it wasnt there in gingerbread.
2) I like the additions to the stock player but to me, its still not functional enough, I at least need a screen lock. When I mentioned this in a post, someone pointed out that screen lock is built in now, all you need to do is press the power key when playing a video and it locks the screen.
3) I remember someone posting about how on this phone, the calls and messages show up in the call log and how annoying that is. I just looked for a second and realized that theres a way to change that. When youre in the call log, you hit menu then view by.
I think we could all benefit from learning about the other "hidden features and functionality" in touchwiz. For example, I still have an issue with the stock video player that you cant easily fast forward by dragging like other players and there doesnt seem to be any options or preferences built it...
What I want from Touchwiz is wallpaper scrolling and the option to change the screen grid. Other than that, it has really improved a lot and I'm pretty much comfortable using it now.
most touchwiz doesn't work for me because I work in a 240dpi environment and touchwiz doesn't scale well in it. not even the Samsung keyboard loads, it just FCs. I use different launcher, different dialer. stock kernel is not too battery friendly...I got almost 2 days usage with jedi master 2 rom with normal usage (yes, it's touchwiz based but wherever I can change it I do).
why would I jump ship?
- better environment scaling in 240dpi
- better/longer battery life
- faster operations
lennie said:
most touchwiz doesn't work for me because I work in a 240dpi environment and touchwiz doesn't scale well in it. not even the Samsung keyboard loads, it just FCs. I use different launcher, different dialer. stock kernel is not too battery friendly...I got almost 2 days usage with jedi master 2 rom with normal usage (yes, it's touchwiz based but wherever I can change it I do).
why would I jump ship?
- better environment scaling in 240dpi
- better/longer battery life
- faster operations
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on Jedi... I consider myself an "advanced" user and stock touchwiz is not quite there yet but if you add Jedi's rom and Nova launcher then it makes the experience much better imo... I don't mess around with dpi settings as I will just wait for a rom that will customize that to my liking. We are lacking in the development department right now but as soon as it picks up there should be lots of great options for us...:fingers-crossed: And as far as scrollable wallpapers... I just download Zedge & an app called wallpaper changer and I have on demand scrollable wallpapers in Nova!
mottyengel said:
I think touchwiz has come a long way. It really adds alot to stock android in my opinion, and im not just talking about the s pen additions.
The dialer, the whole phone app in general, all the motion settings...
What I want to talk about are issues that people have with touchwiz in general, meaning, reasons that you would jump ship to a custom rom, and I'd like to see if anyone would have solutions to these issues.
Ill give you a few examples of my own experiences.
1) I need to have a battery percentage in the status bar. So when youre running any rom worth its salt, there's an option for that. I was going through the settings on the note 2 and there it was, built into the touchwiz settings... im curious to know when this was added because im pretty sure it wasnt there in gingerbread.
2) I like the additions to the stock player but to me, its still not functional enough, I at least need a screen lock. When I mentioned this in a post, someone pointed out that screen lock is built in now, all you need to do is press the power key when playing a video and it locks the screen.
3) I remember someone posting about how on this phone, the calls and messages show up in the call log and how annoying that is. I just looked for a second and realized that theres a way to change that. When youre in the call log, you hit menu then view by.
I think we could all benefit from learning about the other "hidden features and functionality" in touchwiz. For example, I still have an issue with the stock video player that you cant easily fast forward by dragging like other players and there doesnt seem to be any options or preferences built it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi OP,
If u go to Settings -> Display and if you select Display Battery Percentage, it'll show you the battery percentage in the notification bar.
I'd like a better home screen layout. 5x4 is a GINORMOUS waste of space.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda app-developers app
achusaysblessyou said:
Hi OP,
If u go to Settings -> Display and if you select Display Battery Percentage, it'll show you the battery percentage in the notification bar.
I'd like a better home screen layout. 5x4 is a GINORMOUS waste of space.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i guess i wasnt clear, i found it, but i never knew it was there... and the homescreen layout... use a different launcher..
The only thing I missed from a custom launcher are:
1) can't change the icon grid, would like a 5x5 at least.
2) can't lock the home screen. Hate it when I accidentally moved stuff after having it setup perfectly the way I want it.
Also it would be great if we can select which app the page buddy brings up.
The only thing that really pushed me away from TouchWiz is that you can’t move the “Apps” button in the dock. I can’t reach the button when holding the phone in my left hand, one handed.
I really hate the lock screen. I was running a ROM with AOSP JB lock screen on my previous phone. I use the lock screen music controls all the time.
On Touchwiz lock screen if you use the basic swipe lock, you get the quick apps at the bottom, but the music controls don't show up at the top (at least not for Spotify or DoggCatcher). I can turn on pattern unlock, then it will show the lock screen music controls, but I lose the quick apps (I find it useful to access Google Search or Camera from lock screen).
The only solution to get both is to use pattern unlock with swipe gesture. This gives me the swipe lock screen with quick apps at the bottom, then when I swipe it gives me the pattern unlock with music controls at the top. WAY too many steps to access these two features that apparently can't be on the lock screen at the same time.
Can't say I often log in just to reply to a thread here, I'm more of a lurker. But I definitely feel the need to contribute to this.
I actually just returned my Note 2 (with the intention of getting an unlocked Nexus 4 in a couple days) and one of the major reasons was TouchWiz.
I hate it. Hate hate hate it. I hate the notification bar customizations. I hate that they've taken something as wonderful as power toggles in the notification bar and so badly butchered them. The entire notification pulldown is a crowded clusterfk compared to vanilla Android (full disclosure: I'm a long time vanilla Android user through Nexus devices/AOSP ROMs). The low DPI for a phone with such a big screen is damn absurd. I feel like I'm using my 37" computer monitor at 1280*1024. The TouchWiz customizations to the settings UI is just as bad or worse than Sense. If anything the Note 2 should be using the default Android tablet settings UI. The TouchWiz lock screen is a step up in customization from vanilla Android, but I still think it's ugly as all hell. Most of it is fluff that doesn't add any function or aesthetics. Not specifically TouchWiz related, but I loathe that they moved the back button from the left side of the screen as in vanilla JB to the left side via a capacitive hardware button.
I don't hate ALL of Samsung's tinkering. S-Voice was actually a phenomenal surprise and I'm going to dearly miss it. I could actually reliably send text messages with it without ever so much as glancing at the phone. Voice recognition was fantastic and it covered basic phone features better than vanilla Android's default abilities.
What I would really LOVE to have is a Note 2 without the hardware buttons, running AOSP with S-Voice and the S-Pen apps. Perhaps one day if there's a stable CM release where I can install extracted APKs for the Samsung apps I may get another one. Until then I'm going to stick with the Nexus line. TouchWiz really is that bad IMO.
... at least TouchWiz is a lot better than one of the first versions of it with the Behold II *shudders* I used one of those for a week.
hittingsmoke said:
Can't say I often log in just to reply to a thread here, I'm more of a lurker. But I definitely feel the need to contribute to this.
I actually just returned my Note 2 (with the intention of getting an unlocked Nexus 4 in a couple days) and one of the major reasons was TouchWiz.
I hate it. Hate hate hate it. I hate the notification bar customizations. I hate that they've taken something as wonderful as power toggles in the notification bar and so badly butchered them. The entire notification pulldown is a crowded clusterfk compared to vanilla Android (full disclosure: I'm a long time vanilla Android user through Nexus devices/AOSP ROMs). The low DPI for a phone with such a big screen is damn absurd. I feel like I'm using my 37" computer monitor at 1280*1024. The TouchWiz customizations to the settings UI is just as bad or worse than Sense. If anything the Note 2 should be using the default Android tablet settings UI. The TouchWiz lock screen is a step up in customization from vanilla Android, but I still think it's ugly as all hell. Most of it is fluff that doesn't add any function or aesthetics. Not specifically TouchWiz related, but I loathe that they moved the back button from the left side of the screen as in vanilla JB to the left side via a capacitive hardware button.
I don't hate ALL of Samsung's tinkering. S-Voice was actually a phenomenal surprise and I'm going to dearly miss it. I could actually reliably send text messages with it without ever so much as glancing at the phone. Voice recognition was fantastic and it covered basic phone features better than vanilla Android's default abilities.
What I would really LOVE to have is a Note 2 without the hardware buttons, running AOSP with S-Voice and the S-Pen apps. Perhaps one day if there's a stable CM release where I can install extracted APKs for the Samsung apps I may get another one. Until then I'm going to stick with the Nexus line. TouchWiz really is that bad IMO.
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I find it entertaining that you mentioned you are an avid vanilla android user, then explain how you run custom roms. *boggle* Enjoy the on screen buttons taking up real estate, 16gb of total memory, and yearning for the s-pen. Btw, something as simple as go launcher could allow you to set up plenty of things you want, to include a 5x5 icon set.
I could go on and on, but to be honest, I don't think it will be long for you to realize you are making a mistake. *cough* battery
mdt73 said:
I find it entertaining that you mentioned you are an avid vanilla android user, then explain how you run custom roms. *boggle* Enjoy the on screen buttons taking up real estate, 16gb of total memory, and yearning for the s-pen. Btw, something as simple as go launcher could allow you to set up plenty of things you want, to include a 5x5 icon set.
I could go on and on, but to be honest, I don't think it will be long for you to realize you are making a mistake. *cough* battery
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Click to collapse
He does have a point with a lot of that stuff, particularly the lock screen music control. I just don't understand why it's so hard to add it just under the weather, or as a small bar just above the other lockscreen targets at the bottom of the screen. That's the most frustrating thing for me, as most the the other stuff he mentioned can be changed, and if it can't I'm willing to overlook it for a while because of all the added features this phone brings.
I have been using power amp for music since my DroidX2 back when we yearned for an eq... so its always been there for me (the lock screen music control).
Everything mentioned can be addressed. That's the beauty of android; customizing your android experience. What people have become is lazy because roms do it for you.
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda premium
mdt73 said:
I find it entertaining that you mentioned you are an avid vanilla android user, then explain how you run custom roms. *boggle*
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Click to collapse
How so? AOSP ROMS are pretty well vanilla with very minor tweaks. Nothing like horribly reskinned menus at every turn. *yahtzee*
I use ADW EX to do a hell of a lot more than add icons to my home screen. Changing the launcher can only do so much to fix a horrible complete OS reskin.
hittingsmoke said:
How so? AOSP ROMS are pretty well vanilla with very minor tweaks. Nothing like horribly reskinned menus at every turn. *yahtzee*
I use ADW EX to do a hell of a lot more than add icons to my home screen. Changing the launcher can only do so much to fix a horrible complete OS reskin.
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Click to collapse
Only thing that looks skined on my phobe now isctge lockscreen, and im sure I can fix that with a lock screen app. Otherwise my launcher is now ADW, my notification bar is themed blue with circle battery and stock JB settings/clear all buttons. No brightness bar in notification window either. In all honesty there is not much mire I was able to change on my Galaxy Nexus that I cant on here, visually. In the options department Samsung has done a wonderful job and I currently dont miss anything from AOKP other then the widget popups on nav bar (would love to hold say menu button to get that on here)
Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 2
Hi all,
From a processing overhead and memory standpoint, I was wondering if it's better to have one big widget or many smaller widgets. I have a big widget that has a lot of functionality, but I've noticed that it tends to make my phone (Galaxy Note 3) jumpy, especially in things like games. If I remove the widget from my home screen, everything smooths back out. I know that Zooper takes all of the widget elements and renders them as a single unit, so I didn't know if maybe it would help smooth things out if I broke the widget up into smaller ones. Or would that just make it worse?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Sorry to hi-jack but have a similar question
Is it would be better to have one app, say zooper or UCCW taking care of all my widget or many app, Zooper, UCCW, simple calendar, beautifull widget. And in addition, one big widget or many small... would be on a lg g3.
Any hint?
Well I found that one big widget does a few things.
Multiple widget configuration:
First. A bunch of small widgets have redraw issues (widget disappears then redraws on the screen and reappears) Especially if widgets overlap.
Second. It becomes a nightmare for hotspots to not overlap.
Third. There's quit a few issues with which widget to keep up front and which widget to move to back. (Becomes a juggling act getting everything just right)
One big widget with lots of modules:
First. Way easier to make a apk for playstore.
Second: Very little redraw issues.
Third. Way easier to make multiple different colored versions of the same screen.
Fourth: Can get very confusing to yourself and others if you didn't name the modules as you went along.
Fifth: if you share your creation, the end user will need to change there background to add close as possible to your widget color, because there will be some type of margin somewhere on that screen, even if set to none.
So in conclusion, I find better performance with full screen pages. It makes my life easier. Plus list glitches from redraw.
Of course your milage will very though.
thinker5555 said:
Hi all,
From a processing overhead and memory standpoint, I was wondering if it's better to have one big widget or many smaller widgets. I have a big widget that has a lot of functionality, but I've noticed that it tends to make my phone (Galaxy Note 3) jumpy, especially in things like games. If I remove the widget from my home screen, everything smooths back out. I know that Zooper takes all of the widget elements and renders them as a single unit, so I didn't know if maybe it would help smooth things out if I broke the widget up into smaller ones. Or would that just make it worse?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As someone who cut down from over 30 individual Zooper widgets to 9 large-ish ones, I'll have to say that I strongly prefer fewer larger ones. Previously, Nova often crashed and notified me it was due to any one of the 30 or so Zoopers which had crossed the limit of my device.
Furthermore, as @sandman7793 says quite rightly, redraws are a pretty major issue whenever booting up or switching between apps/homescreen pages.
In addition, it is much easier to manage large number of modules in fewer widget than jumping to and fro between several smaller ones to copy a slight adjustment you may have made to one of them. Simply put: fewer widgets, fewer hassle.
Thanks for the info. Guide me in one direction. As for battery life, one better than the other, since you tried both ways?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
ere1nion said:
Thanks for the info. Guide me in one direction. As for battery life, one better than the other, since you tried both ways?
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
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Click to collapse
Honestly, it's a bit hard to tell. I never tested Zooper in isolation for its effect on battery life. However, based on the performance improvements with fewer widgets, including decreased redraw issues and just fewer homescreen widgets to power at any one time, I'd say fewer widgets of little variety probably has better battery life (although, the effect may be minimal to none at all).
Is it possible to have one widget cover the entire screen? I thought 4x4 was the biggest available.
Also, is there a way of combining two widgets into one? For example, I have a 4x1 weather widget and a 4x3 weather bitmap icon which, by the sounds of it, would work better as a single widget.
TheStretchedElf said:
Is it possible to have one widget cover the entire screen? I thought 4x4 was the biggest available.
Also, is there a way of combining two widgets into one? For example, I have a 4x1 weather widget and a 4x3 weather bitmap icon which, by the sounds of it, would work better as a single widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is possible to have one widget over the entire screen, but it may depend on your launcher. Some launchers, like Lightning, Nova and Themer, allow for easy resizing of widgets to be as big or as small as you want. The best way to do it is to place a new Zooper widget on your home screen, and before you tap it to start editing it, resize it to the size you want. Then when you go into edit mode, Zooper will pick up on that size and behave accordingly. For example, I have a 6x5 and a 6x3, neither of which are available options when dropping a new widget initially.
As for combining widgets, I haven't found a good way of doing that yet. I think you'd have to create a new widget, import the one with the most elements into it, and then manually create the rest of the elements from the other widget and configure them. An alternative may be to export the .xml for both of them to a computer and add the two together there. This way you should at least be able to get all of the elements into one widget, but then when you load it into Zooper, you'll need to move the elements around because they'll probably overlap at that point.
Other than that, if someone knows of a better way, I'd be happy to hear it.
Referring back to my original question that kicked this thread off, thanks to everyone for your input. @sandman7793 especially had some great points, which I really appreciate. I've done some more digging, and it looks like some of my performance issue was actually related to Greenify rather than Zooper. I was seeing jumpiness in things like games because I had them under my list of apps to forcibly keep hibernated. Oops. Once I figured that out, everything is working smooth again.
If i do not root the telephone, can I use personalized widgets and themes?
Sorry for the quite trivial question but I do not have Samsung experience
trocchietto said:
If i do not root the telephone, can I use personalized widgets and themes?
Sorry for the quite trivial question but I do not have Samsung experience
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Click to collapse
If partner. goes through my web
www.eladiosthemes.com
Enviado desde mi SM-G935F mediante Tapatalk
trocchietto said:
If i do not root the telephone, can I use personalized widgets and themes?
Sorry for the quite trivial question but I do not have Samsung experience
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Click to collapse
Absolutely! That's the great thing about Android. You can even choose to go with something completely different than Samsung's launcher. There's lots of different launchers that support themes. Nova and Apex are two popular options. Themes are also available for Samsung.
Sent from my SM-N930P using Tapatalk
1. Launcher and theme as mention above.
2. Ads free by Adguard on Play Store.
3. Disable almost apps anf module you want by EZ Disable Package or Package Disable Pro
4. Change dpi by Content Scaling or some commands through adb
Sent from my SM-N930F
I prefer not to root or tinker with my primary business phone because I don't want to have something not work as intended and miss a call or appointment.
The level of customization you can do with launchers and themes these days is almost on par with what you can achieve with a rooted device.
In addition to themes you can also download and install custom icon packs to customize the look of all of your icons.
For widgets you can get something like the Beautiful Widgets app that lets you customize various widgets for the device. It is very popular for people who like the HTC type clock widget look on their home screens.
Just do some searches on the play store for themes, icon packs, widgets, keyboards, etc and there are enough customization options to make your head spin.
For Home screens / App drawer / Folder, any Launcher will do. My all time fav, and most reliable recommendation is easily Nova Launcher.
- Nova lets you customize the font size, label colours, icon sizes, icon packs, homescreen grid, app drawer grid, homescreen gestures and so much more.
For custom button remapping, Button Remapper works perfectly without root. It will let you set custom actions for your physical buttons (swap the recent/back if you wish, or add hold functionality)
- The app is a bit limited without root in regards to added functionality, but its something!
- I believe the non-rooted version also allows you to map volume keys to add Music skip / pause functionality. (Correct me if im wrong!)
For global app / service disabling, definitely use Package Disabler Pro. It has a built in list of (currently) 97 apps considered unneeded, and gives you full control of every app.
- This has been proven to save battery btw!
For added Toggles in the Notification panel (not QuickPanel) there are hundreds of working apps that add their own little notification bar, fully interactive, that shows up as a notification card.
- It may seem a bit redundant considering Samsung's built in QuickPanel does mostly everything, but for a few things that may be missing (ie. Hotspot, Mobile Data, or specific functions like opening apps, setting gps/data to specific modes etc).
For ad blocking, you can use AdGuard. I havent personally tried this app, but it is highly recommended by most users in this forum.
For button backlight disabling / modding, you can use Button Backlight 2.
- It allows you to turn off button backlight completely, add a custom time, or have them on all the time
Android is so vastly open, even without root, if you ever feel like you are missing a certain function / feature, theres a very high chance that a solution would have been made long ago.
It never hurts to google what you wish to do. When I first got my Note 5 for example, the first phone with button backlights, I wanted to turn them off completely as well as swap the layout of them from recents home back, to back home recents. A few minutes later and I found myself using the two apps mentioned above, and a happy camper!
well it looks like I am really grateful to samsung to give me the possibilities under the hood. My dev friends scared me in every way saying that touch wiz is bloatware, that people think is really taking the control of the system, instead I found it effective, and most important of all I am happy samsung is not taking coltan from congolese mines.
I am also really grateful to you.
which tutorial do you recommend me to customize my themes? if there is an app, Gui super, otherwise I am also an android developer, so do not mind also to write some java/xml. Also i guess there is some design involved, which software should i use photoshop or gimp? Last but not least, as I use to test my apps, installing a lot of themes will decrease the perform, or the fact that is run one per time will not affect performance? thank you guys. Customization is everything for me, as bosters creativity and make the day more exciting
EDIT: I am wondering if downloading themes is safe in terms of malicious code.