Database Develop

question about roms and "smoothness"

1st, why is the home screen swiping on eclair choppier than donut? (even on a droid)
2nd why is the animation for the menu on most custom roms (cyanogen and superD are 2 examples) choppier than stock?

1. Custom rom built for a currently unsupported device.
2. Modified launcher.apk -- Take the good with the bad.

evilkorn said:
2. Modified launcher.apk -- Take the good with the bad.
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what do you mean by this?

Launcher.apk is the Home screen app. It's what makes the home screens that hold your icons and widgets plus it controls the app drawer.
The original Launcher.apk is just 3 screens and has limited functionality and no options.
Modified Launchers add home screens, add folder ability to the app drawer and other things. Because this is more functionality, it make the Launcher a larger app and is more for the phone to deal with when it has to access anything Launcher-releated, hence the slight lack of smoothness.
That's how I understand it anyway.

Super Jamie said:
Launcher.apk is the Home screen app. It's what makes the home screens that hold your icons and widgets plus it controls the app drawer.
The original Launcher.apk is just 3 screens and has limited functionality and no options.
Modified Launchers add home screens, add folder ability to the app drawer and other things. Because this is more functionality, it make the Launcher a larger app and is more for the phone to deal with when it has to access anything Launcher-releated, hence the slight lack of smoothness.
That's how I understand it anyway.
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no, I understand what launcher.apk is and what the modified versions do to it, but here's an example, dwangs rom has 5 screens and a smooth menu animation, cyanogen has 5 screens and not so smooth animation. it isn't just the menu either, whenever a window (the contextual windows, not the apps themselves, like the one for adding to the home screen, or powering off) pops up in dwangs, it animates smoothly both ways (on and off screen) its somewhat smooth opening but there is no animation for closing (not just the home screen, this is in most apps)

sorry if that reply sounded a bit hostile, wasn't meant to, but it's difficult to express emotions in text.

I've only ever used CM, but I know you can open the Spare Parts app and speed up/slow down these animations. Don't know if it'll make it "smoother" for you though.

I turn off all the animation and the whole phone is much smoother. What possible use could there be for bouncing menus and zooming windows if it makes the phone lag?

el_smurfo said:
I turn off all the animation and the whole phone is much smoother. What possible use could there be for bouncing menus and zooming windows if it makes the phone lag?
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Aesthetics.

Why ADW?

Just curious, why does everyone seem to lean towards ADW vs. Launcher Pro? Launcher Pro just seems to run so much smoother on the Nexus I was wondering why people would prefer ADW.

I prefer ADW because it runs so much smoother for me.
Plus it has one feature I cannot live without now. The slide up/down gestures. I normally have the Status Bar hidden, so I can't slide down on it to get the notification tray. Now I can just slide down anywhere on the screen to pull down the tray.

Zenoran said:
Just curious, why does everyone seem to lean towards ADW vs. Launcher Pro? Launcher Pro just seems to run so much smoother on the Nexus I was wondering why people would prefer ADW.
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+1 10chars

I use Launcher Pro as well. Seems a good amount of people use ADW because its the default launcher in CM. (cyanogen choose it because its open source and LP isnt)

Also the fact that it is open source is a reason I like it too. Not because of some philosophy, but because there are already a number of different developers contributing to it. And I know that if Anderweb ever stops development on it, someone else can continue. It gives me hope that it will be a very long lasting launcher.

Why do some people like red cars? or Ford over GM? (notice how I Americanized that <, I was going to say Renault but I don't suppose our US/foreign friends would have understood)....
It's just personal preference, neither is right or wrong, it just is.

Clarkster said:
I prefer ADW because it runs so much smoother for me.
Plus it has one feature I cannot live without now. The slide up/down gestures. I normally have the Status Bar hidden, so I can't slide down on it to get the notification tray. Now I can just slide down anywhere on the screen to pull down the tray.
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This. Also, the option to stretch the homescreen to 8x8. I'm going with 4x6 right now; last I used it, Launcher Pro only offered up to 4x5.

Smooth-wise, both LP and ADW are similar on my Nexus One Stock Froyo. I can't see LP much smoother than ADW.
I am used to ADW's "pull up home button to show hidden app dock". I put taskpanel and Mobile setting things there which I can easily access but don't wanna be visible all the time. The swipe left/right dock in launcher pro is unnatural to me.
On the other hand, I compared both launchers (briefly) on battery usage and it looked like with launcher pro my battery was going away faster. That was a few weeks ago and several updates had been made so I can't tell now.

ADW is open source so that may be a deciding factor. Also resizing widgets is great and a feature that was missing since the last time I used LauncherPro.

I have LauncherPro as well and have to say I am quite impressed with it. The main reason I have it is to save my nexus one from screen burn by the notification bar... but its speed and stability sure dont hurt either

ap3604 said:
I have LauncherPro as well and have to say I am quite impressed with it. The main reason I have it is to save my nexus one from screen burn by the notification bar... but its speed and stability sure dont hurt either
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as far as i know, LCD and AMOLED screens does not suffer from screen burn... weird you said that

drbuns said:
ADW is open source so that may be a deciding factor. Also resizing widgets is great and a feature that was missing since the last time I used LauncherPro.
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In my experience setting different sizes for a widget just caused it to break its display (text overflowing or items clipped off). It seems the only reason the feature exists is because ADW allows you to setup different amounts of rows/columns of icons, and since widgets work by taking up certain amount of icon spaces they had to also then add the option to say how much icons it should take up to end up looking normal. (Confusing, huh?)
This is actually what caused me to switch away from ADW to LauncherPro. They seem very similar, but ADW was going down the path of configuration hell where they introduce confusing options that cause features to break and need even more confusing options.
The real thing is, none of those options seem to improve anything for me, but they started getting in my way. Every time I added a widget ADW then asked me to specify how it should be sized. UGH!
All I really want is the stock launcher with smooth scrolling. These launchers seem to start off just being that but slowly grow into feature-creep beasts.

LauncherPro is faster than ADW. fact.
LauncherPro's app drawer (3D) is MUCH faster and smoother than ADW's. fact.
LaucherPro has more customization to the bottom 5 buttons than ADW. fact.
ADW is built into CM5.x, LauncherPro isn't. That's about the only drawback, and a weird one.

I am also a fan of LP, and i also found it to be a tad smoother and better responsive. imho

I just tried out ADW launcher for a bit instead of my default LauncherPro and have to say whike it seems like a great launcher as well there's two things the DarkDVR covered that I havr to agree with:
1. LauncherPro seems faster to me.
2. I LOVE how you can customize shortcuts on the botton of your screen. Im an extreme minimalist and the only things I want on my homescreen is the appdrawer button with quicksettings to the left of it and my browser to the right. Nothing else. With ADW you can't customize and are stuck with the phone and stock broswer on you homescreen.
Two things that I like better about ADW though:
1. The ability to swipe down while the notification bar is hidden to see it. Not a huge deal since I can just press menu while using LauncherPro to have the notification bar pop up and then pull it down.
2. When rotating your phone to landscape your wallpaper picture stays nice. In LauncherPro it messes your wallpaper photo will only show the top of the wallpaper that you usually can see fully while in portrait.

ap3604 said:
With ADW you can't customize and are stuck with the phone and stock broswer on you homescreen.
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That's wrong, just drag and drop any icon you want onto the shortcut spots on the bottom of the screen. And if you want 4 down there you can turn on the extra spots in the settings. Plus if you press and slide up on the 'all apps' button you get another bar to drop more icons on to, unlimited in size as it scrolls left and right.

I've used LauncherPro for 2 or so weeks, then ADW for the last 2 or so weeks...
ADW FC's a *lot* more, particularly during configuration (adding/removing apps or widgets, wallpaper, etc) but also at weird random other times, like 5-10s after launching an app.. Happens perhaps 1-3 times a day for me.
ADW squeezing more into the homescreen is nice.. I actually like that I can have 5x5 on the homescreen, although I don't think I'd want more.. And the Widget config does get more confusing along with it, but it's nice that 4x4 widgets can fill the whole screen even set 5x5.
I don't use the gesture options.. Too finicky, I usually wind up moving the screen sideways or launching an app.
ADW can uninstall a program directly from the app drawer.. Drag it out, drag it to the trash, hover.. Don't recall LP being able to do that.
LauncherPro is smoother and I don't recall it ever FC'ing on me.. I think one can adjust the rows/columns available, but IIRC the Widgets then fit kinda weird on the screen, and of course had less visible space and in some cases were cropped weird because they were smaller than they should be. Don't remember, I'll have to try it out again.
People use LP's 3d app drawer? I hate it.. It wastes like 30% of the screen... Different strokes..
Cons for both: Live Wallpaper. I don't use this much, sometimes I fire it up before I'm showing off the phone.. but both launchers slow WAY down with LW going. Less than the default Nexus homescreen.
I'll try LauncherPro again.. It's had a few version updates I just wish it were possible to sync all of the settings, vs having to set each launcher up.

Clarkster said:
That's wrong, just drag and drop any icon you want onto the shortcut spots on the bottom of the screen. And if you want 4 down there you can turn on the extra spots in the settings. Plus if you press and slide up on the 'all apps' button you get another bar to drop more icons on to, unlimited in size as it scrolls left and right.
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But can you pick any icon for the shortcuts?

DarkDvr said:
But can you pick any icon for the shortcuts?
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No, you can't pick any icon you like unless you have one of those other icon customization programs. I was just responding to the claim that you can never change it from phone and browser.

khaytsus said:
People use LP's 3d app drawer? I hate it.. It wastes like 30% of the screen... Different strokes..
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yeah, but it's just such a kick in the balls for google - private developers made the same 3D app drawer, but it's like 500% more efficient. Although... as google said on IO conf, that's exactly what they want from the community.. to replace standard android components with more efficient, customizable stuff.
Something you never gonna hear from apple. Something that will ultimately have Android ruling over the world with an iron fist of freedom and customization

Now that we have root can we remove the home bar at bottom?

The only thing I dislike about the blur interface is the bottom stuff switching to adore me what screen I'm on. Any way to disable, or decrease the time it shows?

I know this sounds stupid but just to mention that if you hit a blank area on the screen it will start the minimizing animation of the bar immediately instead of waiting for it to time out.

Quite honestly you should try a different launcher. I like ADW.Launcher. Many others around like Launcher Pro. You will find much more customization and features with those Launchers.
The only "problem" I have found is that some of the blur widgets don't play nice with ADW. ie, If I use any of the Blur widgets, I can't resize them. However, I don't really like any of the blur widgets and don't use them.

I've used all those launchers. Open home, dxtop, launcher pro, adw. I actually like the original on this phone except for that home screen bar thing.

I don't see a problem with blur now that i got used to it. Its great. If you hit the wrong thing and the switch bar comes up you have to wait a little over a second? Don't be. Impatient.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App

AaronsDarts said:
I don't see a problem with blur now that i got used to it. Its great. If you hit the wrong thing and the switch bar comes up you have to wait a little over a second? Don't be. Impatient.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
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Kind of defeats the purpose of buying 1ghz phones doesn't it?
Let's just go back to 200 Mhz Arm processors and be patient
Battery will last longer I'm sure.

[Q] The "GO Launcher EX" and widgets... sluggish as all hell

While I like ADW Launcher and the default CyanogenMod interface, I've been starting to explore some of the other launchers out there. The "GO Launcher" series of widgets are very attractive and generally well done. So, I installed the launcher, weather, and task manager widget.
I have to say that while the widgets look great, they take longer to load than what I'm used to. I find CM7 popping up with a message saying the apps are taking too long to load, giving me the option to force close or wait. Usually if I click "wait", the screens finish loading shortly afterward. Regardless, even after a fresh boot, when I use the home screen, other pages, and apps, I'm finding my whole interface rather sluggish. I've got a 32Gb class 6 SD card installed with apps loaded to it by default as well. What's really most annoying is that when first bringing up the home screen, it takes at least 15 seconds for the Weather EX widget to load the time and basic weather... from cache! I have mobile data turned off by default.
Conversely, I find the ADW Launcher much more responsive. On occasion it does lag and result in a prompt asking to force close or wait, but not nearly as much as with GO Launcher. I wonder if the GO widgets are really meant for phones with more powerful processors... and that despite being compatible with ROMs ported for the HTC Hero, it's simply not worthwhile to try utilizing them.
Anyway, I'm just curious if anyone has experienced this sluggish performance on their HTC Hero and what launcher you'd recommend with similar graphical refinement but reasonable performance. Thanks!

I'm starting to find that GO Launcher is very sluggish right after a cold boot... and that it takes a while before it "settles in". When awakened from sleep, it'll work OK, at least for the most part. The lag I was experiencing before was probably some overhead or memory consumption left over from the initial installation.
Anyway, hopefully the reasonable performance won't be a fluke and will continue to work well. The GO Launcher offers a nice suite of widgets that conserve space pretty well. I especially like how you don't have to drag icons to a trash bar, that a little pop-up will give you several options adjacent to the icon (including trash).

cytherian said:
I'm starting to find that GO Launcher is very sluggish right after a cold boot... and that it takes a while before it "settles in". When awakened from sleep, it'll work OK, at least for the most part. The lag I was experiencing before was probably some overhead or memory consumption left over from the initial installation.
Anyway, hopefully the reasonable performance won't be a fluke and will continue to work well. The GO Launcher offers a nice suite of widgets that conheserve space pretty well. I especially like how you don't have to drag icons to a trash bar, that a little pop-up will give
adw
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jamstewonline said:
I use adw ex. Find it quite fast. Got it for free. Pm me if you want to know how to get it for free too.
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That's piracy. We don't allow that here.

Use Apex or Nova launcher. It's simple and i've gotten virtually no lag on it. It's bland so that's why it's fast. The hero can't really handle anything else with ease. Two of the reasons its sluggish as hell is because of the processor and the lack of ram. There's not really any cure expect getting a better phone, which you probably know.

When running a CM7 based rom I have always found Zeam to be the lightest and quickest launcher. I have run ADW EX as well and loved it for its customization features like changing the app icons and such but Zeam is just hands down fastest launcher on my Hero. ADW was not far behind either. I did try GoLauncher once and it seemed really sluggish on my hero for some reason.
I still have my Hero (Sure I always will) and still mess around with it and right now I am currently using Zeam with the rom in my sig and it is crazy fast! Like a brand new phone all over again.

cytherian said:
While I like ADW Launcher and the default CyanogenMod interface, I've been starting to explore some of the other launchers out there. The "GO Launcher" series of widgets are very attractive and generally well done. So, I installed the launcher, weather, and task manager widget.
I have to say that while the widgets look great, they take longer to load than what I'm used to. I find CM7 popping up with a message saying the apps are taking too long to load, giving me the option to force close or wait. Usually if I click "wait", the screens finish loading shortly afterward. Regardless, even after a fresh boot, when I use the home screen, other pages, and apps, I'm finding my whole interface rather sluggish. I've got a 32Gb class 6 SD card installed with apps loaded to it by default as well. What's really most annoying is that when first bringing up the home screen, it takes at least 15 seconds for the Weather EX widget to load the time and basic weather... from cache! I have mobile data turned off by default.
Conversely, I find the ADW Launcher much more responsive. On occasion it does lag and result in a prompt asking to force close or wait, but not nearly as much as with GO Launcher. I wonder if the GO widgets are really meant for phones with more powerful processors... and that despite being compatible with ROMs ported for the HTC Hero, it's simply not worthwhile to try utilizing them.
Anyway, I'm just curious if anyone has experienced this sluggish performance on their HTC Hero and what launcher you'd recommend with similar graphical refinement but reasonable performance. Thanks!
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Been using all of Go products since v1.5 or something. I also been running there beta's on 1 of my phones. 3.16 or .17 was released in early Oct. Well my Go keyboard and Go locker crashed, had written them asap and within 24 hours there was a new version, and those issue's were fixed. Guess I'm saying these DEV's as most all DEV's are good about keeping there products fresh.

If you're looking for a smooth and sleek launcher I'd go for LauncherPRO. It's unmaintained and not very feature-rich but it's incredibly smooth and stable. Wish it were open source.

FYI, I have gone with Zeam and I'm super happy. Very nicely done launcher, lean and efficient with hardly any lag.

Widgets lagging when used in launchers

Hello!
I recently downloaded the Next 3D Launcher and found it really nice and I really was considering getting its full version despite its unreasonably high price.
However theres a few annoying issues I faced. One of which was that the widgets I placed on the homescreen lags! One example was that when I was scrolling my notes on the notes widget, the scrolling was really laggy, it also happens to my other widgets such as my calender widget etc. Then I recall having the same issue long time ago when I was using the Go Launcher.
I am using a HTC One and yes I have tried checking and unchecking the Hyper fluency and System Persistent options where none of which helped making the widgets smoother. I also cleared my Sense homscreen already. Could there be anything else I could do to make scrolling through my widget smoothly in Next Launcher?