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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
I've got a bunch of launchers loaded on my EVO, but my favorite ones for the G-Tab are ADW.launcher and ZEAM (XDA developed launcher).
I like both of them because they're snappy and offer a high degree of customization (e.g. being able to specify the number of columns and rows for both the workspace and the apps).
ADW.launcher seems a bit more customizable since it supports themes, but Zeam is nice because it gives you an app bar on the workspace that you can load up to 8 quick apps.
I still have a soft spot for Launcher Pro. I know that ADW has themes, but LP is fast and does what I need it to do. I have not found a reason to change, yet.
+1 for launcher pro. I liked the themes on ADW but I like the customizable buttons, configurable columns and rows and the widgets with LP.
Perchance I will try Zeam at some point, but in general I am happy with Launcher Pro.
-=Sent from my ViewSonic G Tablet (VEGAn) using Tapatalk=-
zeam cause its lightweight.
Launcher Pro here too.
I'm still playing with Sweeter Home. I like to completely customize the screen layouts. It isn't flawless in operation, but it does provide me lots of time to fidget.
LauncherPro. I like the features and being able to save/load my screen layout/setup is fantastic after flashing ROMs and reinstalling apps.
I prefer GDE but can't get it to work properly (menu's pop up flaky) on the GTab so I'm using LauncherPro.
Launcher pro. Light weight and fast.
Allways been a fan of launcher pro on my android devices it just works how i like
Do any of the themes allow more than sixteen icons per page? There is a LOT of space that more icons could go in.
Is this one of those "phone & portrait" os design constraints?
i'm an ADW fan on my Droid 1 and i tried it on my gtab but i found zeam to be better. its faster and smoother, more lightweight, and actually resizes wallpaper properly. i love adw's themes but i rather go with speed than with custom icons. also love zeam's dock, has tons of space for icons. only thing i don't like about it is that you can't save your configuration.
launcher pro i never liked. probably cuz i can get most of that stuff for free on other launchers. gotta pay to resize a widget? cmon now. also live wallpaper is really sluggish for some reason on launcher pro. keeps stuttering when i turn on the screen, no matter what live wallpaper i try.
gotwillk said:
'm an ADW fan on my Droid 1 and i tried it on my gtab but i found zeam to be better. its faster and smoother, more lightweight, and actually resizes wallpaper properly. i love adw's themes but i rather go with speed than with custom icons. also love zeam's dock, has tons of space for icons.
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Same here. Zeam Launcher + MultiPicture Livewallpaper.
thats really cool! The light effects of that background are live?
I like gde but no icons with all the the themes. But... +10 on launcher pro
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Iam I weird for not running a launcher? I always feel like they slow the system down a bit. I might have to start because all these cool looking home screens are making me jealous!
Launcher Pro... but I think I might try zeam after reading this thread.
I prefer Tap n' Tap for my launcher... OK, who am I kidding
Actually, I use Launcher Pro as well, but I also noticed the live wallpaper stuttering and always thought it was because every app seemed to want to reload itself upon wakeup. However, with all of the love out here for Zeam, I'm going to have to give that a try as well!
has anyone tried the go-launcher?
SInce there are several launchers around I'm curious what the pro's and con's are for each... I think tis thread is going a long way to that. Maybe once we managed to get all the info together we could start making a sticky with pros/cons for each launcher...
Just a thought
Right now I'm using Launcher Pro on my Droid 1 but its really laggy at times especially when I go back to the home screen. Any recommendations on an replacement launcher that has these features:
A - Customizable dock at the bottom which I can put shortcuts to my apps.
B - At least three screens so I can put my widgets.
C - Drawer that can let me move up and down not left and right while scrolling for my apps.
Also which widgets are recommended for the following since I highly suspect no other launcher has these - calendar and contacts?
Many thanks in advance.
DemoManMLS said:
Right now I'm using Launcher Pro on my Droid 1 but its really laggy at times especially when I go back to the home screen. Any recommendations on an replacement launcher that has these features:
A - Customizable dock at the bottom which I can put shortcuts to my apps.
B - At least three screens so I can put my widgets.
C - Drawer that can let me move up and down not left and right while scrolling for my apps.
Also which widgets are recommended for the following since I highly suspect no other launcher has these - calendar and contacts?
Many thanks in advance.
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I choose adw launcher ex 1.3.3.. customizable dock, many screen and drawer up + down..
Thank you so much for the recommendation. I have ADW Launcher Ex running now. It feels so much smoother and faster then Launcher Pro was running. For my calendar and contacts widget I switched to Android Pro Widgets which gives the same Sense like experience that the ones Launcher Pro comes with.... if not better since APW comes with some nice skins and better options.
The only thing I don't care about APW at this point is not having the scrollable dock like Launcher Pro has. But I'm willing to give that up in exchange for better performance. The lag on Launcher Pro was starting to really annoy me.
Actually, if you swipe up on the dock, a hidden dock appears.
There is nothing there at first but you can drag unlimited apps to the bottom of the screen and it will fill up and will scroll across...
If you swipe down on it, the default dock appears.
if you don't need scrollable widgets give Zeam a try
I agree that ADW is much faster than current LauncherPro too ... much better
Just overclock the handset a little bit and launcherpro runs like a dream, IF you do a few minor tweaks:
DO NOT use the 3D app drawer. It's pretty laggy and slows down the rest of launcher pro, even if it's not actually on the screen right now.
DO NOT use more than 3 or 4 home screens
Don't use many widgets on your DEFAULT home screen.
Go Launcher is wonderful. Fast, feature filled.
I personally like Launcher ProPlus. I do believe it is faster and smoother than ADW. Also, if you're running CM7 you can lock the home screen in memory and that will help.
Or try V6 Supercharger script. With that script my Launcher Pro NEVER lags.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=991276
rcummings100 said:
Just overclock the handset a little bit and launcherpro runs like a dream, IF you do a few minor tweaks:
DO NOT use the 3D app drawer. It's pretty laggy and slows down the rest of launcher pro, even if it's not actually on the screen right now.
DO NOT use more than 3 or 4 home screens
Don't use many widgets on your DEFAULT home screen.
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what are you on about?!
I have 7 filled homescreens with widgets:set cpu, calender, word of the day,news,movies, messages,people,gmail and i have fancy widget and batt statt on my default screen. LP is always fast
Demoman
ADW is better than Launcher pro.. check these settings.. if it's a little lag when waking.. check box on "keep home in memory "..
BRITT#OGDROID
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.
I've got an XPERIA x8 which I've recently re-rooted and upgraded from Froyo to Gingerbread (read more about this nightmare here). One of the first things I installed (just because I noticed it in Play Store and it was very well reviewed) was "Go Launcher Ex" and it's blowing my mind. Everything is nice and is the way an android phone should already come! However, it's not too good for performance on such an old device. At the moment I'm coping with it anyway. It's awesome-ness outweighs it's bloated-ness a fair bit (though the Next Browser has crashed my phone a few times so back to Opera Mini for now). So I just wondered what other people who use this phone use and think about the available Home Launchers out there.
Personally, I got a bit bored of LauncherPro on Froyo as it was pretty buggy and not very good at space management compared to Go Launcher. The things about Go Launcher I'm liking are how easy it is to customise, the fact shortcuts can be grouped in the app drawer (automatically as well!), dock and home screens (LauncherPro was buggy at this, opening a folder and going into an app would sometimes cause the folder to stay open but invisible and nothing to be selectable on the home), how you can order the app drawer in numerous ways, how many home screens can be added (I try not to overdo widgets, but I like to have the simple time/date/weather combo one as it's useful and stylish and one or two for power/performance management which I usually combine on one home screen to keep the others speedier) and it's stylish and to be honest, quite quick in itself. The only problem is that while it runs smoothly, I know that it's keeping it's pretty large share of memory while I'm trying to use other things, so if there's anything similar but with only the stuff I like about Go Launcher, I'd like to try it out. So, lemme hear what's your favourite and why
zeam launcher all the way for the smooth, minimalistic graphic and obviously for the personalization.
Atom Launcher mate, easily configurable and minimalist, try it
There you go, mate:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2001604
This was already discussed somewhere recently
xperia launcher is the best
Deji666 said:
I've got an XPERIA x8 which I've recently re-rooted and upgraded from Froyo to Gingerbread (read more about this nightmare here). One of the first things I installed (just because I noticed it in Play Store and it was very well reviewed) was "Go Launcher Ex" and it's blowing my mind. Everything is nice and is the way an android phone should already come! However, it's not too good for performance on such an old device. At the moment I'm coping with it anyway. It's awesome-ness outweighs it's bloated-ness a fair bit (though the Next Browser has crashed my phone a few times so back to Opera Mini for now). So I just wondered what other people who use this phone use and think about the available Home Launchers out there.
Personally, I got a bit bored of LauncherPro on Froyo as it was pretty buggy and not very good at space management compared to Go Launcher. The things about Go Launcher I'm liking are how easy it is to customise, the fact shortcuts can be grouped in the app drawer (automatically as well!), dock and home screens (LauncherPro was buggy at this, opening a folder and going into an app would sometimes cause the folder to stay open but invisible and nothing to be selectable on the home), how you can order the app drawer in numerous ways, how many home screens can be added (I try not to overdo widgets, but I like to have the simple time/date/weather combo one as it's useful and stylish and one or two for power/performance management which I usually combine on one home screen to keep the others speedier) and it's stylish and to be honest, quite quick in itself. The only problem is that while it runs smoothly, I know that it's keeping it's pretty large share of memory while I'm trying to use other things, so if there's anything similar but with only the stuff I like about Go Launcher, I'd like to try it out. So, lemme hear what's your favourite and why
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http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2264917
Recommend the above launcher since its xperia styled and more customizable
very good and smooth.
For me the best launcher is launcher pro. It's fast, smooth, lightweight and has a lot of options. This launcher can look as you want, as arc launcher, as s launcher, as 4.0 launcher, just change background and icons.
Holo launcher is light simple and fast
Sent from my E15i using xda app-developers app
Stock Launcher 2.1:thumbup:
Sent from my ST23i using xda premium
i personaly use Sony Ericsson home launcher and Xperia S launcher
Sent from my X8 using xda premium
If u wanna very light launcher try Smart Launcher or use Xperia S launcher