I am new to Android and the Galaxy Tab (which explains my ignorance and frustration). Despite much web searching and reading I still do not understand how how to tell what is an app and what is a widget and then how to organize apps and widgets. I do not want to use a 3rd party app organizer (though you may tell me I have to) because this seems so fundamental that it must be my poor understanding that is to blame.
Specifically I have a Home screen with 9 dots (for the 9 tiles - some of which have icons, but I do not know whether these are apps or widgets).
If I press the Apps 'button' I have 5 almost fully populated pages of apps. But these are not organized as I want. I do not seem able to reorganize these within apps (long tapping moves an icon onto one of the 9 tiles, from where it seems to immovable again).
Ergo, I am frustrated. Can anyone explain (or point me to a good explanation of):
- how organizing apps and widgets works
- what is the difference between these in practice
- if there is way to re-organize the apps (including adding pages for specufic activities).
Thank you
Try another launcher, ADW or Launcher Pro are popular (others are available)
Related
So, I am a fan of ADW and LauncherPro. Both have some really cool features. I've always had a tough time deciding between the two, and really wished there was a best of both worlds. Then I stumbled across Live Home and viola! Has 5 desktop transitions: Default, Cube (like GDE), Book (like turning a page), Stretch, Rotate (kind of like a 2D sheet you flip over to next page). Also features a Task Manager, Icon Manager (changes apps in drawer too(!), both Icon pack and Gallery supported), Themeable (panda/ahome/open home), lots of Wallpapers, and you are supposed to be able to drag apks from SD card to the Desktop. Only thing I was unhappy with, was the abundance of ads. But, since it is a free app, you really can't complain too much. Luckily Jcase's Adblocker:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=666328 works great. Anyway, you can check it out here:
http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.mo.android.livehome/LiveHome
I'll give it a shot, downloading now.
So just checking back in after using LiveHome for awhile. I have to say, I can not personally recommend this anymore. Had way too many issues with the icon management. I would change the icons and/or hide the ones I don't need on a regular basis and LiveHome would pick and choose when it wanted to follow these instructions. It would often hide apps that I wanted or randomly change the icon back to normal in the app drawer even though it might be changed in the settings. I'm sad about this as I really liked being able to change my icons easily and the book page turning home transition. Ah well, at least it was free...
It's not a bad app. No problems with the icons. Only dilemma I have is use live wallpaper or transistons cause you can't use both. When it comes this I guess it is to each their own.
Yea, I've found that the newer version: 1.0.3 is a little more stable for me. I really like the book transition and changing the app drawer icons, now...if only it were stable like ADW or Launcherpro - it'd be a winner for sure.
if it was more stable it would not be free lol. Awsome app never the less
I really like some of the Samsung widgets, but to not like the Touchwiz launcher. So, I installed Launcher Pro, which I vastly prefer. Unfortunately, now the Samsung widgets are not in the add widget menu.
Is there any trick I can do to get them back?
I'd also like to know this, the Facebook Stream widget was really useful, the stock one is awful!
sionyboy said:
I'd also like to know this, the Facebook Stream widget was really useful, the stock one is awful!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that is the widget I want most as well.
It is the best I have seen for android so far that integrates both twitter and facebook. I tried out this one on the market called "Socialite", it is *OK*, but not as good as the Samsung one.
So i have to decide, do I want a decent integrated Facebook / Twitter widget, or do I want a decent launcher?
???
Does anybody have an answer to this? I myself like pretty much all the futures in TW - would mainly like to change the 4 icons on the bottom and maybe even have the ability to hide the notification bar.
Is there a way to incorporate TW samsung widgets into launcher pro for example?
Thanks
I suppose Samsung's widgets are tied to the Touchwiz Launcher and incompatible with other launchers
It's a pity because I really like the Accuweather Clock over the other available widgets. But LauncherPro is so much better than the Samsung Launcher, I can't go without a launcher that lets me hide apps from the app drawer due to the massive amount of crap it gets flooded with.
You can change the left 3 icons on the bottom (but not the Applications one).
Just go to the Applications screen and press Menu and choose Edit. Then, move the icons off and put another in place.
I'm pretty sure it's impossible. I wanted to do that but was told by different ppl it was impossible. Same goes for Launcher Pro widgets in Touchwizz (i prefere the LP ones vs the Samsung). They are tied to the launcher u use.
You could put Home Switcher on each of the home screens of TW and LP then just switch between them just like moving to a different page. Just an idea.
Thanks fro the ideas, sounds like it's a no-go for right now at least.....
One more thing, does launcher pro juice the battery as same as TW? And when I used launcher pro in the past, I really liked to use the option "hide notification bar", i think it gives it a cleaner look, but at the same time it won't notify me when i receive an email ( other than the sound), I did search this in the past with no luck, so is there a widget, icon, something that I can install that will show on the screen when I received email, when using LP?
Thanks
I use executive assistant but it is a paid app. Worth it I believe though.
Hello guys im wondering y people use laumcher pro? Isnt phone comes with 7 homescreen already? Isnt home replacement usually for 1.5 or 1.6 users that have 3 homescreens? Please tell us why u use launcher pro. Thanks
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
I bought launcherpro plus. The thing that I love the most is the notification icons for gmail, missed calls, and sms. The developer has quite a few widgets for the plus version; they all try to emulate HTC sense. It is very customizable, similar to ADW... which is also a very good alternative. I think that people should try the different launchers (ADW & Launcherpro) to see if it works best for them.
Dock and dock icons customizations
Because it has a lot more features than standard home launcher (unrooted) and it's way more customizable
- Ability to hide apps from the app drawer (the kinda apps that you don't want to uninstall).
- It has it's own amazing widgets, 5 now and counting.
- elastic scrolling
- up to 3 scrollable docks
- custom dock background
- missed calls, sms, and gmail counters in dock
- 5 columns app drawer
- resize any widget
- as snappy as stock launcher
- shortcuts to system activities
- ability to assign 2 actions to each dock icon: a tap-action and a swipe-action
to name a few
Why don't you try it before asking?
LauncherPro support more than stock such as:
7 homescreen (stock is 5 not 7)
Easier customize on dockbar which stock lack.
Up to 3 scrollable dockbar.
Better pinch to preview all 7 screen rather than stock tinner 7 view.
Widget resize to our preferable size.
Plus edition having useful sense like widget, at the moment include people, messaging, bookmarks, agenda & twitter. More will be developed in future.
Hiding unwanted apps in app drawer.
Ability to add system activities shortcut which can't be added by stock, example ability to extract stock camera - camcorder app as shortcut.
Ability to add more hidden shortcut, example add new contact shortcut.
Missed calls, sms, and gmail counters in dockbar.
Smoother than stock.
the_ahmadzais said:
Hello guys im wondering y people use laumcher pro? Isnt phone comes with 7 homescreen already? Isnt home replacement usually for 1.5 or 1.6 users that have 3 homescreens? Please tell us why u use launcher pro. Thanks
Sent from my X10a using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not ?
Because I like using applications that take from other applications.
The 3 scrolling docks, much smoother home screen scrolling, hide the status bar. These are by far my top features. I too purchased the paid version.
I'd like to make a small modification, which makes a few changes to TouchWiz 3.0 under stock odexed 2.3.6 XWJW1.
What I would like to achieve:
- Transparent Application Drawer
- Transparent Dock/Shortcut Area in the Application Drawer
- No Application Background/Tiles in the Application Drawer
- Application Drawer sorted Alphabetically
- 2 Rows per Application Description/Name on the Homescreens (Similar to the Application Drawer)
- No Application Description/Name Background on the Homescreens
The main reason I wanted to create my own mod, is because I've seen a few that do similar things, but they all have a 5th icon in the dock, but I do not want to touch the dock.
I've had no experience in this area, so my first question I guess would be, is this a task I could undertake, or is the procedure too difficult with no experience?
And secondly, where do I start? I've searched the forums, but most of what I've found is details on how to make a ROM, which I don't believe this is.
Thank you to anyone that can provide me with any information.
Just giving this a polite bump. Thanks.
Hello everbody, how are you?
I would like to ask for help from a experienced user/developer regarding a issue with Orange Pi Zero 2 Android 10 OS.
Well, people who knows this kind of board, knows that differently from Raspberry, the support and the community have been pretty much a ghost town, and that makes things a bit more complicated.
Anyway, straight to the point, I installed Android 10 from official website drive, it works, but any user got to download parallel App store to install apps which makes the device 'usable' and one of the first things we got to do is to change the launcher, which own some bugs, not sure why.
I tried many launchers, and only 3 worked as I expected, though with some issues:
-2 of the launchers makes impossible to enter android settings without changing it back to the stock launcher, as they also lack of stock shortcuts for the menu
-limits of icon customization, such as freely moving the icons to wherever you want(that's not a major issue, but kinda annoying)
-heavy animations in some menus, it draws too much ram and unfortunately I'm not using a high end device
-lack of bluetooth connection\devices shortcut(but adding device settings would solve the problem as well)
Is there any way to add those shortcuts aside from downloading any app from those App Stores? I mean like a certain file I may download that will those tools available for me(I know developers are not wizards or something but, maybe somebody could help me)?
Is there any solution to this?
Thank you in advance.
Device: Orange Pi Zero 2
OS: Orange Pi Zero 2's official Android 10
Apps used(Launchers): Orange Pi Android 10 Stock Launcher, Mini Desktop Launcher, Microsoft Launcher, Smart Launcher 3 Classic, Kitkat Launcher, Nova Launcher
Apps with lack of settings: Mini Desktop Launcher, Smart Launcher 3 Classic, Kitkat Launcher, Nova Launcher
Apps with a bit of performance issues: Stock Launcher, Smart Launcher 3 and Microsoft Launcher(slowdown in certain settings tweak and in the ML the icons are too small)
App with the best performance overall: Smart Launcher 3(lightweight, organized)
Honorable mention: Mini Desktop Launcher(very lightweight)