Database Users

ADW launcher

Hey all,
So I am not new to Android, but I am new to using a launcher or anything other than regular apps. I want to try the ADW launcher, but I have some questions since I don't really know anything about how launchers work.
Can someone explain to me the very basics of what installing a launcher will do? Also, if I don't like it or don't understand it, can I uninstall and not have to hard reset?
Is there a how-to for using ADW?
Thanks ahead of time!

Install it thru the Android market place just search adw launcher and if you don't like it uninstall like any other app from the Android market
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Sent from my T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide

So I can just uninstall and not have to do any reset?
Can you explain to me what a launcher does (briefly)?
Sorry for such a basic question, but hey we all have to learn sometime.
Thanks!

go hear its anderwebs dev page the dev for adw launcher. it should be able to tell you everything about the launcher and show you some picture of what it looks like and what it does. but yea just install from android market and if you dont like just uninstall like any other app without having to reset your device just go to market/downloads then uninstall.
http://jbthemes.com/anderweb/

hears a video of it to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5gRgpuQE_k&feature=fvst
the version in this video is 0.7.1 and it is now on 0.7.8 so theres been plenty of new features since then

I really appreciate the info. I installed it this morning, but couldn't even figure out how to change the settings. I read the instructions on adw's page so I might try again.
My calendar widget wouldn't work and there were also only 5 screens instead of 7. Can you have 7?
Maybe I need to mess with it more. I guess I'm just not sure of the benefits of using it. Will it help my battery last longer? Will the MTS be faster? Or is it more of an aesthetic thing?
thnx

I didn't have any problems with it other than lag here and there. It might just need the dev to do a bit of fine tunning, or could be me with my luck. Nice interface. Good features, and a lot of flexibility. I do like sense though and I think I will just deal with all of TMobiles extra crap for the time being. All in all a great replacement though.

Press the menu key while on the home screen, then you can select the ADW settings. You can have 7 screens if you want.
The HTC Sense widgets will not work outside of the sense launcher.

Etype R said:
Press the menu key while on the home screen, then you can select the ADW settings. You can have 7 screens if you want.
The HTC Sense widgets will not work outside of the sense launcher.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what he said

also keep in mind that My Modes function will not work with a launcher program. I tried Helix, ADW, and launcherpro and since they seem to be just a "skin" so the apps don't rearrange and stuff when you change modes. It meesses it up. Then when you uninstall you have to set up modes again. Just FYI, not sure if you use the modes or not.

Thanks for all of the info. I don't use modes, but I do like the widgets, particularly calendar and weather. Being able to see what I have to do every day right on the home screen(s) is very helpful!

http://androinica.com/2009/09/24/dont-like-the-android-calendar-widget-get-a-pure-one/
And for the weather/clock I am using beautiful widgets. There are options out there

Stock / ADW or Helix

Ok so I am a great fiddler and pusher of buttons but I am not good on the techy side so I am asking...
1) Which one is best - ADW or Helix
2) Does your phone have to be rooted
3) If I don't like it, can I switch back to the SE stock one
4) Is it easy.... can I mess it up!?!
I have looked around at various threads but they mostly seem to be on rooted phones. I have watched Youtube videos demonstrating them both and they look pretty cool. So basically I just wanted some reassurance before I go off and jump into something a bit out of my depth.
Thanks!!

I prefer Helix, your phone doesn't have to be rooted for either, you can install it side by side with the stock launcher and switch between them and they're installed just like anything else so you can't really screw it up.

ADW has more features and is generally better but it force closes too much and tends to stuff up the quick settings widget after watching a divx movie - I have to reboot phone to get it to function again.
Helix is good but when you enter the app drawer you have to press the home button if you want to exit the app drawer as it doesn't have a virtual home key.
I use the stock home launcher as its the smoothest and least bug ridden.
Both Helix and ADW allow you to select the number of homescreens from 2 - 7, the stock one only has 3.

ADW for me. Give all 3 a try, but it's really down to personal preference. Install all 3 along with Home Switcher and try them out to see what suits you best.

ADW as it's better than Helix. But then again it's a personal preference
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

I prefer ADW. I used to use helix but swapped. I went to go back to the stock home but then I remembered that there is no option to have five rows instead of four. I find five rows better because I can fit everything I need onto the screen
I have no idea if helix can do that though.
That is also personal preference though as not everyone would want that extra row

Thanks for the replies guys. Think I will be doing some downloading tomorrow and playing around - I don't think my head is in the right place tonight. Thanks for the info on the Home Switcher too.
Basically I was looking for the extra number of screens so I can sort out my apps/widgets rather than just having it all in the app drawer and having to scroll thru. Does that sound lame!? Or maybe just a bit OCD.
I like the ability to view all your screens in miniature then quick select which one you want (its one of the things I liked about the HTC Desire when I was trying to choose but it was brown and ugly so X10 won).
Edit... OMG there are loads of different themes for ADW too. Choices, choices!

I used ADW for week then switched to Stock SE. I had issue with ADW it is not that smooth while scrolling program. I have swipe couple of time to get page swipe

Ok so I had a glass of wine, cleared my head and bit the bullet and downloaded ADW and Home Switcher.
Can't get the sense ui thing to work. Don't know what I am doing wrong... any clues?

You need to go into system preferences and bind the home button to previews.
Also, make sure sense previews are active under previews settings.
Sent from my rooted X10i using Tapatalk.

Oh for goodness sake, its sooo simple when you know how! I had the Ui sense ticked but hadn't done the home button thing.
Thank you so much for the quick response.

No problem my friend.
Swyped from my rooted X10i using Tapatalk.

Just discovered another way... just long press the little desktop dots and it gives you the preview screens. So now I can have my home button set to my default screen.
I think I need to get a life... been playing with this since I got home from work (altho I did manage to heat a ready meal up for the hubby!!) but I am loving it so far.
Just got Beautiful Widget too and skinned that.... well actually I've done about 6 different permutations of clock and weather but I am now happy.
Thanks for the support today, I wouldn't have taken the plunge without you!

ADW all the way - tried Helix - and it was good - went for ADW - which I didn't like at first - but that was because I didn't know what I was doing... once I'd switch the Samsung app drawer off and sussed out the settings I needed then I quickly reaslised that ADW is in fact the dogs b011ocks!!..

Adw does rock.
Swyped from my rooted X10i using Tapatalk.

And everyone complains abouit ADW force closing yet I have never had it force close on me...and I have never had any problems with the widgets either.

is it me, but i cant find helix on the market, or do you hav the be rooted ?

You are not wrong... I couldn't find it either. Glad I plumped for ADW first then!
Edit.... try herehttp://helixproject.ruqqq.sg/

GPdhillon said:
I used ADW for week then switched to Stock SE. I had issue with ADW it is not that smooth while scrolling program. I have swipe couple of time to get page swipe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Me too, until I disabled the "Horizontal Drawer" setting, never had an issue since.

ive tried all of them. if you want to switch between the ones you have all you have to do is not select "use by default" and when you press the home button it will let you choose between them. thats what i did until i figured out that i liked ADW more.
like everyone says just take off the horizontal scrolling for apps and you will be fine.
i also like you you can have 2 apps next to home that are always on the screen and i like you you can customize them to what ever apps you want by dragging the apps there.
as for the force close thing, its only happened to me once but it went away after a newer version of it came out.

How to fix home screen auto orientation switch lag

Hello,
I don't know if anybody know about this fix or not, but I've just found a way to fix the lag when the home screen auto-orient from landscape to portrait and vice versa: click on the + button that you use to add widgets and apps to the home screen, select any tab other than the add widget tab, go back to your home screen and that's it no more lag! I believe the left and right screen transitions are smoother as well.
I do not know if this problem/fix is specific to our tab or honeycomb as a whole, but I'm glad I found a workaround since it was really bothering me. I hope this can be useful to somebody.

Wow - that really works well; thanks!

Hmm, still a bit laggy. 3-5 seconds to re-orient due to rotation. Seems too long, IMO.
...Ok, maybe a small reduction.

Hmmm 3 to 5 secs was what I had before the fix, it's now only about 1 sec.
Do you have many widgets and use a live wallpaper perhaps?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

No live wallpaper, just minimalistic text and weather widget.

I don't know why but this works perfect! I went from a whole 6 seconds for the orientation to change to near instant changes. I noticed once you choose a different tab, I have apps shortcuts chosen, if you go back into the + menu that tab is still selected. This is a strange bug but awesome. Thank you

i really didn't spend much time on the stock launcher, but launcher pro switches quickly.

madsquabbles said:
i really didn't spend much time on the stock launcher, but launcher pro switches quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I concur. The best way to get rid of the lag is to use a different launcher. Personally, I prefer ADW Launcher EX because it is "optimized" for Honeycomb, but LauncherPro is a great alternative.

I've never had more than a 1 second orientation lag. What am I doing differently?

ralexand said:
I concur. The best way to get rid of the lag is to use a different launcher. Personally, I prefer ADW Launcher EX because it is "optimized" for Honeycomb, but LauncherPro is a great alternative.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are they smoother? I think my biggest Honeycomb pet peeve is the choppiness when swiping to different home screens. It makes the tablet feel slow to me. I have LauncherPro on my Nexus S but Im not sure if I'd use a phone launcher on a tablet...

Strangely its working !!!!!!!!!!!!

Huh, it does work. But doesn't survive a reboot. Have to redo after reboot.

Amazing indeed! Great find! Will test on my friends thrive tomorrow too. I think that HC, for some odd reason, is caching the widget drawer on the background and it might be straining the orientation of the device. They need to have HC keep the alo or other drawer on default instead to keep his from happening every time you restart.
Sent from my badass Galaxy Tab 10.1.

thanks dude work like a charm

Anybody know if there is any way we can submit a bug report to Samsung/Google?

TabGuy said:
I've never had more than a 1 second orientation lag. What am I doing differently?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here and I'm using live wallpaper. Maybe it's the ROM I have loaded?

Updated ADW EX for tablets

You have to check out the new adw ex which is optimized for tablets. It is simply awesome especially the main dock
Screenshots below ...
Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

works great.

Can the bar being themed easily ?

DannyBiker said:
Can the bar being themed easily ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it can.

Cool ...i run into my market !

Liking it...mostly.
Adds a new dimension to wallpaper wonkiness, unfortunately.
My wallpaper (via wizardrii) is not properly centered in landscape mode. Have not fiddled with it yet.
Anyone have any tips?

I will definitely be purchasing this for my girlfriend's 10.1.. thanks for the tip, it looks great!

Am loving it just make sure if your rubbish bin bar is located at the bottom you enable auto scaling of desktop when bin bar is used, otherwise you won't be able to add icons to the docking bar !
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Mine works well for an hour or so, then takes an age for an app to return to the launcher. Only way to fix is to reboot the tab. Anyone else seen this?

Is there a light or trial version that I can try for free? I can't find one in the market.

TabGuy said:
Is there a light or trial version that I can try for free? I can't find one in the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy it from android market and you will have 15 mts to refund. I know not much you can do in 15 mts, but something better than nothing.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using XDA Premium App

Pottsy said:
Mine works well for an hour or so, then takes an age for an app to return to the launcher. Only way to fix is to reboot the tab. Anyone else seen this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Got the same problem, when i exits some app the screen goes black and nothing happens for a long time and then the desktop appears.
/qsec
Sent from my GT-P7500 using Tapatalk

Wallpapers aren't rendered properly, and my dock bar just disappeared on mine. Still has a ways to go on tablets.

Dock bar going away is a common "problem" with ADW. Turn off hidden dockbar in the settings, turn off gestures.
I went ahead and set mine up without a dockbar, and with just the ADW settings menu item in the top right. Removed the trash bin as well (long-press then Remove from the desktop works just fine).
"Endless" page scrolling, page-turn animation of Tilt, 350 turn speed, 15 desktop bounce, and a theme that has a transparent top menu bar. Desktop has 9x7 columns/rows, icons scaled to 95%, density hack off. App drawer is 6x6, in 4D vertical scroll.
Basically, it looks pretty much like Honeycomb at a glance, but without the one-inch "tap space" wasted on the left and right screen edges. It's much faster and smoother. About the only performance issue I've had is that it doesn't handle "card" widgets like YouTube, Market or News360 as smoothly as stock, when you go to "fling" a card away.

Maybe I'm just getting old and simple, but I don't really see the point of having the excessive customization of ADW on a Honeycomb tab. I have my homescreen setup with two widgets and about 12 regular icons, then the next screen over has some lesser used stuff. If I need any other apps I just open the app drawer and easily locate them. I mean, it's neat to make things whiz-bang and all, but from a usability perspective there's already so much overkill built in to Honeycomb that ADW doesn't seem worth the time.
On my phone, ADW is great, however. Now get off my lawn.

burhanistan said:
Maybe I'm just getting old and simple, but I don't really see the point of having the excessive customization of ADW on a Honeycomb tab. I have my homescreen setup with two widgets and about 12 regular icons, then the next screen over has some lesser used stuff. If I need any other apps I just open the app drawer and easily locate them. I mean, it's neat to make things whiz-bang and all, but from a usability perspective there's already so much overkill built in to Honeycomb that ADW doesn't seem worth the time.
On my phone, ADW is great, however. Now get off my lawn.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't have to use the power of ADW, it's just there waiting to be harnessed if you want it.
In fact, you can use ADW to simplify it, for example you can delete unused home screens, unlike stock Honeycomb. Doing things like adding widgets or changing wallpapers is also cleaner and quicker than the flashy Honeycomb interface. It's simpler.
I'm a card carrying member of the Curmudgeon's Club of Canada, by the way.

burhanistan said:
Maybe I'm just getting old and simple, but I don't really see the point of having the excessive customization of ADW on a Honeycomb tab. I have my homescreen setup with two widgets and about 12 regular icons, then the next screen over has some lesser used stuff. If I need any other apps I just open the app drawer and easily locate them. I mean, it's neat to make things whiz-bang and all, but from a usability perspective there's already so much overkill built in to Honeycomb that ADW doesn't seem worth the time.
On my phone, ADW is great, however. Now get off my lawn.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So... You are saying that you need adw
I like simple too, and adw help me doing that.
I mean, I do not need the 3d cubic scrolling effects, neither than the futuristic widget selection screen, or the quick search bar at the top.
I didn't choose to display the dock too in adw.
And it is so fast, close to the ipad smoothness.

Croak said:
Dock bar going away is a common "problem" with ADW. Turn off hidden dockbar in the settings, turn off gestures.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not a problem but a feature hehe. If you slide one the dock, it disappear. I you slide again it appears. I think you can disable somewhere that movement.

ADW still sucks on the Tab..not only are the card/live widgets like Youtube slow to flick like someone said, but the worst thing is that for certain widget, like the Digital Clock stock Tab one...it looks fine when using the Tab landscape at first, then every single time I rotate to portrait view, the widget re-draws for new orientation and both left and right sides of the widget are not cut off. This does not adjust/fix itself instantly like stock launcher does and the only way to really fix it is to re-add widget or sometimes turn screen off and on.
I like the smoothness of the launcher/drawer but I aint dealing with this **** where a widget gets screwed up every single time....too annoying to deal with. Why is this such a hard thing to get right?? Is there a fix for this or no? I am not resizing the widget to begin with btw...just adding it as normal size. The homescreen size I use is 8 columns and 7 rows btw, just like stock.
Oh and why in the app drawer, the the top still unmatching/not dimmed like the rest of the drawer below it? Looks so stupid. They should dim it too and still keep the buttons in the top right corner, ughh.
EDIT: Here, compare landscape to portrait when flipped. Not only does that Digital Clock widget get cut off, but also look at the Wireless Widget..it looks ridiculous now.
EDIT2: I unchecked the ADW option for resizing widgets to fit blah blah but the same thing still happens where the Clock widget, for example, gets cut off after going vertical.. although the Wifi Widget looks a little less ridiculous now when turning. Anyone know about the widget issue though??

TabGuy said:
Is there a light or trial version that I can try for free? I can't find one in the market.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The 15 minute refund policy really sucks, especially for apps like ADW EX where you really need some time to get a feel for how you like it and check out all the customizations. To get around it you can always buy it, pull the apk from /data/apps (requires root), refund it, and re-install the program using the pulled apk file. This way you can take your time to play around with the app before deciding if you want to keep it. If you do go ahead and re-buy it from market. If you decide not to buy it do the honest thing and uninstall the program.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using XDA Premium App

[Touchwiz] Best screen responsiveness from touchwiz?

Is it just me or does touchwiz have better screen responsiveness than go launcher/other launchers?
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

Touchwizz is much snappier / more lagfree then GoLauncher. It's even faster underclocked to 800 MHz then stock 1,2 GHz with GoLauncher.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

Launcher pro seems just as good to me speed wise.

robt772000 said:
Launcher pro seems just as good to me speed wise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this

Go launcher is laggy. Launcher Pro on the other hand is as fast as touchwiz

Go Launcher was laggy on my first installation but snappy on my second installation. I don't know what changed between the two but it was as quick as LP

I noticed this when I tried GO launcher, almost as if when you swipe between screens there is an ever so slight delay, which is not major, can get a little annoying.
TW is slick and super fast compared

THUDUK said:
I noticed this when I tried GO launcher, almost as if when you swipe between screens there is an ever so slight delay, which is not major, can get a little annoying.
TW is slick and super fast compared
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i noticed this with go launcher, turned out to be a clock widget with animated seconds hand was causing the glitch, took it off, put a different animated clock up, same result (sticky) took it off put fancy widgets on, smooth as silk
Thumbnail attached...

MJ-12 said:
Yeah i noticed this with go launcher, turned out to be a clock widget with animated seconds hand was causing the glitch, took it off, put a different animated clock up, same result (sticky) took it off put beautiful widgets on, smooth as silk
Thumbnail attached...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What battery icon is that and how did you put it on? I'm still on stock rom with chainfire's rooted kernel.
Cheers

Hello , i prefer Go Launcher and no lag for me ( using lite'ning) .

neo6776 said:
What battery icon is that and how did you put it on? I'm still on stock rom with chainfire's rooted kernel.
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The one on the desktop is minimalist text (for when i swipe the notification bar off).
The one on the notification bar I added using the kitchen app from the market which is for use with the Revolution Rom.
In the kitchen app you just chose a theme/feature, click ok, it downloads, installs and reboots, plus it has many other features in the app like BLN and EDT, kernel change, boot ani change, battery sound on/off, slide glow on/off etc. etc. etc. and kitchen is always being updated.
A great rom and the kitchen app sets it apart
That's my sales pitch over Leo
Enjoy...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1171523
Go launcher Ex 2.53 beta 3 now available here
http://golauncher.goforandroid.com/...edium=rss&utm_campaign=go-launcher-v2-53-beta

So why do you prefer the Go launcher over TW?
Things I found I didn't like with GO, the calendar widget on TW especially the month view one I prefer, also mini paper although it works with GO, when you click the plus to add another widget note, it opens TW to tries and add it to one of those screens instead of the Go screen, I use mini paper a lot, best postit note type widget that actually works from the home screens quickly.

THUDUK said:
So why do you prefer the Go launcher over TW?
Things I found I didn't like with GO, the calendar widget on TW especially the month view one I prefer, also mini paper although it works with GO, when you click the plus to add another widget note, it opens TW to tries and add it to one of those screens instead of the Go screen, I use mini paper a lot, best postit note type widget that actually works from the home screens quickly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use the memo thing that came with TW the one with the cork background it is really nice.
One of the other nice things about Go ex is that the dock keys can be swiped to give second user defined function, eg open file manager, plus they can be drag and dropped replaced!
Also customisation, icons can be renamed and/or swapped with other icons from other download themes.
I have used both adw ex and LP plus for quite some time, but I really can't see me changing. Even the Go keyboard shocked me with how good it looks and how fast it is, and it has (at a swipe) a T9 keyboard or an arrows keyboard... (iphone theme keys
See thumbs

MJ-12 said:
The one on the desktop is minimalist text (for when i swipe the notification bar off).
The one on the notification bar I added using the kitchen app from the market which is for use with the Revolution Rom.
In the kitchen app you just chose a theme/feature, click ok, it downloads, installs and reboots, plus it has many other features in the app like BLN and EDT, kernel change, boot ani change, battery sound on/off, slide glow on/off etc. etc. etc. and kitchen is always being updated.
A great rom and the kitchen app sets it apart
That's my sales pitch over Leo
Enjoy...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1171523
Go launcher Ex 2.53 beta 3 now available here
http://golauncher.goforandroid.com/...edium=rss&utm_campaign=go-launcher-v2-53-beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your a star thanks
Just installed the ROM. Now just need to try to get Allshare working.....

Cm7 with adwex with some debloating and an occasional cache cleaning... this has kept my phone lag free since my n1 days
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium

TW4.0 is mostly HW accelerated, it runs smoother and consumes less cpu cycles compared to other launchers.

Hmm it seems Launcher Pro is just as responsive as touchwiz. Is there any way to change dock icons for touchwiz? Also is it possible to set the app drawer icon in the middle as opposed to on the right side?