Database Users

Things you like about Touchwiz/Samsung modifications

Always seems to be a ton of threads about why people hate touchwiz and how eager they are to get rid of it but...what do you like about what Samsung did different?
I absolutely love the pulldown menu modifications
I love the music/call controls in the pull down, and like the power widget there. This is something I really wish that Google would adopt/roll into stock android later on (or at least Cyanogen).
I also like the shortcut to adjust your phone's brightness (rolling finger across the top bar).
I personally prefer the way this phone handles making a call on a 2nd line and conferencing people in...it's much better than stock android (I came from a Moto droid and conferencing in a new # was always kind of a pain in the ass).
I personally prefer the way they redid the calendar to stock (I seem to be in the minority here though).
I use google voice for all SMS, so I can't really comment on that.
I use LauncherPro, so the actual look of the launcher doesn't bug me...
Actually, the only thing I truly hate about the modifications Samsung made was the damn alarm program..it's way worse than the droids, and it's way too easy to turn off...and the snooze button is hard to differentiate from the turn off alarm button.
Overall, Samsung has some nice stuff if they just abandon the cartoony iPhones look of the launcher and work on a few of the performance hickups here and there.

hydrogenman said:
I absolutely love the pulldown menu modifications
I love the music/call controls in the pull down, and like the power widget there. This is something I really wish that Google would adopt/roll into stock android later on (or at least Cyanogen).
I also like the shortcut to adjust your phone's brightness (rolling finger across the top bar).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Other than the calendar (which is a near-total fail for me; maybe others' calendars don't have the same bugs as mine - which is a scary thought, b/c it makes a global "fix" seem less likely), I really like TouchWiz - particularly the features listed above. The "Power Control" Android widget (or whatever it's called) - which is normally crucial - becomes almost unnecessary, provided you're OK with using the pulldown for toggling GPS, Wifi, etc.; and sliding finger for brightness. (The only Power Control item you can't toggle using pulldown is "Sync," which I almost never turn off anyway).
I like how the TW icons look; and I dig the app drawer, b/c I prefer the "list" view that it offers. I may try another launcher someday, but right now I feel no need -- I'm digging TW (and much prefer it to stock Android).
Don't care for the Samsung widgets at all, but their functions can easily be bested with stuff in the Market.

pavvy said:
Other than the calendar (which is a near-total fail for me; maybe others' calendars don't have the same bugs as mine - which is a scary thought, b/c it makes a global "fix" seem less likely), I really like TouchWiz - particularly the features listed above. The "Power Control" Android widget (or whatever it's called) - which is normally crucial - becomes almost unnecessary, provided you're OK with using the pulldown for toggling GPS, Wifi, etc.; and sliding finger for brightness. (The only Power Control item you can't toggle using pulldown is "Sync," which I almost never turn off anyway).
I like how the TW icons look; and I dig the app drawer, b/c I prefer the "list" view that it offers. I may try another launcher someday, but right now I feel no need -- I'm digging TW (and much prefer it to stock Android).
Don't care for the Samsung widgets at all, but their functions can easily be bested with stuff in the Market.
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I've never once used any of the TW widgets...that's one thing that was a bit of fail
BTW, you can get the TW style of app drawer on 3rd party launchers

I was rather pleasantly surprised with TouchWiz. I think it's much better than Stock Android. I'm not sure exactly why people are complaining about it.
What I like about it.
1. WebOS like UI controls for Music and Toggles in the Notification drop down.
2. Paged scrolling of apps in the App Drawer. I hate inertial list scrolling.
3. Some of the widgets like dual clock and calendar clock. If there is no place to add a widget on that screen, it finds a screen with space. Buddies Now is a nice widget, but it's slow and buggy.
4. The interface to add/remove screens and move screens around.
What I dislike.
1. It syncs all contacts instead of just "My Contacts". Of course this is not the launcher, but the app. But other than this, the contacts and dialer are much better than stock.
2. Pressing the Home button, sends it off to Screen 4 on my phone instead of the center screen. Very annoying.
3. There is an Android bug that prevents folders from being opened. With LauncherPro, I can restart the launcher which fixes the problem. No such ability in TW.
4. Can only change two of the 4 icons at the bottom.

Likes:
Messaging/calling through contacts.
Power control in notification drawer
Launcher is starting to grow on me
The interface when a call is in progress
Puzzle piece notifications
Dislikes:
Music player can't distinguish between songs and ringtones
Nearly the same issue with gallery and album art
Can't set the home screen when less than 5 screens
Lock screen but that's purely cosmetic
The media scanner, but I don't think that's TW specific (Be awesome to have it scan on demand)
I really don't like how all the Samsung widgets want to take up an entire screen.

hydrogenman said:
BTW, you can get the TW style of app drawer on 3rd party launchers
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Click to collapse
Thanks, that's good to know... I'll have to try 'em sometime, I know they have lots of fans around here.

I actually prefer TW to LauncherPro or ADW. So far everything works pretty well.
I do wish that the samsung widgets were re-sizeable so they didn't take up the whole screen. I like the app drawer, it is just copying the iPhone, but I don't visit it a whole lot thanks to the FolderOrganizer widget. That widget should have come stock with the phone IMHO.

i really like some of the modifications that samsung has added, especially in the dialer and contacts apps (they have already been mentioned). i found another one last night in the calendar app, if you add a location to an entry it shows you a map of the location from the calendar entry.

wolfvgang said:
I actually prefer TW to LauncherPro or ADW. So far everything works pretty well.
I do wish that the samsung widgets were re-sizeable so they didn't take up the whole screen. ......
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Click to collapse
Hey. If I do understand you correctly, you are using ADW or LauncherPro and mention that 'everything is working pretty well, also referring to 'samsung widgets'?
How do you access 'samsung widgets' from say ADW Launcher - ESPECIALLY BuddiesNow ??
I can only access it from the default launcher, but do prefer ADW also - but am stuck
Thanks for your help or ideas.

I don't understand anyone wouldn't use LauncherPro.
The scrolling dock is genius. I have about 15 apps that I use regularly, so the dock does a really great job to accommodate that. Also, you can easily add your own custom icons, and do away with the default ones that come with TW and LP.
I also hate that on TW, you have the home screen # indicators at the top, giving you a lot less home screen space.
The app drawer, though not as easy to use as the Applications viewer in TW, is at least original. This phone already looks like an iPhone, so having a very Android-esque applications viewer is refreshing.
TW does a lot fantastic things, some of which you guys mentioned, but the general layout of it is pretty ****ty, and LauncherPro is just about perfect... and free.

I like the toggles on the notification pull down. I don't like how the brightness slider has no visual feedback to determine what the current bright is set at. If there was a slider widget attached to the bottom or a popup when the slider is in use that would make it easier.
I like the swipe on contacts for the call/sms.
After loading JI6, I tried using the TW launcher again, but I couldn't find any of the TW widgets compelling so I'm back to Launcherpro.

Just found this out, if you dislike the iPhone style of the app drawer, left to right, changing it to Alphabetical list gives me the normalish way we are used to the app drawer working, up and down.
Now if we could just remove the annoying outline on the icons I'd be set

Coming from an iPhone, Touchwiz was a bit too iphone-ripoff for me. I personally use Launcher+ but TW did have some good points.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

my biggest dislike is that contacts and dialer are no longer the same application. I never had a dialer shortcut on my phone before because I could just use contacts, now I have to use up 1 more space for the dialer.

Owenv said:
my biggest dislike is that contacts and dialer are no longer the same application. I never had a dialer shortcut on my phone before because I could just use contacts, now I have to use up 1 more space for the dialer.
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Click to collapse
You can access the contacts from the dialer, would be an extra click if you really want to not have that extra icon

z0phi3l said:
You can access the contacts from the dialer, would be an extra click if you really want to not have that extra icon
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Click to collapse
yeah but as far as I know you can't get to dialer from contacts, and I'm used to having the contacts icon on my home screen. I know I could just change it but you know what they say about old habits. however it isn't a problem since I have another contacts app that solved it for me.

My favorite feature is the dialer. I love the fact that it has speed dial unlike stock android. I also love the predictive dialing. These two are the biggest for me.

[REQ]Lockscreen Notifications

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good app or mod which imitates the Touchwiz lockscreen notifications for text messages and email.
I seem to remember it being a large red envelope on Touchwiz.
Thanks for your help in advance.

First - which Lockscreen do you use/request for?
If you want TW-Lockscreen Notifications, use TouchWiz-Lockscreen
---------------------------------
Use something like WidgetLocker or GoLocker...

i think he means aosp/aokp lockscreen

Notification questions. What's the best way to do this?

So I'm still getting used to this phone but something I'm having a hard time figuring out is configuring notifications. So I'd anyone wants to give me some pointers I'd really appreciate it.
1.) How do I display notifications on my lock screen so I see that I have 3 messages from my wife, a message from my friend, and 2 Facebook notifications etc...?
2.) How do I get notification badges on the app icons so I can at least see I have 3 unread messages etc...?
What's the best way to get close to this? Any ideas?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

A widget, perhaps? I just did a quick search on Google Play and found this. I'm sure there are a lot more options.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmspider.organizer

itpromike said:
So I'm still getting used to this phone but something I'm having a hard time figuring out is configuring notifications. So I'd anyone wants to give me some pointers I'd really appreciate it.
1.) How do I display notifications on my lock screen so I see that I have 3 messages from my wife, a message from my friend, and 2 Facebook notifications etc...?
2.) How do I get notification badges on the app icons so I can at least see I have 3 unread messages etc...?
What's the best way to get close to this? Any ideas?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For 1), do you mean you want the notifications readily available as soon as you get to the lock screen? If you don't mind doing a few actions, you could pull down the notification shade in your lock screen to show your notifications. Touching a notification and then pulling down again will give you more previews of the notification. You could also add some lock screen widgets for email and SMS so you can preview your messages from the lock screen.
If you want it instantly available, I'm not sure if there is any way to do it on the default lock screen. You might want to check out third party ones like Widget Locker.
For unread count badges on your icons, you could use Nova Launcher with the Tesla Unread plugin. If you don't want to install a different launcher I think there are some standalone widgets that can do it but I don't think they are as good as using Nova Launcher.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[Q] How do i turn off message preview on lock screen?

As the title says, I want to remove the message preview widget on the lockscreen. If i turn ON the message preview (under Messages->Settings->Preview message) i get the message widget showing the sender and the message text, if i turn the preview off i still get the message widget but this time it just shows the sender as "Messaging" and the message text as "New message".
I have attached 2 screenshots showing both screens.
I have tried with the "Multiple widgets" option turned on and off with the same result.
However if i completely turn message notifications off (Messages->Settings->Notifications), it goes away, but then i dont get any notifications of messages.
Is there any way to just turn off that lockscreen widget but still have the normal notifications like the S2 and S3?
Thanks in advance

Bump !!
I desperately want to know the answer to this. What's the point of lock screen widgets like dashclock etc if the horrible TW notifications take priority and appear over the top !
Anyone found the answer to this ?

Bump this is a rather stupid feature. I want to be able to read my preview n notifications without it going on lockscreen
Sent from my GT-I9500 using xda app-developers app

In the messaging app if you go to settings and scroll down, just untick "preview message"? You won't get previews on lockscreen or status bar BUT you should still get normal notifications in status bar.
linkinZA said:
As the title says, I want to remove the message preview widget on the lockscreen. If i turn ON the message preview (under Messages->Settings->Preview message) i get the message widget showing the sender and the message text, if i turn the preview off i still get the message widget but this time it just shows the sender as "Messaging" and the message text as "New message".
I have attached 2 screenshots showing both screens.
I have tried with the "Multiple widgets" option turned on and off with the same result.
However if i completely turn message notifications off (Messages->Settings->Notifications), it goes away, but then i dont get any notifications of messages.
Is there any way to just turn off that lockscreen widget but still have the normal notifications like the S2 and S3?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

xfile087 said:
In the messaging app if you go to settings and scroll down, just untick "preview message"? You won't get previews on lockscreen or status bar BUT you should still get normal notifications in status bar.
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Click to collapse
As i said if i untick that option, it just displays generic text on the lockscreen widget, as shown in my screenshot. I don't want the lockscreen widget to be displayed at all, but still keep normal notifications for messages.

This is a lockscreen widget created by Samsung.
You can press and hold you finger on it and put it on the trash.

MaKTaiL said:
This is a lockscreen widget created by Samsung.
You can press and hold you finger on it and put it on the trash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ive tried that, i cant get it to select?

MaKTaiL said:
This is a lockscreen widget created by Samsung.
You can press and hold you finger on it and put it on the trash.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried that also, it doesnt work. It only works for lockscreen widgets you added manually, like music player etc.
I see missed calls also appear in the annoying widget, and its location is to the right of the main lockscreen, all manually added lockscreens are to the left of the main lockscreen.

Bump! I would also like to know the answer to this question!
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

Unfortunately I don't think you can remove it. I also dont like it, why cant I just click on the notification to launch the messaging app? Why display that stupid empty box?

I think i've exhausted all options to get rid of it, our only hope is that Samsung allows us the option to disable it on their next firmware.

Use a different lock screen.......

jmoak said:
Unfortunately I don't think you can remove it. I also dont like it, why cant I just click on the notification to launch the messaging app? Why display that stupid empty box?
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The empty box is really annoying!!!!
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

Bump. Would love to know how to disable the damn thing.
I've set up Dash Clock to replace the stock lockscreen widget, but every time I get a message or a missed call it reverts back to the ugly default Samsung widget.

I suspect that an update will fix it. It looks as if it was unfinished.
Sent from my GT-I9500

Sorry to bump this but I was searching for this issue...well, the music app displaying on the lock screen issue to be exact.
Even when I end the app through the task manager and the clearing of ram memory it will still show up for a good 5 or 10 minutes on my lock screen, sometimes sporadically. It's annoying and incredibly ugly (to me). I've reset my phone twice thinking maybe there was an issue I caused for it to still show up even when not in use.
Hopefully Samsung allows us to keep the music player from showing on the lock screen. And yes, I know I can use a 3rd party app but I prefer the stock, other than this issue.

LOCKSCREEN POLICY! that's the solution! I've been searching for ages!

noooooo said:
LOCKSCREEN POLICY! that's the solution! I've been searching for ages!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry this app does not work on touchwiz on the Galaxy S4.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2

Gillion said:
Sorry this app does not work on touchwiz on the Galaxy S4.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 2
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Click to collapse
In my gti9505 works great....

Bump.
Would also really like to know the answer to this. I've got Dash Clock set up to do everything, but the ugly TW widget keeps taking over, seems kind of pointless.
I found an apk in the /system/app/ directory called NotificationWidget.apk which seemed promising, but after deleting it the TW widget is still there. Surely they wouldn't have baked it right into the framework?

Lockscreen widgets??

Where are the setting to enable multiple widgets on the lockscreen? It was under lockscreen in settings for my s4....I cant find them anywhere on this note 4

breacherman said:
Where are the setting to enable multiple widgets on the lockscreen? It was under lockscreen in settings for my s4....I cant find them anywhere on this note 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Samsung got rid of third party widgets and app shortcuts on the lock screen.

railshot said:
Samsung got rid of third party widgets and app shortcuts on the lock screen.
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Click to collapse
After the first week or so with lockscreen widgets on other phones, I found them useless. They were limited in information and functionality... and honestly, my muscle memory was to pickup my phone and unlock it. Then if they magnified to the full screen, the area to swipe to unlock got small... I just think for me, they were a waste. Once I am 2 or 3 swipes, or touches in, I can unlock it just as fast.

I hope someone figures out how to add them back. I have an ICE app that I need to have a lock screen widget for.

I always used the message g widget, always quicker than unlocking and going into the messaging app, I also used the app shortcut widget that u swipes to the right for, especially after getting spoiled using cover lockscreen, which I uninstalled due to too many bugs

JimSmith94 said:
I hope someone figures out how to add them back. I have an ICE app that I need to have a lock screen widget for.
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Click to collapse
The same for me. Please, help us!
I know that with root, I can use Xposed framework and download galaxy s5 widget to do it... but what about Note4 without root ?
(P.S. I'm sorry for my English...)

Ice contact lock screen
You can add your ICE contact (phone number etc.) to lockscreen by writing it in to the "owner information" -field, which can be found under lockscreen settings. No need for ICE-app.

joakimkarkas said:
You can add your ICE contact (phone number etc.) to lockscreen by writing it in to the "owner information" -field, which can be found under lockscreen settings. No need for ICE-app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like to put Google Now widget on lockscreen.