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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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. ......
Click to expand...
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.

Twitter and facebook feed widgets

I'm lookimgs fo widgets that are simlar to launcher pro widgets any one have any ideas
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

You could try installing launcher pro. It's not in the market, but you should be able to find the apk with a little elbow grease.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA Premium App

Ditto. Load LauncherPro. You have to buy it to get the widget but it is cheap and worth it. Attached is a screenshot of my screen. Upper left is Friends widget which combines FB and Twitter feeds. Totally worth it.

I used LP 0.8.3 plus since I got the Xoom. Wasn't sure how it would turn out but I figured it couldn't hurt. It's been fanatastic. Have to tweak some small settings to make it snappier transitioning screens but it does the job well. The ability to stretch the Widgets and the additional Widgets makes it worth the effort. Feels very customized and it works great.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

For those running Launcher Pro... Are you using the CNN stackable widget as well?
When I installed LP+ and would flip through the CNN widget stacks, I would constantly get Force Closes on Launcher Pro. I finally gave up on it... Maybe I will try again.
Anyone experiencing the same? Or different?
Thanks.

Cnn widget works fine for me (I have it resized a little smaller than what it looks like stock)

keitht said:
Ditto. Load LauncherPro. You have to buy it to get the widget but it is cheap and worth it. Attached is a screenshot of my screen. Upper left is Friends widget which combines FB and Twitter feeds. Totally worth it.
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Click to collapse
Launcher Pro looks nice. I'll have to try it.
Is it your birthday Keith? Happy birthday, if it is.

New to Android... so this could possibly be a dumb question.
When using the stock Twitter widget, it only displays one tweet at a time and isn't scrollable. When reading up on Launcher Pro, it said that you can resize and create scrollable widgets. Could I take the stock Twitter app, resize it, AND make it scrollable?
Thanks in advance.

Here is another question related to Launcher Pro... I have my screens setup and all is working well, however, the stackable widgets (CNN, Youtube, etc) do not automatically flip every minute.
I know this is not a big deal, however, I am guessing they also do not refresh every minute as well.
Anyone seeing the same thing?
If this is a known problem, I am assuming this will be fixed when LP+ is actually released to use the Honeycomb engine.

green94 said:
New to Android... so this could possibly be a dumb question.
When using the stock Twitter widget, it only displays one tweet at a time and isn't scrollable. When reading up on Launcher Pro, it said that you can resize and create scrollable widgets. Could I take the stock Twitter app, resize it, AND make it scrollable?
Thanks in advance.
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Click to collapse
No.
LPP+ has a very nice twitter widget that is scrollable.
LPP+ does nothing to widgets that aren't LP widgets, other than allow you to resize them. The stock Twitter widget does not have the ability, that I've seen, to be scrollable, there for for me, it gets deleted.
Its very hard if not impossible to find LPP replacement widgets for the Calendar/Agenda, facebook, and twitter widgets. ADW an equally impressive launcher does not have these widgets, but has a couple other tweaks LP doesn't.
There are also themed versions for LPP+ and ADW which are very nice. I'm using a transparent theme, XTG and Love it.
Here's the thread for all the themed versions. Looks like he just added HC too. Make a backup of LP, delete it. Install the themed .apk and restore. Activation codes work and it really adds a nice touch.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=783427
Its sad that the stock Launcher is so inadequate. I really tried to like it but the lack of resizing the widgets is a complete fail imo.

Mandelbrot.Benoit said:
No.
LPP+ has a very nice twitter widget that is scrollable.
LPP+ does nothing to widgets that aren't LP widgets, other than allow you to resize them. The stock Twitter widget does not have the ability, that I've seen, to be scrollable, there for for me, it gets deleted.
Its very hard if not impossible to find LPP replacement widgets for the Calendar/Agenda, facebook, and twitter widgets. ADW an equally impressive launcher does not have these widgets, but has a couple other tweaks LP doesn't.
There are also themed versions for LPP+ and ADW which are very nice. I'm using a transparent theme, XTG and Love it.
Here's the thread for all the themed versions. Looks like he just added HC too. Make a backup of LP, delete it. Install the themed .apk and restore. Activation codes work and it really adds a nice touch.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=783427
Its sad that the stock Launcher is so inadequate. I really tried to like it but the lack of resizing the widgets is a complete fail imo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First off, great information. Really appreciate it.
A few follow up questions:
What are the differences between LPP+ and ADW beyond widgets? Candidly scrollable widgets is my most pressing need at this time, but I'm interested in hearing about the other "tweaks".
Do you use both launchers at the same time?
How do these programs handle battery consumption?
Lastly, which do you recommend for use with Honeycomb?
Thanks again

Looking for a weather widget

I'm trying to fill a specific need.
Before this i had a Ibex Flytouch 3. It lasted 4 days from new before the battery exploded and melted it to scrap.
BUT - it had a very nice weather widget that shows time and weather from lots of world places. Specifically Newbiggin-by-the-sea, Northumberland, UK.
No other weather app I've seen shows Newbiggin, the closes is Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland. OK, the weather will be the same, but I'd like to see Newbiggin listed and shown.
I've got the apk from the FT files, and it installs and runs as a widget, but I can change the settings (It used to be a tap on the widget would open its settings window, tapping it widget on my A500 does nothing).
Anyone know how to make it allow settings, or of a weather widgety that shows Newbiggin?

try beautiful widget...

I'll try him, thanks.
Palmary weather does the job I need, but it add TOO many widgets - I just want one simple little thing - why do they have to bloat things out so much?

In that case, you can use the basic widget available on the Acer.
But beautiful widget offers choice of different widgets from simple to sophisticated...

well the ACER one is not finalize... cut the text on the bottom...
and concerning beautifull.... hummm no comment.
Ressource eating, too much things.... but normal it's meant to be like this
but I will release asap my widget, minimalistic, nothing more than temperature, and simple graphic... just need too study more about Java

ms893 said:
In that case, you can use the basic widget available on the Acer.
But beautiful widget offers choice of different widgets from simple to sophisticated...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't get me wrong, i don't mind sophisticated..
I just don't want all the other widgets still installed after I've got the one I want running.
It's good it gives you a choice - it just needs to delete the ones I don't choose.

http://www.google.ru/webhp?sourceid...=1&fp=e7be68f0ea50d0d6&ion=1&biw=1440&bih=742

anusthegreat said:
http://www.google.ru/webhp?sourceid...=1&fp=e7be68f0ea50d0d6&ion=1&biw=1440&bih=742
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the link.
I've already tried it - the water live wallpaper works fine and looks great, but the weather app/widget fails (installs, but on run force closes all the time).

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

Request - if possible

Not sure this is where I even post a request to a dev, but hopefully they see it
Anyway, I like the blink feed, just not a fan of it being on any of my home screens. I am also not a fan of the huge clock and weather icon currently in the feed.
Would it be possible to have the blink feed visible after a swipe UP from the bottom of the screen, much like the notification bar can be swiped down from the top? Also, an option to remove the clock and weather for an extra news tile. I already have a clock, and a weather widget so they are redundant.
Might not be possible, but worth a try

A easier method for your request might be a different launcher.

pradeepvizz said:
A easier method for your request might be a different launcher.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But then the blinkfeed wouldnt work as its sense only.

Recommended from another user here: You could always try apex or another launcher and create a shortcut to htc sense, just remove the other screens on sense so it opens right to blinkfeed, works fine for me.
Sent from my HTC One

jcorv58 said:
Recommended from another user here: You could always try apex or another launcher and create a shortcut to htc sense, just remove the other screens on sense so it opens right to blinkfeed, works fine for me.
Sent from my HTC One
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is very cleve. I never thought I can creat sense shortcut. From where I can made it？