So many people have been complaining about ADW being included in CM6; it is something new and they do not know how it works. Often they activate a feature that they don't know about and flip out because they lost an icon or the dock bar; so I'm here to give a quick run down of some features, settings and usage.
I want to thank member "j.a" for helping me with the text and layout formating for increased readability.
Basic home screen actions:
First off, ADW has two swipe actions, a swipe up and a swipe down; these swipe actions can be disabled or the resulting action changed in settings.
Swipe down's default action is to hide the status bar, giving a full screen look. (I may be incorrect here and the default action is to open the notifications, I am not set to default anymore so...)
Swipe up's default action is to open/close a secondary dock bar at the bottom of the screen. This secondary dock is empty by default, so it will appear that your dock has disappeared. All you need to do is drag an icon to the dock and it will "pin" itself to the dock; it can hold several icons and if you place more than can fit on the screen the dock can scroll left and right. To delete an icon in the secondary dock, long press it and an option to delete will pop up.
The main dock's icons can be changed, just drag an icon to one of the icon areas and it will replace the current icon. The default setting is 2 icons in addition to the app drawer icon, but you can enable 4 in settings. If you touch the app drawer icon and swipe up, it will also open the secondary dock. (this can be done by mistake when trying to tap the icon) Also, if you touch an icon in the secondary dock and swipe down it brings the main dock back up. (this action will not work if you do not have any icons in the secondary dock, it gave me fits when I first started using ADW)
The secondary dock can be disabled in settings.
ADWLauncher Settings:
For CM 6 users these are found in the Main settings menu, (the one you get by hitting menu key when on the home screen then selecting "settings" or from the "settings" icon in the app drawer) it is the third in the list under "call settings". (for market installed versions, ADW settings will be under "preferences" when hitting menu at the home screen)
First off, I have noticed (when using CM6 RC1) that if I have LauncherPro installed on my device, that the ADWLauncher settings menu does not show up in the Main settings menu any more; (edit: the settings are accessed like the market installed version, hit menu when on the home screen, it is labelled "ADWStettings") this may also occur with other home/launcher replacements. This may be the cause of some peoples confusion, if they can not find the settings and options, how can they know or learn to change them.
Many of these are self explanatory, they are even captioned with what they do, but a quick overview.
Screen preferences:
Hide Status Bar: Enable/disable the status bar, for that full screen look.
Desktop Screens: Choose number of home screens available to place icons and widgets.
Default Screen: Choose which home screen is the "default" or "main" screen.
Auto stretch: If you choose a custom grid size, (the number of icons that can be placed on the screen) this option will try to resize the icons so they fit on the screen without overlapping, or when changing orientation.
Desktop Columns: Selects the number of icons that can fit across the screen. (this setting is universal between portrait and landscape orientation)
Desktop Rows: Selects the number of icons that can fit from top to bottom of the screen. (this setting is universal between portrait and landscape orientation)
Desktop scrolling speed: Swiping left or right on the home screen will change between the different home screens. This setting changes how fast this happens. A slow setting will cause the screen to slide slowly to the next and vise versa for fast settings.
Desktop overshoot: This setting changes the "bounce" effect when using L/R swipe to change between home screens. It ranges from no bounce to a large amount of bounce.
Drawer Settings:
Horizontal Drawer: Changes the app drawer to a horizontal scrolling effect similar to the home screen or the Galaxy S/iPhone UI.
Drawer Columns Portrait: Changes how many columns of icons appear in the app drawer while in portrait orientation.
Drawer Rows Portrait: Changes how many rows of icons appear in the app drawer in portrait mode. (horizontal mode must be enabled to change this setting)
Drawer Columns Landscape: Changes how many columns of icons appear in the app drawer while in landscape orientation.
Drawer Rows Landscape: Changes how many rows of icons appear in the app drawer in landscape mode. (horizontal mode must be enabled to change this setting)
Animated Drawer: Enables/disables the drawer animations, like the fly in/out effect when opening and closing the app drawer.
Zoom effect speed: Changes the speed of the fly in/out effect when opening or closing the app drawer.
Show app labels: Enables/disables the application names that appear under the icons in the app drawer.
Fade app labels: Chooses if the app labels will fade in during the app drawer open/close animation, or if they will pop up instantly when the app drawer animation is complete.
Background color: Change the app drawer background's color and alpha value. (transparency)
Page Horizontal Margin: Changes the space between the pages of the app drawer when it is set to Horizontal mode.
Preview Settings:
Previews are a thumbnail overview of all your home screens.
Sense previews: Changes between default Android style previews and Sense style previews.
Clean Screen Mode: Chooses whether or not the home screen icons will disappear when entering preview mode. (only affects default Android style previews)
System Preferences:
Home button binding: Change the default action when pressing the home button.
Swipe down actions: Changes or disables the home screen swipe down action.
Swipe up actions: Changes or disables the home screen swipe up action.
Wallpaper Hack: A scrolling hack for the home screen, disabling this option helps fix force closes when using large memory intensive wallpapers. (I am not sure but I am guessing this hack steals RAM or other resources from the wallpaper handler to increase home screen performance)
Orientation sensor: Enables/disables home screen accelerometer orientation. (I am assuming that devices with slide-out keyboards will still change orientation when opening the keyboard)
Use screen cache: Enables/disables using cache for the launcher/home screen, instead of reloading from scratch every time you go back to the home screen from another app. (using many widgets, icons and home screens can create a large cache and will hurt performance; so in those situations disable this setting)
Scrollable widget support: Enables/disables support for widgets with scrollable elements. Leave disabled if you do not use scrollable widgets. (many people claim that they can use scrollable widgets just fine even with this disabled, it may be related to how many widgets and icons you use, so try it and if you have issues enable the setting)
System persistent: Enabling this setting will force the Android memory controller to keep the launcher in memory even if free RAM gets low; this increases performance when returning to the home screen from other apps. (the dev of ADW has himself stated that he is not sure of his coding abilities for this function and states that if you have issues that you should try disabling this setting, I have this setting enabled and have not had issues, but keep this in mind if you have issues and ADW force closes)
UI settings:
Desktop dots: Enables/disables the Froyo style dots on each side of the main dock. (the ones that you can tap to change home screens)
Dockbar: Enables/disables the secondary dockbar
Closing dockbar: If you use the secondary dockbar, this setting will choose whether or not it will close (reopen the main dock) automatically when you launch an app or stay open until closed manually when you return to the home screen.
Closing folder: Chooses if a home screen folder will close automatically after you launch an app or if you must close it manually when you return to the home screen.
LAB: Enable/disable the icon to the left of the app drawer icon on the main dock.
RAB: Enable/disable the icon to the right of the app drawer icon on the main dock.
Secondary Action Buttons: Enabling this option will allow you to place 2 extra icons on the main dock. (Desktop Dots must be disabled to use this setting)
Tint AB: This setting enables a grayed out tint effect for the icons in the dock. (similar to stock Froyo launcher icons)
AB scale factor: Changes the size of the icons in the main dock.
Hide AllApps Bg: Enables/disables the tinted background dock effect for the app drawer icon.
Hide AB Bg: Enables/disables the tinted background dock effect for the icons to either side of the app drawer icon.
Hide icon labels: Chooses whether or not the application names appear under the app icons placed on the home screen.
Use new icon selectors: Chooses between the old and new style of highlighting selected icons. (the outlining/marking when tapping or long pressing home screen icons, or when using the trackball to navigate icons)
Highlight press color: Chooses the color of the icon highlight when tapping or long pressing an icon.
Highlight focus color: Chooses the color of the icon highlight when the icon is in focus. (selected but not activated, like when using the trackball to select icons)
Show desktop indicator: Enable/disable a graphical representation that allows you to know which home screen you are on at a glance.
Autohide desktop indicator: Chooses if the desktop indicator will remain visible or autohide after a short time.
Indicator type: Chooses the desktop indicator style. A Galaxy S dots style or a small top/bottom scroll bar style.
Theme Preferences:
This is for ADW 1.0.0 and above.
Use Theme Icons: Disabling this setting forces the use of the standard Icons for native apps instead if the theme provided versions. (only native apps like maps, contacts, etc are themed, this can create a stark contrast in icon styles between native and downloaded apps when using some of the more styled themes; this can look inconsistent and some people may wish for a more unified icon set)
Select your theme: Select your theme. This is where you will find your downloaded themes listed.
Theme Preview: This is just a preview picture of the selected theme. (if included by the theme dev)
Apply theme!: (button) Pressing this will enable the selected theme.
Get themes!: (button) pressing this will take you to the market app and start a search fro ADW themes.
Backup and restore:
Backup ADW settings: Pressing this will create a backup of all your settings for ADW on the SDcard. Handy if you are performing a wipe when flashing a new ROM (I find that this works better than Titanium backup for restoring ADW after a wipe)
Restore ADW settings: Restores your settings for ADW from the backup file created by pressing "Backup ADW settings". (as I said above, I found this more reliable than Titanium backup)
Backup desktop configuration: Pressing this will create a backup of your home screen icon and widget settings/placement on the SDcard. (I do not believe Titanium backup does this at all as it did not restore my icons/widgets)
Restore desktop configuration: Pressing this will restore your desktop configuration of icons and widgets from the file created by "Backup desktop configuration". (of course you must have restored all your downloaded apps/widgets first, Froyo will automatically restore any apps you had installed before a wipe; you must enable this feature in "privacy" settings, this restore will take some time and Android will notify you when all apps are restored)
If you are having performance issues with ADW, you can change some of these settings to help. Disabling animations will help a lot, as well as any other settings that make ADW more "flashy". You can also try using less home screens, widgets/icons and/or a normal static wallpaper as well. The smaller the memory footprint of your home screen/launcher the faster it will respond, with less/no hiccups in performance.
There is a new Wiki for ADW launcher, as it grows it will be a great source for info. http://adwlauncher.wikia.com/wiki/ADW_Launcher_Wiki
Well thats it, I hope this helps some of you out who are new to ADW. If you have questions, or if I got something wrong, let me know.
I posted this in the wiki as well, some help getting the redirects and proper article location set up would be great. http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/index.php?title=ADW.Launcher_How-to
IE: the official app name is ADW.Launcher, but some may do a search for ADW Launcher or ADWLauncher. Also, the artical should be located in all Android device wiki areas, as there is no Android General section.
Nice guide. =)
Great guide. I didn't read it completely in detail, but this part jumped out at me:
Marine6680 said:
(only native apps like maps, contacts, etc are themed, this can create a stark contrast in icon styles between native and downloaded apps when using some of the more styled themes; this can look inconsistent and some people may wish for a more unified icon set)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The theming isn't limited to only native apps. The author of a theme can change the icons for whatever they want, so a theme could include every market app, but of course it won't. I bet as time goes on we'll see themes with all the native icons plus top 200 market apps, etc.
Thank you for doing this! I'm getting a lot of FCs at the moment and I've spent a lot of time changing things about in total ignorance.
Nice guide...
Clarkster said:
Great guide. I didn't read it completely in detail, but this part jumped out at me:
The theming isn't limited to only native apps. The author of a theme can change the icons for whatever they want, so a theme could include every market app, but of course it won't. I bet as time goes on we'll see themes with all the native icons plus top 200 market apps, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well they could, but man at the time involved. They just typically don't theme other icons, but if some gung-ho themer wants to, they could.
Marine6680 said:
Well they could, but man at the time involved. They just typically don't theme other icons, but if some gung-ho themer wants to, they could.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, and there already are a few that are doing the common other apps. In fact Ander Webbs is already working with the community to compile a list of the common market apps for themers to use as a reference.
peadarog said:
Thank you for doing this! I'm getting a lot of FCs at the moment and I've spent a lot of time changing things about in total ignorance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got FC's on my N1 until I got the 2.2 OTA, I suspect the extra ram or the memory management took care of things, but I haven't had a *single* FC since.
That's alot of work thank you,
Can you change Icons in the dock like laucherpro ?
if not and without using themese can you please let me know how to in a step by step guide since you are very good at those lol
I've tried to use folder organizer, I change the icons but it doesn't apply it for some reason...I have a feeling it's a very stupid thing on my end.
thanks man! good write up
Marine, thank you for taking the time to write that great ADW guide I appreciate it
kindiboy said:
That's alot of work thank you,
Can you change Icons in the dock like laucherpro ?
if not and without using themese can you please let me know how to in a step by step guide since you are very good at those lol
I've tried to use folder organizer, I change the icons but it doesn't apply it for some reason...I have a feeling it's a very stupid thing on my end.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They can be changed but it works different. All you do is drag an icon to the dock and it will replace the existing icon.
And thanks for the kind words everyone.
is this faster/slower/same in term of speed than LauncherPro when swiping between home screens?
xxlikquidxx said:
is this faster/slower/same in term of speed than LauncherPro when swiping between home screens?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Faster/Slower isn't relevant, you can adjust both. It's slightly less smooth. IMO on Froyo it's completely a non-issue.
Thanks a lot for guide.
I have found most of it out with trial and error although getting the 2 extra buttons on the LAB & RAB was eluding me!! Thanks
xxlikquidxx said:
is this faster/slower/same in term of speed than LauncherPro when swiping between home screens?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ADW Launcher's swiping speed can be adjusted however you like. But compared to Launcher Pro, it is smoother, on both normal wallpapers and live wallpapers.
I've noticed my app tray is a little jittery using ADW, anyone else seen this? I'm on cyanogen6. I've tried it in both vertical and horizontal modes.
Awesome guide a similar one for launcher pro would rock! I've always been curious what some of those memory and cache settings do and how they work.
Wylker said:
I've noticed my app tray is a little jittery using ADW, anyone else seen this? I'm on cyanogen6. I've tried it in both vertical and horizontal modes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed it can be a bit jittery when first opening the app drawer when coming out of sleep or an app, but following open/close would be smooth. You can disable label fade in, that can help, or you can try using a static wallpaper or one that is less resource heavy. Even seemingly simple live wallpapers can be resourse heavy depending on what it is doing behind the scenes. Some system monitors will show a persistent notification of CPU load, use this to find one that uses less CPU when its running. (fpt System Manager does I know, to close the notification you must choose exit in the app, killing the process will not do it)
Thanks for the guide, lovely work.
I'm using this app which rocks!!! I want to start customizing it even more but run into two issues:
1 - anyone know what the default icon size is? 12x12? 24x24? Etc?
2 - how do you get around the widget gap? I have two icons side by side and they are not flush.
Thanks!!!
Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk
1. Don't know the size for icons, but the area is 126x97, with 1 pixels between boxes.
2. Can't get around the space lengthways because it's designed for square icons.
Use one of the launcher programs that allows you to change # of rows/columns to make them square.
Look in the home screen posting thread, someone made all different sized icons for DV that have no spacing. They are all different sizes, 2x1, 2x2, and 3x3