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.
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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.
Ok my favorite launcher is go launcher just because of how customizable it is! I find myself using the regular launcher and Zeam alot because they are quick, they would be perfect if you could hide apps in the app drawer. As far as just having something minimal.
I like Go Launcher becuase it has alot of free themes and you can mix and match all there icons and what not. What annoys me is on the Homescreen when you flip the phone the icons wont show back up half the time until you tap the screen. I mean ive tried every video tweak compiled optimized kernels and the only thing that has fixed this problem is the ICS flip animation in bobzhome's new rom. Im thinking becuase the animation refreshes the screen after the flip, but as soon as i turn animations off in display the icons disapear as soon as i flip the screen. I mean im running at 840mhz with 350mb ram free and this happens!!! Does anyone else have this problem or know a fix?
Edit: nvm
Hello,
Been using Nova Launcher Prime for quite a few months now. I really enjoy how light and slick the launcher is, however I generally add icons and little more than that. I don't really play around with the grid settings, margins, however I have seen so many great home screens for the Nexus 4 I'm beginning to get a little jealous as many are using Nova and not some bloaty launcher like Buzz.
I have found when using an icon pack, the dock icons are never the same size as the icons above on the main home screen. If I check "small icons" in dock settings they are smaller as I would expect, however if I uncheck this then the dock icons are bigger than the homes creen icons.
It gives any layout I'm trying to achieve an odd look. I wanted to give my screen an MIUI/Iphone home screen look where the icons in both dock and above are the same size. The only way I think I can do this is remove the dock, but then I won't be able to add dock backgrounds should I wish.
Anyone understand where I'm coming from here?
Also, if someone can point me somewhere to get the best out of Nova, put together some cool home screens etc, Thank you.
Have you tried resizing icons under nova settings>look and feel>icon size? Haven't really paid attention to the icon differences as I don't use a dock now.
Sent from my neXus⁴ using Tapatalk 2
I've noticed that some icon packs don't play nice with nova. Meaning that the icons get stretched out and look like they're cut off. Now if I manually add the icons, they're fine. It's not all icon packs though. Have you tried other icons?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
I think there is also an option for the hight of the menubar itself (normal and higher). maybe this will help.
Hey all, I have a few Touchwiz questions that I'm hoping someone can help me answer:
I'm using apex launcher, and I'm trying to match my apex wallpaper to the lockscreen wallpaper. But when I go to the lockscreen wallpaper in settings, it only allows me to choose a few OEM wallpapers. How can I get the apex wallpaper onto the lock screen?
This is a minor annoyance, but is there a way I can theme the top of my phone where it tells me the time/cell signal to look like stock ICS? The touchwiz icons are really big and don't look that great, while taking up a lot of space.
In the very least, is there a way for me to leave nfc, but not have the icon show up?
Thanks! I'm trying to give tochwiz a chance, but I'm really missing stock!
hey guys, i've been looking for ages but can't find what i'm looking for, was wondering if anyone knows where i could find a mod, to replace the touchwiz home screen's carousel effect with the new s5/old icecream sandwich "card stack?" effect without using another launcher, i'm looking for a flashable zip or a xposed framwork module that can be used on touchwiz, sumthin like this must surely exist?
thanks
hey guys, i've been looking for ages but can't find what i'm looking for, was wondering if anyone knows where i could find a mod, to replace the touchwiz home screen's carousel effect with the new s5/old icecream sandwich "card stack?" effect without using another launcher, i'm looking for a flashable zip or a xposed framwork module that can be used on touchwiz…
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wanam offers three minor tweaks to TW launcher (among many other valuable phone tweaks):
1 – infinite scrolling on/off
2 – wall paper scroll with pages on/off
3 – dock icon labels on/off
sumthin like this must surely exist?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I’m not so sure. Using Xposed to tweak the stock launcher seems like unnecessary overkill (considering the huge doorway into your phone's security that you give to every dev who's module you install). People who want to customize launchers generally go with alternate launcher. Then you don't even have to reboot to try out changes (like Xposed would have to). Nova would be my recommendation. I know it’s not the recommendation you’re looking for but you got it anyway.
electricpete1 said:
Wanam offers three minor tweaks to TW launcher (among many other valuable phone tweaks):
1 – infinite scrolling on/off
2 – wall paper scroll with pages on/off
3 – dock icon labels on/off
I’m not so sure. Using Xposed to tweak the stock launcher seems like unnecessary overkill (considering the huge doorway into your phone's security that you give to every dev who's module you install). People who want to customize launchers generally go with alternate launcher. Then you don't even have to reboot to try out changes (like Xposed would have to). Nova would be my recommendation. I know it’s not the recommendation you’re looking for but you got it anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is exactly what i figured, i found those options in exposed but not quite what i'm lookin for.
i used nova launcher on my s3 for a year and loved it, i just want to keep my high def lookin stock touchwiz icons since the nova launcher icons look like they belong in the 90's, i seen a stock touchwiz icon looking pack for nova launcher but they didn't have that "high def" look/feel to them (no shadows/reflections? or bad shading? on the icons, i dunno they just look bland compared to stock icons where they feel kinda 3d)
the reason i don't wanna use nova launcher is because if i do use nova launcher and go back to that stock android feeling i midaswell be on stock android itself, GPE or Cyanogenmod and it feels to bland which is why i'm on a touchwiz based rom.
i'm just kinda hopeing someone will come along with an idea of how i can impliment this without removing touchwiz launcher, ORRR maby get the real stock touchwiz icons (the acual stock ones, not just look alikes) into nova launcher.