Database Users

Looking for something different for the Home Screen

I have read alot of posts and have found that the most popular home screen is HTC Home. There are others that prefer paid for applications. But here is my question. Has anyone ever ported a smartphone home screen for use on the Herald?
My daughter has a T-Mobile Shadow which uses a nice home screen and actually highly functional for average user. I have also seen a YouTube video of another home screen that was just gorgeous. Personally I prefer to keep my stylus holstered at all costs since I have damaged my screen with the elements in my area. Besides that whenever I hand my phone to anyone I have to give them a crash course in using my phone. I know it is simply tap the power button and press the green button but they will stand there forever trying to figure it out. I was just wondering if anyone has seen anything like I am talking about? It would be a nice change from HTC Home.

Nothing beats the HTC home screen in my opinion. do you have the cube feature?

I am not arguing the quality of HTC Home I have used it a while now. I would just like a change and I have a few little complaints about HTC Home specifically with the Music tab. It doesn't take focus on what button you are on while navigation using the directional pad. I take it most people use there stylus so it does not bother them and it is minimal so I have no problems with it.
As to the Cube no I do not have it installed and I again don't like to touch the screen I have already accrued enough damage and my finger tips are worse than the stylus. Thank you for your suggestions and interest in my post.

Is there a video or pictures of the htc home screen, I'm new to all this?

I like to keep my today screen simple and clean...
I really hated HTC Home... it was too big and clunky, didn't fit my needs and just got on my nerves!
I use Ultimate Launch to tab SPB Phone suite, SPB Time, SPB Weather
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..
..

There is also Freestyl and PointUI both are free but both are in Beta still.
,

Thanks for the suggestions duprade & pseudoproto. Both of your Home Screens are awesome and well put together I will say. After duprade's post I tried all the Today plugins I could find and none had the feel of stability to me. I am not complaining or knocking on their designs. I am specifically looking for a direct port from another windows mobile device at this time. Again thanks hope I make sense I think I want a Smart Phone on a Pocket PC how sad lol.

just try ultimate launch or spb pocket plus it works very good it is a kind of a cube on your today screen to launch some apps or something like that try it and i think it will be the right thing for you just google ;-)

hhh_www you may be right and I have tried it and it was fun. But I haven't a artistic bone in my body. So everything I put together looks like crap. I am just hopeful for a few specific details I see in my daughters Shadow. The WMP on the scrolling screen w/ Album Art. That is so appealing.
Here is a screen shot of that in action you might understand why I like it so much.

neiltoe said:
hhh_www you may be right and I have tried it and it was fun. But I haven't a artistic bone in my body. So everything I put together looks like crap. I am just hopeful for a few specific details I see in my daughters Shadow. The WMP on the scrolling screen w/ Album Art. That is so appealing.
Here is a screen shot of that in action you might understand why I like it so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ran across this site and thought of your post. Maybe something from here is close to what you want. Let me know if this helps.
http://smartphone.krisdoff.net/portfolio.php?g=3

Thank you will definitely give it a try!
Edit: I tried to use it but it appears you must have a smartphone to use this.

There's a thread. It's called "Post your todayscreen"
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=360897
maybe you can look in there and see what you like.
There are tons of these "Post your todayscreen" type threads all over the forum. If you could find a few look through it, and see what you like.

[CLOSED/G2] Soft Touch Keys are all different!

Anybody else notice that on the soft touch keys, the ones at the bottom of the screen on the g2, the home and the back keys are swapped places from a N1...Just thought I would point that out! Sorry I have a Nexus one and was surprised....but now after checking out all the other phones all of them have different layouts, even the droid x, droid incredible and the droid are all different layouts!!
Take a look for yourself....
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It would probably take me quite some time to get used to that from my nexus...i think this is an odd thing to do personally, but it does match the g1 good

Similar positioning to the G1. The keys on the G1 from left to right are [Call] [Home] [Menu] [Back] [End]. I'm not so happy that those are soft keys, and Call and End are no where to be found.

Trust me, doesnt take that long. Change android phones thrice, all with different combinations.
Haha, theres what, 4(square) = 16 possible combinations and I guess manufacturers are out to use them all!
TBH, I much prefer this to Windows Pho 7's three button combination. SOme of those designs look a world of tacky.

Yeah this is current line up of almost all newer android phones. The two softkeys next to the app drawer are best used for call button and you can end call the call directly from notification bar no matter your location on the screen. It takes some getting used to (my current phone, the MTS is just like this in terms of set up) but is just as comfortable after a while.

keys are just like the mytouch also. my search button also pulls up quick response

ozy944 said:
Trust me, doesnt take that long. Change android phones thrice, all with different combinations.
Haha, theres what, 4(square) = 16 possible combinations and I guess manufacturers are out to use them all!
TBH, I much prefer this to Windows Pho 7's three button combination. SOme of those designs look a world of tacky.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just to be pedantic, it's not 4^2, but rather 4!, or 24, combinations of four buttons in four possible spaces.

I stand corrected . Should freshen up my probability and stats!

I do infact miss the G1 Keyboard layout, so far I enjoyed a dedicated button for numbers. So far I havent seen it and many people complained about it, oh well. I cant wait for this phone to come out just to root this.

its super annoying! but after a day or 2 you will get used to it; i have atleast..

it seems a lil out of place but can tell till i get the phone and mess with it.
but couldnt the buttons also be remapped with software then re icon with a skin/screen cover

[Q] Serious Problem: Galaxy S4 I9500 Lockscreen Shutdown Enabled

Hello everyone, this is my first post on xda forums. I hope someone out there might be able to help me out.
I accidentally found out that on my galaxy s4 I9500 lock screen, I can still press and hold power button and it gives me options to power off/restart my phone. I have pattern lock enabled. I tried and successfully powered off the phone straight from my lock screen, not to mention that it scared me out. What if it gets stolen? Anybody can turn if off and I wont be able to track it down or enable any thing via SMS commands etc.
What's the purpose of lock screen if the phone can be turned off, if not unlocked, and I couldn't do anything about it.
I recently updated android 4.4 and I am not sure whether or not this issue persisted before that. I am attaching a screenshot of it. Looking forward for someone to sort this out for me. Thanks.
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Same behaviour here also
Sent from my SM-T310

dave106 said:
Same behaviour here also
Sent from my SM-T310
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you just find out after reading this post or were you aware of it before?

And have you not thought that even if it is as you describe what is the benefit
not so great
If someone steals your phone much easier to remove the battery and that is even faster than pressing buttons
this is just my personal opinion

pda4g said:
And have you not thought that even if it is as you describe what is the benefit
not so great
If someone steals your phone much easier to remove the battery and that is even faster than pressing buttons
this is just my personal opinion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you're absolutely right, but then again it raises a big question mark on all the tracking and anti-theft apps as well as Google's own android device manager feature a bunch of crappy apps which do no good at all except for playing sirens via laptop on your own phone and thinking it actually works.
Plus if the thief is within the room, he wont go through all the trouble of removing the protective case, back cover and then removing battery itself. He'd simply turn it off and wait.

It has been like this since I can remember, way before 4.4. In GS3 and GS4, probably in SGII too, this I don't remember.

shiraz.malik990 said:
Yes, you're absolutely right, but then again it raises a big question mark on all the tracking and anti-theft apps as well as Google's own android device manager feature a bunch of crappy apps which do no good at all except for playing sirens via laptop on your own phone and thinking it actually works.
Plus if the thief is within the room, he wont go through all the trouble of removing the protective case, back cover and then removing battery itself. He'd simply turn it off and wait.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this topic can be seen from different angles
best - keep your phone
and good friends for company
this is a joke
no one knows what can happen
My Galaxy Note many times I turn it off that way
I don't remember ever had to unlock before that S4
I don't remember

Android / Samsunsg regress

Hi there,
So I have been using N7000 quite a while now - 2 years or so. And I discovered one, very annoying thing about new versions of android - each one seems to be worse in terms of usability and desktop space usage then the previous one...
Lets start with GB roms - there was 5x5 launcher in home screen and 6x5 in app menu + very useful bottom app dock that visible from desktop (home screen) and app screen. Also - each screen had a number that was shown in the bottom, so you knew where you were.
See picture: gb.jpg taken from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1424401 here
Next version - ICS has cut some rows of icons in the app menu and completely deleted bottom app dock. And where the hell is screen number gone? Why??
The good thing about ICS was decent performance and quite good battery life. - Actually, the best one so far on n7000
See picture ics.jpg taken from http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1923817
JellyBean - same story less apps rows, everything seems to have more room for itself but it causes more screens and more swyping gestures. 4x4 in home screen is a joke. Having so big screen and using so little of it is pointless. I do not know what were they thinking designing the layout! And how did they manage to release so bugged software causing all kernel wakelocks destroying our batteries?
And finally - KitKat which follows the same direction - less icons in the screen, more touches to get you where you want.
Now regarding AOKP that everybody seems to love here - there is no support of very 'basic' apps that Samsung offers in stock TW roms:
- fm radio
- video calls via 3g
- s note
I can understand that s-note is the samsung specific app, but video calls and fm radio not being supported in 2014 AOKP KitKat roms is regress...
I recon that the next version of Android will have 1 icon and 1 icon for 1 screen - containing 12 screens.
We are putting ourselves in the custody of trying simplify things which are simple enough. Many other examples would be some of the google apps - Talk regressed to Hangouts, Maps regressed to new maps, and simple search app regressed to google now that everybody hates. And did I mention it takes 1 home screen when you swipe left on several devices?
I do not want be involved in the discussion of every single mistake google / samsung / communicy have made. I just wanted to point that the way, we are being directed is clearly a wrong way ahead!
Roll on
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Show me what you got!

Wow what an analysis. Yes ur right about everything u have said. Each new version of android shows so low mininum hardware requirement, which is not true because once the rom is released its much bigger in size than the previous one. I would like android to get updates like linux. Each edition getting a parallel update. Newer devices gets the newer edition and older devices should get the update of the edition they are already on.
The best performance my note showed was
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

To an already brilliant post the only thing missing was this statement based on a razor-sharp mind and an unmatched intellectual spirit.

brilliant post. brilliant analysis. plus there are now more non responsive google. same goes for force closing of apps

Screen off gestures

Hi guys!
I know there are some old threads about tap2wake feature and so on. But I want to point your attention to a different perspective: gestures. Wouldn' it be useful to launch some apps (camera, google translate,whatsapp, qr code scanner etc) from a simple gesture on your screen when it is off? I think it would be. I'm not a dev, just an android enthusiast. I have no idea how much the implementation of these features can be difficult. But I l'd like to have some opinions by someone who know more than me about the principal difficulties to realize it. If I'm not wrong Nexus 5 has these features(at least tap2wake) thanks to elementalX kernel, it has snapdragon 800 as note 3, so i think it would be possible to implement. Just curious, I'm not saying "please do this, my life depends on it", I'm feeling really good with my note 3 as it is, but I think it would be useful and cool[emoji13] [emoji13].

I asked this a while ago but got no response So i don't know if it even possible to do so, I think the devs knew that the digitzer couldn't be turned out with out the display being on. saying that it's an amoled display so displaying black on it, makes it turned off. But i'm no Kernel Developer so i don't know much about the Kernel

Maybe you're right about amoled. But I tried Knockr app, that puts your screen black and you can use gesture with "screen off" or blacked screen. So I think digitizer is on and screen is off, but as app is in memory and active it keeps wakelocks keeping CPU at high frequencies. So it will drain the battery, and it is not such a good thing. Surely a kernel solution would be more battery friendly, avoiding cpu wakelocks or at least putting cpu at lowest frequencies.

Yep

As already stated, it would require kernel-level support, and even then, would likely be an increased drain on the battery. There's no reason it couldn't be done, though.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea. I'd rather use lock screen shortcuts. It only takes a fraction if a second to press a button and bring up the lock screen, and there's no worrying about accidentally inputting any 'gesture' while the phone's in your pocket. But that's just my opinion...

About gestures in your pocket I think it will be quite difficult since we had a capacitive touchscreen, at least I never had such problem. But you're right if you can customize your lockscreen shortcut launch an app won't take too long. But you need to have the possibility to customize your lockscreen shortcuts like in cm-based ROMs. For example I really like TW lockscreen, I don't want any third part app to replace it. By the way, thanks to say your opinion, have different points of view is a good thing.[emoji6]
So I'm asking to myself why nobody implement this feature, if it is possibile, maybe development will take too much time for a feature few people wants.

You're probably right about not having to worry about activating gestures in your pocket. Like I said, I've never tried such a thing. That was just the first thought that came to mind lol.
TW does actually have native lock screen shortcuts that are somewhat customizable, but it takes a bit of work to make it functional (at least on my device).
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A little OT. Where is this option, or better, on which ROM have you got it? [emoji13]

cruor.am said:
A little OT. Where is this option, or better, on which ROM have you got it? [emoji13]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't seen it enabled in any ROMs by default, but it may be on some other devices. I've been playing around with it on my Note 3 running Alliance, but I don't have it quite 100% functional yet.