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Root ICS CM7 OMG Unbelievable!

Well it was fun to fiddle around with but after using it for about a day, I have restored my MikG image from backup. I somehow always wind up back on MikG...

Anyway, I didn't try to look for too many solutions (I am sure I could resolve some of the issues if I invested the time, but I didn't). I had many, many problems with this ROM. Some of them are actually problems while others are just issues that don't suit my preferences. Call me crazy -- I actually think Sense based ROMs are the best out there. I also constantly hear that Cyanogen ROMs are incredibly fast, but I generally find them to be a bit laggy (see item 10 below).

Without further ado, here is my list of complaints...


1. New voicemail icon always appears even when there is no voicemail. Clearing it only works temporarily. After some time or a reboot the notification comes back.


2. I get text messages from 9016 about voicemails (even when there really is no voicemail).


3. Home screens flip landscape -- I would prefer them to stay in portrait mode but there doesn't seem to be any option to disable this rotation. You either disable ALL rotations or none.


4. The new touch screen buttons are permanently shown so I have those buttons as well as the soft buttons from the Evo. I definitely do not need 2 sets of the same buttons. I cannot figure out how to disable the on-screen buttons, which just seem to take up some real estate.


5. The HTC flashlight app is much better than torch. I might be able to just adb push the Flashlight.apk/.odex files...?? Didn't try but maybe I'll restore this image at some point and try.


6. The default Android keyboard is terrible. The HTC keyboard has many more shortcuts that can be used by performing a long press instead of having to switch to the symbol page. Plus it doesn't even have the arrow keys to move around? It's just awful. At least give me a comma without having to change to the symbol keyboard!!!

I actually flash an older version of the HTC keyboard on MikG which does NOT include the trace libraries. I wonder if I could flash those same library files along with the HTC_IME.apk/.odex files and get the Sense keyboard running in CM7?


7. The default calendar widget only shows 1 day at a time? I like the HTC widget which shows an entire month with little indicators on each day that an event occurs. Not only that, but the HTC friendstream/facebook widgets can pull data that then shows up on the calendar. This default thing only seems to pull data from my google calendar. Boo.


8. I have to pay for Beautiful widgets to get a clock widget like the HTC clock/weather widget. I was able to use Fancy widgets instead (for free) but it doesn't seem to be possible to enter multiple cities and look at their information. Also, you cannot just tap on the fancy widget clock to get into advanced features like alarms or stop watch (which does work in a Sense ROM). You also cannot tap the weather info to get extended forecast information. Fancy widgets allows for a 5 day weather forecast widget to be added to a home screen but this widget is not available in the free version.


9. There is no visual voicemail application out of the box. I wound up pulling the default .apk file from MikG (Sprint's apk file) and installing it but this is sort of crappy to have to do this.


10. Swiping between home screens seems very choppy. MikG has tremendously smoother transitions between screens. Hell, even the stock Gingerbread Sense ROM that ships on the Evo has smoother transitions (I just compared it with a stock, unrooted Evo from a co-worker).







Bottom line is that I would not recommend using this ROM. But if it works for you then go for it!
 
Wow.

I haven't seen an all out AOSP bash rant in quite some time. Preach it brother, Preach It!!! :D

Just a little humor, I really don't want this to turn into a back and forth brawl between sense and AOSP. ;)

I for one loved AOSP on my Hero, ran great. Not so much on my EVO. I liked the merge and Xplode roms, but I always end up back on something from Mikland.....

Bring on some ICS, I'm hungry.
 
Granite1 said:
Wow.

I haven't seen an all out AOSP bash rant in quite some time. Preach it brother, Preach It!!! :D

Just a little humor, I really don't want this to turn into a back and forth brawl between sense and AOSP. ;)

I for one loved AOSP on my Hero, ran great. Not so much on my EVO. I liked the merge and Xplode roms, but I always end up back on something from Mikland.....

Bring on some ICS, I'm hungry.
Click to expand...

I'm not trying to start a flame war -- just offering my experience with the ROM. ;)

Some people love CM7 and I guess I'm just not one of those people. I have learned to rely on too many widgets in Sense and I also think it's just considerably more polished looking. This ICS theme is pretty polished, but I think it's overdone personally. The great thing about Android is that you have a choice (if you know what you're doing). You can even tweak stuff yourself!


By the way, awesome Mario theme. Have you started on a Zelda theme yet? I would be willing to help out when I can. I have always thought about creating a theme for MikG and even tried theming Rosie a bit (it didn't work for some reason that I am not sure of yet). Maybe I'll start working on a Zelda theme for MiKG though. I certainly know I can change battery icons because I create my own zips and flash them (actually I just push them via adb but have created flashable zips for others). Probably would just mess with Rosie a bit and the status bar (3g/4g, battery icons, etc.). I'm not a huge fan of themes that change everything, including the icons for the apps that are all over the home screens.

If you have any images or ideas for the Zelda theme already I would love to know.
 
gamblor01 said:
8. I have to pay for Beautiful widgets to get a clock widget like the HTC clock/weather widget. I was able to use Fancy widgets instead (for free) but it doesn't seem to be possible to enter multiple cities and look at their information. Also, you cannot just tap on the fancy widget clock to get into advanced features like alarms or stop watch (which does work in a Sense ROM). You also cannot tap the weather info to get extended forecast information. Fancy widgets allows for a 5 day weather forecast widget to be added to a home screen but this widget is not available in the free version.
Click to expand...

On the Fancy Widgets if you use the 4x2 widget it is really very nice. To get the five day forecast on the free widget you just tap the sun, moon, or clouds. (It depends on the current weather)
I do like all of the options in there like making the background transparent, or adjusting the overlay weather transparency.
But having to open an alarm clock app is annoying.

I agree with alot of the stuff between the 2 Rom styles though. It took awhile before I could run an AOSP for a few days. But your right there is something for everyone with Android OS.


Naters
 
If you're having problems making Rosie mods, hit up Tommytomatoe either here or over in Mikland. He's a Rosie mod guru.

The themeing has come to a screeching halt because of work. Once I get some time over the winter I "should" be able to continue. Unless of course the wife wants to reconfigure the walls in the house....again!!! I'm tired of moving walls around, I make it look easy, but it'd not! Especially when there's electrical involved, plus my walls are plaster not drywall. Ok I'm rambling...
 
Granite1 said:
If you're having problems making Rosie mods, hit up Tommytomatoe either here or over in Mikland. He's a Rosie mod guru.

The themeing has come to a screeching halt because of work. Once I get some time over the winter I "should" be able to continue. Unless of course the wife wants to reconfigure the walls in the house....again!!! I'm tired of moving walls around, I make it look easy, but it'd not! Especially when there's electrical involved, plus my walls are plaster not drywall. Ok I'm rambling...
Click to expand...

Hehe...yeah I'm busy sanding and staining an armoire right now that the wife purchased at a garage sale. That and busy with work and 2 kids!

I actually followed Tommy's posts from themikmik (what you know about rosie?) to theme Rosie. All I really did was try to make the curved bar on the bottom (with the 3 buttons for apps/phone/personalize) to be more transparent. It didn't seem to work but maybe I just need to increase transparency? I thought about changing the colors of the buttons and trying again. If the buttons are the new color then I know that my changes worked. I'll think about it. I was hoping to do a heart with percentages in it for the battery icons. As your battery drains so would the heart. Man I miss playing Zelda...
 
Oh man here we go. I put my thoughts in with your post. I'm on my phone so my formatting options are limited.

gamblor01 said:
Well it was fun to fiddle around with but after using it for about a day, I have restored my MikG image from backup. I somehow always wind up back on MikG...

Anyway, I didn't try to look for too many solutions (I am sure I could resolve some of the issues if I invested the time, but I didn't). I had many, many problems with this ROM. Some of them are actually problems while others are just issues that don't suit my preferences. Call me crazy -- I actually think Sense based ROMs are the best out there. I also constantly hear that Cyanogen ROMs are incredibly fast, but I generally find them to be a bit laggy (see item 10 below).

Without further ado, here is my list of complaints...


1. New voicemail icon always appears even when there is no voicemail. Clearing it only works temporarily. After some time or a reboot the notification comes back.

Google voice...nuff said.


2. I get text messages from 9016 about voicemails (even when there really is no voicemail).

see above.

3. Home screens flip landscape -- I would prefer them to stay in portrait mode but there doesn't seem to be any option to disable this rotation. You either disable ALL rotations or none.

This is a launcher setting. Just go into your launcher preferences to adjust this. I always set mine to portrait only because I hate landscape.

4. The new touch screen buttons are permanently shown so I have those buttons as well as the soft buttons from the Evo. I definitely do not need 2 sets of the same buttons. I cannot figure out how to disable the on-screen buttons, which just seem to take up some real estate.

I guess I can't really speak to this.

5. The HTC flashlight app is much better than torch. I might be able to just adb push the Flashlight.apk/.odex files...?? Didn't try but maybe I'll restore this image at some point and try.

I don't really use any flashlight function very often but torch seems to be ok.

6. The default Android keyboard is terrible. The HTC keyboard has many more shortcuts that can be used by performing a long press instead of having to switch to the symbol page. Plus it doesn't even have the arrow keys to move around? It's just awful. At least give me a comma without having to change to the symbol keyboard!!!

I actually flash an older version of the HTC keyboard on MikG which does NOT include the trace libraries. I wonder if I could flash those same library files along with the HTC_IME.apk/.odex files and get the Sense keyboard running in CM7?

I have a version of nexus Swype which is better and prettier than any keyboard. I used to really like the HTC keyboard but now I can't even bring myself to use it.

7. The default calendar widget only shows 1 day at a time? I like the HTC widget which shows an entire month with little indicators on each day that an event occurs. Not only that, but the HTC friendstream/facebook widgets can pull data that then shows up on the calendar. This default thing only seems to pull data from my google calendar. Boo.

Agreed it sucks. Get Android pro widgets from the market. It's free and runs great on aosp roms. I think they are pretty much just as useful as any of the sense widgets.

8. I have to pay for Beautiful widgets to get a clock widget like the HTC clock/weather widget. I was able to use Fancy widgets instead (for free) but it doesn't seem to be possible to enter multiple cities and look at their information. Also, you cannot just tap on the fancy widget clock to get into advanced features like alarms or stop watch (which does work in a Sense ROM). You also cannot tap the weather info to get extended forecast information. Fancy widgets allows for a 5 day weather forecast widget to be added to a home screen but this widget is not available in the free version.

This is admittedly a big plus for sense. I bought the paid version of fancy widgets and I don't think I could ever go back to the sense setup or beautiful widgets for that matter. The HTC knock off clicks are flawless and much easier to change than flashing click mods.

9. There is no visual voicemail application out of the box. I wound up pulling the default .apk file from MikG (Sprint's apk file) and installing it but this is sort of crappy to have to do this.

I've used google voice since having my evo so again, I can't really speak to this.

10. Swiping between home screens seems very choppy. MikG has tremendously smoother transitions between screens. Hell, even the stock Gingerbread Sense ROM that ships on the Evo has smoother transitions (I just compared it with a stock, unrooted Evo from a co-worker).

I get choppy transitions on both setups but with aosp I would recommend trying a different launcher to see if it makes any difference.





Bottom line is that I would not recommend using this ROM. But if it works for you then go for it!
Click to expand...


Just had to throw in my thoughts. Not trying to flame the post because some vastly prefer sense which is fine but for anyone that likes aosp but is having issues similar to what is mentioned above, hopefully my alternatives help.
 
Nice post MizzouBrent. I'm not a huge fan of using google voice because you have to get a new number, but recently I found out that you can use your Sprint number as your google voice number. So that really nullifies my complaint against using google voice I suppose.

I appreciate your feedback though. Maybe I'll use that to give this or other AOSP builds another chance at some point. Still sucks I have to purchase fancy widgets though. I have yet to purchase an app and have never felt like I was without anything yet. I have kicked a $5 paypal donation to a few different folks over at themikmik for helping me with modding though. I feel like that is more of an investment in education though. :)
 
Fancy widgets is well worth it and it's only like 3 bucks right? I think it's much better than beautiful widgets.

And to use google voice and integrate with your sprint number can be a pain in my opinion because it will start routing your texts through google voice but you can change the setting in the app to forward notifications as text messages. What I prefer is to get a separate google voice number and use Sprint's conditional call forwarding to send all phone calls to your google voice mailbox. This sounds complicated but it only takes a couple minutes and you only have to do it one time. I've never had any voicemail issues when flashing from rom to rom.
 
I think you should be able to use Google Voice as just a voicemail app, I think jadeboy7 has discussed this a few times over at themikmik...

Other VM options,
When I was on CM7, I just flashed these gapps with vvm and blocked the number sending the 9016 texts.

Or, back in my old Hero days running AOSP I used YouMail for voicemail. Works pretty well too.
 
NaterTots said:
On the Fancy Widgets if you use the 4x2 widget it is really very nice. To get the five day forecast on the free widget you just tap the sun, moon, or clouds. (It depends on the current weather)
I do like all of the options in there like making the background transparent, or adjusting the overlay weather transparency.
But having to open an alarm clock app is annoying.
Click to expand...

For some reason this didn't work for me the other day. I kept tapping on the widget and it just didn't do anything. Today I restored this image and tapped on the image and the weather screen opened right up. Tapping the hour goes straight to the alarm clock, and tapping minutes goes into the settings. I don't know how or why this didn't work the other day...



MizzouBrent said:
Fancy widgets is well worth it and it's only like 3 bucks right? I think it's much better than beautiful widgets.

And to use google voice and integrate with your sprint number can be a pain in my opinion because it will start routing your texts through google voice but you can change the setting in the app to forward notifications as text messages. What I prefer is to get a separate google voice number and use Sprint's conditional call forwarding to send all phone calls to your google voice mailbox. This sounds complicated but it only takes a couple minutes and you only have to do it one time. I've never had any voicemail issues when flashing from rom to rom.
Click to expand...

It's really just me being stubborn. I have been able to avoid paying for any apps thus far so it's just sort of the norm for me. I just haven't broken down to do it yet but as I said above, somehow the options I want work now!

Great call on the android pro calendar widget. The calendar looks great though it doesn't pull in any facebook info like events or birthdays like the Sense one does. Not a huge deal but I think it's kind of nice. Maybe I just missed some configuration information somewhere?

And I may check out google voice again at some point. They just reclaimed my number because I wasn't using it. I always thought it only worked one direction (people had to call your google number and it could forward to other phones). I didn't realize you can forward people from your Sprint number to your google voice number. That would probably work fine. I guess I never explored things enough because I thought I would have to give everyone my "new" number (the google voice number) and I didn't want to deal with having to tell everyone that my number changed. I have had the same cell phone number for 10 years now.

Never have voicemail issues on Sense based ROMs though. Only AOSP ROMs and I have no idea why that is.


MizzouBrent said:
I don't really use any flashlight function very often but torch seems to be ok.
Click to expand...

It works but it's not as convenient. With the Sense version you have 3 different levels of intensity, and you don't have to shut it off then check a checkbox and agree that you might ruin your phone every time you want to toggle to another level (including the brightest level). Torch works and would be fine if I didn't already know any better. It's just a bit more cumbersome to operate.


MizzouBrent said:
3. Home screens flip landscape -- I would prefer them to stay in portrait mode but there doesn't seem to be any option to disable this rotation. You either disable ALL rotations or none.

This is a launcher setting. Just go into your launcher preferences to adjust this. I always set mine to portrait only because I hate landscape.
Click to expand...
This doesn't seem to be an option in there. I guess it's the launcher I'm using (which I believe is the default one). There was also Claystone launcher installed too but I set this ICS one to be default. I just downloaded GO Launcher Ex and Regina 3D so I'll give them a shot.


Thanks for all of the info folks. I'm back running this ICS ROM again. I'll give it a chance for a little while longer!
 
OH...MY...GOODNESS!!!! GO LAUNCHER EX IS FREAKING AMAZING! Why didn't anyone ever tell me this before?

Just FYI using Go Launcher instead of the ICS launcher makes screen transitions liquid smooth now. So it wasn't the ROM's fault -- it was just the launcher that was choppy. I also like you can set it to scroll in a circular fashion, add/remove screens, setup folders. I was also able to force screen orientation with this one so that fixed that. :)


This is freaking awesome. I may switch back to MikG eventually but I am almost certain to use this launcher from now on! I mean seriously? You can even set it to perform actions by swiping up or down on the screen? I am incredibly impressed.
 
Go launcher is fantastic and free. I used to use adw only but I've pretty much turned into a fanboy of the go dev team. Check out go contacts ex. It's a contacts module and dialer module all in one which is crazy similar to the sense dialer. It even lets you drag across the screen to switch from dialer to contacts to favorites. It's amazing. and there are themes for it too. I like the dark theme which is free.
 
MizzouBrent said:
Go launcher is fantastic and free. I used to use adw only but I've pretty much turned into a fanboy of the go dev team. Check out go contacts ex. It's a contacts module and dialer module all in one which is crazy similar to the sense dialer. It even lets you drag across the screen to switch from dialer to contacts to favorites. It's amazing. and there are themes for it too. I like the dark theme which is free.
Click to expand...

I will check this out! I switched back to MikG for a few reasons:

- I like the dialer with sense where I can start typing someone's name to call them instead of having 2 different screens -- either numbers or contacts -- and then I have to scroll through ALL of the contacts to get to the end. So your go contacts ex tip is extremely useful!

- I hate the standard keyboard in this CM7 ROM (I haven't tried to get a new one yet)

- I like the sense status bar icons better (I suppose I could pull the framework-res.apk and modify the icons myself or apply a CM7 theme)

- I am not keen on the font used in this CM7 ROM

- A few other still unresolved issues mentioned above



That being said, I did like the fact the CM7 ROM gave me like 400MB of free space in /data/app. Usually with MikG I get about 250MB free or so? I think I have like 120 or 130 free right now but to have 400MB total would be awesome. Once I got the go launcher installed, it really seemed to speed up the phone.

So maybe I'll try a CM7 ROM eventually but for now I'm absolutely in love with my MikG/go launcher ex combo! I have always thought this phone was amazing but it has just reached a new level of awesomeness. :)


While I am ultimately back on MikG, I am forever grateful to this thread because I learned some great stuff from everyone else's comments and I found one absolutely amazing launcher. Thanks folks! :D
 
gamblor01 said:
I will check this out! I switched back to MikG for a few reasons:

- I like the dialer with sense where I can start typing someone's name to call them instead of having 2 different screens -- either numbers or contacts -- and then I have to scroll through ALL of the contacts to get to the end. So your go contacts ex tip is extremely useful!

- I hate the standard keyboard in this CM7 ROM (I haven't tried to get a new one yet)

- I like the sense status bar icons better (I suppose I could pull the framework-res.apk and modify the icons myself or apply a CM7 theme)

- I am not keen on the font used in this CM7 ROM

- A few other still unresolved issues mentioned above



That being said, I did like the fact the CM7 ROM gave me like 400MB of free space in /data/app. Usually with MikG I get about 250MB free or so? I think I have like 120 or 130 free right now but to have 400MB total would be awesome. Once I got the go launcher installed, it really seemed to speed up the phone.

So maybe I'll try a CM7 ROM eventually but for now I'm absolutely in love with my MikG/go launcher ex combo! I have always thought this phone was amazing but it has just reached a new level of awesomeness. :)


While I am ultimately back on MikG, I am forever grateful to this thread because I learned some great stuff from everyone else's comments and I found one absolutely amazing launcher. Thanks folks! :D
Click to expand...
Well just so you know, there is a Sense app on the market that works with Theme Chooser (I think) that basically makes the notification stuff look like stock sense. I haven't tried it so I don't know how good it is. It's probably not as good as Sense, but it's there at least.

Have you seen this thread on XDA? Any font you want. And I could have sworn the stock font for both CM7 and MikG was DroidSans, but I could be wrong. I prefer to run SonySketch.

Link - 300 Flashable Font Packs - Change your system fonts the easy way! - xda-developers

Just download whatever font you want and flash it in recovery like you would any other zip file.
 
Installed this and Savage 2.6.35.10 (CFS/HAVS/WIMAX) kernel and now it seems I cannot access my SD card via the micro USB port. Any suggestions? I wiped prior...

Thanks!

D'ohBoy
 
D'ohBoy said:
Installed this and Savage 2.6.35.10 (CFS/HAVS/WIMAX) kernel and now it seems I cannot access my SD card via the micro USB port. Any suggestions? I wiped prior...

Thanks!

D'ohBoy
Click to expand...

Restored an old nandroid backup and it is definitely this ROM + kernel doing it (don't know which). For AOSP, is ADB the only way to access the card other than pulling it?

Thanks,

D'ohBoy
 
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