Which Home Screen?

[dracozny]

thats what i thought but someone mentioned trying to close it with a taskiller. doesnt makes sense though as that would be like getting on a windows computer and closing the windows component of it.

been around 15 minutes at least and its still not back up. looks like it should stay down until i restart my phone, which for me is very rarely. so yay! more speed

you can kill explorer and it will still run, just no task bar etc etc.. but you can reload it via task manager. or load a desktop alternative much like our phones or even Linux in general.

yea more speed but a few things I like in sense, still looking for alternatives to those widgets.. funny cause on a PC I hate widgets... lol

 

[andrizoid]

you can kill explorer and it will still run, just no task bar etc etc.. but you can reload it via task manager. or load a desktop alternative much like our phones or even Linux in general.

yea more speed but a few things I like in sense, still looking for alternatives to those widgets.. funny cause on a PC I hate widgets... lol

which widgets are you still looking for? ive found good alternatives for all of the HTC widgets i used

 

[dracozny]

which widgets are you still looking for? ive found good alternatives for all of the HTC widgets i used

I like the clock/weather widget, the free ones I have seen so far have not come close.
the the people widget. makes it quick to send a txt to my wife with one click

 

[andrizoid]

"digi clock" widget. customizable size, font color, and background color.

"weather widget" by Android Apps. customizable skins available from the menu. customizable day/night icon switch times. temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius

i dont use the people widget so i havent found a replacement. there is a way to place a shortcut on the home screen. long press on the home and add shortcut and find it. im on the phone right now so i cant check myself

 

[andrizoid]

i believe theres also a way to place a send txt to "x" contact button on the screen

 

[dracozny]

"digi clock" widget. customizable size, font color, and background color.

"weather widget" by Android Apps. customizable skins available from the menu. customizable day/night icon switch times. temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius

i dont use the people widget so i havent found a replacement. there is a way to place a shortcut on the home screen. long press on the home and add shortcut and find it. im on the phone right now so i cant check myself

yea I dont like the looks of having a clock widget and a weather widget. guess I'm spoiled by having them all on the same widget.....

 

[andrizoid]

try the beautiful widgets pack. its like $2. looks just like the sense widget but its much more customizable.

 

[Bswartz95]

Just an FYI.

I switched to Helix last night and added Beautiful Widgets. So far this morning, my phone has been off the charger for one hour. I'm down to 89% already and I've only sent/received two texts messages.

Spare Parts is saying that Helix is #1 and Beautiful Widgets is #2 in battery usage.

Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[ttran97]

Just an FYI.

I switched to Helix last night and added Beautiful Widgets. So far this morning, my phone has been off the charger for one hour. I'm down to 89% already and I've only sent/received two texts messages.

Spare Parts is saying that Helix is #1 and Beautiful Widgets is #2 in battery usage.

Anyone else experiencing this?

I think I noticed before that Beautiful widgets uses a lot of battery. Today's going to be my first full day using Helix and I don't use Beautiful, so I'll let you guys know about my battery.

Edit: But so far i've had my phone off the charger for an hour and it's only gone down 1%. I used it briefly for reading email and txt.

 

[Podivin]

Just an FYI.

I switched to Helix last night and added Beautiful Widgets. So far this morning, my phone has been off the charger for one hour. I'm down to 89% already and I've only sent/received two texts messages.

Spare Parts is saying that Helix is #1 and Beautiful Widgets is #2 in battery usage.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Not so far. I also went to Helix yesterday, and use Beautiful Widgets (smaller home). Came off the charger two hours ago, have done 15 minutes or so of reading the news online. Still show 96% battery.

 

[dewalist]

Hmmm - I thought dxTop was popular enough to have its own entry, but apparently not....bummer...

My diatribe on dxTop from another thread:

I use dxTop and can't imagine using anything else. Having the home screens arranged in a diamond pattern is genius - all four of my screens are one finger flick away no matter which I am on at the time. No more flick-flick-flick-flick-flick to get from one screen to another. In addition, they allow you to flip the bottom row into a 5-item dock, while still retaining the "all programs" list and their task manager by using long-press on menu and back buttons. App categorization is also very important to me, and dxTop has it built-in. So now I have "apps" and "games" shortcuts on my home screen, and I rarely have to pull up the "all programs" list.

It also does landscape mode quite well, but since no one has figured out how to make a lock screen in landscape mode, I'm stuck with living in portrait mode.

It also has a task manager built in, for those times when you have to force kill an app.

I also like how a long press on any icon will bring up the option to view its marketplace entry or go to the app details (for quick uninstalls).

It also lets you view the app list in multiple ways - alphabetical, largest size, most recent, etc.

Bottom line? The other features I just mentioned are great, but that up-down-left-right navigation is so efficient that I don't even consider any of those home replacements with only left-right navigation. Even having that fancy new "jump" feature in Sense isn't as fluid and efficient for getting around from screen to screen.

 

[Deleted User]

Installed Helix last night and already had Beautiful Widgets, my phone is really much faster now. I put Dialer One in the docking bar at the bottom and calling and receiving calls is faster, much faster. I'm loving it so far. I'm on 2.1(v2). Thanks for the Helix tip!

 

[Bswartz95]

Installed Helix last night and already had Beautiful Widgets, my phone is really much faster now. I put Dialer One in the docking bar at the bottom and calling and receiving calls is faster, much faster. I'm loving it so far. I'm on 2.1(v2). Thanks for the Helix tip!

Give us some feedback later on battery life.

Thanks!

 

[Podivin]

Ok so I was messing around w/ helix changing amount of screens.. now I have an unending wave of force closes... ummmm anyone else get this?

By any chance did you lower the number of screens that Helix should display, but leave some icons on one of the removed screens? I don't know the results of such an action would be, but I can imagine that it wouldn't be good.

 

[ttran97]

Hmmm - I thought dxTop was popular enough to have its own entry, but apparently not....bummer...

I'm new to the whole alternative Home thing and I forgot about dxTop when I made the poll. It had nothing to do with popularity. My bad!

 

[BOMBO]

I've was running Home, but recently added Helix. Pretty much gave me the little added "umph" i was missing from Home.

Only thing im missing is something to replace the HTC People widget.

Otherwise everything is working great with Helix. LWP's are working flawlessly in portrait and landscape.

Pretty happy now. I never really thought i'd abandon Sense, cause i do really like it. But this set up now is nice. I've got my H7C flip clock with the weather looking perfect and i can speak into any text field.

PERFECT!

 

[ttran97]

I've was running Home, but recently added Helix. Pretty much gave me the little added "umph" i was missing from Home.

Only thing im missing is something to replace the HTC People widget.

You can kind of replace the HTC People widget by adding shortcuts to direct dial each person on one of the screens. I actually like to put that into a folder so that it doesn't clutter up the screen. I also made a separate folder for Texting and I have shortcuts to directly send a message to each person. Makes things easier.

You can rename folders by long-pressing the title of an open folder.

 

[BOMBO]

You can kind of replace the HTC People widget by adding shortcuts to direct dial each person on one of the screens. I actually like to put that into a folder so that it doesn't clutter up the screen. I also made a separate folder for Texting and I have shortcuts to directly send a message to each person. Makes things easier.

You can rename folders by long-pressing the title of an open folder.

I had very recently started doing that actually.

And its probably one of those things that...tho i think i still really want the HTC People Widget right now, after a bit ill probably come to realize that having the calls and texts in live folders is better.

 

[ttran97]

Ok, just an update on my battery status with Helix. I'm at 9 hours now and battery is showing 50% remaining. I listened to music for an hour during lunch and talked for about 25 minutes on the phone. Not spectacular, but pretty decent battery life. I think the generic Home has the best battery life of all the screens, and Sense had the worst.

 

[Frisco]

lol .. I'm going crazy.. I used the link for HelixLauncher provided in an earlier post, but I see no download link there.

I clicked the "official website" and it took me to another version of the same page.. and that page expired right when I was looking at it, "this page no longer on server" it said. Huh?

Perhaps somebody has a direct link to HelixLauncher, as I did a search and could not find it in Market, either.

 

[jreed2560]

I switch back and forth from sense to Helix. I like them both equally.

 

[andrizoid]

lol .. I'm going crazy.. I used the link for HelixLauncher provided in an earlier post, but I see no download link there.

I clicked the "official website" and it took me to another version of the same page.. and that page expired right when I was looking at it, "this page no longer on server" it said. Huh?

Perhaps somebody has a direct link to HelixLauncher, as I did a search and could not find it in Market, either.

ill post it in just a sec. im pulling it off my SD card now.

 

[Podivin]

Here you are Frisco.
It's a freebie, so shouldn't be breaking any forum rules.

 

[andrizoid]

.apk file.

 

[Frisco]

Here you are Frisco.
It's a freebie, so shouldn't be breaking any forum rules.

Very cool of you to do that, mhotovec. Thank you.

Just got it; I'm going to install that now.