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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.
Wanna check out ADW and Launcher Pro, but what else is awesome?
Coming from a BB world phone.
thanks all
Try Go Launcher Ex as well. It's very smooth on this phone.
co.ag.2005 said:
Try Go Launcher Ex as well. It's very smooth on this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I cam from a BB as well and definitely recommend Go Launcher EX.
Set up Corporate Sync under accounts to sync to your exchange server. I recommend Pure Calendar Widget for displaying any amount of future events in a good format on one of your hgomescreens. Go Contacts for better organization of your contacts. Otherwise, have fun going through the tons of widgets and apps for customizing to your liking.
i third Go Launcher EX, as well as GO SMS. Also Fancy Widget.
pootown said:
Wanna check out ADW and Launcher Pro, but what else is awesome?
Coming from a BB world phone.
thanks all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you want a small and minimalistic theme, check out Zeam.
Visit this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=992287
Thanks all. I actually lied, picking it up in 2 hours, but I got a head start now
get homefix. This will fix the home.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.nightshadelabs.motoblurhome&feature=search_result
Alll,
Thanks for the ino, tried them all out and liked ADW best, but probably just cuz of all the transitions. Havent had time to truly understand the benefits. However for most of the weekend I decided it best to get familiar with blue. The homescreen switcher problem drove me a bit nuts in that no matter what I couldnt set the home button to work as a home button, it always switched to whatever default I had used.
On to my main question:
When I use a new launcher to I always have to make a new setup or is there a way that I can get all the widgest and shortcuts over to ADW (or whatever) without doing it manually?
Also, how can I prevent my contacts from bringing over every damn email address I've ever sent to? I set up some favs but I really dont need [email protected] and that.
pootown said:
On to my main question:
When I use a new launcher to I always have to make a new setup or is there a way that I can get all the widgest and shortcuts over to ADW (or whatever) without doing it manually?
Also, how can I prevent my contacts from bringing over every damn email address I've ever sent to? I set up some favs but I really dont need [email protected] and that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In all 3 launchers mentioned in this thread, there is an option under the launcher preferences to save layout / content, etc. to your SD card, that way you can always restore the icon layout. NOTE: when you do this and have widgets on your "pages", the restore layout option within the launchers will not restore the widgets... apparently this is a a limitation in the Android OS
second question: Contacts app -> hit the menu softkey on your phone -> settings -> select "Phone numbers only"
Check out Gingerblur.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
try launcher 7 if you like the layout of a windows phone
Amazon App Store
GameBoid with Rom Gripper
Pulse News
Words with Friends Free
SMS Popup
Fruit Ninja THD
Drop Box
On my Note 2, S-Note had widgets you could create for individual note pages - I believe they were large by default (4x3 maybe?) but with Nova you could resize they and they'd display the whole content of that page - tapping them would open S-Note to that page ready to write. --- and it was -only- the note itself comprising the widget - no border, no menus, no overlaid titles. So if you had a black background and created a note with an all-black background, it would blend in perfectly and just show your writing overlaid on your homescreen.
This was extremely valuable to me. On the Note 3, with the revamped S-Note, there's only one widget option and it's a tabbed overview of all notes/most recent notes. Lots of border crap, wasted space, view of the notebooks, etc. It sucks.
Anyone have a replacement widget to emulate the old one??
not sure if this is what you want but the app "sweet Notes" can do something like that
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk
I know exactly what you are talking about and it is also the biggest thing I loved in my Note 8. I am also wondering why they removed that feature. I hope there is a way to bring it back.
aresinuae said:
I know exactly what you are talking about and it is also the biggest thing I loved in my Note 8. I am also wondering why they removed that feature. I hope there is a way to bring it back.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't found anything to help. I'll mail Samsung and may go back to the S Notes version from the Note 2, I have a Titanium backup of it. Hopefully that would work.
Yeah i too noticed the absence of that widget. I really liked it and used it alot on my s4 and s3. If someone figures out a way to bring it back I would like to know as well.
This is the first thing I noticed, and is now part of a very long list of things my Note 2 did much better than my Note 3. I wish it wasn't so popular for companies to constantly change/update things that are steps backwards. Updates should just add new features, not change for the sake of changing.
The closest thing I can find to emulate this missing feature is to take a screenshot of your S-Note page, then add that to your homescreen as a "picture" widget. It's a hassle and doesn't scale as intuitively as the old version of S-Note though.
Note 3 -- Tapatalk
This has bothered me as well, but now I found that you can long-press the folder of the note and choose the option to "add shortcut to home" and then you have direct access to the note via the created icon. You can rename the note's folder first if you choose to do so. Put the icon whereever you choose. Works for me.
balliet said:
This has bothered me as well, but now I found that you can long-press the folder of the note and choose the option to "add shortcut to home" and then you have direct access to the note via the created icon. You can rename the note's folder first if you choose to do so. Put the icon whereever you choose. Works for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is just adding an icon, completely different than a versatile, re-sizable, widget containing a scalable image of the note itself.
Note 3 -- Tapatalk
JVogler said:
This is just adding an icon, completely different than a versatile, re-sizable, widget containing a scalable image of the note itself.
Note 3 -- Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried restoring old S Note from my Note 2 backups and things broke, so no go on that front - at least just a basic restore didn't work. I didn't dig deeper, but I'm guessing there are various other dependent libraries that have been updated.
I did find an old S Memo flashable zip I had used on the 2, which is what S Note used to be. I might give that a try - I don't recall if it comes with the page widget.
bigillz said:
I tried restoring old S Note from my Note 2 backups and things broke, so no go on that front - at least just a basic restore didn't work. I didn't dig deeper, but I'm guessing there are various other dependent libraries that have been updated.
I did find an old S Memo flashable zip I had used on the 2, which is what S Note used to be. I might give that a try - I don't recall if it comes with the page widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At&t screwed me over, and locked up the Note 3 bootloader pretty tight. Interested if the S Memo works for you though, as I'm sure someone will crack the At&t version soon as the bounty is getting pretty high.
Note 3 -- Tapatalk
No luck. I flashed my S-Memo installed and it ran without crashing anything but wouldn't receive any pen input, as well as a few minor display/function things.
UGH.
Action Memo does this.
I used that feature a lot, for my To Do's. Action Memo does the trick.
nyeazyone said:
Action Memo does this.
I used that feature a lot, for my To Do's. Action Memo does the trick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, not really the same at all. First, the Action Memo widget is only available on the stock TW launcher - not in Nova/Apex/etc, which makes it a non-starter. Next, it's not resizable, because TW doesn't allow arbitrary widget resizing.
Sucks.
bigillz said:
Unfortunately, not really the same at all. First, the Action Memo widget is only available on the stock TW launcher - not in Nova/Apex/etc, which makes it a non-starter. Next, it's not resizable, because TW doesn't allow arbitrary widget resizing.
Sucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Finally I found a solution...Lecture Notes can make widgets from individual pages resized with Nova Launcher.
Note 3 -- Tapatalk
I'm still looking for a way to do this. I have the latest S5 S Note app and still no S Note Page widget.
Anyone ever find a working solution (not for a different note app)?
bigillz said:
On my Note 2, S-Note had widgets you could create for individual note pages - I believe they were large by default (4x3 maybe?) but with Nova you could resize they and they'd display the whole content of that page - tapping them would open S-Note to that page ready to write. --- and it was -only- the note itself comprising the widget - no border, no menus, no overlaid titles. So if you had a black background and created a note with an all-black background, it would blend in perfectly and just show your writing overlaid on your homescreen.
This was extremely valuable to me. On the Note 3, with the revamped S-Note, there's only one widget option and it's a tabbed overview of all notes/most recent notes. Lots of border crap, wasted space, view of the notebooks, etc. It sucks.
Anyone have a replacement widget to emulate the old one??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could try App Memo from play store. I too missed the old widget from my Note 1. the full version of App memo allows you to use an actual memo as a widget, various size options available. Although it has less functions than the S note app, for simple memo's, I find it easier and quicker to use.
How do you add a settings shortcut for battery and wifi manager on the home screen? I've been scouring through the widgets and nothing seems to appear, normally with all other phones a "settings" widget is available and you get to choose which settings you want a link to.
Thanks
kingofthebraves said:
How do you add a settings shortcut for battery and wifi manager on the home screen? I've been scouring through the widgets and nothing seems to appear, normally with all other phones a "settings" widget is available and you get to choose which settings you want a link to.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i was using the galaxy note ii for a while and loved settings widget/shortcut. i moved on to the galaxy note 3 on a different carrier. i also have sm-n9005. both note 3s do not have the settings widget. it is frustrating. what i recommend is installing action launcher by chris lacy. it will add 2 widgets to the widget launcher/menu. choose the activities widget. the list of apps and settings that populates is more extensive than the note ii's version. there you can add bluetooth, data usage, wifi, and tethering one by one. after creating all the shortcuts i needed, uninstalled action launcher. remember to keep touchwiz as your default launcher in the beginning of the process.
(on a side note, action launcher is great. i even purchased the pro key. however, i just don't like the way apps look in folders. in addition, 1x1 widgets do not align properly with regular app icons sometimes. as for 4 row widgets, it automatically adds margins/padding so they look more align with other same sized widgets. some 4 row widgets on touchwiz go edge to edge which is annoying. in regards to the s pen features, air command did not pop up on action. honorable mention, shutters is a great action feature. last mention, i don't use action on the note 3.)
I do like the stock 4.3. Its much smoother compared to 4.2.1.
But what I don't like is the default SMS widget that shows up on the locks screen when we receive an SMS.
Same goes for Miss Calls.
The sms is displayed on the screen itself, so basically anybody could read the sms as it arrives (I dont like putting lock).
I know, there is a setting to disable sms display but that will turn off the displaying of the message on notification bar aswell.
So is there any way to turn off that widget ? I couldn't find any yet.
Infact, this whole lock screen widget thing is not so cool because, as per my experience, if I put widgets, the phone takes up a while (1-2 secs) to wake up.
apurva.giri said:
I do like the stock 4.3. Its much smoother compared to 4.2.1.
But what I don't like is the default SMS widget that shows up on the locks screen when we receive an SMS.
Same goes for Miss Calls.
The sms is displayed on the screen itself, so basically anybody could read the sms as it arrives (I dont like putting lock).
I know, there is a setting to disable sms display but that will turn off the displaying of the message on notification bar aswell.
So is there any way to turn off that widget ? I couldn't find any yet.
Infact, this whole lock screen widget thing is not so cool because, as per my experience, if I put widgets, the phone takes up a while (1-2 secs) to wake up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if your on a rooted device,then probably you can freeze that widget using titanium backup or linksd. or on a unrooted phone you can also disable it. settings>apps
Could you point out which one to turn off ?
syedzeshan said:
if your on a rooted device,then probably you can freeze that widget using titanium backup or linksd. or on a unrooted phone you can also disable it. settings>apps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've turned off most of the unusable apps. That reduced my ram usage to 800 mb now but didn't find any app to turn off for this thing.
Could you point out which app u r talking about ?
apurva.giri said:
I've turned off most of the unusable apps. That reduced my ram usage to 800 mb now but didn't find any app to turn off for this thing.
Could you point out which app u r talking about ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry I dont know which app/process it is because I don't own a Samsung device!
you must try to find it yourselves by just freezing apps/process related to lockscreen one after the other!
hmmm... what r u doing here at the first place?
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
Had the same question as thread opener. I'd prefer to use dashclock to handle this kind of things, non that Samsung stuff. And, at the same time, I'd like to keep text content readable on notification bar. Is this lock screen notification disposable somehow? I see nothing that could be related to it in settings
Note 2 N7100 - DN3 ROM @240 dpi - MK4
I took the other way to solve this one..
I have actually installed Textra sms client and I have kept the stock Messaging app aswell.
So, now on, the new sms is captured by Textra and displayed on status bar like before. And if I want, I can use stock sms to reply or read, but I prefer textra now. In case you prefer textra, u can actually turn off stock Messaging from App manager and permanently use Textra (or any other sms client) as a replacement.:laugh:
Just install a 3rd party SMS app and disable notifications in stock app.
Donnt be bothered about RAM when using a powerhouse such as Note 2
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
I managed to obtain what I needed with rom toolbox pro using its auto run manager function. Make system apps visible, than look for a package named com.sec.android.app.keyguard and disable the first receiver, whose lengthy name ends with "missed widget provider". No more notifications on lock screen taking the place of my widgets (namely dashclock)!
Hope this helps, fell free to ask for clarifications if needed. No side effects noted until now, but I seldom receive text messages since WhatsApp has been invented, so it hasn't been tested much. Cheers!
Note 2 N7100 - DN3 ROM @240 dpi - MK4
cyberpunk627 said:
I managed to obtain what I needed with rom toolbox pro using its auto run manager function. Make system apps visible, than look for a package named com.sec.android.app.keyguard and disable the first receiver, whose lengthy name ends with "missed widget provider". No more notifications on lock screen taking the place of my widgets (namely dashclock)!
Hope this helps, fell free to ask for clarifications if needed. No side effects noted until now, but I seldom receive text messages since WhatsApp has been invented, so it hasn't been tested much. Cheers!
Note 2 N7100 - DN3 ROM @240 dpi - MK4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for that! I did the same thing using autostarts.
Sent from my Jedi MasterX Note 2
it's more simple now
Search : Disable Samsung Notification Widget APK* on google, then click on the first link.
It's a mod for xposed installer, for rooted device. This mod remove totally the new message widget and missed call widget of the lockscreen.
Here is that xposed module
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2398174
Sent from my Jedi MasterX Note 2
Ash359 said:
Thanks for that! I did the same thing using autostarts.
Sent from my Jedi MasterX Note 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can someone provide me note 2's kitkat lockscreen widgets for the messaging app and dialer only?
I need them badly and don't want to download the whole firmware for just 2 files.