So, at work we have a fleet of SM-T580s, and they're set up with some custom software. No lock screen, for instance. When the thing boots up, it asks for a password, which we all know, I guess it's just so they can't be used if stolen. Once you enter that, it does the "unlock icon" and alternating green/blue circles animation, then it loads an app, there's a toast that says "App Pinned," and from there... you can't access the Android system underneath.
A few weeks ago, I accidentally got out of that and into Android settings. Turns out Developer Mode was already unlocked, so I disabled the app animations. Made the tablet a bit faster, because Android animations are kinda BS, especially on an older (2016) tablet with 2GB of RAM. The animations are, at best, unnecessary. Well, now we have one "super" tablet that everyone covets, and the rest are just kinda crappy.
IT is in another state and doesn't care what we think about the tablets. All they're for is for scanning inventory in a warehouse. It's not even a named app, it's just something someone put together. It even has (slow AF) animations that aren't disabled by disabling animations, they're baked right into the app. (I guess someone thought they were being cute. They failed.)
Anyway... I know all about screen pinning, and how you un-pin an app by holding Recents and Back for five (ten?) seconds. That doesn't work. Once the company's custom app loads, there doesn't seem to be anything you can do. The home button does literally nothing. Same with Recents. Back will cancel a barcode scan, but otherwise, also does nothing. The volume keys work, and the power button turns off the screen. There's no lock screen, pressing power or home just turns the screen right on.
I've been trying to figure out how I got into Android Settings before. I think it was something with the recent button, before the app was able to load. Basically, my coworkers want me to disable animations on the other three or four dozen T580s we have so everyone has a "good" tablet. I've told them it was probably a fluke and showed them what I did and when/where to do it, but nobody has been able to recreate my success.
I've looked all over Google, but it seems like there's only one kind of app pinning. So, I come to XDA... Can custom ROMs use a kind of "super" app pin, like a kiosk mode, that can't be unpinned? I'm wondering if there's a secret sequence that can allow one to exit out. I assume the company does its work over ADB... a few of them have the "4.4" version of the company software, while the rest have the newer "4.7" version (these are not Android versions as the tablet is running Lollipop or newer; I understand the thing came with Marshmallow, so, probably that). So they can't even be bothered to update all their tablets to the latest version of their own software. Not very competent if you ask me.
And of course, I'm fully aware that "other people's" phones/tablets shouldn't be tinkered with. That said, I think we can all agree that disabling app animations in Developer Options is 100% harmless. Many custom ROMs either reduce the animation speed to half or 25% or disable it entirely to make the phone or tablet seem "faster." In most cases, it's not faster, but these slow tablets with old batteries that need to be rebooted several times a day do perform better with app animations disabled. If only slightly better.
Lastly, I realize that having been outside of the "app super pinning" environment, the very first thing I should have done was examined the list of apps and looked for the app doing the pinning in the first place, and looked for its escape sequence, assuming one exists in that app's settings, and that app isn't password protected. Instead I just said, "hey, I'm in settings, I'll just disable the app animations to make it run faster and that'll be cool."
It's odd that, when it boots up, settings is reachable via the recents key. When an Android tablet turns on, it should have no apps in recents, right? iOS keeps apps in memory through reboots, but I don't think Android does, or at least I don't think Android did in the Marshmallow days. This thing might be 100% custom, but I've never heard of a private company making custom firmware that changes things like what the system buttons do. Though, I suppose it's at least possible.
Thanks in advance if you can help us out.
Related
So with all this talk about Hero's ability to multitask I just wanted to ask how people leverage this ability.
Unless I'm missing something if I want to go from a browser session to my playing music app I have to go via the home screen. Similarly if I want to switch from say Google Maps to Google Mail then I need to go via the home screen and the app's icon.
This is no different to how the iPhone handles things except that the apps on the Hero continue to run in the background.
Am I missing some technique for 'TAB'ing' between running apps? Palm's Pre has got the 'cards' and the floaty shortcut menu thing.
To be honest if there is no ability to switch DIRECTLY to a running app from another running app then the whole multitasking thing is a bit pointless (Widgets not withstanding)
I'm new to Android so I'm hoping that I'm just missing something.
I have a G1 but if you hold down the home key you can switch between running apps and I imagine that works as well on the hero.
Also, you can use an app such as "task switcher" or "bar control" found in the android market to switch between applications without having to go through the home screen with a few more options than the home key thing.
HTH
Holding down the home key only displays 6 recently opened apps not ones that are running. Thats what it does on the Hero anyway. It also brings you back to the home screen and out of whatever app you were in when you held it down.
It seems that the Palm Pre is currently the only handset that truly enables multitasking app switching.
I'm somewhat disappointed in the Hero in this regard.
To be fair, the whole concept of multitasking doesn't really address in what way you would be switching from app to app. The major thing is the ability of the phone to keep two, three or ten apps running at the same time, doing their stuff in the background. This is what the iPhone doesn't have and Android does. This is the "competitive edge".
If you install "Advanced Task Manager", it will put itself in the notification drawer for two-click activation. I think I'd enable it, if there was a setting to make all apps behave this way. A sort of "show all running apps in the notification drawer" feature (or the apps I select).
Notice you can switch to all running apps from Advanced Task Manager, but that makes for a total of four clicks, moving from one app to another. It's a bit cumbersome.
Pressing and holding Home should IMHO bring up the recent apps list to allow switching WITHOUT returning Home first.
Maybe a bug or a bad decision UI wise.
@joemax
That would sort me out. Having it behave like that would be really useful.
Commantalb looked promising in the Market - very nice effect when bringing apps list up too
BUT, it cannot be envoked unless you press and hold HOME and then select Commantalb.
If it were a background process that changed the default HOME button behaviour - to launch itself, it would be very cool.
ShiroEd said:
To be honest if there is no ability to switch DIRECTLY to a running app from another running app then the whole multitasking thing is a bit pointless (Widgets not withstanding)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok -here's a real world example.
I use MyTracks when out walking. Since the Hero can multitask, I can start MyTracks recording, then as I'm walking do anything else with my phone that I want and not be artificially limited to a select few apps. This is something that I do regularly.
From my perspective, the lack of a true task switcher is largely immaterial to me, but the fact that the apps are still running, even when not active, is.
Regards,
Dave
joemax said:
Pressing and holding Home should IMHO bring up the recent apps list to allow switching WITHOUT returning Home first.
Maybe a bug or a bad decision UI wise.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can happily report that this is exactly what it does with the new ROM. Yipee!!
It does indeed
Posted as such on another thread.
The new firmware is very good IMHO.
ShiroEd said:
I can happily report that this is exactly what it does with the new ROM. Yipee!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GOD ALLMIGHTY IN THE HEAVEN!!! THERE IS STILL A GOD!!!
I didn't know this untill now... and it god damn works... WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
We love you HTC...
Oh damn... a double post... :-(
I've developed and app that is a slide show of pictures which each play a sound when you tap them. It's like a picture book for ages 2-4.
The problem is, since android won't let you capture a home button press and essentially disable it, when parents give the phone to their child to play with unattended (brave parent), the child can inadvertenly exit the app and then make calls or otherwise tweak the phone.
There are two other apps that currently have a psuedo fix for this issue. The apps are Toddler Lock and ToddlePhone. I've tried contacting the developers of these apps for some guidance but they haven't been willing to disclose anything, which if fine, but does anyone here have any suggestions?
It looks like both of those other apps are acting like a home screen replacement app. When you enable the "childproof mode" on those apps the user is prompted to chose and app for the action and the choices are "Launcher, LauncherPro, etc." plus the toddler app. You then have to make the toddler app the default and voila, the phone is "locked" and can only be "unlocked" using a key combination or touching the four corners of the screen, etc. when you "unlock" the phone. your normal home screen app default restored. You don't even have to make the toddler app the default the next time you enable the "childproof mode".
I have read that these two apps have problems with Samsung phones and they can cause an an infinite crash-and-restart-loop that requires a factory reset to fix. Obviously this is not the ideal solution to the problem but it looks like the only one availiable at this point.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to implement a "childproof mode"?
Could it run on top of the lock screen
So Do you mean making the app a lock screen replacement? I suppose that could work.
Do you have a suggestion on how to accomplish that?
I would like to set a password/pin lock on my phone. but i haven't done so because it's annoying having to re-enter it every time i wake up the phone. I don't mind the downward swipe to unlock the phone too much. I'd prefer keeping that as opposed to forgetting to enable it and accidentally turning on the phone in my pocket.
But a pin/password etc lock i only want to kick in after the phone has been idle X minutes. This way if i am texting with someone i dont have to keep re-entering the password every minute.
I know this has been asked before. I looked around and found one or two apps that sorta do it but seem to have bugs.
Anyone know of an app that will do this?
merkk said:
I would like to set a password/pin lock on my phone. but i haven't done so because it's annoying having to re-enter it every time i wake up the phone. I don't mind the downward swipe to unlock the phone too much. I'd prefer keeping that as opposed to forgetting to enable it and accidentally turning on the phone in my pocket.
But a pin/password etc lock i only want to kick in after the phone has been idle X minutes. This way if i am texting with someone i dont have to keep re-entering the password every minute.
I know this has been asked before. I looked around and found one or two apps that sorta do it but seem to have bugs.
Anyone know of an app that will do this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cyanogenmod my friend.
CM 6.1 RC2... It's built in. You can set it from 15second to 30minutes.
Good Luck.
-RR
i don't really want to have to go to a new rom just for this feature. Although that is a very cool feature to have.
It seems like most of the screen toggles, delays, and controls stopped working with froyo.
It's not quite what you want but you can get some control with "No Lock". No Lock toggles the pattern on and off - when it's off you can use power or volume to activate the phone. I toggle it off when I'm at home and turn it back on when I leave.
Another useful tool is "Lock screen widget" - it let's you lock or turn off the screen by tapping the widget. I find it much simpler that hitting the power button.
actually, i feel like an idiot. The rom i use already had this feature in there. I just didn't see it because it doesn't become visible until after you set a password. And i never bothered setting a password because i didn't want to set one until i could control when it kicked in.
Although this really sounds like a feature that should basically be standard with android.
On a sense rom, go to settings/security and then u will see a option "lock phone after". Change to the desired preset time and your set. Like if u select ten minutes, the phone will lock after ten minutes of the screen being off.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
yea this is a standard andrid feature no ened to switch to CM for this. Its funny i love CM but a lot of people just take it to far lol. I see the same switch to CM posts all the time for standard run of the mill on every rom feeatures .
CM rocks but for those using it and keep telling every one to switch learn the features it ACTUALLY provides that arent provided by eveyr other rom. There are several really great ones.
Hello there!
I would like to try it by myself, but unfortunately I cant. So, someone who tried the SDK, have you noticed changes in multitasking system?
Right now the only way to resume an app is using fast app switch. But I really dont like it. I rather just use the homescreen icon instead. Right now it relaunch the app.
Any changes on that? (oh please)
Thank you so much!
mikeeam said:
Hello there!
I would like to try it by myself, but unfortunately I cant. So, someone who tried the SDK, have you noticed changes in multitasking system?
Right now the only way to resume an app is using fast app switch. But I really dont like it. I rather just use the homescreen icon instead. Right now it relaunch the app.
Any changes on that? (oh please)
Thank you so much!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows Phone apps can never resume via the homescreen like iOS, due to the addition of the hardware OS back button.
To illustrate why; imagine you have an app that has start page and a settings menu. When a user goes to the settings menu, they can only go back to the start page by pressing the hardware back button (this is standard Metro design).
Now imagine a user opens the app, goes to the settings menu, then exists the app by pressing the Home button. They then do a few other tasks and then resume the app. They are now stuck in the settings menu and can't get back to the app start page; the back key will take them back to the WP8 Home screen (this is how the WP OS backstack works).
To get around this issue, Microsoft specify that starting the app from the front page always has to start a fresh instance, so the user can never get "stuck".
iOS has software back buttons on every page, so all apps can resume however you launch them. Android had the same problem with their back button (actually worse, as their backstack can be altered by the OS choosing to kill memory-intensive apps); to get around this, from ICS onwards Android apps are meant to have a software back button in the top-left, to go back within the application (hardware back key is still OS backstack).
Aphasaic2002 said:
Windows Phone apps can never resume via the homescreen like iOS, due to the addition of the hardware OS back button.
To illustrate why; imagine you have an app that has start page and a settings menu. When a user goes to the settings menu, they can only go back to the start page by pressing the hardware back button (this is standard Metro design).
Now imagine a user opens the app, goes to the settings menu, then exists the app by pressing the Home button. They then do a few other tasks and then resume the app. They are now stuck in the settings menu and can't get back to the app start page; the back key will take them back to the WP8 Home screen (this is how the WP OS backstack works).
To get around this issue, Microsoft specify that starting the app from the front page always has to start a fresh instance, so the user can never get "stuck".
iOS has software back buttons on every page, so all apps can resume however you launch them. Android had the same problem with their back button (actually worse, as their backstack can be altered by the OS choosing to kill memory-intensive apps); to get around this, from ICS onwards Android apps are meant to have a software back button in the top-left, to go back within the application (hardware back key is still OS backstack).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But it sucks so bad! They should review this. I hate to use the back button, and I hate to not resume the app. Using a common app, for example, WhatsApp. I was in a chat with someone. Then I hit Windows button and Im at start screen. Then I receive a message from the same person I just left the chat. What I do? I can open from the toast, can open from fast app switch (back button), or open from start screen icon.
If I open from toast, that will depend on what the app was meant to be. In WhatsApp it would take me to the chat, because of deep toast notification. But, right now, it needs to reload the whole app to open just the chat.
If I open from fast switch, it will resume the app right away. Nice. But in any other platform the message would be there waiting for you. Right now, in WP, it takes a lot to refresh the chat. You keep like 10 seconds staring at the screen waiting it. Its even faster to just reopen the whole app.
And if I open from start screen, its almost the same effect of toast, but it dont take me to the chat, but to the start screen of the app.
The point is, the fast switch is not helping that much. In fact, it would makes sense to change the fast switch to open when holding the Windows button instead of back button, and whenever an app is open, opening it from start screen icon just resume it. Actually, a lot of people doesnt even know, or even knowing, doesnt even use fast switch. Im not a common smartphone user, and even so I dont use fast switch.
For me, its the worse problem of platform. And I dont care about CE or NT if it works, but I care about it working at all. Doesnt make sense to put a whole computer in my pocket if it cant resume a single app.
i don't like the idea either to relaunch the app when you just have put it in background. then again, i also hope we will be able to close apps from the fast-appswitch-screen. and add an option to the gesture lovers out there: pinch out on homescreen to launch multitasking. or swipe from edge like w8. or anything like that. it would add to UI experience and would eliminate that 2-seconds-pause when pressing and holding down the backbutton.
Was the question not about Windows Phone 8?
Windows Phone 8 is supposed to behave differently, since true background processing is supposed to be enabled. I haven't played with the SDK yet, but I suspect that for non recompiled apps, things will behave as they do on Mango. But, I think that things changed to target WinRT and set to be able to run in the background will be able to resume right where you left off.
It wouldn't make sense for an app that is running and processing things in the background to restart when the tile is pressed.
It's been a while since I used Mango or wrote any apps for it. But, when an app is suspended, the dev has a specified amount of time to save the state.
That way when it is relaunched, the app can resume where it left off, by processing the saved state on launch. I thought with fast resume the app stayed in memory, but that was done through a registry hack and not directly made available by any carrier.
After doing some reading, the multi tasking enhancements might only add gps and voip to the currently supported background processing.
JVH3 said:
But it sucks so bad! They should review this. I hate to use the back button, and I hate to not resume the app. Using a common app, for example, WhatsApp. I was in a chat with someone. Then I hit Windows button and Im at start screen. Then I receive a message from the same person I just left the chat. What I do? I can open from the toast, can open from fast app switch (back button), or open from start screen icon.
If I open from toast, that will depend on what the app was meant to be. In WhatsApp it would take me to the chat, because of deep toast notification. But, right now, it needs to reload the whole app to open just the chat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tapping the toast to re-open the chat is the correct behavior here. I guess it's just bad coding that makes it take so long to resume; it should just be able to go straight to the conversation and skip all the "loading contacts...connecting" stuff.
JVH3 said:
Was the question not about Windows Phone 8?
Windows Phone 8 is supposed to behave differently, since true background processing is supposed to be enabled. I haven't played with the SDK yet, but I suspect that for non recompiled apps, things will behave as they do on Mango.
But, I think that things changed to target WinRT and set to be able to run in the background will be able to resume right where you left off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you sure you're not thinking of Windows 8? For Windows Phone 8, no changes have been announced regarding multitasking or background tasks, *except* that a few select APIs (VOIP, location) will be able to run in the background, similar to iOS (not true backgrounding like Android)
Also we are talking about resuming, not background processing. In the WP8 SDK emulator, apps built into the OS don't resume; Therefore it's safe to assume 3rd party apps are not going to either.
JVH3 said:
It wouldn't make sense for an app that is running and processing things in the background to restart when the tile is pressed.
It's been a while since I used Mango or wrote any apps for it. But, when an app is suspended, the dev has a specified amount of time to save the state.
That way when it is relaunched, the app can resume where it left off, by processing the saved state on launch. I thought with fast resume the app stayed in memory, but that was done through a registry hack and not directly made available by any carrier.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When an app is closed the developer is meant to save the state, so that it can be reloaded if it is quick-resumed. However, once the app leaves the backstack (the 5 apps that appear in when you hold the back-button), this state is supposed to be discarded.
This is not a technical issue; it would be trivial for app developers to save the state and make their apps resume. The issue is that Microsoft's publishing guidelines (to get your app published on the WP app store) specifically says that an app launched from the home screen must launch showing it's introduction page, i.e. it can't resume. It could save some state, so a web-browser could still have all the recent tabs open, but it couldn't show the last one seen (ironically IE9 does resume it's state - guess Microsoft are allowed to break their own guidelines).
I agree it doesn't make sense to restart an app that is performing some background task; but then how to you avoid users getting stuck within a certain page, as in my example above? If WP8 includes a hardware back button, they can't change this policy.
Well, thats a shame. I hate reloading the app everytime I need it. Its so meaningless. I dont need VOIP, I dont need Skype running all the time. But I do need apps to be fast.
It really depends on how exactly the developers save their app state when the app is sent to background/tombstoned.
I, for one, use a text file to save data ( a lot of data) and proceed to loading the app as usual, and the moment the user presses a button, a pop up asks him weather he wants to restore or start anew.
I'm guessing that not every app will do this, as it is up to the developer to implement this.
First of all, how awesome is this forum !!!
I consider myself a pretty "upright" forum user as in I usually read the pinned, "read this first", Q&A, and search before I make new posts. Whenever I come upon people who don't do that, I kinda frown to my computer screen but beyond that seems like nothing much can be done? The "Here are the similar threads we found:" section is just pure brilliance.
Sorry about the rambling but I will start with a tiny background story first.
So once upon a time, I got warned thru my gmail that my account apparently was "compromised". After I did some preliminary verification to make sure they are not spams, I decided to try the google "2-step verification" process. And I bet most of you knew what comes next: I keep getting bad password popups. After some hours of frustrating struggle, I fixed my gmail on my phone. But Gtalk would not let me do that 1-time psasword verification thing, and thus my play store won't work. (God really who designed them to be linked!? I did not launch Gtalk once in my life.) Before this happened, I was happy with my stock launcher from Samsung and always have the "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" motto. In the end, I decided it is "certified broken" and I thought this might be a good time to look into upgrading to Jelly Bean.
hm.. i think i'm making this post unnecessary long so I will just cut through the chase. I never thought "stock" stuff would come in any quality. But amazingly in my first day experience of CM10, I am already missing a bunch of features that I used to take for granted. I have no desire to go back to the last launcher (as this in theory should be a step up overall, i believe). So if anyone have tips for me to how to get these features back, I would very much like some pointers! Thanks in advance.
Just some clarification in case this matter: I bought my phone unlocked in Hong Kong. So there is no service-provider-associated stuff that came with the stock launcher I got.
EDIT: I used the 11-02 nightly build of CM10 and its corresponding Gapp package.
1) Contact list
+ Improved: To my amaze, my chinese contacts got sorted by their pronunciation in english! The original stock launcher lumped all of them in the end of the list.
- What I missed: Slide left on names will message the contact and slide right will call them.
# What I tried: Of course my first solution is to search on App store to find a replacement. For some reasons, only two (with good rating) showed up. Did the search got dumber? Or it got smarter but just not doing what I want?
Go Contacts: I think i remember trying it and personally not a big fan of the GO packages. I didn't give it a second try.
Contants+ with a penguin icon: There's a function that lets you "Hold" on a contact to call them. This is very much inferior to the slidings : ( I need recommendations for contact list app.
2) App drawer
+ I like how the widgets got attached to the horizontal pages. Much nicer option than Homescreen-> menu and keep scrolling through the 1x4 area LOL. I love widgets and I have a lot of them. Yes it was painful.
- You can't custom organize the drawer. You can sort by Name or Install Date and that's it. I used to organize them by functionality. I have over 160 apps on my phone. I don't use all of them all the time but I would say I use close to 70% of them at least once in a while. So while my homescreen is really reserved for Widgets, App drawer is where I launch my less-used apps. I really like the "menu -> edit" function in my old launcher. I can create new page, move the apps around and even uninstall the app right there (with a minus sign on the top right corner of the app icon. Yes I didn't use to understand why one would even need uninstaller app from the store). Please don't hate me if you really just rather sort by Name.
# Funny the problem this time is not about how I can't find a suitable app from the play store to do a better job with the drawer. It's that I CAN'T move the original app drawer icon of the launcher from the bottom middle area. I imagine there's probably a way to replace it but it's obviously not a readily available option or I am missing something.
3) Task manager?
+ I think it's just recent launched apps (or apps in the background) now. It's in a way good that it goes beyond the last 6. Not that I find that old limit bothering really.
- Where's my task manager? I'm a bit OCD when it comes to ram usage and processes/services. Oh how i missed the Hold home button -> recent app screen with a task manager button -> Kill all task. LOL It's not much but it shows just enough: total ram usage, running apps, processes, and even storage space. Scratch that, it's actually very much.
# Right now I am resort to Auto Memory Manager with a blue fish icon. It's sufficient. But I can't access it anywhere.
4) Misc. stuff that I missed and would like help to find them. Note: these have nothing to do with the launcher.
- I used to have this "Windy Weather" live wall paper (or what i believed it was called). There were some wind turbines running on a grass field. It reflects the current weather. I scour the store and I couldn't find anything remotely like that besides having to go back to the GO family or you have to pay. I know it's not recommended but I tried titanium back up to restore it from my old system - no luck.
- Ap news widget. The widget was 2x4. It does not refreshes on its own and only do so with a tiny refresh button on the bottom right corner. It cycles through headlines with pictures that fully stretches the whole 2x4 window (beautifully). Can't find it in the store.
- Pinch on the home screen zooms out and gives you a quick view of all 7(now 5, but I can live with that) pages of home screen.
- That's all for now. I think I am still missing a few things I wanted to mention but I forgot what they are at the moment
anyway, sorry about some of the ranting. Here are some features i like:
+ File Manager is awesome.
+ Camera is great as well. And I love the quick browse gallery. It's weird that the actual gallery don't even have to pinch function while they put it here.
+ The pull down menu is clean. I kinda missed the "auto-rotation" quick set. But it's minor. I usually don't allow auto rotation anyway. I also like the setting button in there. But I used it so much I have to put a short cut on the home screen anyway.
+ The animation when you turn off the screen is COOL
+ The lock screen which gives you direct access to the camera is very convenient as well.
There is no sammy like app with swipe unfortunately.(edit :didnt know ex dialer has it sry_
Try apex launcher,nova launcher,adw ex launcher(i prefer this at the moment,pletora of settings)
autorotation ,play with toggle settings in system settings menu.
Don't bother with ram,free ram is wasted ram.
That windmill wallpaper i think go has something similar to it but i dont use it as it is a huge battery hogger .I just use a plain wallpaper.
I suggest u stay playing a bit with the lockscreen/system settings
Hi, i use ex dialer and it have slide right to call and slide left to sms.
Cheers!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
For dialer I recommend Dialer Ex from Play. I also missed the swipe to call & message function from Sammy roms. This app does it(it also has other great features like theme support etc.!)
Sent from my premium potato
1) ExDialer. You will never look back. You can customize it to your taste and it has the features you ask.
2) You need to use another launcher for that, but in my case I got accustomed to search for apps instead of looking for icons. It's easier and can be done from everywhere in your launcher if you click and hold the Menu key. You can also have folders in the Home screen, that's also a nice way to organize. Why I ended doing this? Because other launchers have too many options.
3) You shouldn't care about running apps. You can kill them by pressing Menu key on the Home and selecting manage apps. There, in "Running" you have the apps that are currently working on the background, the memory they use and you can eventually kill them. I'm against that unless you have an issue with an app (like Media Scanner going rogue).
4) GO Weather. You can download it from the web if it's not on the store and side-load it. But I have it available. I can't help you with the news widget as I never found one useful enough to my usage patterns. I don't think the default launcher can show you all Home screens at once.
Thanks for all the help guys. You are quick to reply : )
android manages ram efficiently u dont need to free ram if u still want to have a kill apps button on recent apps its part of aokp and if u want to have it on cm10 try pacman rom