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Alternative to HTC Home?

Dear all,
Would anyone please list out all the alternatives to HTC Home
or tell me your favourite today screen "home launcher" plugin IF you don't like HTC Home, and why?
Many thanks and look forward for all your feedback

I don't dislike Home, but I've recently disabled it. The reason: it does nothing that Mobile Shell 2 cannot do better. I like Mobile Shell 2 a lot, and once I have it, having Home take a lot of my Today screen's real estate for basically the same features didn't make sense.
An alternative to Mobile Shell is Pointui. It's more radically different, very well done in some aspects, buggy in others. Check it up.

I have SPB Pocket Plus.
Tab one has the PocketClock that was posted hiere on the forum, underneath is SBP Phone Suite, underneath is TodayAgenda.
Tab two has my most used programs and Tab three has SBP Weather and a few status displays (RAM, storage, etc...)
there would also be Touch Commander, but its basically the same and I read its rather buggy. dont know if this is still the case.

I prefer htc home due the resources consumes of the rest. For a quicklink on programs I use Quickmenu, that provide reset and other capabilities.

I prefer rlToday just becoz I could write it clean and simple analog clock with 3 notifications. SMS Email and Missed Calls. I use battery status for tray icons. QuickMenu for complete navigation.

Use Pointui Home

SPB Mobile Shell + PhoneAlarm.

Tasks TouchFLO

Hi,
someone can hel me to see the active tasks in TODAY of TouchFLO?
Now I can see only Time, calendar and calls..
I try to set the tasks in START-SETTING-TODAY-ELEMENTS but nothing.
Thanks in advance.

Hi,
I have the same problem. But no solution

Tasks Touch LO
A simply way to it's to sobstitute calendar with tasks activity.
But how?
I try to use advance config tools secion TouchFLO 3D but no sets are here for my problem.
????

No other Today plugins/items can be used if TF3D is activated.
Until someone works out how to add task to TF3D itself (I assume by editing the XML bits of manilla) you will not be able to do this.
What would be really useful is if someone figured out how to add a Tasks tab to TF3D and also a Calendar tab too (I know there is one but I don't think it shows highlights on days with appointments etc).
People are working on these things so I tihnk there will be a solution down the road.

TF3D
So to solve the only way is to disable TF3D.
No solucion installing SPB Mobile shell o similar becouse with TF3D active it's impossible to add Tasks in Today Screen too.

Many thinks to solve
It's incredible you buy a terminal It's cost 800€, and you have to put a cab to fix double contact SIM and Cellular, You can't display the active tasks..., ....!!
But the ingeneers are tested this, or the most important think is to have a good weather tasks?
Bho!?

I have been searching for a Touchflo Tasks tab also with no luck. My best solution thus far as been to remap my PTT button to my tasks. This definitely isn't too bad to work with. I use NATFs ROM on my Fuze which already has remapping tools but you can use fuzemobility.com and search for PTT remap if you need.

why dont you try that tf3d disabler that lets you switch between tf3d and standard today screen plugins? simple click of a soft key and your back and forth between the two.

The Jack of Clubs said:
why dont you try that tf3d disabler that lets you switch between tf3d and standard today screen plugins? simple click of a soft key and your back and forth between the two.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be your best bet IMO.

install secondToday, map that app to the PTT button or some other hard key, and you can easily have an alternate today screen for expanded agenda and tasks. By installing SecondToday, you can have all of your plug-ins right at hand... and get to them from anywhere in the device.
It's the best of both worlds. Really.

Does anyone know if the newer versions of Touch Flo 3D will allow other Today plug-ins ? Such as Tasks, etc?

I just started using MTP (Manilla Today Page) and it's incredible.
Just what I needed to put SPB Diary as it's own tab in TF3D.
I couldn't use TF3D for months till i got this working, and i gotta say, it's gorgeous.

what is Manila Today Page?

Any update with the Tasks Tab?
Now with the new HTC HD2 - I think that TouchFlo is finally a decent replacement for SPB Mobile Shell.
However, I still miss the Tasks window to complete the tabs list...

Manilla or SPB Shell 2.1?

I haven't found any threads directly comparing the two... I'm tired of the boring today screen and even HTC Home. Which is better on the Wizard Manilla 2D or SPB Shell 2.1? I've tried Manilla and I really like it but it takes up a lot of resources and disables some apps I've come to rely on. (Battery Status, and Smartskey) I wanted to get some opinions before shelling (he he) out the greenbacks for SPB Shell.

What a stupid question!!!
Well don't I feel like an ass... Here you guys just got Manilla working on the Wizard and I'm asking which is better. I've seen threads for Manilla for a while now and never read any of them. I wasn't really interested in Manilla until I was browsing around and saw some of the skins. I thought I'd give it a try. Since I just went in last night and downloaded it and installed it with no problem, I assumed it has been working on Wizard for a while. In my defence I did search for a comparison but found none.

i vote foe manila
Iv tryed both and Manila is wey cooler and in new to wizard, bur SPB Shell its much much usfull so its your choice

i was a big spb mobile shell user when it 2+ first hit......I must admit...I now use Noonski's rom and I enjoy the device much much more...it's somehow made for our device where as mobile shell is universal plus with all the skins and clocks being rapidly designed and made available you can have whatever flavor you like....as with mobile shell....seems lately the designs are all just versions of the same concept...where m2d is fresh and to me faster as it is cooked into the rom...I had about 43 megs left on mine after flashing and right now I'm just trying to streamline and keep about half that while piling on the goodies I usually enjoy in my phone...using a 2g sd card I'm able to run much from there....unless mobile shell upgrades to 3 I'm going to say m2d wins

wyzepro said:
i was a big spb mobile shell user when it 2+ first hit......I must admit...I now use Noonski's rom and I enjoy the device much much more...it's somehow made for our device where as mobile shell is universal plus with all the skins and clocks being rapidly designed and made available you can have whatever flavor you like....as with mobile shell....seems lately the designs are all just versions of the same concept...where m2d is fresh and to me faster as it is cooked into the rom...I had about 43 megs left on mine after flashing and right now I'm just trying to streamline and keep about half that while piling on the goodies I usually enjoy in my phone...using a 2g sd card I'm able to run much from there....unless mobile shell upgrades to 3 I'm going to say m2d wins
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had forgotten all about this question. Thanks for the answers. I'm back on the kick again and I was wondering if you still feel the same? I have tried M2D as a add on and cooked directly into the ROM. I have still yet to try SPB Mobile Shell. I may just get off the fence and do it. Worse thing could happen is I have to flash back to my HTC Home.

mr.incredible said:
I haven't found any threads directly comparing the two... I'm tired of the boring today screen and even HTC Home. Which is better on the Wizard Manilla 2D or SPB Shell 2.1? I've tried Manilla and I really like it but it takes up a lot of resources and disables some apps I've come to rely on. (Battery Status, and Smartskey) I wanted to get some opinions before shelling (he he) out the greenbacks for SPB Shell.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tested twice solutions, it's my opinion:
M2D:
Positive
- Very excellent look
- Very fast, reponsive
- Switch window animated
- Several weather cities
- Most smart panel
Negative
- Memory leak
- Not stable (plugin reboots unexpectly)
- Memory used (+15Mb storage and +8Mb ram) with all apps needed
- Seems doen't work with S2U2
- Get pad action when using other programs
- Task switch to front automaticaly
- Landscape problems
- cannot show multiple calendar events
- poor weather city
- Must install all HTC programs (music player, pictures, ...)
SPB shell 2.1
Positive
- Less storage and ram memory (- 5Mb ram)
- Compatible S2U2
- Skinable (look of M2D, Xperia X1, WM7)
- Stable
- Cities for weather (Valenciennes is in the list)
Negative
- Less responsive
- M2D skin very slow
- Only one city for the weather
- S2U2 weather does not work
- Cannot have the standard windows taskbar and softkeys
- Today SPB plugin different with M2D today skin window.
- Strange organization of functions...
In conclusion, there is no perfect version, I reloaded Clean Rom and re-used standard WM today screen (battery status, calendar, time, messaging...)

ed_bracam said:
Negative
- Memory leak
- Not stable (plugin reboots unexpectly)
- Memory used (+15Mb storage and +8Mb ram) with all apps needed
- Must install all HTC programs (music player, pictures, ...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) Yes there is a bit of a memory leak but with tools like QuickMenu and Oxios Hibernate you can reclaim this
2) The issues with this plugin being unstable can be overlooked by the price tag
3) What taskmanager are you using ? M2D Built into wizflo weighs in at 5mb storage and 3.5 mb ram.
4) You dont need all the HTC Programs, use M2DC to disable the tabs you dont use

Great info guys. That is the kind of input I've been looking for. Thanks.

mr.incredible said:
Great info guys. That is the kind of input I've been looking for. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have tried SPB Mobile Shell many times i made my custom made configuration and i think it works great, i have never had problems with it. I was wondering that it worked fast enough on HTC Wizard. No problems with cities in weather. It consumes a bit more of RAM and storage and it is necessary to install it in the device memory. Another bad thing about SPB mobile shell is that after installing it on the Wizard it booted very slowly after soft reset it took about 2 minutes until the device boot up. But anyway all these apps M2D, SPB Mobile Shell, TouchFLO etc are looking great but i do not like em. I like standard WM today screen with battery status, messages, today agenda, it is the only way to see all the necessary things on the today screen!

BEtter?
M2D is free..
spb yooou have to buy....
I am a believer of the bet things in life are free...

SPB Mobile shell 2 users. Worth to upgrade to 3?

as above..
is it really much cooler than SPB MS 2?

i have looked at MS3 and won't be upgrading. Currently running one of the many customised version of MS2 and for me it has everything i need. Yes the cube thing looks swish but useability seems to be coming first for me.

I'm upgrading because it replaces the today screen. On the "lifestyle" home screen, I have the clock, calendar, and frequently used programs. I have the other 2 pages showing the rest of my programs. I find I never have to leave it. The one thing that makes it worthwhile for me is I can see the notification icons on the top bar. That was a major flaw in MS2.

deedee said:
i have looked at MS3 and won't be upgrading. Currently running one of the many customised version of MS2 and for me it has everything i need. Yes the cube thing looks swish but useability seems to be coming first for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I share your view completely. MS2 has everything I need and is more usable than MS3.

well i have it and i think its better than spb mobile 2.0 but atm i still expierence serval bugs so i would wait a while. Why don't you download the trial and try it?
Kinda depends on what you need to do with your phone tbh. Spb 3.0 is in some way a wm replacer

drowe said:
I'm upgrading because it replaces the today screen. On the "lifestyle" home screen, I have the clock, calendar, and frequently used programs. I have the other 2 pages showing the rest of my programs. I find I never have to leave it. The one thing that makes it worthwhile for me is I can see the notification icons on the top bar. That was a major flaw in MS2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i'm with ya on this one, ive tried every homescreen and ui ive come across in the last two years on my p4000 (titan) and this takes the cake. everything i need is on one of the first two pages in the lifestyle menu, and i rarely require more than a swipe and click to access anything i need. the one thing i will be watching for is a better media app, as the one provided is lackluster at best. if anyone comes across one please send me a message or link

Switchke said:
well i have it and i think its better than spb mobile 2.0 but atm i still expierence serval bugs so i would wait a while. Why don't you download the trial and try it?
Kinda depends on what you need to do with your phone tbh. Spb 3.0 is in some way a wm replacer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As i said i am using a custom MS shell and have everything two/three swipes/clicks away already.
My main progs are on the front and the next batch are on the MRU page.

yes yes yes yes

My Today Screen is the best

Okay guys & gals,
Just thought I'd start a topic about our Today Screen.
I love a good launcher program (which I believe is simply what a today screen is). It took me a while to get to like WM6.5, but I do now. The disadvantage is that I still have to press my Start Menu for other apps... and for 64MB Uni's the disadvantage is only too obvious.
I hope you don't mind me quoting, but this is what started me thinking...
gewin said:
What I would like to do is set the programs screen ie the screen full of icons as the default when you start up the Universal. One less step and simpler for the end user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
phezthie said:
home screen plus is what yu need, i guess....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, oh for a simple Today Screen. I'm with you there.
Why do we have one method of accessing our apps on the Today screen, and yet another from the Start menu. (And for me a third when I want to choose a game to play).
I suppose nobody has come up with something that everyone agrees on!
Hence we have such platforms as Android, maybe.
As phezthie says, HomeScreen PlusPlus is a cool app. However, if you can't find a theme that someone has made that you like, you must be willing to write a script. Personally I love this app, but spend too much time tweaking my scripts! Ouch
Another one is ThrottleLauncher. A lovely graphic approach, but a bit heavy/slow and a few bugs. Very easy to set up, though... but perhaps more of an interest with 128MB devices and maybe a little restricted.
Anyone got a great Today Screen or Launcher they think others would like?
.

Hi Jonny
Interesting thread indeed
I used for a long time HTC Home large VGA by pj07 and I was very satified as I had all I needed on that home screen.
Now I´m using titanium but I´m agree with your comments above.
(attached)
Cheers,

I use Titanium too and its going pretty well for my needs till now.This his a good idea.

Hello thank you for starting this thread,as i am obsessed lately with this subject. I tried EVERYTHING that i could find,and so far,on my 64 MB uni,i can say only that i managed to find NOTHING in my taste.
Throttle launcher is awesome but no way it can work on my device,buggy and extremely slow,same as Pointui Home 2, with the POINTSENSE suite 2.0.0.6 looks awesome but useless on my device. For everyone with a 128 MB device i would recommend it,there are many many interesting skins/themes and applets on the Pointui website http://www.pointui.com/
Also,i am waiting for a new or fixed version of Touch Shell Pro ,which looks promising also,has some nice skins too, version now is 1.1.0.17,but has too many issues still,on my UNI at least.
http://www.touch-shell.com/
Also i tried FEWidgets Ultimate,again nice idea but too slow on my UNI.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=544874
There is now also this Sense UI Theme for FEWidgets Ultimate.
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-sense-ui-theme-for-fewidgets-ultimate.html
As for launchers,i tried plenty,most of them too slow ofc,the nicer ones
Easy Today Launcher is a nice today plugin,you can combine it with some others to make a nice today screen also :
http://www.loffactory.webs.com/
MyAction is a nice launcher you can pick up here versions 1.1 and new 2.0 :
http://www.8080.pl/
This one looks real nice but was way too slow on my 64 mb - Touchlaunch :
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-touchlaunch.html
And for last,the best thing i found to be part of my today screen,is a skin for marsware weather panel 2009 - here is the whole thing :
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=401781
When i get time i will put some more up,when i remember them,i really tried a lot of things out. And i really really wish that my UNI has 128 MB

I never looked back since getting SPB Mobile Shell 3.5, I think it's the best. In fact, once I got it, the ROM UI became irrelevant, I even have WM5 on one of my Unis in order to have the VC and not suffer much.

Complexity
Jonny
Thanks for starting this thread. I have also played with a number of the Today screen graphical setup programs, some are quite good. However, since upgrading to 6.5 I quite like the standard program screen that comes up when you select start.
My question is why do we need any of these today screen programs, when the icons and screen are already there. We really don't want to add any more complexity to the setup or anything else to use up precious memory.
I originally asked the question to see if there was just a way of bypassing the today screen altogether, so that the standard program screen came up by default.
Now thanks to you we have the collective minds thinking about it.

@gewin:
I actually got your idea. But couldn't find the function OS calls (@shell32.exe) when you hit on start menu.
Once we get then it is just the easy part....

I use SPB Pocket Plus, because it can handle other today plugins in different tabs. And it runs quickly on UNI64...

Thanks guys, this has been very informative. Especially to PalDragon for all the review... I'm going to give some of those a try. Cheers. What do others think?
MyAction - I found I didn't like. It looks ok if you use all the icons, otherwise you have half a screen full of blue +'s. I would prefer slide to screen, rather than use of a Prev/Next button. You also need to add all the apps yourself, it wasn't self-populating.
TouchLaunch - like. However only 1 item per line means a lot of scrolling, and the scrolling can be quite slow. Nice that you can make categories. Latest version here. Smooth (on my 128MB Uni)
EasyToday Launcher - @gewin, this is what you want! It's not self-populating, but I do like it. And as PalDragon pointed out, you can add other Today items with it, if you wish.

enigma1nz said:
I never looked back since getting SPB Mobile Shell 3.5, I think it's the best. In fact, once I got it, the ROM UI became irrelevant, I even have WM5 on one of my Unis in order to have the VC and not suffer much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i completely agree, its not free though but worth it...

Hi Jonny.. can you please attache some pics of your today screen if you haven't yet, I use HTC Home its got all i need even wheather, Messaging etc... But i wonder if its possible to add some applications to the wm6.5 on that cool up down slide. This made me stop using HTC Home but now i have some app's missing on my today.

my today screen is unintersting. I use WM6.5 'Ron Arad Orange' with CHome editor* for my apps (piccy1). I used to have weather plugin* but this seemed to make my GPS navigation freeze intermittently. I use QuickMenu* for my task switcher (piccy2) and iReflect icons* in my start menu (piccy3) with honeycomb start menu*. (Also, once used ATContacts widget*).
However I am still looking for a good 'app launcher' for games. I use fexploreext* set to 'Icon View' (see piccy4&5). Sadly fexploreext doesn't seem to work in WM6.5.1
I did once create a HomeScreen++ theme* for back when it was BatteryStatus, but haven't kept it up to date. It also had weather. The funny thing about weather widgets is that whenever I want to look at the forecast, I always want to update it ... so it seemed reasonable to stick with weather from an internet page! (perhaps because in UK weather is so changeable, I don't know!)
however, I am beginning to like SPB Mobile Shell (unsure how long the trial is for). What themes are people using? enigma1nz? phezthie?
FEWidgets and throttlelauncher seem similar, but a poor mans copy?
*if you want any of these files, just PM me.

spb mobile shell is really impressive and powerful (the latest is v3.5), ive been using ms v2 since tomal's 8.5. however, based from my experience, v3.5 is not advisable using tomal's wm6.5 roms (v9 & 10) due to slow response and occasional freeze. same with other wm6.5 cooked roms i tried, the reason why ram upgrade is imperative, at least for me, to enjoy the latest rom with latest spb.
off course, another solution i think is if our great uni rom chefs will always consider releasing vanilla of their great work...

UltimateLaunch
http://www.ultimatelaunch.de/index_en.html
Setup is a bit of a hassle (I've been messing around in Android, so a lot of Windows Mobile/Phone stuff seems more complex to customize), but if you're willing to put in the time, it's a rock solid-app and can customize to a T. It's also the least memory-hungry of what I've tried.
The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't accommodate rotation very well unless you count out pixels and just set it up so that in landscape it looks good even though the bottom of your screen is cut off.
I've tried Lakeridge (think Titanic, flashy, but *will* crash), ThrottleLauncher, Win6.5, SPB, SBSH. I keep coming back to this.

I used most of the GI app there and i liked WAD2. and i used with my custom theme when i was in wm 6.1, now with 6.5 due to memory issue i can not run it. so i'm using titanium with some customization.... see pic's below...

Hey Rajiv
Jane is so beautiful!!

Yes, very nice Jane, mate

orb3000 said:
Hey Rajiv
Jane is so beautiful!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
enigma1nz said:
Yes, very nice Jane, mate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanx a lot Guyz...

i envy you mate

phezthie said:
i envy you mate
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He he
common guys no comment on titanium ....