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So... I'm trying to slowly step away from Sense as Im beginning to really get frustrated with the lag and the memory hogging.
I'd like to use the Helix Launcher, or something simliar... but I can't really find any good widgets!
Like, I love the HTC clock/weather. I've tried "Beautiful Widgets" but its really not so beautiful for $2.
So, let this kind of be a "post some screenshots" of your favorite widgets.
I love to show off my phone, and making the phone's UI both efficient and sexy at the same time.
However the stock android widgets are just plain as hell, and the Market is as you all know impossible to browse through.
poor_red_neck said:
So... I'm trying to slowly step away from Sense as Im beginning to really get frustrated with the lag and the memory hogging.
I'd like to use the Helix Launcher, or something simliar... but I can't really find any good widgets!
Like, I love the HTC clock/weather. I've tried "Beautiful Widgets" but its really not so beautiful for $2.
So, let this kind of be a "post some screenshots" of your favorite widgets.
I love to show off my phone, and making the phone's UI both efficient and sexy at the same time.
However the stock android widgets are just plain as hell, and the Market is as you all know impossible to browse through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
beautiful widgets are perfect.. I think some ppl here even use them over the htc clock even when using sense.. There are tonss of skins to choose from, you just have to download them (from the app, without having to install any extra app). And it also includes all the toggles like wifi and it even has a smaller version of the clock that takes less room
I'm gonna vote BW as well. After downloading a nice theme from inside the app, this thing beats the crap out of the HTC clock any day (for me anyways). Other than that, I don't really know. I would like to hear of some other nice widgets to use
mixzing music player has an awesome music widget and its free defintely recommend
Jus10o said:
beautiful widgets are perfect
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+10000 10char
Thousands?
When I was browsing through the clock widgets I only found like 30 or so... wouldn't load anything else after that.
Maybe I'll give it another shot I guess. Only $2 right?
i wouldnt mind going vanilla if there was anything similiar to the bookmark widget, my most used widget. also, i just LOVE the htc weather clock widget with the animations, BW doesnt offer that (i know about the animations upon entering the app, but its not the same as weather animation wallpapers)
poor_red_neck said:
Thousands?
When I was browsing through the clock widgets I only found like 30 or so... wouldn't load anything else after that.
Maybe I'll give it another shot I guess. Only $2 right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol he isnt saying thousands to choose from.. he was saying +10000 to liking BW
1. It's 2 bucks... 2 DOLLARS!
2. The phone is so much snappier running Helix, and ASOP, especially running the IC3 ROM.
I didn't think I would like things without the HTC sense stuff... but it runs so smooth, and the BW gets pretty close to looking just like sense.
I don't see BW as being that great. I feel it is kind of sluggish, which imo doesn't justify going away from Sence. And I have tried it. Don't much like the pure apps either. But it's all choices I guess.
Sense works perfect for me. No sluggishness at all!
Sense is very sluggish for me unless I constantly kill unused apps. I just downloaded Home and Helix, I am going to try both of them with BW, which I downloaded a few weeks ago to use with Launcher PRO.
Here's my home screen.
Running DarchDroid 2.7 with Launcher Pro.
Beautifull Smaller Home Widget, as well as SetCPU, Brightness, and GPS widgets
The simpler the better for me.
Just the People widget is out at this time, but it sounds like more widgets will be coming to LauncherPro Plus soon
http://www.launcherpro.com/
Thanks, jniggle for actually giving the OP what he wanted! Nice home screen, btw!
JTNiggle said:
Here's my home screen.
Running DarchDroid 2.7 with Launcher Pro.
Beautifull Smaller Home Widget, as well as SetCPU, Brightness, and GPS widgets
The simpler the better for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
don't know if you've seen OneClick widgets, but you might try it out. I think you would like the icons next to your other transparent stuff.
mbuchholz
i like mine simple
edit: title should read poll, how did i mess that up? and now how do i fix it? mods?
edit: fixed, figured it out, im a newb to forums
i was poking around the evo forum for my friend and discovered miui. if you dont know it is a chinese rom that has been built for many snapdragon htc phones and translated into engrish.
it takes some of the better aspects of the iOS like the visually apealing menu skins and layouts and the thumbnail folder icons, has a dock much like iOS with drag and drop icons and no app drawer that can hold 5 apps.
apparently also has a secondary launcher that can come from the top of the screen presumably when you hit the home button that is like a standard android launcher.
has a unique app drawer that slides halfway down and tumbnails of the home screen pages pop up so you can move multiple apps to multiple screens without the drawer auto closing and a need to reopen for each app.
^this drawer is for widgets there is no app drawer, that can be fixed by putting apps in a folder and putting the folder on the launcher like an iphone.
it still has the android pull down notification bar and apparently has a scolling dock with toggles as well
i would love to see a port and some themes to go along with it. or a launcher/home app with some features borrowed.
check it out here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=823494
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or-9T44Bt7M&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Llz40hfpo&feature=related
some of the theming is a little odd and im alittle unsure if the screen space is enough for some of the features to be practical but it is interesting none the less.
also they have a browser that is apparently not with the rom that is said to be good.
Dani897 said:
edit: title should read poll, how did i mess that up? and now how do i fix it? mods?
edit: fixed, figured it out, im a newb to forums
i was poking around the evo forum for my friend and discovered miui. if you dont know it is a chinese rom that has been built for many snapdragon htc phones and translated into engrish.
it takes some of the better aspects of the iOS like the visually apealing menu skins and layouts and the thumbnail folder icons, has a dock much like iOS with drag and drop icons and no app drawer that can hold 5 apps.
apparently also has a secondary launcher that can come from the top of the screen presumably when you hit the home button that is like a standard android launcher.
has a unique app drawer that slides halfway down and tumbnails of the home screen pages pop up so you can move multiple apps to multiple screens without the drawer auto closing and a need to reopen for each app.
^this drawer is for widgets there is no app drawer, that can be fixed by putting apps in a folder and putting the folder on the launcher like an iphone.
it still has the android pull down notification bar and apparently has a scolling dock with toggles as well
i would love to see a port and some themes to go along with it. or a launcher/home app with some features borrowed.
check it out here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=823494
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or-9T44Bt7M&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Llz40hfpo&feature=related
some of the theming is a little odd and im alittle unsure if the screen space is enough for some of the features to be practical but it is interesting none the less.
also they have a browser that is apparently not with the rom that is said to be good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I played with this rom on the Nexus, it's fantastic, extremely smooth, better battery then cyanogen, very nice overall feel.
I'd love to have this ported over to our galaxys
i love miui. i have i on my n1. my friend has a cappy, he would love to see it on the cappy. i was thinking about making a [idea] post in the dev forum. see if anyone has thought about it. i figure when froyo comes out for the cappy that there may be a port. i wish i knew how to dev for android.
krypticos said:
i love miui. i have i on my n1. my friend has a cappy, he would love to see it on the cappy. i was thinking about making a [idea] post in the dev forum. see if anyone has thought about it. i figure when froyo comes out for the cappy that there may be a port. i wish i knew how to dev for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the i-9000 guys are working it. i cant code, or dev. i dont like to make requests that i cant contribute to. i was just hoping if people see this then some of our devs might jump in. i think the great aosp work being done will help pave a road for this. but we dont even have a working true aosp rom yet. although designgears did get many aosp apps working in his dev rom.
if we could get some of the features even if we needed a samsung dialer and other apps a hybrid rom would be cool. the widget tray is a great idea. although i like the android app drawer, especially the galaxy s scrolling alphebetical list implementation (i can scan a column pretty good, i cant scan a page very good), this rom has features that i think would be great.
I want it ..
I want. Please.
I just moved from the HTC Eris(Hero) to a Motorola Droid 2 and so far I am liking it, but i am missing Sense calendar widget. Is there anything in market or something an XDA dev created that is similar to it? Or is there some how a way to get it working on the D2 with out Sense, which I hear because of the locked boot-loader is not possible at the moment. Thank you.
Launcher Pro Plus has a built in calendar widget that looks very good and similiar to the sense calendar.
No, it can't be ported because Sense is closed source and widgets rely too heavily on the sense framework. I use pure calendar grid for this function.
I prefer not to use another launcher as I am enjoying stock Android right now(a difference change from sense which I really like). I will take a look at pure widget.
BTW they were able to get most of sense on the original Droid/milestone because the boot loader was not locked. Or on the G1, G2, and other HTC device that didn't natively come with sense. As long as you have access to the framework and bootloader I think you can use a sense based rom.
tbaker077 said:
I prefer not to use another launcher as I am enjoying stock Android right now(a difference change from sense which I really like). I will take a look at pure widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For what it's worth LauncherPro is based on the stock launcher, and is almost the same in terms of looks.. just added smoothness and functionality like said widgets, resizing, built-in notification dock, etc.. you could even put the Froyo dock background on it and it would look just like the stock Android. Just saying in case you think it will look all themed-out..
tbaker077 said:
BTW they were able to get most of sense on the original Droid/milestone because the boot loader was not locked. Or on the G1, G2, and other HTC device that didn't natively come with sense. As long as you have access to the framework and bootloader I think you can use a sense based rom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes but you are not able to use the widgets without using the sense launcher... it's as easy as that
I will demo both and see what I like better. I just assumed that pro meant paid version.
Edit: I guess if I want the calender widget I have to go with the paid plus version. I wish I could demo the Plus before I make a decision.
I have tried a few calendar Widgets including the one from launcher pro and Calendar Pad, but found that Jorte is the best one for me and my wife. Many options from sizes to colors. Extremely customizeable.
Look up Jorte in the marketplace, plus it's free
I use jorte. I think youll like it, http://androinica.com/2010/04/16/jorte-is-a-promising-android-calendar-replacement-app-reviews/
That doesn't look like a bad option either. Hmmmm.
I've had several HTC phones and I really don't see the appeal of Sense. Disable Sense, either with script, new launcher, or new rom is literally the first thing I do when I get a new HTC phone. Yet I see a steady request from people to make more Sense ROMs or add Sense features to nonSense ROMs. I know it's blasphemy around here, but I actually like TouchWiz and the iPhone UI. So I ask:
What is it about Sense that you find attractive?
EDIT: I want to add that I'm not trying to "troll" or be confrontational or contrary, more wondering if there is something about Sense that I'm missing or possibly haven't taken advantage of. Obviously HTC is doing really well right now and I'm sure that their Sense UI plays a role in that.
MHO, im in the same boat you are sir, the only thing I do like is the social networking features built in, although now, i use launcherpro, so i am just waiting till i can root, then its CM time!
Its simple and very user friendly. The UI is very eye appealing to me. Its really all personal choice. I always find myself enjoying things built into sense roms like the ringtone trimmer is pretty stellar!
Sense 4+ and Sense 5 are awesome implementations to HTCs new devices, I got my HTC One in the mail yesterday and I have been enjoying the less intrusive side of Sense 5 but blink feed needs to go ASAP
Sent from my HTC One using XDA App
I don't see anything in it, except more battery and more heavy. Deleting it is the first thing I do in any ROM. Well, the ROMs I use now don't have Sense bundled
Edit: I have been using ZEAM launcher for months now... both on Captivate and Inspire.
I hate how it reaches to every aspect of the phone. I never liked TouchWiz, but at least TouchWiz was pretty much just a launcher. I really don't like anything besides AOSP, though.
I like the themeing, but I hate Sense itself. That's why I'm using CM7 themed like Sense.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
I don't like Sense either. I find that it normally slows my phone down dramatically and drains the battery. I rarely used anything in Sense, so I have also always disabled it!
I'm in the middle.. I enjoy sense because it is pretty much one thing EYE-CANDY. Its awesome to see and show off as well as some of the features built in especially friendstream and the weather. I love AOSP as well, reason I have widgetlocker and a few other apps to bring me my AOSP goodness. Sense roms dont really drain battery.. I get amazing life on Kingdom Sense 3.0 and Honey Sense HD 1.5.
This is gonna be a stupid reason, but the clock/weather widget.
I also think that it's the #1 replicated part of Sense.
I like it as it looks sweet. It also hooks me into my entire social world. When I have a sense rom running anyone and everyone can hit me up, Facebook friends, google friends, tweet friends. Everything shows me as logged in and ready to communicate.
That said I am running Gingerbeast ASOP, with Go Launcher EX and Widget locker right now and loving the Battery Life. while still looking amazing.
I'm on the fence on Sense, seem to flash back and forth between AOSP roms and sense roms like clockwork. I can say that my preference is stock Gingerbread with Launcher Pro widgets.
Here are some of the Sense pros:
-The lock screen on Sense 3.0 is almost enough to keep me using sense.
-I also like the better integration with Facebook and LinkedIn in my contacts.
-It's near impossible and expensive to re-create all of the HTC Widgets in a non-sense rom. The closest alternative is Launcher Pro, paid version to get the extra widgets, plus Beautiful widgets for the home screen clock. You can find comperable widgets, but if your a design purist, it's hard to get all of them looking consistant
- You can actually get decent battery with the right custom roms. I run TBFusion with the Lee kernel, undervolt, setcpu, and it's good for a full day.
Dislikes:
-Dialer - very old-school number search approach I have never liked. It was designed for when phones had only numberpads to allow you to find contacts quickly. Basically the deal-breaker for me on Sense.
-Keyboard layout; hide key is too close to space and shift, plus very cluttered (easily fixed by installing another keyboard)
-Not a fan of the way they implemented quick settings in the notifications. Having to slide down, then tab between notifications and settings is an extra step. Seems silly, but gets annoying if you've ever used CM7 or something like that.
I really like the simplicity, speed, and battery performance of pure AOSP Gingerbread. I'm running Gingerbeast at the moment. Very smooth.
IMO - if you like iPhone and touchjizz, try MIUI
IMHO, Sense is a very cool thing. I love Sense ROMs and wish that Sense was open source so that many of its features could be added to CM7 or vice versa. For me, the cons list is short so I'll start there.
---CONS---
-Battery life is reduced
-System is slightly slowed
-RAM is hogged by Rosie, Sense, and Sense apps
+++PROS+++
+The keyboard is very good IMO
+The UI is clean and appealing
++Menus are colorful and therefore easier to navigate IMO
++Organization and useability of things such as the Customizations menu is superior to Android Stock
+The widgets are all built in and are very functional (Mail, News, Settings, Stocks)
+Many HTC apps are superior IMO to the stock Google apps.
+Seven home screens as opposed to 5 for stock. (However, I know CM7 and many others can add screens, I like the layout of Sense better as you do not have to choose whether home key goes to default screen or overview as you do in CM7. Sense home key toggles between the two)
Yes, I realize many will argue that the genie widget is great for news, but HTC's News widget (Google RSS reader) is the most visually appealing and easiest to use of all news widgets I have tried.
I do have to give HTC props on their implementation of Select/Copy/Paste, it is much better than AOSP - the magnifying glass method is definitely better than the stupid little marker method.
Which do you prefer and why? Pros and cons please!
Rank from most liked to the least.
My favorite=MIUI
Pro: The beautiful UI and very easy, high customization of everything.
Con: Takes a little more battery life due to UI.
Second=AOSP
Pro: Always works flawlessly and doesn't feel bloated. Simple and clean.
Con: IMHO, none.
Third=Sense
Pro: Again, I'm a UI guy, and Sense is very nice in that aspect
Con: Unlike MIUI, even though it is heavily themed, it always feels slowed down on every device I have tried it on, not matter all the tweaking.
Feel free to put multiple pros and cons
Considering ive never owned an htc device im just gonne do touchwiz
Touch wiz pro: fast and has many cool features
con: Sort of ugly (in my opinion)
Miui
pro fast and simple
con: i want an app drawer ):
Aosp.. im assumin thats what cm7 is?
pro: fast very smooth
cons: to simple for me im a ui guy aswell
Thread moved
Android without Sense it´s kinda boring, even ICS...
In my opinion
orb3000 said:
Android without Sense it´s kinda boring, even ICS...
In my opinion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd definitely take sense and miui over aosp
I got a HTC Desire. Went like this:
Sense 1.9 > Sense 2.1 + 3.0 > AOSP (CyanogenMod) > MIUI.
And well, I'm still on MIUI.
I loved Sense 1.9. Sense 2.1 + 3.0 was also great.
AOSP felt really empty and lacking, especially coming from Sense.
MIUI felt iOS-ish in beginning, but customizing it changes that all. I love it and been using it quite a while now.
Love all the simple touches of MIUI.
- Hold Menu on lockscreen for torch.
- All settings toggleable from notification bar.
- Volume Down + Home takes a picture from screen. (So no software needed)
- Double tap on lockscreen for music widget to come up.
The only thing I don't like is that the default music app doesn't support playlists of any open format. So you just gotta shuffle everything you have or use a 3rd party music player. And the default widgets are lacking.
Tip: TypoClock looks great with MIUI.
orb3000 said:
Android without Sense it´s kinda boring, even ICS...
In my opinion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing more to add
I've got a Desire S and I think I've tried probably every available ROM out there.
My Ranking
1. Sense
2. MIUI
3. AOSP
I like the speed of the AOSP roms and the look of MIUI, but I really love the way Sense is working. First, the widgets. Second, and that's actually much more important, is the way it the different apps are interlocking (I hope that's the correct translation, sorry if not). I mean I can browse my contacts, see their Facebook albums, I can easily stream my media to my laptop and vice versa and so on. I love it
Not that much between the three as they're the best user interfaces imho.
Nr1 for me is AOSP (stock ICS).
Nr. 2 is MIUI v4 (Nr. 2.5 would be the older MIUI)
Nr. 3 for me is Sense, although it is a nice UI but just doesn't match the other two in terms of clean beauty
I wish I could take some of the themes from MIUI and put them into normal AOSP, like the messaging and music player.
As for Sense, favorite of the OEM skins lookswise but it's a memory hog.
1. AOSP- clean and quick. You can theme it however you want.
2. Sense- love HTC and Sense is beatiful
148. Miui- for the Iphone lover at heart
I haven't had the chance to try Miui yet, but so far I think I like AOSP ICS.
I was using Sense for quite some time, but as others have mentions it does have lag at times. Plus, I was using Sense since I got my phone so I was really sick of it.
There are things I do miss about it though.
Sense
OEM based custom
AOSP
My favourite is MIUI, with a few CM tweaks. That's best of both words.
(Called WIUI on Defy)
MIUI v4, but i'm slightly biased since I'm a mirror
If you don't like the lack of app drawer you can use a lancher pretty easy.
If you don't like the iphone-ness (agreed) you can use blackandroidtheme.blogspot.com/p/miui.html which also happens to be made by an miuiandroid dev.
NS with v4 and SG-NS-ICS_24012012 kernel with tweaks.
Sense - Pros: Everything works, HTC Apps & Widgets. Cons: Can't use HTC Sense widgets with other launchers.
MIUI - Pros: Fully Customizable UI. Cons:no 4g, no 720p, it looks like the Iphone UI.
AOSP/CM7 - Pros: Semi-Customizable UI and Many Tweaks. Cons: no 720p.
All these people saying MIUI looks like iOS: Yes, the launcher has no app drawer (that's why I always imediately replace it,just as I do with almost every other standard launcher) and some Iconslook similar (But there are tons of themes that change the icons). That's it! In general the UI looks beautiful imoand the customisation is a huge plus, just like the lot of other custom apps and tweals thatcan't be found anywhere else, neither on iOS not on CM7/ AOSP.
I really like Sense. Unfortunately, it's slow and I have an old-ish phone, so I don't use it. Also, I know HTC isn't gonna release ICS for my phone, so I've started using CyanogenMod. CM9 is great but the UI is lacking in small ways--the launchers have dead space around the widgets and icons. The status bar doesn't say the date. I haven't noticed that many issues, though.
Sense comes first, slow compared to others though
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA App
I prefer MIUI over Sense and AOSP. MIUI's user interface just looks much more polish than AOSP and much more customizable than Sense. I never make my Android look like an iPhone, which is why I use other themes, mine looks somewhat like Meego now...
I have tried all of them and I personally like AOSP but at the same time each have their own pros such as miui's ability to customize everything so easily in any way you want but sense is also a very clean ui everything just works nicely with it.
AOSP is my favorite! and MIUI is good,,,and sense is not my type