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[Q] App Request: Old Danger Sidekick Launcher

I was searching the Android Market for a new launcher for my Sidekick, but most of them are more likes themes of the basic Android launcher. The handful that offer something truly different aren't developed enough to warrant using. So, is there a dev out there interested in making a home screen replacement launcher that's a clone of the old Danger Sidekick homescreen?

Looking at the few videos of the older sidekicks ui i want to say....... why? seams like it uses alot more space compared to the asop launchers. closet thing i can even remotely look at an comes to my mind when i see a old sidekicks user interface is what sony puts on their phones.

Circle launcher looks promising: https://market.android.com/details?id=de.dbware.circlelauncher (also a free "Lite" version)

pintek said:
Looking at the few videos of the older sidekicks ui i want to say....... why? seams like it uses alot more space compared to the asop launchers. closet thing i can even remotely look at an comes to my mind when i see a old sidekicks user interface is what sony puts on their phones.
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Click to collapse
Why? Well, it's unique for one thing. There are other launchers available that do similar things, but they aren't refined enough in their functionality and/or don't look right. Here's basically what I have in mind. I'd want a launcher with 2 home screens. The 2nd one would be where I'd want the bubbles to be. That would be the one on the right. The bubbles would have to be on the right hand side of the screen in landscape and at the bottom in portrait mode. The other screen on the left would be for widgets only. The launcher would need to support folders well too for things you want to keep in them like an 'All Apps' folder. This carousel would need to play nice with the trackpad too (a lot of docks on other launchers are similar but don't work well with the trackpad). In other words, the carousel concept is a blend of the dock and icon grid. Here's another WHY: Putting all of the icons on the carousel would clean up the screen so I can see pictures of my wife and children without all the icons blocking the view. So, that's a bit of my thinking in a nutshell. There simply isn't anything like this out there for Android.

ged92781 said:
Why? Well, it's unique for one thing. There are other launchers available that do similar things, but they aren't refined enough in their functionality and/or don't look right. Here's basically what I have in mind. I'd want a launcher with 2 home screens. The 2nd one would be where I'd want the bubbles to be. That would be the one on the right. The bubbles would have to be on the right hand side of the screen in landscape and at the bottom in portrait mode. The other screen on the left would be for widgets only. The launcher would need to support folders well too for things you want to keep in them like an 'All Apps' folder. This carousel would need to play nice with the trackpad too (a lot of docks on other launchers are similar but don't work well with the trackpad). In other words, the carousel concept is a blend of the dock and icon grid. Here's another WHY: Putting all of the icons on the carousel would clean up the screen so I can see pictures of my wife and children without all the icons blocking the view. So, that's a bit of my thinking in a nutshell. There simply isn't anything like this out there for Android.
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Click to collapse
I agree. This is something i would enjoy very much.

the only issue with this is a lot of people (including me) have disabled their track pads on the phone due to the optical joystick glitch when out in sunlight. I wish I had my old launcher from my old sidekick, but I do not see how it would work with this phone considering its physical fault.

Both the sk4g n the og sk have the same landscape based design I think it would be very possible to have the wallpapers and theme icons. For the og line
Sent from my SGH-T839 using XDA App

shadowscott said:
the only issue with this is a lot of people (including me) have disabled their track pads on the phone due to the optical joystick glitch when out in sunlight. I wish I had my old launcher from my old sidekick, but I do not see how it would work with this phone considering its physical fault.
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Click to collapse
Well, I'd imagine you could manipulate the bubbles with a touch of the screen as well. Believe it or not, some actually did this already...to an iPhone! If you dig around enough on YouTube, you can probably still see it.

ged92781 said:
Well, I'd imagine you could manipulate the bubbles with a touch of the screen as well. Believe it or not, some actually did this already...to an iPhone! If you dig around enough on YouTube, you can probably still see it.
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Click to collapse
FYI, here's one of the 2 videos on YouTube where a guy made a functional Danger Sidekick homescreen for the iPhone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDG11kliWWw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

here is the closest thing i've come to find thats like the interface you are wanting though there is no landscape mode for this which is a "mild" pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU2gGI8KVhY
My suggestion is to drop a message to the dev of that launcher on market place an see if they can do some minor addons to work in landscape an possibly ability to change icons (if you so badly want the older danger icons)

"Orientation Control" can force any program into landscape. It's inexpensive and effective.
It's the only app of its kind that works. And, it works like a charm.
Developer support for landscape is no longer an issue. It all runs landscape now; rather it wants to or not.
Recommended.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.coinsoft.android.orientcontrol

pintek said:
here is the closest thing i've come to find thats like the interface you are wanting though there is no landscape mode for this which is a "mild" pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU2gGI8KVhY
My suggestion is to drop a message to the dev of that launcher on market place an see if they can do some minor addons to work in landscape an possibly ability to change icons (if you so badly want the older danger icons)
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Click to collapse
That's a very cool launcher. Thanks for the suggestion. It just might work if it had some more functionality. I'll send the dev a message.

oh well, this launcher, while cool isn't going to cut it soon enough. I wonder if that guy who made the Sidekick launcher for the iPhone would be interested in making one for the Sidekick 4G.

Custom Launcher on ICS? Will CM?

Does anyone still use a custom launcher with ICS? if so why? what does it bring to the table that ics does not? i mean we have a full dock now in the stock launcher...and we have scrollabe widgets.
and the real reason im posting is, do you think CM9 will have ADW baked in like it always has? i dont see much point now. My fav launcher out there is by far the stock ICS launcher...

No..ithink ics launcher is great.. and i love stock
Sent from my Google Nexus S using xda premium

I haven't used ICS yet (still waiting on the Galaxy Nexus to be released in the U.S.).
Does the stock ICS launcher allow custom icons?
How about a scrollable dock (like in Launcher Pro) that gives you three panels to scroll through, with 5 customizable slots on each?
What about swipe gestures? For example, in LP you can set it so that if you swipe upwards from your browser shortcut it will pop up with a list of your bookmarks.
Those would be the only features I would miss coming from LP.
If the stock ICS launcher has those features, I don't see the need to even think about switching to anything else. Even if it doesn't, I will probably stick with stock just to stick with the overall ICS look and feel, although I would hope Google would add those features in a future update (I mean if some guy can program that kind of thing in his spare time, I'm sure Google's programmers would have no problem with it)

Gakuseinozen said:
I haven't used ICS yet (still waiting on the Galaxy Nexus to be released in the U.S.).
Does the stock ICS launcher allow custom icons?
How about a scrollable dock (like in Launcher Pro) that gives you three panels to scroll through, with 5 customizable slots on each?
What about swipe gestures? For example, in LP you can set it so that if you swipe upwards from your browser shortcut it will pop up with a list of your bookmarks.
Those would be the only features I would miss coming from LP.
If the stock ICS launcher has those features, I don't see the need to even think about switching to anything else. Even if it doesn't, I will probably stick with stock just to stick with the overall ICS look and feel, although I would hope Google would add those features in a future update (I mean if some guy can program that kind of thing in his spare time, I'm sure Google's programmers would have no problem with it)
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Click to collapse
It'd be incredibly easy for Google to add those features, the reason why they don't is because they're not intuitive features and Android caters to a very wide audience. In the past I installed LP+ on all my relatives phones, many got confused or lost.

I agree that they are more for advanced users, but one of the biggest advantages of Android is that it caters to those types of users - those who want to have the option of trading a little simplicity for more functionality. I'm not suggesting that these features be enabled by default, but perhaps there could be a toggle to enable "advanced dock settings," or something of that nature.
Just seems to me like it would be in the best interest of Google to make these kinds of features available without third party apps, especially given the amount of people that turn to alternate launchers because most OEM skins (sense, blur, touchwiz, etc) are unattractive, intrusive, and/or lacking in functionality.
As I said in my previous post, I personally probably wont switch to a third party launcher with ICS just because I want to retain the cohesive look and feel that ICS offers, but I will definitely miss the functionality of something like Launcher Pro which is why I wish that Google would offer at least the option to enable some of those additional features with ICS.

I keep going back and forth between Go Launcher EX and stock... Will do so until I configured the stock the way I like my screen.
The features from GL-EX that I'm holding out for arwe the swipe up option and the option of running 5x4 screen >>

Gakuseinozen said:
I agree that they are more for advanced users, but one of the biggest advantages of Android is that it caters to those types of users - those who want to have the option of trading a little simplicity for more functionality. I'm not suggesting that these features be enabled by default, but perhaps there could be a toggle to enable "advanced dock settings," or something of that nature.
Just seems to me like it would be in the best interest of Google to make these kinds of features available without third party apps, especially given the amount of people that turn to alternate launchers because most OEM skins (sense, blur, touchwiz, etc) are unattractive, intrusive, and/or lacking in functionality.
As I said in my previous post, I personally probably wont switch to a third party launcher with ICS just because I want to retain the cohesive look and feel that ICS offers, but I will definitely miss the functionality of something like Launcher Pro which is why I wish that Google would offer at least the option to enable some of those additional features with ICS.
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Click to collapse
i see where you're coming from but you have to see it from google's side. the more options they offer with their base product, the more bewildering and off-putting it may seem to your typical end user.
but then, third party apps come in and fill the void. android itself doesn't (and shouldn't) cater to any kind of user specifically, but it allows developers to cater to them. and that's what's so great about it.

[App Request] Launcher settings converter

Hi there,
first off, sorry if this is in the right forum. Please move it to the right one in that case.
Then:
I originally posted this in the Apex Launcher thread but some users pointed out (correctly) that this is probably an idea that should deserve its own app and is not limited to Apex alone. Here goes:
Android has the great ability that you can change launchers quite freely, allowing you to change the look and feel of the main GUI with a few clicks. Unfortunately, every launcher has a different way to store their settings and when you switch to a new one, you will lose the settings from the old one. I personally switched from GO Launcher EX to Nova Launcher when I upgraded my Desire to ICS but would now like to switch to Apex - but after taking all the time and effort to recreate half a dozen of folders with 50+ apps sorted, I don't feel like doing that again.
My idea would thus be to have an app that can detect a backup you made with one launcher (almost all of them allow backups these days) and convert it to the backup-format of another launcher, allowing the user to import it into the new launcher. That way stuff like folders and settings could be transferred, allowing people to switch launchers more easily.
I'm not a dev, so I have no idea whether this is possible and if so, how hard it would be to develop it, but I wanted to request it here in case someone might be able to do it.
TIA
SoWhy

Nova-Launcher already does it!
Even if this is an older request: I would also appreciate, if there would be an app which can do that. And: In general this conversion is for sure possible. The Nova-Launcher already has this function of transferring already implemented. But it would be better, if there's an independant app for this, 'cause at the moment it's only "one way", from another launcher to Nova, but not the other way round.

Question about JB and ADW Launcher

I've been having this problem with ADW Launcher EX and the JB rom which before made me switch back to CM9. Now that I actually want to stick with JB (since I can now mount the external SD card) I need to figure out why this is happening.
What happens is that only the home page that my phone is on when adw launcher loads will show the icons correctly the rest shrink them down. Here is an image http://i.imgur.com/wqxRD.png
What I've noticed is I can still use the apps if I touch where they are supposed to be (If I click in the top left corner then the folder with my games still opens.) Does anyone else have this problem or know what's going on? I've searched through the adw options and can't seem to figure it out. It only happens on CM10 though.

I believe your problem is just a compatibility issue between adw and jb. You are probably going to have to consider switching to another launcher.
Sent from my sweet & buttery Infuse

andros11 said:
I believe your problem is just a compatibility issue between adw and jb. You are probably going to have to consider switching to another launcher.
Sent from my sweet & buttery Infuse
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Click to collapse
Yeah I thought that might be it. I might uninstall adw for now and just wait for it to update.

I've used adw with jb and haven't had any issues. You need to go into the adw settings and change a few settings.
I forget which ones. But you can change their sizes, placement, column & rows, ect.
I'm planning my escape from the digital world!

most customizable launchers

as many people are customizing there phones, i thought the launcher is the first screen that people always see, and they seem to provise the most customizable attributes. i am curious and on the search for the most versitile lancher out there and what they can do.
i know there is a post your homescreen thread out there and there is quite a few responses and nice pics, but not all list their lancher preferences or apps they used to get those.
posting screenshots and tools you used would be great
super simple laucher pro, but not done yet

Haven't had much success with it but sslauncher is pretty customizable. Really though most of the launchers give you roughly the same features.
Looking through the post your home screen threads many use apex, adw, or launcher pro. They let you replace homescreen icons with custom ones.
Uccw is a popular clock and weather widget but us rough to figure out.
Those are the main 2 I would say. A good place to start anyway.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda app-developers app

You can surely find plenty of launcher reviews, if you search.
Some require Android 4.0.. I haven't looked at those.
Among remaining it seems frequent mentions are ADW, Go Launcher, Launcher Plus, Holo
I haven't done a lot of comparison. I tried Holo launcher first and have mostly stuck with it. It does what I want, and I'm not interested in spending a ton of time comparing and setting up launchers.
I did try ADW later. It has more options but also more complicated interface so I stick with Holo. (I may change in the future...maybe if I learn about something big that I'm missing during this thread)
Attached are screenshots.
The first one highlights something I like about Holo (only the pro version) - you can put any widget into the dock area at the bottom.
So the first two icons on the left of the dock are Tasker toggle widgets in there for Wifi and Data. The color changes when the status changes (grey for off, green or red for on depending on what parameter). They are controlled manually or by Tasker which changes status based on location. Then in the center/right of the dock, I have Elixir widgets displaying battery level, MB free, number of applications running. Clicking on these widgets launches handy menus - the memory free sends you to settings/applications, the running applications lists running applications with option to switch to any running application... I use this often to make sure I have closed out all the applications I've used recently (may not be required but makes me feel better).
The 2nd screen highlights easily resizable widgets - I use them heavily for lists on my homescreen. I have 9 screens available, so plenty of room to have many lists on homescreen and move them around. Also of course I can change which note is displayed in a given position or get rid of a note from home screen and it remains (stored in Color Note).
Also I like the gestures. For me swipe down laucnhes a Tasker tasj to turn the screen off (save wear and tear on my power button). Swipe up launches a Tasker task for brightness control... if no response in 7 seconds it sets to max brightness (handy when you're in bright sun). There are several other gestures available to be assigned to whatever you want (applications or shortcuts)
That's not all the features, just a few that I like. I suspect most or all of above features are available in other launchers. And I suspect most of the others have more than Holo. I like Holo for simplicity and good useful tools. Not what you asked for... just throwing in my opinion.
Like any launcher, Holo has a few non-optimum features that are discussed in the Holo thread. There is only one that bugs me a little but I learned to cope. The main screens and three dock screens move independently of course. When you press home button with main screen not in home position, both the dock and main screen jump to their home position. But if you press home button with the main screen at home position and dock in non-home position, the dock does not jump to home position. Not a big deal since it's not hard to manage scrolling within 3 dock screens, but I'd like home to take me to home on main/dock screens regardless of where I started.

electricpete1 said:
You can surely find plenty of launcher reviews, if you search.
Some require Android 4.0.. I haven't looked at those.
Among remaining it seems frequent mentions are ADW, Go Launcher, Launcher Plus, Holo
I haven't done a lot of comparison. I tried Holo launcher first and have mostly stuck with it. It does what I want, and I'm not interested in spending a ton of time comparing and setting up launchers.
I did try ADW later. It has more options but also more complicated interface so I stick with Holo. (I may change in the future...maybe if I learn about something big that I'm missing during this thread)
Attached are screenshots.
The first one highlights something I like about Holo (only the pro version) - you can put any widget into the dock area at the bottom.
So the first two icons on the left of the dock are Tasker toggle widgets in there for Wifi and Data. The color changes when the status changes (grey for off, green or red for on depending on what parameter). They are controlled manually or by Tasker which changes status based on location. Then in the center/right of the dock, I have Elixir widgets displaying battery level, MB free, number of applications running. Clicking on these widgets launches handy menus - the memory free sends you to settings/applications, the running applications lists running applications with option to switch to any running application... I use this often to make sure I have closed out all the applications I've used recently (may not be required but makes me feel better).
The 2nd screen highlights easily resizable widgets - I use them heavily for lists on my homescreen. I have 9 screens available, so plenty of room to have many lists on homescreen and move them around. Also of course I can change which note is displayed in a given position or get rid of a note from home screen and it remains (stored in Color Note).
Also I like the gestures. For me swipe down laucnhes a Tasker tasj to turn the screen off (save wear and tear on my power button). Swipe up launches a Tasker task for brightness control... if no response in 7 seconds it sets to max brightness (handy when you're in bright sun). There are several other gestures available to be assigned to whatever you want (applications or shortcuts)
That's not all the features, just a few that I like. I suspect most or all of above features are available in other launchers. And I suspect most of the others have more than Holo. I like Holo for simplicity and good useful tools. Not what you asked for... just throwing in my opinion.
Like any launcher, Holo has a few non-optimum features that are discussed in the Holo thread. There is only one that bugs me a little but I learned to cope. The main screens and three dock screens move independently of course. When you press home button with main screen not in home position, both the dock and main screen jump to their home position. But if you press home button with the main screen at home position and dock in non-home position, the dock does not jump to home position. Not a big deal since it's not hard to manage scrolling within 3 dock screens, but I'd like home to take me to home on main/dock screens regardless of where I started.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow, that was one lenghtly response.
i am not really on a search for a launcher, i have done that. i know how to do my homework. i was basically creating a social type of environment for those who really love their Infuse and fully exploit all the freedom we have in customizing.
the other thread, again, has a lot of great pics and i am really like liking some of the more simplified screens. however, most do not post the tools they used.
i have just discovered the SS launcher yesterday and it is pretty unique. still trying to figure it out. another one i found intresting was FullScreen launcher and of course, i still need to dive into that one too.

captemo said:
wow, that was one lenghtly response.
i am not really on a search for a launcher, i have done that. i know how to do my homework. i was basically creating a social type of environment for those who really love their Infuse and fully exploit all the freedom we have in customizing.
the other thread, again, has a lot of great pics and i am really like liking some of the more simplified screens. however, most do not post the tools they used.
i have just discovered the SS launcher yesterday and it is pretty unique. still trying to figure it out. another one i found intresting was FullScreen launcher and of course, i still need to dive into that one too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I misunderstood.
Hopefully you didn’t view my post as being in conflict with your goal of social post (would that make me anti-social )
Launchers are of interest to me, but maybe for a different reason than for you. I have only done a litle exploring them but have been using Holo for a few weeks.. It strikes me that changing launchers has a big impact on our experience, but we don’t discuss that very much on these forums, even though chaning launchers is much eaiser and less risky than changing Roms. I guess maybe that’s because Roms are Infuse-specific and launchers aren’t.
I did think my setup is unorthodox having lots of things indicated on the bottom dock. By the way, my Data icon shows not only data on/off but also how many MB used this month (91.2MB in the first screenshot)... it’s updated daily by Tasker sending an SMS to AT&T requesting data usage and putting the value from the AT&T response into my widget label. Putting Tasker widgets like that into the dock seems pretty useful/versatile to me. I just don’t know if the other launchers allow the same approach. Lots of ROMs have similar stuff up in the notification area but I don't really like that as they tend to be small and also a busy notification area makes it harder to recognize new stuff popping up there.

electricpete1 said:
Sorry I misunderstood.
Hopefully you didn’t view my post as being in conflict with your goal of social post (would that make me anti-social )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not anti social, you responded in the first place. i was trying not to sound as if i was being a ****. i understand the reaponse though. there are way to many people who wont even look at the previous post, and ask a question that was just addressed. so many questions would be answered if they just did some reading. instead they are pissing off developers who then decide to leave our device.
with all the Jellybean work being done, which is amazing, however JB is pretty much JB. not a lot of individualism. with everything working so good, there is not a lot of movement on the threads. so i have gone back to gingerbread and contiuing my quest for the ultimate set up.
i love the idea od swapping my icons for text, and simple text is pretty easy to work. i would love some vertical text though. i am running the JW8 v2 version of Saurom and like it pretty good. pretty fast. trying to find everything else to complete the package.

i would say most customizeable would be go launcher but i hold tru to ftl launcher pro, basically becuz of the cube scrolling effect for your apps
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using xda premium

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using xda premium

I would use launcher8 its smooth and nice, look for it on the play store

Ive used Go Launcher, ADW and Holo in the past. I used Go launcher extensively on my Infuse and my Gio since it was so customizable but after playing around with other phones using more recent versions of android I felt it was too resource hungry. Holo I used for a bit for that ICS look but found it lacked a few options when compared to Go. But I actually DLed it recently and the experience is now closer to true ICS and reminds me a lot of Trebuchet and its simplicity. Currently Im using Trebuchet since putting my infuse on a CM10.1 ROM and I really like it. Very smooth and simple.

I used GoLauncher for a long time, but have used Nova for almost 4 months now, and I love it! Very customizable and easy to save and reload between flashes

I personally love Apex pro mycolorscreen.com has customization guides that use mostly apex you'd be amazed.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using Xparent Blue Tapatalk 2

I use nova and like it a lot!
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I have tried them all my friend. GO, ADW, Holo, Apex, Nova, Are all pretty close in the number of options. I used Go forever because of the folder system in the app drawer. Unfortunately it didnt seem to behave very well with all the ROMs I started flashing (thanks Faux.) Now I use the HoloHD+ and will likely continue to do so ...until the KLP hits me.

Just started using sslauncher and i have to say this is by far one of the most customizable launchers if ever used although there is a learning curve
Slim SON

Ss launcher gives pretty new styles of launcher.
You might want to try this launcher.
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Nova
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Nova + rom control.
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