Performance - More home screen pages or use folders? - Galaxy S6 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Hi all,
I always believe it is better to use folders to organize apps on home screen in terms of better performance. However, I don't like TW lollipop folder icon, so I'm thinking about adding a lot of home screen pages and sort apps on different pages. What do you guys think?
Thanks.

Aminoacow said:
Hi all,
I always believe it is better to use folders to organize apps on home screen in terms of better performance. However, I don't like TW lollipop folder icon, so I'm thinking about adding a lot of home screen pages and sort apps on different pages. What do you guys think?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In theory, as you add more and more pages, the system has to cache more data into RAM, as the contiguous pages of the drawer must be ready for when you scroll to them. On the other side, while the system shouldn't need to cache the icons of the apps in a folder, it might just do that as well, as to access them faster when needed.
In both cases, I personally believe that the impact on performance should be close to negligible, especially in this allegedly refined version of TW and in a notably more powerful device. Who knows, it depends on how the launcher handles the resources.

Related

[APP] PDF Viewer update

I needed a PDF viewer for my own purposes, and the closest I could find was Maciej's PDF Viewer (=apv) app on the market. It was open source, and so I made a bunch of changes that I wanted or needed. Anyway, I now have a pre-release for version 0.3.0, which include a bunch of enhancements since Maciej's 0.2.9 release.
Here it is.
New features:
- speed optimizations
- page number display
- options including: full screen, reverse video, various tweaks, page with volume keys
- overhauled file selection: added icons for directories, added home directory option
- better font rendering
Now I posted pre-release 0.3.0 pre 2. Includes a monochrome feature to save memory and a zoom-to-width feature which I think people will find handy.
Sounds like you know what your doing. Not had a chance to test your app yet, but does it have the functionality to add bookmarks and highlight text?
Gonna try it out now, thanks!
No, there is no annotation, sorry. Just reading.
Its really nice with open source alternatives. Im gonna try it out.
I think i will love this. thanks bud
I haven't tried it yet but it would be great if you could add zoom to a fixed percentage
the reason I want that is some pdfs have huge fonts for the page numbering and while technically fit to width is working, there's still a fair amount of room on the sides. Obviously this should be sticky. A bonus would be it would remember the setting by filename
Works good, one option I'd love to get is fixed scrolling like with browsers
sark666 said:
I haven't tried it yet but it would be great if you could add zoom to a fixed percentage
the reason I want that is some pdfs have huge fonts for the page numbering and while technically fit to width is working, there's still a fair amount of room on the sides. Obviously this should be sticky. A bonus would be it would remember the setting by filename
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Zoom settings are indeed remembered by filename.
You can also adjust how much the zoom buttons zoom by. If you set that to 5% or 10%, you can do zoom-to-width and then press the zoom button once or twice.
Eventually, I'd like it to detect the real edges of the text.
moav said:
Works good, one option I'd love to get is fixed scrolling like with browsers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I couldn't figure out how to implement that. Moreover, I find it's poorly implemented in the browser--it locks much better on my device into horizontal movement than into vertical movement!
Instead, there is a "vertical scroll lock" option. This locks the scrolling to be only vertical, unless you make a serious (1/5 screen width) swipe left or right which temporarily unlocks horizontal scrolling.
I`ve just tested this app for half an hour with a bunch of PDFs littered in my Desire. This is without exaggeration the best pdf-viewer I´ve seen so far.
Very useful:
- zooming in steps as little as 5% because most PDFs were made for monitors or printing and not smartphones
- inverting the screen for reading at night or low-light conditions. It also saves power on my screen to read white text with black background.
- and it´s FAST
What I miss:
- an option to forget about the layout of a PDF, so I can only get the pure text. This would be very useful for PDFs designed for magazines with a columned layout, which is a pain to read on a handheld computer.
Keep up the good work
germanhoss said:
I`ve just tested this app for half an hour with a bunch of PDFs littered in my Desire. This is without exaggeration the best pdf-viewer I´ve seen so far.
Very useful:
- zooming in steps as little as 5% because most PDFs were made for monitors or printing and not smartphones
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Remember, too, that if you set the 5% zoom option, you can still long-touch the zoom buttons for a 2X zoom.
arpruss said:
Remember, too, that if you set the 5% zoom option, you can still long-touch the zoom buttons for a 2X zoom.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, haven´t noticed that - that´s quite useful.
Originally I thought of requesting a feature to remember the place where I closed the document because I´m used to open things in the ES explorer.
Then I stumbled through the built-in file explorer - feature implemented
Maybe an FAQ or a short manual would be useful ...
germanhoss said:
Wow, haven´t noticed that - that´s quite useful.
Originally I thought of requesting a feature to remember the place where I closed the document because I´m used to open things in the ES explorer.
Then I stumbled through the built-in file explorer - feature implemented
Maybe an FAQ or a short manual would be useful ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a wiki on the project page. You can add a FAQ.
It's a great light app and it has some cool features which I miss on other apps. But my primary feature for PDF readers is smoothness.
It would be great if it would be working as smooth as Documents To Go (their PDF reader). By smooth I mean smooth rendering and scrolling. Also it won't hurt to have multitouch zooming.
I know it's easy to demand and hard to do but at least there are ideas what should be present in the next versions.
jankoboys6 said:
It's a great light app and it has some cool features which I miss on other apps. But my primary feature for PDF readers is smoothness.
It would be great if it would be working as smooth as Documents To Go (their PDF reader). By smooth I mean smooth rendering and scrolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's largely a matter of speed, and it's going to be hard to improve that, except by expending a lot of memory for caching and background rendering.
Also it won't hurt to have multitouch zooming.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree, but it is a finicky feature to implement correctly and hence requires a multitouch device for debugging. I don't own one. Moreover, there are potential patent issues.
I've just posted 0.3.0 pre 13. This unfortunately has a new bookmark database, not compatible with previous versions, so people will lose their per-document settings. I am hoping this is the last such loss--the new format will make code maintenance easier and is easily upward expandable.
New features/fixes in pre 13:
- store horizontal offset in per-document settings
- better restore of zoom if orientation has changed
- fix round-off error which resulted in occasional horizontal one-pixel-width errors
I would also like to mention the color feature in your app is really great! Now I can read without hurting my eyes in the dark and it saves batter as well. Great feature indeed!
arpruss said:
That's largely a matter of speed, and it's going to be hard to improve that, except by expending a lot of memory for caching and background rendering.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm what if you make the memory size for caching an option in the settings for users to choose their optimum size? Do you believe that this would make any speed improvements?
arpruss said:
I agree, but it is a finicky feature to implement correctly and hence requires a multitouch device for debugging. I don't own one. Moreover, there are potential patent issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see it's kind a hard/expensive to make this feature possible. Darn US laws on patents :-/ don't know if in EU is the same for Android apps but for C++ and other programming languages, there are no e-patents.
Keep on your great work!
PS: I'm using HTC Desire (CM7 rom)
jankoboys6 said:
I would also like to mention the color feature in your app is really great! Now I can read without hurting my eyes in the dark and it saves batter as well. Great feature indeed!
hmmm what if you make the memory size for caching an option in the settings for users to choose their optimum size? Do you believe that this would make any speed improvements?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe, but it would need a smarter pre-render queue than we currently have. I experimented with making one, but my attempts were buggy so I got rid of them.
Tell me which scrolling pattern you'd like to be faster? Currently the app (in render ahead mode) is optimized for ebook reading: you read a page, and while you read the page, the next one is rendered and shows up instantly when you flip pages (I generally do that with the volume-down key) or scroll vertically to it.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a bug somewhere, perhaps only on devices with larger screen resolutions (it works fine on my 854x480 Archos, but I am told that it doesn't work on a 1280x960 screen), which makes the next page not show up instantly.

Organize applications

Hi,
I have the TF700T (fw 9.4.5.22) and I was a bit disappointed when I saw that I could not organise the applications the way I'd like (I'm not talking about organizing them on desktop screens neither the parameters/applications list, but in the specific panel where all installed apps are showing). Especially since I saw that a friend with Galaxy could sort them and group them in folders.
So, am I missing something (he has a parameter menu in this panel allowing sorting/foldering while I can't see such menu) ? Or is it a specific samsung feature ?
Is there any app to add to my TF700T which would allow this feature ?
NB: another comparison I saw is that on the galaxy there is a king of OCR recognition when he's handwriting, but I couldn't find such for TF700T. Any idea ?
Ricorico94
Asus pretty much leaves everything as is in AOSP Android, and that is only good. Less tweaks more stability and overall greatness (my oppinion).
Quite opposite is HTC, who is tweaking a lot of things, from desktop to apps...
Anyway, if you would like to group apps try Apex launcher. Very good launcher and also has this kind of groupings.
OCR - probably there is an app for that in the play store. Search.
Nova launcher also works

[Q] Apps and creating home screen folders.

Hello all, do apps have the ability to make populated folders in android or is it not allowed? I want to find a particular type of app that works similar to Auto App Category.
play.google. /store/apps/details?id=net.zalio.android.autoappsort
Thing I want it to do is when making a short cut to the category I want it to make an actual folder not a widget or shortcut to the sorting app itself. Main thing is I don't want a bunch of unnecessary clutter taking up cpu cycles or ram. Besides most of the "folders" from those apps are really ugly. I am running ADW and can do it manually, however ADW hasn't seen an update since July '13 and I want to move on to a new launcher. Unfortunately the ones I like don't allow home screen migration.
No ideas?

TouchWiz mimicking, halo, etc... how far can it go...?

Hello...
I am trying to customize my (new) sony xpereia z2, (got it for waterproof), to as close as possible to a Galaxy note or tab, as far as it can go feature wise.
I already have a few floating apps:
-floating stickies-becomes complicated with too many stickies, swiping them to the side, it becomes (almost) impossible to find the one you want, needs a single view interface, for organized viewing/editing , as well along with the float feature.
-floating browser, and cobra - crashes with only 2 tabs, doesn't remember my websites.
-G-player - my floating window will not resize, pretty sure have gone through all the options in settings, it is stuck,
I am aware of xhalofloatingwindow and xmultiwindow.
- is the only difference between the two that halo floats and multi divides the screen in fixed way? or are there other differences in the two that I am missing...
- (also when people refer to 'halo', this is the same thing as 'xhalofloatingwindow', right? or is it different...)
- are these considered 'custom roms', or not bc only partial change..
- also TouchWiz... I have read that TouchWiz mimicking apps exist, and to look here, but I haven't found any names, thus far.
the features I want are: quick screenshot, and editing, and note taking next to the screenshot, in a logged/organized manner. I would buy a stylus too, if found if could find apps or roms that mimick the galaxy note.
I do like xperia's interface, lockscreen, homescreen editor set up, and buttons. It is not so much the interface that I am trying to change, but to get a few more features. but I would change the interface if that's the only way to do it.
another subject - copying images from web browser, (not saving them), this is impossible on android but have read with a custom rom (not sure which ones, all or only some?) it is possible.
also closing tabs in chrome. you have to close each one manually, obviously annoying, plus the fact that they all reopen if you just wait the program. which Roms (all or only some) can help this...?
please advise if you can ...
Thank you for any advice ....

[Q] Possible with folders in Appdrawer? (Solved ,diff launcher)

Hi
Anyone found a way to group apps in the appdrawer ? as in folder structure and so on?
Been trying my darnedest with no luck... On the other hand my LG G3 ( also with lollipop) allows me to do what I need with no issues
Suggestions ladies and gents?
You'll need to use a different launcher...
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app
Any suggestions regarding a clean and simple launcher?
Wouldn't mind a recommendation
I'd wait to hear if anyone else has any suggestions, but I hear many like Nova Launcher (I believe you'd need the "Prime" version for folders/groupings in the app drawer though).
Personally, I'm using ADW Launcher Ex and like it quite a bit, but can't recommend it as it hasn't been updated in a LONG time and many suggest it's been abandoned (although the dev recently tweeted something that indicates otherwise...)
Let us know what you try.
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app
After testing back and forth I ended up with Nova ( paid for the Prime edition, worth it)
tested ( not in any particular order):
Google Now = Too focused on Google now features ( that I don't use), didn't add much, and I still couldn't app folders to appdrawer
ADW = Felt a tad sluggish compared to Nova, tons of themes and such but hasn't been updated for a while ( like An Droid said) still a good launcher, seems to have more options then Nova, so better for tweaking and customisation
Apex = A toss up between this one and nova. This one might have more features, but I found the functions on nova more user-friendly. I'd say "too close to call "on this one
Yahoo Aviate Launcher = In short, too automated, it tries to learn from you, predict your actions and such. Like grouping the apps based on auto defined categories and trying to constantly come with suggestions on how to use , where to use and when to use it. Most things can be tweaked and customised, like groups and folders for apps, suggestions for apps and automation level. It just wasn't for me. Too busy and a bit of a resource hog . Though some cool features were tempting, like the location based home screen and app drawer organisation. One sett of settings and home layouts for when the tab senses it's at work, and another for home, then another for evening and another for... and so on.. tons of possibilities. I'm just not into the automation stuff
Buzz Launcher= Very interesting launcher , very customisable, tons and tons and tons ....and tons of themes. But a bit too much. Though you can always tweak everything , and if you don't like your, icon pack, home design, appdrawer etc... you just download someone else's. Tons of option...but felt a bit like everything and the kitchen sink. Don't get me wrong , found some fancy stuff in there, cool themes that go far far far beyond a desktop wallpaper tweak with funky icons. I't just more for the designer that doesn't mind fussing over 30++ pages of themes and icon + wallpaper combos, then spend a while adjusting them. But it ended up being a launcher where I spent more time testing other people "launcher" setups, then actualy using the function of the launcher it self ( if you catch my drift) if I spent long enough I'm sure I would have landed on a favourite theme ..... eventually
Action Launcher Pro = A bit like aviate, but not so automated. decent set of features, some automation and habit pattern recognition ( sees what you do and tries in certain cases to predict what you need)... but left me with a bit of a "meh" feeling. Not bad, just not great
I spent 2-3 days with each ( I know it's not nearly enough time, but gives you a sense whether you might like it or not)
WHY NOVA?
Well, it's
sleek
simple
fast
minimal resources
A decent selection of features , the the possibilities to add more
Gesture based actions and short-cut customisation
Intuitive menus and settings
In short simple enough download and leave as is, but still open to a decent amount of tweaks. very fast and responsive.
NOTE Non of the launchers were really something you would call sluggish. We are talking about a tiny margin, and a very subjective opinion! And the Shield is a beast after all
As a point of reference, I also own a note 10.1 2014 32 GB, and it's sluggish ( even after several factory resets and barely any apps / services running), not rooted though ( warranty issue ), Running stock touchWiz "enhanced" Kitkat.
Keep in mind I went on the hunt simply recourse I wanted to find a way to sort out the folders in appdrawer issue. With NovaI found that as well as a few features I didn't really look for , but welcomed non-the less.
Nova is very much Recommended!
hopes this helps
Cheers lads!

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