Just another weblog (about android)

(Give baby) One more time! :P
Ok, this update provides the following new features/fixes:

News:

• New options to hide app drawer labels AND enable/disable the animation fading for them.
• New option to turn off scrollable widget support (some users noticed laggier desktop scrolling, so if you don’t intend to use a scrollable widget, you can leave this disabled until the group finds and solves the current problems :) NOTE: if you want scrollable widget support, ENABLE it, it’s disabled by default.
• New step when adding widgets. A dialog will open and let you setup the number of columns/rows the widget will span.  I’m explaining this later :-)

Fixes:

• After setting desktop screen number, the default screen slider was incorrect.
• Removed some extra log statements not really needed.
• Minor fixes.

Ok, now let’s clarify a few things about widgets, screen columns/rows and the new feature:

1. Widgets are designed/coded for a specific MINIMUM pixels width/heigh combined with a number of spanning CELLS (you know, 4×1,3×3, etc)
2. If you change your desktop columns/rows, you are making each desktop CELL smaller, so widgets shrink to fit into the desired number of cell spans.
3. I started a way of auto-converting widgets sizes to acomodate then inside a modified desktop layout, but doing this widgets would end up ocuppying the same screen/pixel amount.
4. So i decided to allow users select the layout they prefer for each widget upon inserting them.

So I’ve ended up with this:

¿¿What does that mean??

That you can, as you are going to add a widget, select the number of CELLS (columns/rows) it will occupy.

So for example, if you take the standard android analog clock (2×2) and select it to be a 1×1 widget, it will shrink/cut itself to fit inside your selected area.

Warning!

• This is NOT going EVERY widget to display correctly, some wodgets uses different scaling methods, different layouting methods and a lot of things i cannot control. Try to play with the “Auto Stretching” option and with the widget size until you’re satisfied with the result.

SUPERWARNING!

A lot of people complaints that since lasts releases they’re geting some (more) forcecloses/system lag… And then they say me they’re on a 7 screens desktop, with each screen being a 6×5 grid and they’re using about 15 different widgets….
C’mon guys, widgets eat RAM, the more widgets, the more chances you end up with an OutOfMemoryError (just an FC).

Oh, almost forgot: The ram allowed for a single app is LIMITED by android (it dones not depend on your PHONE RAM) so DON’T TRUST your free phone ram!!! The OutOfMemoryError will FC your launcher if you add a lot of stuff into it even having hundreds of free Mb RAM!!!

Only you can tweak and play with your device to see “how much it will support“, but when you push it to the limit, don’t blame google, your phone manufacturer, or myself…. seriously :P

System versions:

Warning!!!: If you’re not on a rooted phone, don’t use this. Use market version instead.

Warning!!!: If you’re running latest cyanogenmod roms, you’ll need to “push” this file overwriting the ADWlauncher.apk on /system/app/

Warning!!!: If you’re running android 1.6 this won’t work.

Warning!!!: If you’re having problems running this on your phone, try the file marked as “alternate build”

Warning!!!: Using this will REMOVE your stock android launcher, so make a backup first!

Warning!!!: If you don’t understand what previous warnings mean, DON’T USE THIS.

For use in latests cyanogenmod 5.0.8-testX
adb push ADWLauncherxxxxx.apk /system/app/ADWLauncher.apk

For use in cyanogenmod 5.0.7x and other eclair roms
adb push ADWLauncherxxxxx.apk /system/app/Launcher.apk

If you don’t know howto use adb, or prefer flashing through recovery, stay tunned to xda threads or my twitter, I’m sure someone will make a “flashable zip”.

Ok, now the downloads:

• ADW.Launcher System v0.8.5 mdpi only
• ADW.Launcher System v0.8.5 hdpi/mdpi
• ADW.Launcher System v0.8.5 hdpi/mdpi ALTERNATE

Enjoy!