I would like to access Themer's app drawer form other applications: LMT, Tasker, etc.
Could you expose an activity to allow this? Preferably one which allows me to select the destination target: Favorites, Apps, where I was last, etc
Thanks a lot for such great application. It a fast improved aesthetic experience.
Related
IN PROGRESS
HOW TO CREATE BEAUTIFUL UCCW SKINS
0. Contents
Introduction
About UCCW
Basic UCCW Usage
How to build skins
Designing
1. Introduction
I am aware that there are in fact many other UCCW guides out there. I won't be focusing much on how to do this or that... What I want to teach you is how to create beautiful and functional skins. As such the sections of this tutorial focusing on the actual widget building will be short, and may not cover everything that UCCW offers, but the design section will have a lot more content
2. About UCCW
UCCW or Ultimate Custom Clock Widget is a software developed by our own vineetksirohi.
XDA link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1386987
Play store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.vineetsirohi.customwidget
vineetksirohi said:
Make your own widgets easily in a WYSIWYG (What-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor. Use custom layout, fonts, images, shapes, interesting objects like series clocks, weather information with icons,
unread sms and gmail counts, battery information with bars and pie graphs, analog clocks, TASKER VARIABLES and more. Use hotspots to assign actions to widget.
Does not require programming, editing xml files or rooting your phone. Share your creations easily either through uzip files or make apks and post on Google play.
Or keep your unique widgets to yourself and tease others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
3. Basic usage
UCCW has two parts. One is the widget that is added to the homescreen, the other is the app in the launcher that can be used to:
1. Import skins
2. Edit skins
3. Export skins
The editor has several features
1. The menu bar above
Add/remove button - add or remove various widget components such as date and time etc.
Component selector - select which component you are currently editing
The sort button - choose which components appear above the others
3. The preview area - allows you to move the currently selected component ( don't use this, it's better to move the components more precisely)
4. The editing area - has several panes which can be navigated by sliding to the left and right.
5. The menu. - the most important things here are the save button and the option to turn hotspot mode on and off. When hotspot mode is off you can edit widgets by clicking them on the homescreen, when it is on you can use the shortcuts defined in the skin.
As far as the features of UCCW that I generally use:
0. General - background, hotspots that can be assigned to different actions
1. Clock - as time or by separate parts (hours, minutes)
2. Date
3. Battery - circle, bar, status, level
4. Calendar - next event time, next event text
5. Notifications - missed calls, text messages, unread gmail, next alarm time
4. How to build skins
Please refer to the following videos by mycolorscreen on youtube
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5X0ZCI5Kg0
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5c2Sa9UGG0
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2zf_AJRFc
At the end of this you should have a basic idea of how to deal with the different components. Now time for me to add my part
Advice:
1. Always move components so they align with each other, pixel for pixel.
2. Always start your widget with a nice good size like 400 x 100 for a 4x1 widget. This is to make it easier for you to create background images
3. Be consistent with your use of colors and font size, unless variety is part of your design
4. Try to size components appropriately so that they stay within the bounds of the widget.
5. Designing
IMPORTANT: a UCCW skin without a proper background or forethought design will always look ugly/disappoint you. You must first spend a good amount of time looking for inspiration and sketching initial designs before you execute and make the skin.
i. Inspiration
Look for user interfaces in movies (like Iron Man) and websites such as Google images, deviantart, or look at desktop customization software such as Rainmeter. Don't attempt to copy someone elses work. Instead, choose elements of other works you like, and combine them with your imagination.
ii. Initial design
Whip out your pencil and paper, or if you're good enough, a tool like Photoshop or Fireworks. I totally recommend pencil and paper as it is the fastest. Sketch a design. Don't attempt to make UI elements too small (in the name of readability). Don't make it too fancy unless you know it's gonna work out for you. Don't feel bad if your first designs look lackluster. It's a learning process and your first skins might not look as you want, but you will reach there eventually.
iii. More advice
Start with basic widgets such as date/time/battery. The first thing to do is to set your wallpaper to a contrasting color, and then being positioning the text and other components. Next, create a background image. I recommend Paint.NET to create it.( http://www.getpaint.net/ ). Ideally, the background should provide bordering for the various components of the widget, and it should be designed in a way that it does not lose quality if used on a higher quality screen (simply: avoid curved edges and stick to rectangular/straight designs). The most part of the background image should also be slightly transparent as this looks the best.
iv. Yet more advice
You will need time to play around with your widget and experience it to see if it looks good and it it handles different content nicely (i.e. different lengths of text in a component). Try to use it for at least a couple days before you release.
Good tutorial!
(SUPER BUMP)
how to export widgets or skins i make
I would like to share an Idea of how to hide your favorite & personal application in your smart phone, with a very quick and easy way.
Hide the applications you want from your app drawer.
Download an application called Appshaker from google market, and install it.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prodigen.appshaker&hl=en
Put a shortcut of the application on your homescreen.
Open Appshaker, and pick the applications you have already hide from the app drawer.
Minimize Appshaker.
Now shake your Device, and you will find the list of your hidden applications.
Appshaker should be active in taskmanager in order to launch on shaking your device.
What I want is a configurable cascadable app organizer and launcher for the Gear S.
First it's a fully standalone app.
Next it should be compatable with an app shortcut from watch styler,
and it should realize which Watch Styler app shortcut (#) it was invoked by.
Then it should have a full screen of app shortcuts (a settable number 4,6,9,12),
with user settable text/image to help organize the apps by use or type.
If you invoked this app directly, not from a shortcut,
you might get a master screen that has a app settings icon
and number app shortcuts a user could then make, if they wished,
match app shortcuts that the user setup on clock face.
Then each new settable shortcut could select another app, even another copy of this app,
the app should also get a copy of the icon of the app that it has been configured to shortcut to.
This is an attempt to get number apps on a number of SMALL screens organized for a specific users usage.
It's just and idea, and I am NOT going to develop it.
I would buy it though!
kurt
I've been using go launcher for years. Here's what I like in order of importance:
1. Custom desktop and app drawer grid
2. Ability to resize widgets
3. Vertical or horizontal app drawer scroll
4. infinite scrolling on desktop or app drawer
5. App drawer folders
6. App drawer sorting
7. Custom icon size
8. Multi-line icon text
9. Ability for zero padding around desktop or app drawer icons
10. Auto organize app drawer into folders (auto part was taken out)
11. Gestures (ie. swipe up for menu)
12. 3D cylinder effect when scrolling desktop
13. Semi-Transparent app drawer background
The main things I don't like about Go Launcher
1. CPU/Memory footprint
2. All the extra features I don't care about, especially the intrusive once (though I can block most of this)
3. Data mining (though I easily block this)
So I'm trying out Nova launcher now. It seems like it can do mostly everything on my list. Though I'm not sure if its cpu/memory footprint is any better.
Action Launcher seems interesting, but it seems to be missing some critical features I want.
I'd appreciate any recommendations. Keeping in mind, I'm pretty much happy with what I have now and just want something with lower cpu/memory usage or basically less features I don't care about.
Hello. Where would I post a thread to see if any android devs would create an app as follows:
There are several apps in the play store that allow the user to add home screen widgets of web images. Some that I have found are as follows. Problem is, none of them are currently active in development and they all have various issues, flaws, limitations:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.webimagewidget&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ibuffed.webimagewidget&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.weite_welt.urlimagewidget&hl=en
Key functionality would be:
Options per widget for dynamic resizing, scaling options such as (fit to widget, maintain aspect ratio, etc..), auto refresh intervals, refresh image upon screen on, image cropping, widget press/long press options such as "open image in default browser", "refresh on widget tap", etc...
Image sources that I use currently are web cam stills from local ski hills so I can see lift lines, etc..., current stock market status such as this, current weather radar images such as this.