[Wing, P4350 ROM development] quicksite:
Evaluating HTC Home, Today, other launchers

thanks chongie.... I won't be using it either. With my first ROM at xda a year or so ago I used iFonz as my primary launcher/navigator, so i never used Today, and at that time, HTC Home was not even out & avail. But there were always problems since the ifonz taskbar covered the windows task bar, and did not integrate at all.... = bad news.

About 6 months ago I updated and that ROM had TouchFLO 2. Such a dramatic improvement over any windows-based navigation, i used it for about 4-5 months and liked it a lot... except I found myself fiddling around with the cool weather-graphics and other whiz-bang that, in terms of application-launching, were not helping me be productive at all. And the launcher itself was too restrictive. But all that time helped me learn about all the different control elements of theming.

With Ivan's new ROM (Just Stable), I knew he was not a fan of TouchFLO, but at first when I saw the home interface, i thought "what a comedown"... But I quickly saw that it was a way more efficient control center for notifications and quick-access stuff since it was all on one page.

But I just do not like that (now) retro-looking LED-clock, it made the whole interface look dated to me. Beyond that, the limitation of 9 app launchers was way too lacking to be useful to me.

My intent all along had been to use this new lean ROM as the OS basis for my running iFonz 2 app launcher. Timing-wise, it's just getting past the buggy stage, since it was completely re-written and re-envisioned for version 2... and so I've been waiting for a release version of "Just Stable" so I could make the big switch, and bypass all the Today & Home screens again.

With HTC Home missing from v14.14, it gave me the incentive to set up iFonz 2 -- and I'm pretty certain I will be sticking with it. Which is why I was attracted to Just Stable from the start... CLEAN, fast, and with some of the basic must-haves.

As users on various forums at XDA have been noting, the advances A_C has been making to S2U2 has turned it into a defacto homepage, with I believe all the notifications that someone syncing with their office's Outlook system would need, with the total integration of full-screen caller ID/ pictures, slide to answer, etc. So, for me, probably for very different reasons than for you, the various launcher apps featuring their own homepages with notifications seems redundant and unecessary middleware (FOR ME), since I find Slide To Unlock invaluable, and improving further which each new iteration. the latest version lets you read MMS and email messages right from the lock page without having to open the primary app.

I will take a wild guess, Chongie, that you, like many, are very minimalist and don't like launchers... you;d just rather use QuickMenu to lauch apps :)

So, I'm just writing outloud here that I do not miss HTC Home, but wasn't sure if that was an intentional omission from Ivan, as part of his neverending quest to please everyone ( :D ), or whether he simply forgot it while jumping from iteration to iteration.

My biggest problem has already been solved -- which was having finger friendly menus & popups. Though Rhodium Menus and FingerSuite all seem promising, they were just requiring backflips, and not wokring suitably. Thus, my finding the free app NeuFonts was the saving grace. As can be seen in my screen shots a bunch of posts back, 80% of the functions on the Wing now can be controlled by my finger, and "PASS" my usability requirement for being able to use in a CAR, and walking in daylight.

I'm still not a fan of the icons atop, but I'm content enough, and all of that can be rethemed by enterprising folk at XDA.

So, all said, I a, almost ready to implement and move on to using my phone. The reason I asked about other v14.14 differences is because I'm getting slower response times with this version, but it could easily be the apps I have open all at once. I was just checking. :p