yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] Psyed:
I'm not sure what exactly is included in GB, didn't try it yet. But what I would like to see added:

- Smart Dialer (like htc)

- Scrollable widgets

- Better camera app

- A better app for getting and showing the weather

- A desk-clock like system (showing you the time insetad of a black screen)

- Sync tool like HTC Sync (haven't seen one for android so far, correct me if I'm wrong)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
good discussion thread radu. I'd say:

- dialer (it's fast to type on however...)

- default launcher MUST support scrollable widgets, but google things it shouldn't due to an incorrect argument stating scrollable widget support interferes with gesture support. I have a launcherpro configuration proves the opposite.

- this one would be a huge accomplishment and also a huge change to the codebase and likely a huge change for developers - but on my wishlist is launcher rotation that doesn't cause widgets to restart every time (which would potentially result in near-instant launcher rotation instead of the mess we have now in all roms EXCEPT tegro 2.4's rotating sense launcher when used with sense widgets exclusively (it's FAST))

- better built-in control of media volume - preferably in the notification bar but without draining battery/resources like most third party memory-resident controls do (which is why I released my own little free app Media Volume Toggle which controls media volume from icon and/or notification bar WITHOUT staying memory resident or requiring any configuration at all)

- they should buy a huge license for camera360 and make it the default camera app in android LoL
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] Jed2191:
I am now using FroydVillain.. not that I don't 'like' it as such but if this Sense ROM had a camera working too I'd jump over in a flash. I just prefer the black/grey/green style rather than the grey/orange/green style of stock. Sense just looks and presents itself much nicer, the camera is lovely, as is the smart dialer, the contacts menu, the Facebook integration (that works properly) and so on. Sense 2.2 on the HTC Desire HD is lovely, unfortunately we can't get that on Hero and I'll be upgrading within a few months to something new but I still prefer Sense over stock.

Features I really miss from Sense are:

Nice Camera UI

Smart Dialer (that one in particular, even Dialer One doesn't look as nice)

Contacts menu (I prefer the white, minimalistic look)

Messaging app is nicer, I like the way it auto-sends SMS that don't send the first time, also I don't like Handcent etc.

HTC Clock - I use Fancy Widget Pro on LauncherPro and it looks really nice, better than the Sense Launcher, only part I don't miss about it!

Green buttons/bars over orange, I know that's pedantic but I just prefer the green!

Sense's weather app/widget was nice to have, when it worked.

Quiet Ring/Turn over to Silence was a pretty cool feature.

All the apps just LOOKED nicer, I'm on about Sense apps of course, News, Weather, SMS, Camera, and the Photo's app, I miss the Photo's app so much, Gallery sucks compared.

There's a few more I could add, I'm fine using stock but I do love alot about Sense.

EDIT: Music app is nicer. Not even liking the look of the Honeycomb version, as it seems to follow the same "Gallery" interface, which I find to be slow buggy and kinda ugly, in my opinion anyway. Love the look of the Sense one although functionality could be improved, but I guess that's Google more than HTC!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] red4:
lol this reminds me when a while bak when xda was brought to its knees by ppl refreshing in anticipation of a new hero rom. cant remember if xda crashed or was just unresponsive. this could be heros legacy crashing xda servers:D
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] wapz:
Good topic. I used this rom but it just reminded me of the reason I wanted to start flashing custom roms, the lack of speed! You just get stuck once in a while, it's just too painfully slow on the Hero. On the Desire Sense is already a lot more usable. However, there are a couple of things to like about it:

- Dialer, for sure. It is heaps better. Even in 2.3 the default dailer hasn't been improved at all!

- The Sense launcher is better compared to "Launcher", and some HTC widgets are nice such as the calendar. I just got to use a Vodafone HTC Magic with official 2.2, and with the default 2.2 Launcher is was painfully slow (1/2fps at best). However, LauncherPro should surely be the default Launcher of anyone, it is so much better compared to all the alternatives, and it also includes an excellent and clean calendar widget.

- The integration of contacts with Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp/etc and linking them to each other is done quite well in Sense, and I think a lot of long time users of Sense miss this when they start to use vanilla Android.

But even if we fix the dialer/contacts (the only big benefits of Sense for me), there are still other things I think are lacking behind on Android in general, especially compared to the iPhone.

- The default music players on Sense and vanilla Android are a disgrace for the platform in general! I've tried many different apps to replace it, but the only good looking, quick and relatively feature-rich exception I found was PlayerPro (i've tried about ten so far), but even that doesn't have any decent gapless playback for example.

- I cannot believe the default Facebook and Twitter app still don't support proper push notifications. Tell an iPhone user you still rely on email to get realtime updates on Facebook and they'll have a laugh. And yes I know the latest Facebook app should support it to an extent but really it doesn't work anywhere near as good as on the iPhone.

- The basic email client is also pretty terrible compared to the gmail app. It is slow, eats battery in hours (anyone ever tried to use Exchange with push?) and it's ugly as a dog. I would wish the email app was as quick and useful compared to the gmail app. I have tried some alternatives but I haven't found anything that I really liked so far, anyone has any good suggestions with exchange support?

The advantages of Android are however in bigger numbers:

- Some of the Google apps are really great. Google Maps/Navigation (especially v5), Gmail, Youtube and Google Sky Map are really great.

- The notification system is excellent.

- Ability to use widgets like Android.

- Ability to choose a new default app for almost everything is a sign of a maturing OS.

- XDA and open source rom development. Freedom from the operator/phone company to release updates. Amazing work guys!

And I'm sure there are loads more items I've missed :-)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
my favorite music players BY FAR are mort and poweramp. poweramp is gapless (with most formats at least) and insanely good with great tone controls and widgets. mort also has great widgets and tons of useful features. and both players don't rely upon imho bloody annoying and always incorrectly setup playlists or mp3 tags - instead they're folder based as imho all default music players should be.

Check them out - also winamp is very nice if you do prefer playlist type apps.

default players eat mud though, definitely :-)

oh - and I think the default android facebook app (official from market) does support push notifications and chat etc now. twitter I don't recall about since I use pure messenger for most of my facebook and twitter stuff.

oh - and exchange with push I've used for months without it eating my battery or causing other issues.... not sure what you mean. it handles everything a mobile email app ought to app just fine imho - but I could well be missing things that I'm just not aware of the competition's email apps already having. What could be improved in it (other than subjective appearance iyho?) I'm honestly curious since most of my smartphone knowledge is on android and I've only used iphones sporadically as a developer.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] djdavis:
I haven't set it up with exchange, but you could try SEVEN, its pretty good!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] The0Code:
Since we're going off topic for a bit :3 What's this "exchange with push" thing you guys are on about? Do you mean getting emails as instantly as they arrive? I would love that for my yahoo email but idk how to set it(VR12 btw) o-o

Oh yea, if I were in google I would first ask why the htc magic, an inferior to the Hero, was given a froyo update while the Hero was left in the dust(disregarding all the awesome rom developers out there). Yes yes, sense would be harder and would take longer but updating the magic is a sign that froyo for the htc hero is possible...I mean the rom developers were able to do it >.<

I'd also suggest a cooler interface for vanilla music apps, or making the sense one default for vanilla. I flashed elelinux some time ago and aside from the repulsive looking notification bar(could've been fixed with a theme), I just couldn't live with the music app, the sense one is way better.

And finally, I'd suggest making some of their own themes available for the phones, it's like they expect us to do everything ;)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] Schiehallion:
Exchange push uses different technology to html/pop email.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
afaik the following are all "push" technologies on android:

gmail

exchange

facebook (in recent version anyway)

and probably google can send it's own updates to phones using push as well or something similar (such as fw updates on stock phones).

it provides instant updates, where pop email requires the email client app to check the email server at regular intervals (and/or on user demand) to look for new email.

yahoo is, afaik, pop email as are most servers. gmail's exposed server is also pop, not push, but the website version of gmail we all know well is sort of push-like and the android gmail app is fully push enabled.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] The0Code:
So in a nutshell, no push for me since I'm a yahoo guy. Greaaaaat D:< Could always sync my gmail and yahoo mail but doing that every month would be troublesome.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
I guess that's one example of why so many people switched to gmail when it came out - the yahoo gui is pretty decent, but gmail is just a faster, lighter, and more user-centric solution.

pop will eventually die for major use I suspect.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] KillerCookie:
Stock Android IMO needs:

- 100% consistent, smooth, good looking user interface / experience *1

- smart dialer

- more advanced launcher (like launcherpro and others)

*1:

One thing i really don´t like about Android is the missing UI consistency. Nearly every app ships its own images for buttons and other UI elements which leads to a very bad overall look. But why? There is a framework-res.apk which every app can use to look consistent to the rest of the users ROM. Why dont use it?

I think Google should push the principle of one big shared resource storage by creating an extensive, good looking one which, from now on, every Google-app uses. This would attract other app developers to also make use of it which then automagically increases the consistency.

This would also make theming quite easy because you don´t need to dig through all apks of a rom to find the last scattered little image and replace it with yours. Just put everything inside the shared-storage and voila - it works for every rom of the same device. This would really be a benefit over the manufacturers custom GUIs and IMO a big step for Android in general.

Need an example how important UI consistency is? Just take a look at Ubuntu - it is not really better than other distributions but most people like it just because the "out-of-the-box-experience" is really great and it feels like "one big system" and not "a bunch of applications thrown together". This it what makes the difference.

What do you guys think?
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
agreed

framework-res.apk and following development rules for android properly is why my released apps no the market (timecalc and media volume toggle) are like 14kb and 15kb each.

lots of perks to doing things correctly. and yea, I know, not great examples of GUI design in those two apps - but that isn't my point.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] alioooop:
the random slowdowns and freezes are really annoying :( both when the phone tries to wake up and I think it is when a background task starts... the browser freezes randomly too even if I disable the plugins...

love to have sense 2.2 so hope the speed gets fixed :) keep up the great work!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] mhasan90:
In order of importance of features

1. UI consistency (colour, gradient etc), sense does this extremely well.

2. Sense Dialer is just amazing, DialerOne as good as it is, its just not as good as the sense one. And again UI consistency gets broken.

3. Sync with facebook

4. Widgets - there are plenty we can add, but again they're either not good or there's no consistency.

Basically what im saying sense gives android a complete feel, and not something that is created by bits and pieces joined together to make it work.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] bosch23:
+1 on the stock Dailer needing work. Sense version much better

+1 on the Stock music player. Its also not as good as the Sense one. (with nice widget)

+1 on the mail app. Android really needs to improve exchange supporting mail app. I think all mails get displayed as images. I miss the ability to copy text from your emails like i could in the sense version. And it is slow.

Android also needs a proper file browser that knows a few files, shows thumbnails and as a nice to have has the ability to hanlde zip and rar files. Browsing files is basic and something I like to be able to do without having to go find a file browser in the market.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] ssndip:
Dialer One is a "no go" for me.

I use Youlu Adressbook instead, and it is pretty much working for me. Using it with CM6.1 , and i'm pretty happy. The dialer was a deal-breaker for me with vanilla android.

But i'm for Sense Dialer too...
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] e2zippo:
Thanks a lot for pointing me in the direction of youlu, seems to be fast and really nice! Dialer One is painfully slow and Ray Dialer is ugly :D
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] JW 301:
I'm sorry, I'm new to android development, so please excuse the dumb question.

What do you mean by this, how can I use the framework-res.apk when writing an app? I googled it and couldn't find any explanation, just people trying to edit it...

Is there a tutorial or something?

Thanks in advance
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
it's being done behind the scenes when you are using built in android user interface elements (such as creating buttons in the xml layouts). Rather than creating an interface in photoshop, slicing it, then making a layout with touch-events for each image, which might look nice (or might not if you can't draw LoL) but won't follow any standards.

cheers
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
The ROM is taking shape, but still many things to do.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] Dark Emotion:
Can you give us a hint about ROM?

I mean is it 2.1 ? 2.2? sense? Did you fix CF ?

:)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
I won't give any details until it's out.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] Dark Emotion:
Sure m8, no problem :p
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
I've played with the gingerbread keyboard and I have to say that it's the first time when I find the HTC keyboard a little bit outdated. It's the best keyboard yet. I'm very impressed tbh
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] TsunKit:
RaduG!!!

you tease!

I'm more excited about this rom than the new dual core phones that have been announced xD
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
@dkelley

I hope that people can change their vote in the poll :))
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
:-)

I know, you're doing something cool, we'll figure it out when that happens
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] minty1978:
i'm getting ready to nandroid ;)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
Ok took a while before I got the hang of it how to mount /system in Recovery via ADB, but now I pushed the file and booting up, hope it worked :D:D

Love to see how this is :D

EDIT: And then you see a command on page 23 on how to mount it, Fail me....

EDIT 2: First impression. AWESOME. Second one.

1: It is snappy, fast, smooth and well never had a sense rom run like this.

2: So far everything that I use works. Thank god i know where every button is since those don't lit up when in the dark.

3: Gonna test some more. but man do I love the sense music player. It just works and is no battery hog. and the sound is just correct for my taste. No EQ needed :D So far no hiccups on it either.

4: I miss the reboot menu item :(

And Sunday, saw some passing on the forum, I wonder :O

But man, keep up the work and love to see more work, Never used your V2, and I think I now regret it XD That I never found it before well 2 weeks ago.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
it's not the sense player

it's the sense multimedia framework.

any music player performs exceptionally well in a well made sense rom. aosp froyo has pretty inferior multimedia performance (codec support and just pure performance) compared to a sense rom.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
Didn't knew that, man you got eyes everywhere and your following me :O

But for now on this, Cuss the smoothness is creepy cool :D

Thinking if I noticed something else wrong, But nope. Well wish for a fully working 3D Gallery but for now Installed the Floyo one. And well I got the widget which looks cool on sense. Gonna test the Gingerbread keyboard flashed it to but haven't tested it.

EDIT: That was an easy test. flashed but a no go, But sense one if great to in 2.2
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] cyberon:
Hints all over his questions, it`s a Stock Gingerbread Rom! :(
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
I'm watching your back...
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
cool! I wonder if it is or if it's a 2.2 rom with gb keyboard, gb theme, gb launcher, and maybe other cool things?

either one would be nice to have - gb stock because competition is always healthy, or froyo pretending to be gb because nobody has I think released this yet as an actual flashable complete rom for the gsm hero.

sorry radu if I just figured out my christmas present - I was always bad that way with my parents as a kid.

me to parents before christmas: "Is it a radio controlled car?"

parents to me: "uh, NO son. now stop guessing."

later that day they returned the radio controlled car and got me something I DIDN'T want so it would be a surprise.

So please RaduG don't bring out a 1.5 sense rom if we accidentally guessed what the cool rom your'e building might be :-)

Cheers!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
You got it wrong unfortunately.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] 87Vortex87:
Does anyone know how this ROM compares with elelinux's final build of 2. 2. 1, speed wise and battery wise? With CPU speeds coming with the ROM. Thanks in advance!

Sent from my HTC Hero
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] wichle:
Now I'm more exciting than before! :)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] The0Code:
R u guys joking? It says it's a froyo sense Rom in the title. Or am I missing something? O.o
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] Dark Emotion:
It is froyo sense :D
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] dkelley:
ha, that's what my parents said LoL

:D:D:D
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
New ETA: Tomorrow.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] wichle:
Great! I can hardly expect it!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] alioooop:
I have now investigated why my phone freezes some times and I can see that its when the phone is using the internet, all the google background syncing etc and when I browse the web! but it unfreezes when everything is downloaded and ready to go!

a other problem is that I even if all my apps are on the sd card and the dalvik should be there I have only 15 mb left on the phone?

am I the only one with these problems?

love the rom anyways and wont change for a while so I can give you a chance because its early in development :)
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
Dalvik is NOT moved to SD.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] alioooop:
okej then its that :) I thought that it would be moved because in recovery mode I could choose "move apps and dalvik to sdcard" :) is it any negative to have dalvik there? will you add support for this because right now I cant install anything because I got full even if the apps are on the sd and thats really annoying...

EDIT: but is the freezes a known issue or am I unlucky? :(
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] iHero96:
After 30 minutes i have still the HTC bootscreen
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
Look in the second post, your Hero prob can't handle 691 Mhz
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] zmen:
Hello!Bluetooth audio how fixit?thx
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
YOW, got no idea, I dont got any prob on it, its been working with my house call system all day. And used it multiple times.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
So BT audio works for you with this ROM? Are you sure?
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
or the hero got sound over wifi support, but that is something I dont think it has XD

I got no idea how this system works, My ex is the one who set up the works, I only know that I connect to wifi and a bluetooth device when home and well it just works, but ill test by disabling BT

EDIT: Ok done, well it works over Wifi, but then I got a delay, wich I never noticed with the normal way of doing it. Ill try some more later on. But now going to test the new Cronos GB build.

EDIT2: Well I figured out it works full over WIFI if BT is not working, If that part works in a rom it uses BT only. So I think BT audio aint working then XD

Americans sure know how to make houses that make no sense :S
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] zmen:
No work bt audio me but nother legend port is working bt audio rom name sengle 0.7.2
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] RaduG:
It can't work over Wifi. Bluetooth is a completely different technology using a different modulation technique, and they just aren't compatible.

EDIT: Two more things to do and the ROM is ready.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] chocohagelslagje:
Nice! Looking forward to flash the new version. Thanks already!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] sjknight413:
Really looking forward to seeing what you have in store for us Radu!
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] uizz:
I've been using chocolate eclair for 5months...now this could be THE rom...I'm waiting for the next release to flash :) thanks for the effort RaduG
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
Then I got no idea how I can make phone calls wireless if this rom apparently doesn't seem to support BT audio.

Like I said, got no idea how all this crap works in this house XD it works so im happy :P. I just thought it was BT audio, couldn't think of anything else that maybe makes it work. But you said audio over Wifi is a no go, then I wonder how my media audio system works XD
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] iHero96:
With 614Mhz i have the HTC bootscreen too
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] rdejager:
You did a full wipe, data/cache and dalvic? (Ext if you got it)??

I would say, redownload the rom and try again. But make sure your phone can handle 691, and make sure you do it correct to place the file back, the edited one, I did that wrong and started to blame the rom to, but it was my fault, now it works.

EDIT: And wait a long while 5 to 10 min the first time :P thats normal 15 min or above then its wrong.
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] iHero96:
Yes i did a full wipe and I tried all the clock but nothing
[Hero, G2 Touch Android Development] mhasan90:
I've been refreshing the page every hour, waiting for the update lol.. hope the expectation is met :)