Themes, widgets, ROMS, oh my!

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Had my Blade for about a month now, tried half a dozen roms, settled on Jap Jellyfish with some tweaks, overclocked kernel, black status bar, yadda yadda yadda.

I have looked at people's home screens, and think... why? I tried having a big clock or circle battery widget, I still instinctively look to the status bar up top. I've tried various other widgets, but everything just seems to get in the way.

I have only one home screen populated with stuff I use regularly, Droid48, Email widget, contacts, power control and google search. I have seen some things that I think look cool, but don't see the point in doing, does it really add enough to my user experience to be worth the juggling and hoops?

So far the only real modifications I would consider heavier than just applying a couple zip files (Forst paragraph), I have made involve Widgetlocker, and a couple sliders, plus... Droid48. Sometimes I just really, really need to have a calculator. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this pretty phone thing.

No offense, but whats the point of this post?

A few questions buried in there, will the heavy mods actually make my experience any better? Are there any changes that are. aactually worth the effort?

Sent from my ZTE-BLADE using XDA App

you've hit the nail on the head with "look cool". that's a pretty good reason. plenty of apple owning friends are pretty jealous of the widgets possible on my blade. and i remind them often that it's £100 vs £500.

i agree that overkill is possible but it all depends on what you want from your phone.

ive got a calendar and task widget on my home screen so i always know my next engagement.
ive got a widget showing what torrent my server is currently grabbing.
on one page i've got a page full of my best mates + family photos grabbed straight from facebook which i far prefer over going to the contacts app then favourites.
and everyone needs the instant buttons app so you're only ever 2 presses away from playing the tumbleweed sound effect after someone cracks an awful joke....

Ok some good ideas there, and I have gotten some other ideas elsewhere. The scrolling wallpaper that is making the rounds has given me the inspiration to try out some things, and I am starting to understand the allure of themeing.

Noticing somedistinct improvements with 2. 2 as well.

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Originally Posted by galorin

I have looked at people's home screens, and think... why? I tried having a big clock or circle battery widget, I still instinctively look to the status bar up top. I've tried various other widgets, but everything just seems to get in the way.

I have only one home screen populated with stuff I use regularly, Droid48, Email widget, contacts, power control and google search. I have seen some things that I think look cool, but don't see the point in doing, does it really add enough to my user experience to be worth the juggling and hoops?

I'm pretty much from the same school of thinking with android. I only had my blade for a few weeks now & I've come from an iPhone & I really think less is more. I have launcher pro plus installed with only two homescreens.

One which simply has typo clock widget, a basic helvetica clock & a shortcut to my camera. The typoclock takes me to my alarm clock if i press it & obviously i got the launcher pro dock with browser, sms, gmail etc & swipe gestures for all 5.

The 2nd has a facebook widget, a setCPU widget, couple of folders for games/utilities & a few more short cuts to apps I use regularly (Astro, market, cal, maps etc....).

Have you tried the 0x90 addon for Jjelly? It let's you put the power control widget at the top of your notification bar, esier to get to & frees up home screen space! It also let's you tweak your home screen a bit, add a music player control (which works with spotify ) It's a brilliant mod, you should give it a try.

Awestome

Sent from my HTC Magic using XDA App

Downloading now, haven't found any widgets yet for fb that are both good and work well with a black theme.

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