[Q] general questions about "Launchers"..

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hey guys, I applied Dexter's froyo mod v1.2 and have been using it for a week. It is way smoother than 2.1 and I love it. However I miss the two "BLUR" buttons at the bottom of the homescreen (phone and sms) from 2.1. I never used any external "home launchers" before, but if I understand correctly, they can add custom buttons on the home screen. My main concern is battery life. Will installing a custom launcher drain my battery? If I do use a custom launcher, can I uninstall the original android home launcher (or freeze it with Titanium backup to prevent it from launching). Any suggestion or specific apps suggestion would be great.

or am I wrong? I looked at different launcher apps and they actually replace the entire interface of the home screen and such.. I want to keep the original android home but adds some buttons at the bottom of the home screen

On a side note, it's not possible to get those 2 "BLUR" buttons back right?

Most launchers I've used don't change the whole UI of everything, just gives you free reign to do what you want. Check into LauncherPro(plus), ADW, GoLauncher, they're all great. LauncherPro is my favorite for the widgets in the plus version mostly, +the dev is currently working on a rewrite (slowly ) that should really change things and give it a big advantage over it's competitors. ADW (ADWEX has more features) gives you themes and is great as well. GoLauncher, the newest of the 3 has some really great devs behind it who keep improving it drastically (I'd say it's probably the fastest currently - though the difference between the 3 is minimal).

Alternatively, maybe Dexter's Blur version of 2.2 for XT720 keeps the buttons you want? (I think it does but haven't actually put either that or the stock 2.2. on yet, so I don't know).

thanks for the help. So if I just want to get more buttons at the bottom of the home screen, then all 3 suggested apps should work right? which one would u say is least battery draining?

Originally Posted by c19932

thanks for the help. So if I just want to get more buttons at the bottom of the home screen, then all 3 suggested apps should work right? which one would u say is least battery draining?

I'm not sure about the battery issue but Zeam is probably the smallest, least resource hungry.

I haven't really found any to noticeably drain my battery. That being said, I charge every day so that could be why I've never had any issue.

Zeam is pretty great as well.