I wanted to break out the customization conversation that was happening in the Android thread, and welcome any other mobile OS users who want to share how they modify their own. (I would love to see how people are changing iOS and Windows Phone 8). My experience is almost completely Android though, so that's what I will be referring to in my posts. As a good resource, Canuck in the other thread linked to MyColorScreen.com. That's a nice resource, especially if you watch the videos where he shows how to set up the screen from the files that most have to download. He works fast, though, and only really tells you exactly what you have to do to get THAT particular Home Screen going. The other way I learned was by going to Lifehacker and looking for stories tagged with Home Screen. (Thats what my link goes to). They tend to feature one every month or two, and show you the exact launcher/widget/background combination that was used to produce each effect. I would love anyone to share thoughts, advice, or pictures of what they have done. I would love to learn more, since I still feel like I am at the starting end of what you can do with this kind of thing as well. I plan to work through my next homescreen in this thread, and maybe make it some kind of group project, where the files will be available for everyone, if people are interested. Next post will be about choices of Android launchers, but I need to go get ready for work.
If you are trying to pick an alternate launcher for Android (and if you want to customize your phone in any meaningful way you need to), Lifehacker has a top 5 vote on what people picked as their favorites. The winner is Go Launcher, which I haven't tried, but I have been told here that it is a massive resource hog and will drain your battery. The other 4 are mostly tied. I haven't tried ADW, but I know people swear by it. Not sure how it compares to Nova. I tried Nova first and have not found any feature missing that I see in another launcher that makes me desperate to change. There is one not on that list which I do recommend, especially for people who are interested in something that doesn't look like stock Android, but dont want to spend a lot of time. That launcher is Launcher 7. I am linking to the donate version, because as far as I can tell, the free version is several versions behind. Whatever you choose, you now have a base to build your customization around.
I started mucking around with a new background/layout idea today based on the colors of the light skin here, and sticking with the "broken" theme. You will see my limits as a graphic designer as soon as I post this, but this is the background I am working on currently. The homescreen is built around a 5 wide by 7 tall grid. The bar in the middle has shortcuts to my phone, sms, app drawer, Chrome, and Gmail. One of the big boxes will be a large clock widget of some type, and the other three will be big shortcuts to 3 other homescreens. One for work/organizational stuff, one for entertainment, and one for Tools/Reference. Those will have different but similar backgrounds built on the same theme. The bigger space at the top is for the notification bar, and the bottom is for the software buttons that ICE and Jellybean use (I disabled the dock, but the software buttons are still there and the wallpaper extends behind them. I plan to add text to the three big boxes, hopefully with some type of raised effect. I would also like to do some type of dropshadow on the boxes themselves to make them rise out of the blue background a little more.
So, if anyone cares, attached is the semi-final of the above screen. I added a drop shadow effect under the panels, and changed their sizes so they match the grid better. I am using the Minimalist icon theme for the icons in the center. The grid is 7 tall by 5 wide, with the icons for dialer, sms, app drawer, chrome, and gmail occupying the center row. The other boxes, I made iconless shortcuts to other home screens using Nova launcher. The top left is a clock, though I am still trying to match the look of the other text, so I haven't settled on which yet. The other pages will have similar backgrounds, but each shaped differently so the boxes fit around the various widgets. I put one with text and one without here in case anyone wants to modify it themselves.
I want to see your final version. Thanks to your link I managed to figure out how to get icon notifications. That was one thing that was annoying me about not having Touchwiz.
