LauncherPro Beta (SUPER FAST & SMOOTH Launcher!)

[seang]

i dont understand why so many use 800 mhz.. if your willing to root and OC why dont you just get the fastest (or maybe even at least 1 ghz i know some phones have issues after 1.1ghz)

I can tell you I almost always run at 800MHz.

First, my Droid is my ONLY phone, it has to be up and running. 1.0GHz has issues for me, I get random shutdowns I get lots of FCs ..... the Droid is just occasionally unstable with most of these custom ROMs, although Sapphire seemed to be fine at 1.0.

Second, I need my phone to be usable all freaking day. Away from a charger, out in the field, 3 hours of phone calls, web surfing, mp3 playing, lots of e-mail. 125 - 800 usually gets me there, some times I even have to clock down further. My business needs me to have a running phone all day, and while 1.0 GHz is fun especially for some games, I need a phone to last me all day. My employer needs me to be reachable all day.

Some of us actually depend on these devices for our lively hoods, they are not just toys.

i completely agree. i use the profiles in setcpu to attempt to extend my battery life also.

i have pruned down to 2 screens, and i use the docks slots for my app short cuts, and my 2 screens for widgets, setcpu, switch pro, Beautiful Widgets, and android agenda widget in hopes to stop the redraw issues. hasn't helped a whole lot, but some.
android agenda widget seems to be the slowest, but i just changed the memory usage to medium from high. we will see if that helps.

 

[jarby]

In the beginning, LP was the greatest launcher around. Now, I'm not so sure. I've tried everything. Reduced to 3 screens and shut off anything that would use more memory/cpu usage. Reduced my widgests..... I even went through and deleted some apps that I thought were maybe 'interfering' with LP.........but the force closes just kept on coming and they wouldn't stop. Reboots left me with nothing in my dock bar. Waking up the phone led me to odd app openings on my phone..... *SIGH*

Everything was fine until the last update. Does anyone know what happened? What the difference between the last 2 updates?

I installed ADW to give it a try and it's nice, so far. No force closes, etc. It's customizable enough for me..... But I miss my LP.......

I'll check back in a few weeks and give it another go. I hope ADW can hold up or its back to stock....bleh.

 

[ipawd1]

moving to ADW myself because Launcherpro failing me...epically

 

[Phillipsave]

It works great for my setup. People having problems with FCs, etc., should go to Memory Usage, and change from High to Medium, and if that doesn't work to Light. The other thing that can be done is to go to the website and download an earlier version.

 

[wingdo]

For those moving to ADW (which is a great launcher BTW) I would suggest you go to launcherpro.com and download / install 0.5.4 or 0.5.1 and try one of them. I think it is still a fine launcher.

I myself am not a developer, but I do have developers who report to me. One thing which consistently hits my developers is what I call feature creep. When we sit down with the group looking for a custom application, they lay out the ground rules for what they are looking for. As the program slowly comes along working its way toward meeting the original goal, people start asking for it to do more and more. The developers try to accommodate these desires, but what I found happens is that the applications 1) take to long to finally get deployed and 2) are so far out of the original scope that the application no longer meets some of the original goals (i.e. speed). So last year we instituted a measure where by once the project is signed off on, all "feature requests" which come down the pike are denied and pushed back for another release far down the road. Feature creep (i.e. trying to be everything for everybody) leads to bloatware which leads to slowness.

I love Fede's project and I think he does a great job. I do think that in this case feature creep (i.e. all the crap stuffed into 0.6.x) has caused him to lose sight of the original goal of a FAST launcher. I tried 6 I can't use it. 0.5.4 really has more than I need as I want something FAST.

Just my 2 cents trying to explain what I see happening to what I found to be a great product. Don't blame Fede though, this has happened with a large number of home screen replacements. People ask for more and more and the speed goal disappears.

 

[jarby]

For those moving to ADW (which is a great launcher BTW) I would suggest you go to launcherpro.com and download / install 0.5.4 or 0.5.1 and try one of them. I think it is still a fine launcher.

I myself am not a developer, but I do have developers who report to me. One thing which consistently hits my developers is what I call feature creep. When we sit down with the group looking for a custom application, they lay out the ground rules for what they are looking for. As the program slowly comes along working its way toward meeting the original goal, people start asking for it to do more and more. The developers try to accommodate these desires, but what I found happens is that the applications 1) take to long to finally get deployed and 2) are so far out of the original scope that the application no longer meets some of the original goals (i.e. speed). So last year we instituted a measure where by once the project is signed off on, all "feature requests" which come down the pike are denied and pushed back for another release far down the road. Feature creep (i.e. trying to be everything for everybody) leads to bloatware which leads to slowness.

I love Fede's project and I think he does a great job. I do think that in this case feature creep (i.e. all the crap stuffed into 0.6.x) has caused him to lose sight of the original goal of a FAST launcher. I tried 6 I can't use it. 0.5.4 really has more than I need as I want something FAST.

Just my 2 cents trying to explain what I see happening to what I found to be a great product. Don't blame Fede though, this has happened with a large number of home screen replacements. People ask for more and more and the speed goal disappears.

Well, I, for one would rather have less options and more speed. Hope an update fixes that. Even if it means we lose some custom options.....I'm fine with that. Force closes, lag and losing icons is more than annoying.

And KUDOS to Fede.....keep up the great work! dancedroid
If it wasn't for the great launcher, we all wouldn't be here discussing it.

 

[Anticitizen]

Well, I, for one would rather have less options and more speed. Hope an update fixes that. Even if it means we lose some custom options.....I'm fine with that. Force closes, lag and losing icons is more than annoying.

You don't need an update for that. You can download any of the previous versions from his website.

 

[ipawd1]

Downloading a previous version is pretty much like me going to ADW and using a new version thats working, right?

 

[Fede]

I wish people would stop panicking over a release that gives them problems.

If you don't like 0.6.2, go back to the version you were most happy with and when new updates come, see if the problems you were having are fixed.

LauncherPro is still BETA software (as is ADW, afaik), and as such, will have bugs here and there and maybe a bad release. It's part of the beta process and if you can't handle the occasional bug, then you probably shouldn't be using it while it's in beta stage.

I'm fixing the bugs as fast as I can, but you wouldn't believe how hard it is to manage performance and stability for the myriad of Android devices out there. Point in case is 0.6.2: a LOT of people complained that 0.5.4 was unstable and slow, so I tried to fix that in 0.6.2. Now most of them say that 0.6.2 runs much better for them, but now there's a whole other group that didn't have problems with 0.5.4 that is now having problems with 0.6.2. It seems that what improves performance/stability for some, it breaks for others.

There will be a new 0.6.3 release tomorrow (maybe today) that *should* improve stability for most, as it fixes a lot of the force-close issues that some people are getting (some when updating/installing apps from the market, some when rotating the phone, when scrolling the drawer before it's fully opened, etc).

There's also a performance issue with the Motorola Droid running 2.1 update 1. It's a stupid bug in Moto's build, where improving LP's efficiency actually decreases frame rate. It's also present in the Motorola Milestone, and might be present in other phones too. It's definitely not in the Nexus One 2.1 build. Think I've found a workaround, it will appear as an option called "Motorola Droid Hack" under advanced settings.

And finally, 0.6.4 will contain even more fine grained memory management options, so you can create your custom memory usage profile and (hopefully) bring the chances of running out of memory to a minimum.

 

[Phreaker47]

There's also a performance issue with the Motorola Droid running 2.1 update 1. It's a stupid bug in Moto's build, where improving LP's efficiency actually decreases frame rate. It's also present in the Motorola Milestone, and might be present in other phones too. It's definitely not in the Nexus One 2.1 build. Think I've found a workaround, it will appear as an option called "Motorola Droid Hack" under advanced settings.

And finally, 0.6.4 will contain even more fine grained memory management options, so you can create your custom memory usage profile and (hopefully) bring the chances of running out of memory to a minimum.

Oh hey, well I'll be sure to try that out, as I am running rooted but stock 2.1 update 1 on a Droid. Thanks for all the work. Some of us understand how it is :i-m_so_happy:

 

[pc747]

I wish people would stop panicking over a release that gives them problems.

If you don't like 0.6.2, go back to the version you were most happy with and when new updates come, see if the problems you were having are fixed.

LauncherPro is still BETA software (as is ADW, afaik), and as such, will have bugs here and there and maybe a bad release. It's part of the beta process and if you can't handle the occasional bug, then you probably shouldn't be using it while it's in beta stage.

I'm fixing the bugs as fast as I can, but you wouldn't believe how hard it is to manage performance and stability for the myriad of Android devices out there. Point in case is 0.6.2: a LOT of people complained that 0.5.4 was unstable and slow, so I tried to fix that in 0.6.2. Now most of them say that 0.6.2 runs much better for them, but now there's a whole other group that didn't have problems with 0.5.4 that is now having problems with 0.6.2. It seems that what improves performance/stability for some, it breaks for others.

There will be a new 0.6.3 release tomorrow (maybe today) that *should* improve stability for most, as it fixes a lot of the force-close issues that some people are getting (some when updating/installing apps from the market, some when rotating the phone, when scrolling the drawer before it's fully opened, etc).

There's also a performance issue with the Motorola Droid running 2.1 update 1. It's a stupid bug in Moto's build, where improving LP's efficiency actually decreases frame rate. It's also present in the Motorola Milestone, and might be present in other phones too. It's definitely not in the Nexus One 2.1 build. Think I've found a workaround, it will appear as an option called "Motorola Droid Hack" under advanced settings.

And finally, 0.6.4 will contain even more fine grained memory management options, so you can create your custom memory usage profile and (hopefully) bring the chances of running out of memory to a minimum.

Fede you have done, and continue to do a good job. We all know what you do. This thread is 1200 posts deep for a reason. People post issues...and yeah its more on the complaining side at times. Do not take it personal or let it get to you. Now what will bemore helpful is probably to copy the logcat and post it with the issues.
People see you have a good product. We not hating on you ...just wanting to ensure this continue to be a good app. You have to understand their concern when some apps get updated to a worse product.

Relax take a break for the 4th....and continue to do what you do; which is make a good product.

 

[SSHGuru]

Fede,

I love LP and the people who keep mentioning ADW are tools.

While I will agree that it was a speed demon when you released it - and it's slowed down and FC's more now - I'm sure you will take care of it.

Everything you've done has been exceedingly professional and every addition seems to be bug free.

FYI - it seems that using anything but the most basic live wallpapers causes FC's and slows everything down. I don't know if that's what you're referring to when you mention the 2.1 bug.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Johnly]

Fede,

I love LP and the people who keep mentioning ADW are tools.

While I will agree that it was a speed demon when you released it - and it's slowed down and FC's more now - I'm sure you will take care of it.

Everything you've done has been exceedingly professional and every addition seems to be bug free.

FYI - it seems that using anything but the most basic live wallpapers causes FC's and slows everything down. I don't know if that's what you're referring to when you mention the 2.1 bug.

Keep up the good work.

I am a tool! *lifetime guaranteed*:icon_ devil:

 

[shochman]

I downloaded the latest update of LP on my droid this morning. I reset LP to use the defaults, and all was working well until I tried to change my wallpaper, and LP got an FC. This happened several times. Since I don't change wallpapers that that often, I will stick with the lastest release for now.

 

[ukyfan]

LauncherPro is still BETA software

Fede,
I am glad you said this because as I was reading all the posts I was thinking the very same thing. Everyone needs to realize that Beta software *will* have some bugs in it. I know you are working like crazy to fix things, and I really appreciate all of the hard work that you have put into this project, and everything that you continue to do.

Yesterday I admit that I did have a couple of FCs, but I am not running and screaming about going back to something else. I know that Fede will have this running very smooth before this comes out of Beta.

+1 LauncherPro
+100 Fede