Why does Sense not do landscape?

[Blubble#AC]

I am very disappointed to see that the EVO's sense UI does not, for the most part, work in landscape. This is especially annoying in the home view.

My wife's Samsung Moment pops to landscape whenever you open the keyboard, so obviously, it's integrated into Android.

It really sucks to be listening to Pandora with the phone on the kickstand and have to use a sideways home view. None of the HTC widgets work in landscape other.

It's a stupid omission, especially on a phone with a kickstand that holds the phone in landscape. It greatly limits the utility of the kickstand. This is made worse by the fact that no portrait dock is available for the EVO yet.

I've been told that I can use Launcher Pro to get the desired functionality, but that overrides a lot of the useful HTC features. I doesn't appear to be available for the EVO anyway.

Are there any alternatives for making the EVOs home view work in landscape?

 

[sed51329]

I've seen it. While switching between apps something wonkey happened and the home screen was in landscape. My four icons moved to the right; the HTC clock widget on the left. It looked cool, and ive tried to recreate it with no luck.

 

[DesertSilver#AC]

The EVO is one of the only Android phones with a kickstand so I'm sure it wasn't a very high priority for HTC to make Sense work in landscape for a single phone. And for all we know, it could be the Android OS's fault, in which I would imagine it's a very low priority for Google to implement this.

And now that I think of it, it would be difficult to figure out the desired behavior of the widgets when switching to landscape. I mean, think about if you were the one to code the home screen work in landscape. How would you handle the icons, widgets, and bottom icon bar when switching orientation?

 

[smgoma]

The Desk Clock should be in landscape, though, like the Droid's screen when it is in the media dock.

 

[MacBook]

The Desk Clock should be in landscape, though, like the Droid's screen when it is in the media dock.

it is in landscape i use it all the time... i personally thinks its useless to have a landscape home screen... but to each is own

 

[Blubble#AC]

And for all we know, it could be the Android OS's fault, in which I would imagine it's a very low priority for Google to implement this.

As I stated in the OP, Android already supports landscape view for the home view. I've used it on my wife's vanilla Android 2.1 phone many times.

HTC is the one that doesn't support it, and they should.

It is not only of use for phones with a kickstand. Any HTC(Evo, Incredible,etc.) slate phone owner my want to want to mount it horizontally in their car to use the navigation features. In that situation and many others, it could be preferable to have the home view in landscape.

Also, having the HTC widgets support landscape would be useful. Many users might prefer to read the news, email, Twitter and other widgets in landscape.

It's certainly a subjective preference, but it should be an option.

Anyway, does anyone know how to get Launcher Pro (or some other solution) on the EVO?

 

[xorbe]

Yes, I was also surprised, that for a phone with a kickstand, the default home does not work in said orientation!

This phone is cool, but clearly lacks polish overall, I'd say. Little quirks like this all over.

 

[bkrodgers]

I know in the WM world, HTC has stated that they don't see landscape mode as something they need to support on a keyboardless phone. For example, when WM Sense 2.5 first started appearing on devices like the HD2, it didn't support landscape. Even when it was ripped and put on custom TP2 roms, it didn't. They just didn't see the need to develop it. Only when they started working on porting it over to their slider phones, like the TP2, did they add it in. Personally I disagree with their position. I think landscape is useful with or without a keyboard, but HTC doesn't see it that way.

Given that, it's no surprise that they haven't done it, since I don't believe they have any Android sliders out yet. If one comes, we might see it, but even if they develop it, they may not enable rotation on slab phones unless they can be convinced people need and want it.

 

[MacBook]

Yes, I was also surprised, that for a phone with a kickstand, the default home does not work in said orientation!

This phone is cool, but clearly lacks polish overall, I'd say. Little quirks like this all over.

the kickstand is for watching movies... period. thats all...

 

[Blubble#AC]

Well, I did some further research and found some potential solutions.

It turns out that a glitch in the market caused a lot of apps not be shown. Among those, were Launcher Pro and ADW.Launcher. These are both now available in the market.

Like Sense, these are replacements for the standard Android Launcher. Both let you modify the behavior of the home views quite a bit. They both allow you to use the home views in landscape.

If you use either one, it replaces Sense UI and you cannot use the HTC widgets with these launchers. However, they both offer quite a bit of customization and some cool features not available with Sense. It's up to each user to decide what is best for them.

They both have the same pinch feature that shows you all your home panels. You can also specify the number of home screens you want.


Here are some basic screenshots. They don't show any of the heavy customization and tweaking you can do with these apps. I recommend you download them and check them out for yourselves. They are both free.



ADW.Launcher

The icons next to the app grid in the middle are user selectable, like a mini WebOS style launcher.

Launcher Pro

You can customize all the buttons on the bottom row(except the app drawer button)

I still haven't gotten used to these big ass screenshots at 800 x 480. I love it though!

 

[Blubble#AC]

the kickstand is for watching movies... period. thats all...

So say you. Just because you don't see other uses doesn't mean there aren't any. As you can see, we're clearly not the first people that wanted this feature. Glad to see some devs thought to include it in their launchers.

 

[Blubble#AC]

I like it!

 

[Blubble#AC]

Here are a few more shots of the ADW.Launcher.

Landscape app drawer

The quick search comes up in landscape when you tap the search key.

 

[MacBook]

I personally would go crazy if my home screen rotated every time I moved it...I for one am glad that sense does not have landscape mode home screens.. however for the people who do like it I guess there should have been an option to turn it on or off...

 

[MacBook]

Here are a few more shots of the ADW.Launcher.

Landscape app drawer

The quick search comes up in landscape when you tap the search key.

How did you take screen shots on the Evo?

 

[MacBook]

So say you. Just because you don't see other uses doesn't mean there aren't any. As you can see, we're clearly not the first people that wanted this feature. Glad to see some devs thought to include it in their launchers.

yea but thats not sense UI... thats using stock android.

 

[Blubble#AC]

Yes, all the screenshots were taken on my EVO. I used the ShootMe app from the market. It requires root on most devices, but it works on EVO without needing to root.

AWD and Launcher Pro are not Sense, but Sense is really just another launcher like them. They may look more like stock Android, but they're not. They have a lot of cool features and customization. You can see that the bottom rows are different.

The biggest feature I like about the Sense launcher is that you can pinch to see all your panels. Both ADW and Launcher Pro have the exact same feature. I really like they also have a lot of ways to customize and tweak the interface.

BTW, you can turn off the home screen rotation in both launchers.

It's easy to try them out. If you don't like them, you can uninstall them and your Sense will come back exactly as you had it organized.

 

[JasonJolliff]

I'm trying out the Launcher Pro. Seems cool so far and gets me half way to the orientation setup that I want. I do a TON of sales calls everyday. I just upgraded from a Touch Pro 2 phone that had a slide out keyboard. From the "home" screen I could simply start typing and it would go the phone pad (in landscape mode) and start narrowing down contacts as I typed. Once I saw the name I could just press it to dial.

Now, with the Launcher Pro, at least it will bring up the search pane in landscape mode and start doing the same thing, however when I see the contact I want I press it and it goes to their contact info in portrait mode. I wish it would bring them up and the phone bad in landscape mode. So close...

 

[FractalSphere]

Honestly, I had thought the very same thing and question and thought...

1. It would be nice if the icons would reorient 90? (even if they didn't reorganize their position on the screen)
and then...
2. Why do I care? It would just be overhead, delays and most likely false reads (if I were reclining or at some angle).

It might be a nice trick, but I would probably disable it even if it did do it.

Just my 2?

 

[xorbe]

Okay, the only HTC widget that I've lost from SenseUI that I need is the "HTC Mail" widget ... is there an easy replacement?