Andriod Newbie here.

[EVO-lutionary]

I just switched from that fruity smart phone last week and I have really been enjoying the Android experience! I have read countless forums posts and blogs and guides and I have my phone pretty well set up the way I want it... or as close to that as I have been able to come.

Now as of yet I have kept it mostly HTC stock, because I am loathe to give up SenseUI. I do have LauncherPro Plus, which I like better in some ways, but I was unable to find certain replacement widgets. Anyway long story short I have searched high and low and been able to find answers to nearly all of my questions, except for these few and I was hoping to get a little help with them I don't want to be that guy but I've really looked for the answers to all of these and I haven't found them yet or they have been out of date(a lot of them were likely written for 2.1).

1. Is there a way to control the music player without exiting whatever I'm doing and going to the music player and manually clicking FF, Rewind or whatever? I tried everything and asked google several ways about it and can't find one. I haven't rooted but if this were possible under root, I might consider it.

2. Is there a new reader that is as good looking as senses news widget?

3. Speaking of Senses news widget, even tho I have it selected as the largest one it keep dropping to like 1/4 normal size. I have searched and all i read is close the widget, force stop the widget, and add it again and it will be fixed. Only it's not. I've had to abandon it altogether.

4. I have switched to Handcent for my SMS app. But the HTC one still alerts me and pushes a notification to the status bar saying i have a new SMS. I don't need this and its fairly annoying because it will stay there (even if I've read the message in Handcent) until I click on the alert, then it will launch Handcent anyway.

5. I read the option in my handsets settings to Auto-Rotate screen which i presume means switch to landscape or portrait if I rotate the phone. But my phone never rotates unless I'm running LauncherPro Plus, never with Sense.

6. 2G/3G toggle. I have one, it came with extended controls. I want to be able to turn off my 3g radio when i don't need 3G or I need to save my juice. The toggle says it does that, but it really just brings up my wireless network settings, which don't seem to have that option. Is this no longer possible with a brand new(week old) Evo and Froyo? I know the new iPhones don't allow you to go 2G.

7. ROOTING. There are a lot of guides and "PICK ME" posts for the various methods, can comeone who has a clue please advise me which method to chose, if I do decide to Root? It's not that I cant find the posts myself it's just impossible for me to know which of those guys are full of **** and which know their ****. I have some experience with this type of thing, I jailbroke my iphone and I've ran Ubuntu before. So I wouldn't be a total babe in the woods.

Thanks in advance for any questions you guys can answer and if you can only answer one or 2 that's fine. I didn't expect one person to have every answer.

 

[inphoenix]

2. Try Pulse. (It's not a widget but pretty cool).
4. Go into stock messenging and turn off notifications.
7. If you are new, wait a little before you root. Read about it and give it some time.

My 2 cents.

Enjoy the Freedom from fruity phone.

 

[EVO-lutionary]

thanks so much! I did what you said and fixed Number 4. Number 2, I have Pulse and actually it does have widgets but you have to have on for each RSS feed. This is my *NEWS* screen now:

 

[inphoenix]

That is cool. Now I do recall that pulse has a widget option. I did not like the way you can do only one feed per widget so I never used it and forgot about it. Your screen looks cool.

Sorry I can't answer sense questions. I always had a Droid and never messed with sense. I use Apex ROM on Droid X and it is very nice.

 

[EVO-lutionary]

I love the sense news widget when it works. Its just apparently determined not to. Here is another shot of my phone:

 

[irish22022]

I just switched from that fruity smart phone last week and I have really been enjoying the Android experience! I have read countless forums posts and blogs and guides and I have my phone pretty well set up the way I want it... or as close to that as I have been able to come.

Now as of yet I have kept it mostly HTC stock, because I am loathe to give up SenseUI. I do have LauncherPro Plus, which I like better in some ways, but I was unable to find certain replacement widgets. Anyway long story short I have searched high and low and been able to find answers to nearly all of my questions, except for these few and I was hoping to get a little help with them I don't want to be that guy but I've really looked for the answers to all of these and I haven't found them yet or they have been out of date(a lot of them were likely written for 2.1).

1. Is there a way to control the music player without exiting whatever I'm doing and going to the music player and manually clicking FF, Rewind or whatever? I tried everything and asked google several ways about it and can't find one. I haven't rooted but if this were possible under root, I might consider it.

2. Is there a new reader that is as good looking as senses news widget?

3. Speaking of Senses news widget, even tho I have it selected as the largest one it keep dropping to like 1/4 normal size. I have searched and all i read is close the widget, force stop the widget, and add it again and it will be fixed. Only it's not. I've had to abandon it altogether.

4. I have switched to Handcent for my SMS app. But the HTC one still alerts me and pushes a notification to the status bar saying i have a new SMS. I don't need this and its fairly annoying because it will stay there (even if I've read the message in Handcent) until I click on the alert, then it will launch Handcent anyway.

5. I read the option in my handsets settings to Auto-Rotate screen which i presume means switch to landscape or portrait if I rotate the phone. But my phone never rotates unless I'm running LauncherPro Plus, never with Sense.

6. 2G/3G toggle. I have one, it came with extended controls. I want to be able to turn off my 3g radio when i don't need 3G or I need to save my juice. The toggle says it does that, but it really just brings up my wireless network settings, which don't seem to have that option. Is this no longer possible with a brand new(week old) Evo and Froyo? I know the new iPhones don't allow you to go 2G.

7. ROOTING. There are a lot of guides and "PICK ME" posts for the various methods, can comeone who has a clue please advise me which method to chose, if I do decide to Root? It's not that I cant find the posts myself it's just impossible for me to know which of those guys are full of **** and which know their ****. I have some experience with this type of thing, I jailbroke my iphone and I've ran Ubuntu before. So I wouldn't be a total babe in the woods.

Thanks in advance for any questions you guys can answer and if you can only answer one or 2 that's fine. I didn't expect one person to have every answer.

First, how are you taking screenshots?

Okay, moving on.

1) You have a few options for this (none will work exactly how you described, but hopefully something you can settle on). Firstly, most music players have the notification icon setting. This is for when you are say browsing, and you want to change the song - you can pull down the notification bar, and open it that way. Now, assuming you want to save some steps, there is an app called "widgetsoid". You can build your own notification bar widget (I use it so I have wifi/gps/etc in my notification bar!)... But it also has a "next" "previous" and "pause" function. It doesn't, however, have a fast forward. The next option you can do, but maybe not quite what you're looking for, is "swipepad". It's a multitasking tool. It hides on the edge of your homescreen and you swipe the hotzone to access a list of apps you use often. You could put music into this, and access it that way. This isn't what you described, but i'm just thinking of quick ways to get to what you want to do - and that's the only other thing I can think of.

2) Pulse is the one everyone uses, but, you do realize that your sense widgets don't leave just because you have LPP, right? I mean, I have a motorola, so our sense-like-thing is called blur -- and I can still get the blur widgets just fine in my list of widgets. Sense may be different, but I doubt it.

3) If you have LPP, you can resize a widget. I'd recommend trying that. Put the news widget down. If it shrinks, long press, it highlights yellow, pull the tab to your desired size. If this doens't work, then the process would involve a factory reset, and it's not worth it for a news widget.

5) Auto rotate is an android function, so sense shouldn't be stopping that. I don't have an answer for this, just letting you know that what you're experiencing is abnormal.

6) 2g/3g toggle is weird. With some apps it works great, with a lot of others, it brings you to the screen you're describing. Fact is, GPS and 2g/3g are in fact, limitations of android in the sense that you shouldn't be able to shortcut them. Apps where they work essentially automate you going through the screens even though you're not. This means that after pressing, there is a brief delay, but you'll never know the difference - and it's really nice to not have to see that screen and have to read/think (those screens word things in a way that makes me nervous pushing anything). The apps I know work: Quick settings (lives in your notification bar, very handy, has all shortcuts and gps and 2g/3g work great. also free.) and switchpro widget (lives on your homescreen, both work great!). For some phones there will be two options: 2g/3g and "mobile data". They do the same, just some work better on certain phones, so try both for yours I guess.

7) I waited a while to root. I only rooted because I wanted themes, and now I see so many benefits, and don't really even like themes. Truth is, the bloat that everyone talks about - even though it takes up a little hard drive space - with LPP you can hide them from your app drawer and you'll never know they're there. It's not a big deal. I'd wait til you find a reason to root, and then do it. I wouldn't recommend you rooting just because you hear about how great it is. Wait til you get so fed up about not being able to do _________, and then look into rooting.

super one click root and z4 are the root apps of choice. Get both through xda, as the market has ones that aren't legit. there are other things you need, but you can find rooting tips on any forum nowadays. PM if you'd like more details for that.

 

[inphoenix]

First, how are you taking screenshots?

He is probably using "ShootMe". That app will allow screenshots on 'some' unrooted devices.

 

[Xopher]

I know with TouchWiz, the home screens don't auto-rotate. All icons stay in the portrait position. It may be that Sense does the same thing. Some of the other launchers do rotate them.

 

[EVO-lutionary]

ShootMe will work on any phone provided you are rooted. It will work on *some* including the latest Evo(not sure about older Evos) by default.

As for Sense widgets sadly the SenseUI Widgets by HTC all require sense, and won't work without it I've tried, but no go. Thanks for the other answers tho!

 

[Jhemmings2]

Yea sense is ok but it stops my wiimote from connecting

 

[EVO-lutionary]

Yea sense is ok but it stops my wiimote from connecting

wait? why the whaa....? *confused*