I feel Stupid when it comes to Android

[whiddles]

Thanks up front for any help I can get with this one. I have an unrooted droid 1 and I want to change the theme. I am currently useing launcherpro.

Is there any way I can get the HTC clock or calender unrooted? If so can someone PLEASE send me the links. I looked all over the market place and found nothing. I also used the SEARCH button on here and found a bunch of themes but they seem really complicated.

I need a new ROM or something?

Thanks
Charles

 

[Backnblack]

Welcome to the Forum....We were all like that at one time.

Check out beautiful widgets (paid app) you can configure it very similar to HTC.

 

[EbE404]

Thanks up front for any help I can get with this one. I have an unrooted droid 1 and I want to change the theme. I am currently useing launcherpro.

Is there any way I can get the HTC clock or calender unrooted? If so can someone PLEASE send me the links. I looked all over the market place and found nothing. I also used the SEARCH button on here and found a bunch of themes but they seem really complicated.

I need a new ROM or something?

Thanks
Charles

Hi, Charles

We all started somewhere and were new at one point, so the only time you should ever feel stupid is if you do not try to learn and stop asking questions.

(OK maybe if you refuse to use search, but you've done that, so you're off the hook there)

Theming can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and there are a lot of ways that you can customize your phone. Now, all of these are going to come with varying levels of difficulty, and the most intense and deep customizations are usually the most complex or "techy" as well. Which ever way you decide to go, there are a lot of people here who are more than willing to help you out along the way, so here are a few options for you.

Widgets and apps
I'll definitely second backnblack's suggestion for Beautiful Widgets, its a great app-highly customizable and well supported by the dev and the community.

Another app you might want to check out is FolderOrganizer, which will give you a lot of customization options for folders and icons.

Launchers and Homescreen Replacements
A new launcher will replace the stock launcher at the bottom of your screen and add customization and/or additional features. Since you're already using LauncherPro, you are familiar with this, but there are others available, so try a few of them out. A search for the term "launcher" here or in the market will give you a lot of options and opinions, many of them are free or have free versions.

Homescreen replacements will probably give you the greatest level of customization without rooting. There are many available, including Home++, OpenHome, PandaHome and many more.

Personally, I use a pretty extreme homescreen replacement called SweeterHome. This is by far the most customizable and will allow you to create complete themes, launchers and GUIs for you phone, but also has a higher learning curve. You can download additional themes that other users have posted, but there is still some basic knowledge of the very deep editing possibilities in the program.

Rooting and ROMs
This takes the training wheels off and opens up virtually endless possibilities of different ROMs, kernels and themes, however, there are risks associated with it as well, so please do some homework as to the risks and rewards, as well as the tools needed to do this. I am rooted, and I love it, but I'm a tweaker and I enjoy doing brain surgery on the phone-not everybody does, and that's OK.

There are entire sections of this forum devoted to rooting, so I won't go into that in detail other than to say-do the research, read and ask questions before doing this. There are some tempting options out there that offer one-button rooting (*cough-EasyRoot-cough*). Do not be seduced by these. Rooting your phone the "long" way will not only give you better results, but will get you familiar with the tools you will likely use as you work with and modify your newly rooted phone. I don't say this to be intimidating, I just want to make sure that you know what the real deal is.

Hope that helps, and good luck.

 

[whiddles]

Thanks for the great replys. My wife got the incredible and is asking me to do all the foot work. she wants to learn threw me. Expects me to know it all cause I talked her into this phone over the idon't phone.

 

[FranklinWalker]

i am new to here too welcome

 

[whiddles]

Thanks. So much to learn.

 

[EbE404]

One thing to point out regarding customizations and different options. While widgets, launchers and apps are generally going to be device agnostic (although some may require a specific Android build), rooting and ROMs are definitely not.

There are specific methods and options available for each different Droid device (D1, D2, DInc, DX), with the Droid 1, by far, having the greatest number of options. Droid 1 rooting methods and ROMs generally will not work on these other devices, so, again, read and research carefully if you choose to go down that road.

 

[Nick177th]

Thanks for the great replys. My wife got the incredible and is asking me to do all the foot work. she wants to learn threw me. Expects me to know it all cause I talked her into this phone over the idon't phone.

And you expected something different why? LOL! Just keep asking questions buddy. When all else fails if something goes whacky with your phone, go to the rescue squad section. They always have their capes on.

 

[mountainbikermark]

The biggest learning curve Ive found is learning the new language.
I am new here too and the folks here have been awesome with my newbness. Its actually,imo,easier to learn than relearn. I came from windows mobile and if not for Android Sense being very much like my Mobile Shell on my Omits Id still be totally lost with the basics but the folks here have been great

sent from my Incredible via Tapatalk

 

[EbE404]

The biggest learning curve Ive found is learning the new language.
I am new here too and the folks here have been awesome with my newbness. Its actually,imo,easier to learn than relearn. I came from windows mobile and if not for Android Sense being very much like my Mobile Shell on my Omits Id still be totally lost with the basics but the folks here have been great

sent from my Incredible via Tapatalk

This can be particularly true when we start talking in abbreviations and acronyms (i.e., "just use RSD to flash the SBF for SPR, then maybe load RM and use CWR...", etc.).

Here's a helpful post that will cover a lot of those:

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/re...-dummies-guide-android-terminoligy-lingo.html

Don' take the subject thread personally, I didn't create it. One that is notably missing is:

ADB-Android Debug Bridge. A component of the Android SDK (Software Development Kit) that can be used for some advanced editing and debugging processes.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Thanks eb. Actually for d.a. wouldn't have even bothered me. When I reached 30 I realized I don't know everything, when I reached 40 in realized I don't know much,45 I realized I'm pretty darned ignorant and need all the help I can get. Vulcan1600 has been a good friend helping me with techno stuff and where to look for stuff, Steve.G on Howard forums has been a God send for phones and my desktop

sent from my Incredible via Tapatalk

 

[debdroid1a]

I didn't know any Android termology when I was thinking of which phone to get. Luckily I found this board.

Another thread that helped me was Screenshots of peoples Droid desktops? this helped me learn what a Widget was. And decide what I want on my D1.

 

[whiddles]

Thanks for all the help and the guide is great. I did download home++ beta and love it thus far. I thought I needed to be rooted for screen shots but you don't lol.

Some of my starting out screen shots i took by mistake with the back button lol

Thanks for all the help. now I need to find a good theme and lose my car pic lol. But its a beautiful car right? jk

 

[whiddles]

Another thing when i do a search for themes to use with home++ it shows ROMs. I want to know of a place I can go just for unrooted themes

 

[EbE404]

Another thing when i do a search for themes to use with home++ it shows ROMs. I want to know of a place I can go just for unrooted themes

OK, now I need to ask a question I alluded to in my first post-when you say "theme", what exactly does that mean to you?

To some, this simply means altering the HMI aspects of the GUI by providing different navigation methods and interaction options. Launchers and homescreen replacements can achieve that. As I've mentioned, I use Sweeterhome, as this provides the most dramatic customization of the GUI and navigation elements.

To others, it means changing graphical elements, such as icons or adding additional elements, such as special widgets.

Then, finally, there is the ability to completely change system wide elements, such as colors and fonts, and the look and feel of components, such as the dialer interface, and possibly some widgets or notification bar to match the color scheme of the overall system, changing boot animations, etc.

The first two can be achieved without rooting, but the last one cannot.

In order to make system-wide changes like that, you need to have root access because this involves doing some relatively deep modifications to the OS and it's component files.

There are multiple ways to get there-some ROMs have themed versions that you can download and install (Liquid Frozen Yogurt or Lithium Mod are examples of that), while others provide a single ROM, upon which external themes can be applied (Cyanogen is one example of that).

As I mentioned, you can do a lot of customization without rooting, but to get to the really deep stuff, you need to take that step. At the end of the day, it's all about how much customization you want and how far you are willing to go to get it.