New release of PandaHome

[shrink57]

There was a late night release of PandaHome (version 1.79). I was just about ready yo give up on Panda due to lagging and frequent FC's on my Droid. This release seems to have solved the FC problem and they must have sprayed the code with the Android equivalent of WD40 because the screens are fast and as smooth as silk. Glad I gave it a second look. This is one great FREE home replacement!

 

[Carl C]

Thanks for the update

 

[sycor]

Mine actually seems a little less smooth on screen transitions. Still works though.

 

[pavirotten]

Just downloaded and installed it. Seems faster and smoother on first blush.

 

[mihalich]

After the 1.79 upgrade, I can no longer get to the settings menu by long pressing on the desktop and selecting Home Assistant. It attempts to go to the settings page, but just dumps back to the desktop with not errors.

I've about had it with this app.


Joe

 

[Howie]

try removing it then re-install. Sometimes updates don't go so well.

 

[mihalich]

I did. Completely uninstalled it, and reinstalled. When it was first reinstalled, everything worked fine. Then after I was done adding my shortcuts to the desktop screens, and putting some contacts in the drawers, the problem came back.

There's definitely a bug in here somewhere.

Joe

 

[Shane Pitman]

I've been running Panda Home for several weeks, applying updates as they came out. With the 1.79 update I had repeated issues with the screen glitching when switching from landscape to portrait. I did an update to the 1.8 beta chain, and applied new builds as they became available, but I noticed a HUGE jump in memory usage (roughly 20MB more than 1.7x builds). Yesterday I totally uninstalled Panda Home, reloaded 1.79, and so far it's been running fine and the memory usage is back to normal. Just my experience FWIW.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

The app works ok but the themes are garbage.

 

[mihalich]

The app works ok but the themes are garbage.

indeed.

Joe

 

[mihalich]

I really like the pull out drawers...if there was another app that did something like that, I might switch to it.

Joe

 

[shrink57]

indeed.

Joe

Got to agree that none of the theme really knock my socks off (although there are a couple that look quite nice on the Droid) but I use the program for the convenience of the extra screens and the sidebars. At least you can pick parts of themes and combine them to something of your liking.

 

[mihalich]

Just out of curiosity, can you get to the Home Assistant screen on 1.79 by long pressing on an open spot of the desktop?

Also, how many docks and screens are you using? I have 3 screens, and I'm using 4 docks top left, rop right, bottom left, bottom right.

My home/middle screen is full. the left has a couple of open spaces, and the right has a whole row open.

It feels like a memory issue...like it tries to open the panel but is failing because of a lack of memory. I saw some sort of memory failures in the log file on the sd card.

I have 185MB of internal storage, and the the running services page in settings says Avail: 13MB + 43MB in 10.


Joe

 

[shrink57]

Just a heads up - version 1.80 of PandaHome has just been made available. It has some new cool features including skin color selection, dockbar text hiding and a choice of drawer views. Of course the promise of system performance improvement and bug fixes.

 

[mihalich]

I have the same problem with 1.8. Can't get to the settings at all. Not even from the settings menu and pressing panda settings. I uninstalled this pos today. Back to the standard home screen.

 

[OstrichSaK]

I have the same problem with 1.8. Can't get to the settings at all. Not even from the settings menu and pressing panda settings. I uninstalled this pos today. Back to the standard home screen.

You should try a fresh install now. If you continually update apps (and this goes for ANY and ALL apps, not just home apps) eventually you will start to have issues that aren't common. I say this because I've been using Panda for a month or so now and it's had it's ups and it's downs but is still a decent app. I recenly (few days ago) started having some awful issues where it was causing all sorts of issues but not the issues you're having. They were completely random and incredibly persistent. It was taking over the phone and I wasn't able to do anything. I recently installed MyLock and assumed it was this program so I uninstalled it and at first it seemed to make things better. Once I realized it wasn't the culprit I remembered updating PandaHome so I uninstalled and installed a fresh version and it has worked perfectly ever sense. So, if you liked it I would suggest a fresh install as it can make a night and day difference if an app is acting up beyond repair.

 

[pavirotten]

Woo hoo! The new release answered the only real complaint I had with it: the lack of number of screens versus the Sense UI. Now I can have up to 11 screens against the Sense's seven. 8^)

 

[mihalich]

I started with 1.8 as a fresh install. I uninstalled 1.79, and deleted the pandahome dir on my sd card.

When it installed, I could get to the settings fine. So I re-setup my 3 desktop screens, and my 4 dock drawers, and then I couldn't get to the settings page anymore.

I didn't touch anything in the settings...everything was the default.

Also, when I rebooted the phone, pandahome froze the whole system...I couldn't do anything. it took 3 reboots before I could get it to respond, and then i uninstalled it.

This thing has definite issues with the droid.

-Joe

 

[OstrichSaK]

Woo hoo! The new release answered the only real complaint I had with it: the lack of number of screens versus the Sense UI. Now I can have up to 11 screens against the Sense's seven. 8^)

I think PandaHome has had the option to run up to 10 screens for quite some time now. My only question is how stable is your phone running that many screens? I find that if I get 5 or more the phone starts acting up more. I will hold on a screen to access the menu to add a widget or access Panda settings and it will go black then just return to the primary home screen. It will also sometimes do this when trying to move an icon or widget around. Maybe it was just the items I was putting on the home pages (mostly picture widgets) but I found it to be very unstable on 5 or more and now that I'm running 4 it works fine. I've also ran 5 but I have to leave the 5th page free of anything. If it's more stable now maybe I'll try more home screens but I just haven't had much luck with that.

 

[OstrichSaK]

I started with 1.8 as a fresh install. I uninstalled 1.79, and deleted the pandahome dir on my sd card.

When it installed, I could get to the settings fine. So I re-setup my 3 desktop screens, and my 4 dock drawers, and then I couldn't get to the settings page anymore.

I didn't touch anything in the settings...everything was the default.

Also, when I rebooted the phone, pandahome froze the whole system...I couldn't do anything. it took 3 reboots before I could get it to respond, and then i uninstalled it.

This thing has definite issues with the droid.

-Joe

Why did you delete the Panda directory? Just install the app and leave it. I haven't had the issues you had and have been using PandaHome for a couple months now.

 

[mihalich]

I find that if I get 5 or more the phone starts acting up more. I will hold on a screen to access the menu to add a widget or access Panda settings and it will go black then just return to the primary home screen.

Dude, this is my exact problem!!! I go to access panda settings, and the screen turns black, then it returns to the desktop. I'm getting this problem with 3 home screens and 4 dock drawers. That''s what I meant by I can't get to the panda settings...i guess I should have been more specific.

So you are having the same problem as me. It just takes you around 5 screens to see the problem.

If they fix this problem, I may go back to using it.

-Joe

 

[OstrichSaK]

What phone and version are you using?

Droid 2.0.1

Dude, are you kidding me? This is my exact problem!!! I go to access panda settings, and the screen turns black, then it returns to the desktop. I'm getting this problem with 3 home screens and 4 dock drawers.

So you are having the same problem as me. It just takes you around 5 screens to see the problem.

-Joe

I guess I am then. I misread what you were saying but I have had that problem and it seems to either be related to the overall number of screens or more than likely number of icons, widgets, & shortcuts. I never experienced it when I had three pages filled with stuff though. Only when I tried loading out more than 4 home pages. I cut it to 4 home pages with items and haven't had it happen yet.

I appear to be having more FC's though and am considering deleting Panda as well as I really don't use that many of the features it has to offer anymore. I primarily use the icon hiding feature to hid icons in the app tray that are in shortcut folders.

 

[mihalich]

It definitely feels like a resource/memory issue. I saw some memory allocation failures in their log file in the panda dir on my sd card.

Any idea how to relay this problem to the developer? Their forum page is DOA.

I tried sending an email to one of the email addresses on the web site, but got no response.

Joe

 

[OstrichSaK]

It definitely feels like a resource/memory issue. I saw some memory allocation failures in their log file in the panda dir on my sd card.

Any idea how to relay this problem to the developer? Their forum page is DOA.

I tried sending an email to one of the email addresses on the web site, but got no response.

Joe

No ideas. The other reason I was considering uninstalling and giving up for the time being since I don't even feel like my feedback is wanted on an app I've been 'testing' for quite a while now. I really like having 4 home pages but I can probably make due with 'only' three for the next couple of weeks until v2.1 is officially released as it includes more home pages and will be WAY more stable than PandaHome.

 

[mihalich]

That was basically why I went back. I was only using 3 pages, and I created folders on one of the desktop screens to do what the drawer docks were doing. The drawers were the only reason I was using it.

Joe