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Best launcher for Note 2....

As I read your original response it came off to me like you were angry so thank you for clearing that up.
yeah, I have a habit of just being quick and pointed. Easy to come off that way at times.

As I mentioned, both note widgets show up in 3rd party launchers, and you can still double tap to create a new note as well. I haven't poked around a lot of threads, but what functionality are people missing when not using the TW launcher?
 
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I had several launchers on my Galaxy Nexus, but when I began moving apps over to the Note II, I cleaned house. Nova is the only one that made the cut.

As soon as it was installed, I switched to it to see if I'd lose any functionality. The easiest check was to simply remove the sPen. Yep- the sPen menus no longer come up upon removal of the pen. I went right back to TouchWiz.

I may play with it more at some point, but I haven't even had time to get rid of some of the tackier parts of the out-of-the-box functionality yet. Ultimately, I'd like to see a Nova add-on that re-enables the contextual sPen menus, because I do much prefer the simplicity of Nova over TouchWiz.
 
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I had several launchers on my Galaxy Nexus, but when I began moving apps over to the Note II, I cleaned house. Nova is the only one that made the cut.

As soon as it was installed, I switched to it to see if I'd lose any functionality. The easiest check was to simply remove the sPen. Yep- the sPen menus no longer come up upon removal of the pen. I went right back to TouchWiz.

I may play with it more at some point, but I haven't even had time to get rid of some of the tackier parts of the out-of-the-box functionality yet. Ultimately, I'd like to see a Nova add-on that re-enables the contextual sPen menus, because I do much prefer the simplicity of Nova over TouchWiz.

This is what I was afraid of. The only thing I really want different in touchwiz is that weird app drawer...I want the button back in the middle not the bottom right. Too bad they don't let you customize that.
 
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The pen menu does not pop up on 3rd party launchers. Confirmed in Holo, Apex and Nova. I'm rooted and running a custom ROM so I don't have Airview or half the other bloatware on the phone anymore. I can still double tap to bring up a new note. The Note widget still works, though I don't get the purpose of the page widget of it. What other features are we talking about?
 
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The pen menu does not pop up on 3rd party launchers. Confirmed in Holo, Apex and Nova. I'm rooted and running a custom ROM so I don't have Airview or half the other bloatware on the phone anymore. I can still double tap to bring up a new note. The Note widget still works, though I don't get the purpose of the page widget of it. What other features are we talking about?

I'd like to know as well.

I actually didn't really like the fact that the pen menu pops-up when you remove the s-pen, so that won't be a deal breaker for me. I'm more curious of what other features people are losing. Of all the s-pen features that would be most important to me, it'd be hover view and preview email. As long as those work, I don't mind losing the pop-up s-pen menu.
 
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I'd like to know as well.

I actually didn't really like the fact that the pen menu pops-up when you remove the s-pen, so that won't be a deal breaker for me. I'm more curious of what other features people are losing. Of all the s-pen features that would be most important to me, it'd be hover view and preview email. As long as those work, I don't mind losing the pop-up s-pen menu.

From what I understand you can disable the pen notify in settings. Also hover view only works in the default Samsung Email app, not the stock Gmail one too I think.
 
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Drex...you're describing specific app functionality. This is strictly related to functionality based off of the touch wiz launcher. I could care less about a menu opening every time I remove the stylus. That would be annoying to me.

And I'm pretty sure the hover/preview thing would have to be coded into apps to work, so unless Samsung had a hand in the gmail app, I would doubt it works there. On the plus side, you'll probably see more apps having s-pen features as it catches on and devs can set their apps apart from others and provide more functionality.

Personally I'd love to see the ability to embed signatures in Docs to Go. I think now I have to save a doc as a pdf and then annotate the sig on the pdf and save.
 
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Drex...you're describing specific app functionality. This is strictly related to functionality based off of the touch wiz launcher. I could care less about a menu opening every time I remove the stylus. That would be annoying to me.

And I'm pretty sure the hover/preview thing would have to be coded into apps to work, so unless Samsung had a hand in the gmail app, I would doubt it works there. On the plus side, you'll probably see more apps having s-pen features as it catches on and devs can set their apps apart from others and provide more functionality.

Personally I'd love to see the ability to embed signatures in Docs to Go. I think now I have to save a doc as a pdf and then annotate the sig on the pdf and save.

Thanks, db. I guess that means I won't lose anything that's important to me, if I install a launcher, which is good news for me.
 
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Personally I'd love to see the ability to embed signatures in Docs to Go. I think now I have to save a doc as a pdf and then annotate the sig on the pdf and save.

Yes!

... or anywhere, really. I'd like to be able to type a response in gMail and then sign it using the sPen before sending. I realize we're on the forefront of stylus functionality with this phone and that the best is yet to come.
 
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The pen menu does not pop up on 3rd party launchers. Confirmed in Holo, Apex and Nova. I'm rooted and running a custom ROM so I don't have Airview or half the other bloatware on the phone anymore. I can still double tap to bring up a new note. The Note widget still works, though I don't get the purpose of the page widget of it. What other features are we talking about?
Not to take this excellent thread off-topic, but what carrier are you with? AT&T? Is your phone LTE?

Mine is with Rogers in Canada and is an LTE phone and I believe it is the same as the AT&T version. I'm interested in knowing what custom ROM you have on yours as I also would love to get rid of most of the bloatware on my device.
 
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So, as I am getting my Note II tomorrow (from AT&T) and have the Nova launcher...

Can someone recap the things I will lose with S-Pen by keeping the Nova Launcher?

Are the things I am going to lose a big deal?

I need to figure out if I should still keep the launcher or not.

Thanks in advance
 
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Not to take this excellent thread off-topic, but what carrier are you with? AT&T? Is your phone LTE?

Mine is with Rogers in Canada and is an LTE phone and I believe it is the same as the AT&T version. I'm interested in knowing what custom ROM you have on yours as I also would love to get rid of most of the bloatware on my device.
I'm on Sprint, sorry. But you can start off here.
, Galaxy Note2 TOOLKIT V2.0 GSM Drivers, Backup, Root, CWM, EFS, Flash Stock Image.
 
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Try it out, you still get your regular launcher, at the same time! Just hit the home button and it switches between the two.

:thinking:

Um, you can do that with any of the launchers using Homesmack. In fact, if you don't set a launcher as your default and pressed home, it'd still give you the option to switch back to OEM TouchWiz.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teslacoilsw.homesmack&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImNvbS50ZXNsYWNvaWxzdy5ob21lc21hY2siXQ..
 
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Hello All,

I'm a little lost in this thread. What do you all mean by changing the "launcher" ? I've never owned an Android phone (waiting for Verizon to ship my preordered GN2) so I'm unfamiliar with this term. Here's a brief list of questions:

1. What is the launcher? (What does it do, how do you recognize it)?
2. What are the advantages/disadvantages to going to different launchers?
3. Has anyone used different ones with the GN2 and has had a positive experience in comparison to performance of the "stock" launcher?

Thank you! I appreciate everyone's help with this, as I'm very excited to learn!
 
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Hello All,

I'm a little lost in this thread. What do you all mean by changing the "launcher" ? I've never owned an Android phone (waiting for Verizon to ship my preordered GN2) so I'm unfamiliar with this term. Here's a brief list of questions:

1. What is the launcher? (What does it do, how do you recognize it)?
2. What are the advantages/disadvantages to going to different launchers?
3. Has anyone used different ones with the GN2 and has had a positive experience in comparison to performance of the "stock" launcher?

Thank you! I appreciate everyone's help with this, as I'm very excited to learn!
The launcher is basically home base. Your home screens and the app launcher. The stock one falls under Samsung's UI called Touchwiz. Hence you'll hear TW launcher all the time. It adds a few widgets that are only available for that launcher as well as a couple S-pen niceties like the menu popping up when you remove the pen as well as the separation notification if you leave your stylus behind.

Third parties in the Play store make replacement launchers that have addded functionality. The one main feature is the app dock. Where the TW launcher just has the four icons at the bottom, launchers like Holo, Novo, Go and Apex have a sliding dock that allows you to flip through multiple screens of apps along that dock area. Each brings a little something else to the table.
 
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The launcher is basically home base. Your home screens and the app launcher. The stock one falls under Samsung's UI called Touchwiz. Hence you'll hear TW launcher all the time. It adds a few widgets that are only available for that launcher as well as a couple S-pen niceties like the menu popping up when you remove the pen as well as the separation notification if you leave your stylus behind.

Third parties in the Play store make replacement launchers that have addded functionality. The one main feature is the app dock. Where the TW launcher just has the four icons at the bottom, launchers like Holo, Novo, Go and Apex have a sliding dock that allows you to flip through multiple screens of apps along that dock area. Each brings a little something else to the table.

1. So is there any other launcher that at least retains or boosts S-Pen function?

2. Does one need to ROOT their device first do install a new "launcher"? I know that in BlackBerry world, what you're describing sounds like what we called "themes" which changed everything about our homescreen (number of icons displayed, symbol changes for those icons, way screens transitioned from one to another, etc). In BB World, there's no Rooting required but I figured I'd ask since I'm an Android n00b.
 
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Most launchers do not require root to install. Nova, GoLoauncher, Launcher Pro etc you just install them and the next time you hit the home button it will ask you which one you wan't to use-default Android or the newly installed. You can choose for it to remember this decision and just use that one from now on.

Now there are SOME features of launchers that you may not be able to use unless you root your phone. Some people prefer to have a "stock" Android experience. This is similar to what you'd have on the original Droid, Samsung Galaxy Nexus and now the Nexus 4. It's Android without any customizations and skins. Basically if you took Motorola's MotoBlur, HTC's Sense UI, Samsung's Touchwiz out of the equation and left the phone a standard Ice Cream Sandwich or Jellybean phone.

When you are rooted you can flash a ROM that is either it's own crazy skin, (Cynaogen etc) or is AOSP (Android Open Source Program) which is basically a stock ROM for THAT particular phone. Consider AOSP = vanilla.

A "stock" ROM for the Note 2 would be something that has Touchwiz components enabled and working, but removes all other bloat. Now these ROMs can have their own launchers built in and usually have many features Android OS is just catching up to.
 
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