Friday 12 October 2012

Widgetsoid pimped, broken, fixed


Widgetsoid is the most versatile toggle and shortcut widget builder out there. It can switch wifi and mobile data on and off. And bluetooth and GPS and your ringer volume and USB debugging and a lot more. You can put a bunch of app shortcuts in a Widgetsoid widget too, to fit more apps in the limited space of a homescreen.

You don't need to put 'em on a homescreen, though. You can put your widgets in your notification bar too.

Too bad that Widgetsoid has a pretty steep learning curve. It can do many things, but it takes quite a bit of trial and error before you get the hang of it.

The latest update made things a little easier because the widget configuration screen  is simplified a bit. A little too simplified, because you have to look in a screen called "toggles" to find the button that makes app shortcuts.

Another novelty: two rows in your widgets, so you can put more toggles in your notification bar, or put two rows of icons in a single homescreen widget instead of stacking two widgets on top of each other.

The number of widget sizes went down to three (well, six, because you can turn rows into columns to make vertical widgets), but any decent launcher lets you resize widgets at will so there's not really any size limit.

Update: the full set of widget sizes came back.


Warning: the update from v3 to v4 comes at a price. Your old widgets are not compatible with the new app, so you need to rebuild them all from scratch. Tip: take screenshots of your old widgets before you update the app so you know what goes where when you build your widgets again.

Too bad the update introduced some annoying bugs. Lighting up my flashlight from a Widgetsoid widget takes longer in the new version. It used to flash instantly, now there's a noticeable delay. Shortcuts for bluetooth and app settings don't work anymore for me, hitting the widget now makes the settings app crash. The "rounded corners" option for the widget background doesn't work with a custom background color, but this bug bit the old version too.

Update: the flashlight issue is fixed.
October 20 update: the settings app crash bug is fixed.


According to the Google Play Store comments problems with the new version are quite common. The developer rewrote the app, which effectively turned it into a beta test version. It may work for you, or you may encounter bugs. Some phones and ROMs fare better than others.

I'm gonna keep the old version until the bugs are sqashed. Make sure you have a working backup before you update Widgetsoid, because there's a good chance that you'll want to roll back.

Update: the October 20 edition fixed all the bugs for me, so I'm on version 4 now.

Widgetsoid
Widgetsoid v3.4.4 (old version, for if v4.x doesn't work for you)


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