Xbox One’s video editing app Upload Studio hits version 2.0

Monday Makeover: An extensive look at Themer

There is a plethora of apps out there that allow you to customize just about every single thing on your android smartphone without even rooting. That is why we have started the weekly series “Monday Makeover.” Each week we will take one of these customization apps and talk about setting it up, discuss the features of it, and show you how you can make your android device truly one of a kind. Last week we talked about the popular homescreen replacement Nova Launcher. This week we are taking a look at Themer, another homescreen replacement that goes about customization quite differently.

Getting Themer up and running on your phone is fairly simple. Once downloaded, you can tap your home button and select Themer from the menu. If you are not presented with this menu after tapping the home button, you can open your settings menu and go to the “Home” tab. Here you will see your options for your homescreen and you can select Themer. After this, you can return to your homescreen to see the default Themer setup.

You will be greeted by the Themer welcome screen, and after tapping “Let’s Go” you can choose to import icons from existing launchers you have. You are then taken to the default Themer homescreen. There are three pages that include widgets for weather, time, and other apps. While you are free to spend time customizing this setup as you see fit, Themer gives you the options to choose from hundreds of premade themes that can change the look of your phone with minimal effort. Let’s dive into the wonderful world of themes. First, hold down on your homescreen to bring up the Themer menu. We will be taking a look at the “Themes” menu first.

Themes

This is Themer’s claim to fame. MyColorScreen, the creators of this app, have been providing Android users tutorials on different homescreen setups and how to customize their device. Many people wanted to make their device unique, but did not have the understanding or time to customize every detail. With Themer, you do not have to do that. You simply apply the theme you want and you can be on your way. In the “Themes” menu, you can see just home many options are available. You can search for themes that have certain characteristics by tapping the magnifying glass in the top right and typing in your search. The button to the right of the magnifying glass gives you the option to look at the newest and trending themes, but you can also look at some of the most popular tags for themes. Swiping in from the left reveals another menu where you can look at themes you have favorited and downloaded. You will also see options for the general and advanced menu. If you want to make your friends jealous of your awesome homescreen setup, there is also are share button in this menu. Applying a theme is extremely simple. Just tap on the theme you want to use, and press “APPLY.” Your theme will be downloaded and set as your homescreen. Now you have a unique and beautiful themed homescreen that is sure to turn heads.

Settings

Next, we are going to dive into the settings menu of Themer. Hold down on your homescreen and select “Settings” from the popup window. This will bring you to a list of menus and we will be taking a look at “Email and SMS” first.

In the “Email and SMS” menu, you are able to select default apps for email and SMS. Under “Gmail Account Setting” you can choose your default email account and the default folder you will want to view. The two unread counts options let you choose what you want the unread badges to display.

The “Icon Badges menu” lets you decide when you want icon badges to be displayed. You can either have them on or off on the homescreen and app drawer. You can also select which apps are able to display app badges by pressing “Select apps to enable badges.”

If you have not already noticed, Themer provides you with a toolbar in your notifications with access to several device settings like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well as Themer Settings and the camera. You can choose to enable or disable this toolbar in the “Notification Toolbar” menu.

Under “Theme Apply Preferences,” you can choose to have app icons imported from other themes. This way you will not mess up your main setup by switching themes. Since you can customize themes after downloading them, you can choose to autosave your edited theme to come back to later.

If you are tapping on the email icon or SMS icon and the wrong app is opening, the “App Preferences” menu is where you need to go. Here, you are able to select what app you want to open when each icon is pressed. These settings can be changed at any time.

The weather popup menu gives you the option to choose your weather provider and the units which are used for temperature.

Under the “Manage App Drawer” menu, you are able to completely customize the look of your app drawer. Set Icon Pack lets you change the look of your icons in the app drawer which can drastically change the look of your phone. Appearance Settings opens a separate menu that allows you to change the background color and transparency, text color, number of columns, and the icon size. These are all relatively self explanatory. Hide Apps lets you remove apps from your app drawer without having to uninstall them. They are still on your phone but not visible in the app drawer. Manage Favorites lets you choose your favorite apps so they are easy to find. This can be useful if you have a lot of apps on your phone. Manage Categories allows you to add categories and place apps in certain categories. This will help you organize your app drawer.

The “News” menu lets you add or remove news feeds from displaying on the Themer RSS widget. There are a few feeds preloaded and you can add you own to customize your homescreen even more.

Under the “Gestures” menu, you are able to set certain actions/apps/shortcuts to happen when a gesture is performed on the homescreen. There are many different options here, but I recommend taking the time to set these up because they can make your phone much easier to use.

If you get sick of Themer and want to return to your old homescreen, clicking the “Use Old Homescreen” menu will open up a dialog box and let you choose a new launcher.

Apps

The next menu on the homescreen popup window is “Apps.” This is not actually a menu, but instead it is a way for you to access your app drawer. Depending on the launcher you were using before Themer, this app drawer setup may look completely foreign to you, but it is fairly simple once you understand it. Unlike other app drawers that scroll horizontally, this drawer scrolls vertically. You also have you apps sorted alphabetically and you can drag the list on the right side of the screen to reach apps that begin with a certain letter. This setup can be extremely helpful if you have a lot of apps. Swiping in from the left reveals the “Categories” tab. Here you will see your apps sorted into categories like Most Used, Communication, and Entertainment. Tapping the three dots in the upper right corner of each category gives you the options to add apps to that category, hide that category, and move that category. Swiping to the rightmost screen displays your favorites. Here, you can tap “Manage Favorites” and select your favorite apps. They will always be in this screen. In the top right corner of the app drawer, you will see a plus sign. Tapping this brings up the option to add more tabs to your app drawer. This way, you can add categories which can be swiped to in the app drawer.

Widgets

Up next on the popup window is “Widgets.” In this menu, you are able to add widgets to your homescreen setup. To add widget, simply tap and hold on the widgets you want and drag it to the desired place on your homescreen. Tapping and holding widgets on your homescreen lets you resize, remove, and configure them. If you want to remove a widget or app from your homescreen, tap and hold on it and then drag it to the “X” at the top of your screen.

Wallpaper

Under the “Wallpaper” menu, you are given several options for customizing your homescreen. You can see how many pages you have on your homescreen and you can use the plus and minus buttons on the right side to add and remove pages. Tapping “Change Wallpaper” allows you to change the wallpaper of your theme to whatever you want. “Make Default” changes the default page of your homescreen. This is the screen that is displayed when the home button it pressed. You are also given the option of a Single, Multi, or Scrolling Wallpaper. A Single Wallpaper will have one static image displayed at your background. A Multi Wallpaper allows you to set different pictures for each one of your homescreen pages. Scrolling Wallpaper give you one image that moves when you swipe between homescreen pages.

Advanced

The “Advanced” menu opens a popup window with several options for those wanting more cutomization. Themer Actions gives you access to buttons that will open a certain app or complete a certain action. Shortcuts place buttons on your screen that can take you to a certain place on your phone quickly. You can have a shortcut that opens to a specific settings page, a specific contact, or a specific place on a map. These can be extremely useful if you take the time to set them up. Smart Categories allows you to put the categories from your app drawer on your homescreen. You can select any one that you want and it will act like a folder that contains all the apps in that category. Unlock Widgets allows you to remove and resize the widgets that are part of the theme you applied. This can be useful if you want to change their setup, but it can get out of hand if you do not know what you are doing. Tapping more opens up the “Advanced Settings” menu that we are going to take a look at separately.

Advanced Settings

This menu can be accessed by opening Themer Settings and tapping on Advanced Settings or by opening the Advanced menu in the homescreen popup and tapping on More. This menu gives access to customization options that allow you to change the look of themes and work more in depth with your phone. We are going to take a look at each menu separately.

Desktop

The Desktop menu give you access to all the option for customizing your homescreen pages. You are given the option to lock homescreen widgets and icons. This can be helpful for after you have gotten your homescreen setup exactly the way you want it. Locking both of these makes it impossible to move them until you unlock them from the settings menu. Search Bar places a persistent Google search bar at the top of your homescreen. Desktop Grid Size lets you change the amount of rows and columns on your homescreen pages. This will be useful for those with bigger phones who can fit more on their screens. However, messing with this may cause the widgets on your themes to change size which will require you to go resize them. Desktop Margins lets you change how far away from the edges of your screen the desktop grid stops. Number of screens changes the amount of pages on your homescreen. Scroll Indicator give you a bar at the bottom of your screen to show what page you are on. Wallpaper Transition lets you choose the animation that occurs when you swipe between pages on your homescreen. This is only important if you have differnt wallpapers for each homescreen page. Show Desktop Shadow creates a shadow effect on the top and bottom of your wallpaper. Force re-sizeable widgets allows you to change the size of widgets that are not meant to be resize. This can change the look of some if they do not scale well. Allow overlapping widgets give you the option to place widgets on top of each other. Remove widget padding causes widgets to reach to the edges of their grid without any space in between. Show Icon Text displays the names of apps below their icons on the homescreen.

Icon Badge

This menu lets you customize how the unread count badge is displayed. You can change the shape of it, its position on the icon, its background color, its border color, its border width, and its text color.

Notification Bar

Here, you can customize the look on your notifiaction bar and nagivation bar. You can chose to have the nofitivation bar alway be shown, automatically hidden, and its transparency. These features can come in handy if you do not like to the look of your notification bar on you theme. You can also change the color of your navigation bar if you have a phone with onscreen buttons.

Folders

This menu lets you change the appearance of folders on your homescreen. Folder Preview Background lets you chang the shape of folders when they are closed. Expanded Folder Preview Backgroud changes the color of the background when the folder is opened.

Dock

You do not have many customization options when it comes to the look of the dock. You only have the options to show or hide the dock and show the dock divider.

Icons

Under this menu, you can customize the look and actions of popular icons like phone, email, and SMS. Tapping on one of the icons brings up a popup window with several options. You can change the label displayed under the icon. You can also link each icon with a specific app so it opens every time the icon is pressed. There is also the option for a swipe up action. This will cause an action to occur when you swipe up from the icon. An good example of this is launching the Contacts app whenever you swipe up from the Phone icon.

Resize Icons

This menu lets you choose the size of the icons on your homescreen. Clicking on Icon Size will let you choose between small, medium, and large, or you can choose the size yourself.

Export Theme

If you have created your own theme and want to share it, this menu will allow you to do so. You will be given the option to name your Theme and it is saved under the file path sdcard/Themer/Exported/Zips.

Share

When you bring up the popup window on your homescreen, the next menu up is Share. This menu allows you to share your homescreen setup with your friends. You can post it on social media, send it through email or SMS, or even send it through BlueTooth. This can guarantee some screen envy from your friends.

Save

The last menu on the list is Save. This menu does not do much other than save your theme for later use. If you have spent time changing a premade theme into what you want, you can use this menu to save your theme. You can then switch to another theme if you want to try it out. When you want to return to your old setup, you simply choose to apply the theme you had and it will give you the option to apply the theme new or use the saved version with all of your changes.

This brings us to the end of another Makeover Monday article. We have doven deep inside of Themer to see everything it has to offer. It is a wonderful solution for those that want an easy way to make their phone unique, but it also offers some deeper customization features for those wanted to control every aspect of their phone. You can download Themer for free in the Play Store and there are no in app purchases or pro versions. Everything is given to you for free. So go try it out and let everyone know what you think about it in the comments. While you are down there, let us know what customization app you want to see in future Monday Makeovers and we will make sure to check them out. Have a great week!

The post Monday Makeover: An extensive look at Themer appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Sling TV getting premium movie content thanks to Epix

Dish’s Sling TV is great for cord-cutters, but has no on-demand content or even recent movie releases for times when TNT and TBS won’t cut it. It’s about to fill both of those gaps by tying up with Epix, a premium content channel co-owned by Viacom, Paramount and other studios. It’ll carry all four of Epix’s channels for scheduled viewing along with its streaming service, letting cable-haters watch recent cinema, classics and Epix original programming. Dish hasn’t revealed the Epix price yet, but the basic Sling TV service runs $20 and sports, news and kids add-in packs are $5 a pop. Epix is also a $5 add-on from providers like Time Warner Cable.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Sling TV