I am hooked on customizing my residence display screen with KWGT

One of many long-standing causes that followers follow Android over iOS is due to the customization the platform permits. Particularly with Google actually leaning into this idea with its Materials You design effort, Android can look, really feel, and function in just about any approach a person needs. Though Apple has lastly began to offer iOS customers a semblance of management with the flexibility to maneuver round icons and alter their colours (such braveness), there’s merely no denying that Android is the way more versatile working system.

Ever since I purchased my very first Android telephone — a Samsung Galaxy S2, as a result of I’m a Very Previous Man™ — I’ve toyed round with customization. It’s simple sufficient to put in icon packs, change system colours, and set up stay wallpapers, and I had enjoyable with that for a very long time. Nonetheless, it wasn’t till I found KWGT that issues acquired actually intricate.

In reality, I’ve turn into so obsessive about KWGT that I consistently change the look of my residence display screen. When you get the gist of KWGT down, there are limitless prospects for what you are able to do. A lot in order that by the point I’ve lastly settled in on anybody design, I say to myself, “However what if I did this as a substitute…” after which I modify it once more.

KWGT has a big group of established designers, and plenty of nice troubleshooting assets exist for budding tinkerers. Nonetheless, I discover that almost all of Android customers — even actually “techie” ones — don’t know what KWGT is. Even when they do, most have by no means bothered attempting it out. So, let me clarify what KWGT is and what sorts of issues I’ve completed with it. With vacation downtime arising, possibly you’ll take a deep dive into it and turn into as obsessed as I’m.

KWGT is an abbreviation of Kustom Widget Creator. Kustom is an organization that makes numerous customization apps, together with KLWP (Kustom Stay Wallpaper Creator), KWCH (Kustom Watch Face Creator), and KLCK (Kustom Lock Display Creator). Though all of them do various things, they function equally, permitting you to create personalized components for the Android working system.

You can begin with a clean slate in KWGT and use preset code snippets to construct a widget from scratch. Nonetheless, designers all over the world additionally create widget packs for KWGT that they promote (or generally give away) on the Google Play Retailer. These packs include any variety of pre-made widgets that you need to use as you want. Moreover, with a bit trial and error, you possibly can take one thing somebody has created and tweak it to make it higher suit your aesthetic or perform in a barely totally different approach.

If you mix one thing like KWGT with different Android customization apps and use them on high of a third-party launcher like Nova, you are able to do just about something together with your telephone’s format.

My colleague Andy Walker (who can also be actually into KWGT) has a publish explaining how he made his dream Google widget utilizing KWGT. If you wish to know extra in regards to the steps of ranging from nothing and constructing a customized widget, I extremely recommend studying his article on the hyperlink.

Though I’ve constructed widgets from the bottom up in KWGT, I’m often not notably desirous to go that route. As an alternative, I search by widget packs made by others and use their creations as a place to begin. There have been some layouts I’ve put along with this methodology that concerned no tweaking in any respect — I simply put the widgets the place I wished them and known as it a day.

More often than not, although, I pull widgets from numerous locations and alter them to make them extra uniform. A great instance of that is under. The town and climate widget (which modifications relying on the telephone’s location) is from one pack, however the battery and music participant widgets are from one other. The music widget was additionally rather more colourful, however I modified it so it might match the minimalistic purple/white theme:

Just lately, I attempted so as to add a splash extra colourful to my look. The format I made under concerned a couple of widgets from a couple of “neon” packs and an icon pack known as Define. What’s cool about this one is that each widget pulls its shade scheme from the music participant’s album art work. So, as I transfer from observe to trace on my playlist, my residence display screen design strikes with it:

As you’d anticipate, the assorted widget tiles all hyperlink to apps related to the data displayed there (the situation one opens Maps, the date one opens Calendar, the climate one opens Pixel Climate, and so on.). The exception right here is the one with the cruise ship emoji: that’s a countdown timer till my cruise trip in March. 82 days, child!

The squiggly line under the music widget is an lively progress bar, so you possibly can see how a lot time is left on the observe. The icons are the usual Pixel variations, though I do use Nova to power all of them to be circles for a pleasant, uniform look. Additionally, though I wished the colours to all match the Hazel theme, all of the widgets do use Materials You, so I could make them look totally different simply by altering the wallpaper:

If you wish to recreate this for your self, I used Nova Launcher for the final format and icon placement, the Hazel wallpaper from this Reddit publish, and the widgets discovered within the Pixdots pack (you’ll have to tweak them fairly a bit to get them to look as I did right here). When you’re simply getting began with KWGT, try the subsequent part for tips about the place to start.

I totally perceive that KWGT will appear formidable to anybody who’s by no means used it earlier than. It’s not a straightforward factor to determine. Fortunately, there are a ton of useful assets on-line that can assist you dive in.

First, I as soon as once more advocate you give Andy Walker’s article a learn, as he covers numerous floor. I additionally advocate that you simply obtain KWGT and simply begin enjoying round with the pre-installed widgets. They’re fairly easy and haven’t modified in years, so that they’re a great way to see how the code and layouts work.

When you begin desirous to go deeper, the perfect place for assistance is the Kustom subreddit. Hundreds of passionate designers there are glad to supply newcomers with suggestions and tips on easy methods to make the house display screen of their desires.

When you apply so much and perceive how all the things works however lack inspiration on what to do, head to r/AndroidThemes. Though not everybody there makes use of KWGT for his or her creations, the overwhelming majority do, and most will inform you all of the packs they used to make the format. Even when you don’t replicate a design you discover there, I usually get impressed by what different persons are doing, and that will get me began down the trail of redoing my residence display screen… once more.

When you’re a seasoned professional within the Kustom world, head to the feedback and publish another suggestions or useful assets you’ve present in your journey!