Customizing LauncherPro: docks, icons, wallpapers and Desktop Visualizer

LauncherPro is the most popular homescreen replacement for Android, mainly due to its speed, look, flexibility and ever-expanding set of features. Another benefit of LauncherPro is that it’s easy to customize and personalize the app. Users can make their homescreens look unique, and this post shows how to customize LauncherPro with docks, icons and wallpapers. One can also get quite interesting results with the widget Desktop Visualizer.

Use a custom dock background

Selecting a custom background for the icon dock at the bottom of the screen is a very easy way to change the look of LauncherPro. This setting is changed from Preferences > Appearance Settings > Dock background > Custom. Some good sites to download custom docks from:

• PTP’s LauncherPro Docks – unusually stylish docks by PTP at XDA
• LauncherPro Icons – a huge collection of assorted LauncherPro docks
• Docks by Ardchoille – a set of original docks
• 650 docks and wallpapers

Use custom dock icons

Another quick way of personalizing LauncherPro is to use your own custom icons in the dock. To change the icon for a shortcut in the dock, simply longpress it, and select Change icon > Custom icon. A few quality icon collections:

• TallMin Icon Set – clean and stylish word icons in various colors
• aSmoothStar – another large set of word icons
• Evo Dock and Word Icons – a compressed archive with word icons

Custom homescreen icons

LauncherPro lets you use custom icons for any shortcut added to the homescreen as well: longpress an empty space on the screen, select Shortcuts > Applications, tap the app you want to add, and from the resulting screen, press its icon to change it. Icon collections:

• LauncherPro Icons
• Tha Icon
• A great list of icon collections in the LauncherPro forum

Tile icons

At the bottom of the post is a gallery of icons created by TechCredo that can be used with Desktop Visualizer. There’s also a guide below to using the widget below, and here are a few excellent icon collections created by others as well. The icons naturally don’t have to be used exclusively with Desktop Visualizer.

• Metrogloss Icon Pack
• Scrambble Icon Pack
• TechCredo Icon Pack
• Windows Phone 7 Icon Pack
• Black & White
• HD Icon Pack
• Android Phone 7
• PolaDroid
• X2K2′s Tile Icons
• Crazy huge list of icon collections @ XDA

Make unique LauncherPro homescreens with Desktop Visualizer

Desktop Visualizer is a widget that comes in many sizes, and it basically lets you assign a custom image to a homescreen shortcut. This way, you can create great looking tile-based homescreens, vaguely reminiscent of Windows Phone 7. Here’s how.

• Turn on the “five rows” option in LauncherPro from Preferences > Advanced > 5 icon rows in homescreens.
• Install the free Desktop Visualizer widget.
• Long-press on your homescreen and select to add Desktop Visualizer in the size you want.
• From the resulting screen, select which icon to use for your widget/shortcut by pressing the top button.
• Press the Select Action button to choose an action for the shortcut.
• If you picked an icon image that already had a title, delete the label in the text box and press OK.
• If needed, resize the shortcut widget to fit the icon (requires LauncherPro Plus).
• Arrange the widgets to your liking by dragging them around.

An example

Wallpapers

Of course, one cannot fail to mention the most obvious way to change the appearance of a homescreen: wallpapers. TechCredo hosts many large high-quality wallpaper collections for Android, and they’re all available here.

Experimental

Want to customize LauncherPro even further? Try going OCD on its ass the way this dude did and create a unique scrolling wallpaper dock.