I do think there’s a lot information that can fit on the Today screen, but one of the post important things is that layout should be simple. I use PhoneWeaver at the top (uses only one line), then PocketBreeze gets as much space as possible. I use vertical tabs so that I can hide a lot, and all the day titles are ‘closed’ by default so that I can expand them when needed. PocketWeather is inside a PB tab so I can open it only when needed.

Then at the bottom is iLauncher with three floating tabs so that I normally only see three icons (all the same, very unified ), and when they’re tapped, they show the icons inside the tab. So I have some stuff taking space at the top and bottom (which are a bit more cluttered because of the top and bottom bar anyway) and in the center I have PocketBreeze as large as possible.

It works great for me (productivity-wise) and my device takes it pretty well (memory-wise).

Over the year – and too many idle hours to catalogue – my Today Screen has evolved to be quite similar to spmwinkel’s. I have been driven towards getting as much useful information onto the screen as possible:

I control the phone from the top of the screen with phoneAlarm using a one-line skin

Below pA is Pocket Express, which, in two lines, scrolls headlines from my chosen feeds and select stock market information. (It took a while to find an app which scrolled what I wanted and didn’t lock-up my Tilt).

PocketBreeze – incorporating Pocket Weather – has most of the screen’s real estate. Each day’s appointment is represented on a time bar in the color matching its category. Next to the time bar is the high/ low temperature and weather icon for the day. PBreeze tabs are arranged vertically with tabs set for Power Search, notes, messages and tasks.

The bottom of my screen is iLauncher. Its floating tabs are set for speed dial, speed dial for work associates, “speed” SMS, frequently used apps and meters/ utilities. iLauncher is set to display the icons of open apps across the top bar (apps I always run are excluded from that display).

My left soft key is set for Finger Friendly Friends (deffault contact manager) and my right soft key is set for Pocket Informant 8.

I used to use a carbon fibre background and found that eliminating that for one of the inbuilt backgrounds significantly sped up the start procedure.

My current setup is PointUI Home (one of the latest non-official test versions, available on the forums) and PI8. These two things replace everything my today screen used to offer me — and for about the same amount of RAM usage too. PI8 is tied into PointUI too, so tapping on the applets brings me to tasks or appts.

I like to always have Pocket Player 3.5, Messaging (default), PI8, and PointUI running — leaving me with around 8-10 MB of RAM to play with. This is enough to look something up with Skweezer or a bunch of other smaller programs.

The most important thing on Home screen is the information you want to see without any clicks. The latest VGA screens does not solve the problem, because the things becomes very small and we need to enlarge font and icons. Weather forecasts is the most valuable thing for everyone. Elecont Weather is small, easy and powerfull home screen plugin (http://www.elecont.com) displays weather in several layouts including small 1-line layout. In addition it displays forecast with animated icons directly on home/today screen.

elecont – not sure weather is the most important thing for everyone (though it seems you may have an interest in it being that) – I live in a place where for the vast majority of the year the weather forecast varies from sunny, hot to sunny, real, real hot. I don’t need updates on that on my home screen. I think the ideal home screen provides access to a user’s critical data / apps while keeping clutter and distraction to a miimum.
Ragart’s got me 3/4 sold on PointUI I think …

I tried Pointui today, and I am still playing with it. But I am really not sold. I was dismayed by the lack of customization. Also, while it is a very slick interface, I found most functions were just not where I wanted them to be. I saw some things to like, but overall, I think I will stick with Mobile Shell.

Doug

I’m a big fan of Mobile Shell as well — though I think PointUI really delivers on what the “Now” screen could be. I also would like Mobile Shell to not hang my device — I’m waiting for that feature in 2.0 =D

How do I get you to go the other quarter, Patrick?!

What Device are you actually running Thomas? Mobile Shell has always been smooth for me!

I’m running a Softbank X01 — which is the Japanese HTC TyTN. It’s running a Dopod WM6 ROM, which is what it came with when I bought it.

Mobile Shell is fast and smooth on the TyTN, but i had a major problem with it just locking my darn keys up all the time. I’d get a lot of crashes and lockups by just using my softkeys on the today screen. This was after a hard reset too, so I got tired of it pretty quickly.

And as an update to my today screen — I’ve dropped PointUI for the time being. I’ve found that I really don’t use that many programs on the PDA, but the ones that I do use (extensively) are very easy to access using hardware buttons or the Pocket Plus’s task manager.

So this is now my today screen:
PI8 plugin
Date
Messaging

softkeys for calendar and contacts.
This leaves me with tons of RAM — which leaves me with that security that when I’m running a new program I won’t have others closing in the background. I really, really hate it when WM does that.