title: How to make Android app widgets visually consistent with shortcuts
body: <p>My Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android Ice Cream Sandwich has nice little counters that appear on the home page shortcuts for Mail etc. telling me how many new messages there are waiting. That's just the behaviour that I want for my own app.</p>
  
  <p>If I've read the Android docs and related questions in SO right, that behaviour is not exposed through Android, but is provided by the launcher itself, so it can't be done directly.</p>
  
  <p>But I have produced the behaviour that I want using an app widget. Now I'm left with the problem of making the app widget layout visually consistent (alignment, text appearance) with the appearance of the regular shortcuts. I can't see a sensible robust way to to this. Anyone? </p>
  
  <p>(Otherwise it looks as though I'll have to make the app widget look sufficiently unlike a shortcut that visual consistency isn't an issue.)</p>