a different approach to what a launcher can be
10 months ago by rnercle to c/opensource
found this launcher last week and I've been playing with it since.
It still works with "muscle memory" but instead of placement, it's the gesture (or direction) that triggers the action. With time it can become quicker and easier, i think, than lawnchair, eblan &c or search based launchers
My wife also hates my phone, she can't even use it, between the gesture navigation, the custom launcher and the custom theme and icon pack...
This launcher will probably make her throw the phone at me if she tries to use it.
And the Colemak keyboard layout 😅
I just have a hate for app icons that I didn't know I had till I tried a search/text based launcher and I'm fine with clutter free fork of olauncher
Sir termux is not a launcher
Started with Niagara so many years ago, never thought I could find a suitable open alternative then joyfully discovered Olauncher been using that for long time. Phone without icons is pure bliss, elegance and far easier to use/find apps
Absolutely unusable for me. All I see is a black screen when launching it and after nexting through the settings. After adding some apps at the final step and attempting to try it out, it's just a black screen and I don't see anything. I'm lucky that I still had the settings app open for switching the default launcher so I could revert changing from the default. Otherwise my phone would've been soft bricked. Maybe I could've uninstalled it using adb or something. But I'm away for the holidays for over a week.
I would stay away from this. That we a close call for me. This would've been really bad.
all you see is a black screen (in dark mode) until you touch the screen and slide your fingers towards a direction (that you configured for the app of your choice.)
the length of the slide gives you more options. For example I touch anywhere on the screen and push my finger towards 1 o'clock and i can open droidify. If i slide further, i can open fDroid itself.
you can also use it like another app, instead of making it your default launcher, to try it out. Close it like any other app and you're back on your habitual launcher.
I did slide my fingers, I did exactly as you said, but there was nothing showing. I sometimes released my finger and one of my apps would open. But it was just dark.
So yeah, not a user error.
Calling it softbrick is such an exaggeration though. I can't tell if you faced a bug or if it was just that the launcher is very different from others and you missed some detail on how to use it.
I faced a similar issue, I saw the black screen and thought something was wrong, but I had read that long pressing for 3 seconds was supposed to open the settings, so I did that and everything was alright. It is strange enough to make it odd at first, the fact that they make it full screen as default doesn't help it, but swiping from the top or the bottom (as with any other full screen app) will show the system notification and buttons or gesture navigation. With any launcher I want to try I don't make them default right away, so using the home action of the system will bring me back directly to my default one. Using the launcher as an app will open it anyway to test and configure until I want to make it the default.
Anyway, anyone reading this and specially the above commenter if he wants to retry, there was nothing wrong and it is a very interesting novel idea. I'm actually liking it more and more as I start setting it up.
Is it supposed to give a completely blank screen though? Not from the animations I saw.
I am usually a person not afraid to try new things, and I do so after thoroughly researching what I'm getting myself into because I've been using computers unassisted for over two decades and I've learned things the hard way, let me tell you, and I'm used to following instructions by now.
I followed the instructions. Added apps. Blank screen. Zero visual indicators, just guessing and releasing. Sometimes nothing happened, sometimes I hit my apps. Surely a bug.
You usually can access the settings from the status bar, can't you?
I like it. I really want to love it. I'd like an option to show all icons on press. The dealbreaker is the issue with no response. S20fe, disabled power optimization for the app, and it still wakes or loads from open apps to home as a frozen screen. With no indicator on the screen, I just tap, wait, tap, wait, click wait for app on popup, then it works, only to tell me it's not responding despite finally working. Once this bug is gone I might use it over Nova.
Doesn't PieLauncher already do this?
anyone interested in this might like the concept of marking menus in Autodesk Maya (and perhaps other programs). It's basically pie menus, but nested, and which you can draw quickly (without even waiting for the actual menu items to show). Just draw the path to your desired item and release the click
Doesnt work that well for me. Some bugs here and there.
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All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
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- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
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like the idea, trying it out. my wife already hates my phone.
save