Launchers

[Laska 41]

Lightning Launcher is best for me

[andrepereira1768 7]

Hi, Slion,

yes works well in landscape, I've used since getting my pro1 and cosmo and had no issues with it on either device.

[VaZso 1,997]

Anyway, an official place for the apk of launcher would be also an option.

However, I use Nova launcher instead of stock one.

[EskeRahn 5,421]

9 hours ago, VaZso said:

Anyway, an official place for the apk of launcher would be also an option.

However, I use Nova launcher instead of stock one.

Though I like the versatility of Nova, I find that it really stinks in assuming the same grid layout in 1:2 portrait and 2:1 landscape. Here the stock launcher solution of seeing it as two (roughly) equally sized blocks, seems like a much more clever solution. A few launchers offers more or less independent layouts. That obviously has a lot of benefits, but means you will need to set things up twice. But most launchers (including Nova) that at all handles landscape take the lazy route of just squeezing and stretching the grid - apart from looking horrible, it also makes widgets more or less useless... I would wish some more powerful launcher had more clever solutions. I would suggest options for the user to pick from, like:
a) The two square block solution
b) A line-wrap  solution, where two rows 1234 , abcd in portrait ends as one joined row 1234abcd in landscape
c) Merge, where two  lines 1234 , abcd in portrait merged  to 1a2b3c4d in landscape
d) Independent layout of same icons, adding an icon in one layout. just throws it in at 'random'   place in the other, so people can manually rearrange stuff as they prefer,,
e) uncoupled independent icon sets and layouts.

Here b&c will require some special rules for handling widgits not fitting 1x1 though, that might not feel intuitive.

I'm pretty sure I would pick a) or d)

[Rob. S. 1,643]

I've so far found Nova (on the Moto Z series of phones) to be ok if:

• I don't try to squeeze too many lines and columns on a screen, so that there's enough space between icons regardless of orientation, even though that means wasting some space
• I add more screens instead of letting a screen become too crowded
• I'm very selective in what widgets I add – there are some which work well enough for both orientations, too, like a weather app I use or my preferred calendar app (DigiCal)

I'd prefer a "better" solution, too, but every other launcher I've tested so far has some other things which I find even more unpleasant than Nova's shortcomings, so Nova probably is what I'll initally be using on the Pro¹, too.

Anyway, getting the Pro¹ launcher's source code published would of course be cool!

Edited May 9, 2020 by Rob. S.

[Craig 1,435]

I also use Nova.  But what I'd want ideally is a launcher that doesn't rearrange things when going from landscape to portrait.  Just keep the icons where they are and rotate them in place.  And dont rotate the wallpaper (if present).

Edited May 9, 2020 by Craig

[Rob. S. 1,643]

4 hours ago, Craig said:

I also use Nova.  But what I'd want ideally is a launcher that doesn't rearrange things when going from landscape to portrait.  Just keep the icons where they are and rotate them in place.  And dont rotate the wallpaper (if present).

I guess the problem is, while it would work perfectly with screens that contain only icons and square-sized widgets, it couldn't rotate widgets which aren't square-sized...

Which of course wouldn't be a problem for users who don't use non-square-sized widgets or don't mind rotated non-square-sized widgets, but I guess a launcher developer would expect these to be a small minority, meaning there would be complaints from everyone else to be expected...

Edited May 9, 2020 by Rob. S.

[EskeRahn 5,421]

On 5/9/2020 at 5:42 PM, Craig said:

I also use Nova.  But what I'd want ideally is a launcher that doesn't rearrange things when going from landscape to portrait.  Just keep the icons where they are and rotate them in place.  And dont rotate the wallpaper (if present).

That definitely should have been on my list of options too, though that as @Rob. S. pointed out, limits widgets to square-grid usage

[Hook 2,940]

On 5/9/2020 at 6:25 AM, Rob. S. said:

I've so far found Nova (on the Moto Z series of phones) to be ok if:

• I don't try to squeeze too many lines and columns on a screen, so that there's enough space between icons regardless of orientation, even though that means wasting some space
• I add more screens instead of letting a screen become too crowded
• I'm very selective in what widgets I add – there are some which work well enough for both orientations, too, like a weather app I use or my preferred calendar app (DigiCal)

I'd prefer a "better" solution, too, but every other launcher I've tested so far has some other things which I find even more unpleasant than Nova's shortcomings, so Nova probably is what I'll initally be using on the Pro¹, too.

Anyway, getting the Pro¹ launcher's source code published would of course be cool!

I've basically solved the Landscape versus Portrait problems with Nova-- I am these days using my Pro1 about 95% in Landscape.  I pull it from my pocket and just pop it open, whatever I want to do.  Nice grip, don't have to worry about curved edges and, at this point, with much practice, easy to do. So I design my Home screen landscape and don't much care what happens in portrait.

I was using Launchtime, which had all apps sorted into category tabs, but it ended up having a few quirks I didn't like.  But I loved the scheme-- essentially it was Palm Launcher from Palm OS days. So I designed the same scheme with Nova.

 

 

I have my most used apps along the bottom of screen and up the app dock.  Everything else I use regularly are organized into folders with category labels in the second row.  Then I have two big widgets, Time (redundant to status bar but easier to quick look) and weather.Thats really everything I need on one Home Page.  On that rare occasion when I need to use the phone in portrait, it looks like this:

 

Perfectly usable even if a little ugly and cramped.

I have a second home screen which is nothing but a Monthly Calendar widget:

 

 

It's handy to have a big scale calendar. It's readable in portrait, but I would only use it this way.

All of this works great.  It is easy and effective.  I have all of Nova's features, but I still have most of the simplicity that attracted me to Launchtime.

This is my solution anyway, and I'm sticking with it... for now.  😉

[Slion 1,200]

I found this:
https://github.com/jasonkung0211/launcher3.git

However the only common thing with FxTec launcher is that is was based on Google's AOSP, I believe.

Edited June 27, 2020 by Slion

[EvilDragon 164]

On 5/9/2020 at 5:42 PM, Craig said:

I also use Nova.  But what I'd want ideally is a launcher that doesn't rearrange things when going from landscape to portrait.  Just keep the icons where they are and rotate them in place.  And dont rotate the wallpaper (if present).

That's why I switched to Total Launcher where you can define two totally different layouts for portrait and landscape.

Way better than Nova 🙂

[Slion 1,200]

39 minutes ago, EvilDragon said:

That's why I switched to Total Launcher where you can define two totally different layouts for portrait and landscape.

Just tried it and it's way too complicated to setup for my taste.

Edited June 28, 2020 by Slion

[EvilDragon 164]

10 hours ago, Slion said:

Just tried it and it's way too complicated to setup for my taste.

Hm, what's so complicated about it?

Took me about 20 minutes to setup everything the way I like after installation... and then you never need to do it again.

[Slion 1,200]

7 minutes ago, EvilDragon said:

Hm, what's so complicated about it?

Everything it seems, I could not even find a way to create a simple app shortcut. The so called tutorials felt very intrusive and not helpful. It looked like one of those software that supposedly let you do everything but is just not for everyone. I guess I'm just showing my age here ;)

[Hook 2,940]

2 hours ago, Slion said:

Everything it seems, I could not even find a way to create a simple app shortcut. The so called tutorials felt very intrusive and not helpful. It looked like one of those software that supposedly let you do everything but is just not for everyone. I guess I'm just showing my age here 😉

Agree 100%, but I'm old too.  😂

[PatBue 4]

Could it be that the widgets are limited in size? I don't get the widgets bigger than half a screen.

[EskeRahn 5,421]

1 hour ago, PatBue said:

Could it be that the widgets are limited in size? I don't get the widgets bigger than half a screen.

The launcher that comes with the device has the great idea of dividing the display in two halfs that are then placed on top of each other in portrait and side by side in landscape.

This means that things are only marginally compressed&stretched when the screen is rotated. The price for this is that a widget can not cross the invisible line..

There are a truck load of other launchers out there, that have a different approach. One very popular is Nova.

Some have individual layouts for portrait and landscape, giving you full flexibility - but double work setting things up as for your liking.

[PatBue 4]

56 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

The launcher that comes with the device has the great idea of dividing the display in two halfs that are then placed on top of each other in portrait and side by side in landscape.

This means that things are only marginally compressed&stretched when the screen is rotated. The price for this is that a widget can not cross the invisible line..

There are a truck load of other launchers out there, that have a different approach. One very popular is Nova.

Some have individual layouts for portrait and landscape, giving you full flexibility - but double work setting things up as for your liking.

Merci.

[atfrase 10]

I started looking for a replacement launcher after noticing that the stock Quickstep's icon grid was sized such that all my previously 1-row (1x1, 2x1, ...) widgets had become 2-row, and there didn't seem to be any way to customize the grid size.

So far I've tried Nova which I like, but doesn't handle landscape mode well when the keyboard is out. By default it just keeps the home screen in portrait mode so its sideways with the keyboard out, and if I change it to auto-rotate then it tries to squeeze the same 5x7 portrait icon grid into the landscape aspect ratio, resulting in super tiny icons with huge horizontal gaps between columns. I looked for an option to have it instead convert the 5x7 grid into 7x5 in landscape mode by simply rotating each icon and its label in-place by 90 degrees, but there didn't seem to be one.

Can anyone suggest a launcher that allows for customizing the home screen grid size so widgets can be the right size, while also working well in landscape mode?

[Hook 2,940]

Here's a previous discussion of Launchers that might help (ignore the side-track into Windows UI that happened).

I have settled in with Nova, which I have used for years, and really like it, but I don't use widgets. Total Launcher gives you the greatest control, creating separate layouts for portrait and Landscape, but I found it bewideringly complex. YMMV.

[itsdevilslettuce 85]

Microsoft Launcher has a neat landscape mode. it supports customizing widgets, and a lot more options too actually. It is a robust launcher and works quite fine on my Pro1 running LineageOS. Best of all 100% free and no ads 😄

 

oh it can also fully sync with your PC workflow 👍

[Slion 1,200]

3 hours ago, itsdevilslettuce said:

Microsoft Launcher has a neat landscape mode.

How do you enable it? Mine is stuck in portrait.

[itsdevilslettuce 85]

18 hours ago, Slion said:

How do you enable it? Mine is stuck in portrait.

If  there is no option within the launcher's settings, it might still be a part of the beta program. Within the launcher settings check for updates also, that likes to force with the MS servers for updates rather than the play-store. 

Note: the app titled 'preview' is not the same as the normal version's beta program. 

EDIT: I should have been a bit more clear: in the launcher settings -> home screen -> more

Edited August 8, 2020 by itsdevilslettuce

[atfrase 10]

I've tried quite a few different launchers now and I've only found one so far that handles landscape mode well. (TL;DR, it's Total Launcher).

The Pro1 default Quickstep supports landscape mode but only using a "two halves" approach that screws up widget placement (my old 1x1 and 2x1 widgets all get stretched to 2 rows, and can't be positioned across the center line of the screen), and it also lacks a lot of other pretty basic customization options.

Some launchers don't support landscape mode at all, they're just in portrait mode all the time. These include: Evie and Smart Launcher (not to be confused with Smart Launcher 5, which is more popular but a totally different app).

Other launchers support landscape mode in a simplistic, hideous way by using the same layout and icon grid dimensions in either orientation, resulting in a "landscape mode" that still has (for example) 5 columns across the long way and and 7 or 8 rows squeezed in the short way. This makes the icon grid pretty awful to use, and breaks most widgets outright. These are: Action Launcher, Apex Launcher (which apparently used to have separate landscape/portrait grid size options, but removed them in an update) and Nova Launcher.

A few launchers go one step better by at least removing the icon captions when in landscape mode so that they aren't quite as badly squeezed vertically, but it's a pretty small improvement. They are: Lawnchair and Microsoft Launcher.

A couple of launchers offer a different scheme for organizing the home screen from the conventional horizontally scrolling pages of app icons and widgets. While I appreciate the innovation and I'm sure some folks love these different approaches, I prefer the traditional approach and these launchers offered no option to revert to that scheme. They are: Smart Launcher 5 and one other whose name I forget, but it always had a text list of app categories on the screen instead of icons or a conventional app drawer.

So after all that, what I've finally settled on is Total Launcher. It's a pain to set up because you have to manually recreate the traditional layout (icon grids on each page, a dock pinned to all pages, an all-apps widget in the bottom sliding drawer, etc), but since it saves independent layouts for portrait and landscape mode, all that setup time is rewarded with by far the nicest and most usable experience in any orientation.

[Hook 2,940]

11 minutes ago, atfrase said:

one other whose name I forget, but it always had a text list of app categories on the screen instead of icons or a conventional app drawer.

That would be Launch Time, which is the only other launcher besides Nova Prime I found usable.  I stayed with that one for a while, but I can do so much more with Nova.  Still, I liked Launch Time's approach.  It was basically the old Palm Launcher I used to use with all apps on a set of category tabs that you could customize.

Again, i don't really use widgets much.  With notifications, don't need them much anymore.