So, anybody know a good launcher to use once Nova goes offline?
I use default oneui launcher i think it looks good
OneUI is much much better than Touchwiz was. It has been nice to see Samsung actually putting effort into their main launcher and having the options to add things (and that they can augment stuff while using other launchers). I was using Nova on both my phone and my old Tab S2, but found OneUI to “feel” more correct on my Tab S8+ than Nova. Though Nova has seemed better for my phones over the years.
Lawnchair
I thought that’s in perceptual pre release.
Idk, it is what it is, I’ve used it ever since Nova got kinda dumb like 5-6 years ago. Put it on every phone. It hides apps, keeps my phone looking clean. It’s excellent.
Yea that’s what i switched to after nova sold out, its alright gets the job done. Fuck Nova
I use Lawnchair as well because I require my launcher to be open source. The only thing is it is not on F-Droid or Playstore so it must be installed and updated manually. I have found it to be stable enough for my purposes.
EDIT: And after making the comment below I just noticed the date on the version is 2022? I’m going need to try out the latest version from their Git.
I use droidify because I like the look of it better. It comes with another repo enabled by default called IzzyOnDroid which has the Alpha versions of lawnchair.
I’ve been using it for years. It’s great.
Oh nice, I’ll check out droidify and IzzyOnDroid. To help me remember to update Lawnchair, I added the github release notes atom feed to my RSS reader and turned on notifications so I know every time a new release is ready to install and updating is just a few taps away. https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases.atom
I’ve been working on a launcher for a while now, do help me test it out!
Features include:
- Widget stacks (with auto scroll)
- Swipe up and swipe down to launch different apps
- Display app drawer icons as tiles or a list
- Individually resize home screen icons, for mixed-size icon layouts
- Freely position and resize a widget or icon
- Frosted glass background for widgets (experimental)
- App drawer folders
- Fade a widget
- Separate layouts for different screens for foldables
- Tap a folder to launch its first app (swipe to open folder)
- Assign a nickname to an app for instant app search and launch (e.g. searching “ff” launches Firefox instantly)
- Lots of custom animations and haptics
Planned features include:
- Profile switching with Tasker support
- Square tiles for app drawer
- Swipe to open a widget pop up
Not open source, a little disappointed. I’ll give it a try when it is
Can you group the app drawer by letter so that I can immediately jump to ‘S’ to launch Sync for Lemmy? It’s pretty much the entire reason I can’t move away from Microsoft Launcher. I feel this is an essential feature, and I’ve tried basically every launcher I can find.
PSA: Nova Launcher’s owning company sells their user data. It was a good launcher when it first came out, but it’s been nothing but a downward spiral from there.
But, but, they assured us that that wasn’t going to happen? You mean they lied??
JFC, what a fall from grace for Nova. Sad to see.
I’m opted out of that in my settings, it’d be quite the scandal if they were ignoring GDPR?
I’ve amended my comment to make it more clear. I didn’t mean to imply the app sends your data to third parties, only that the company who owns it profits off of third party information brokering. Where that information comes from is beside the point in my opinion.
I’ve been using Nova for ages, probably back from the KitKat days on a Samsung phone running Touchwiz, i.e. when everything from the vendor side was crap.
I just switched back to my Moto G5’s stock launcher. Honestly, it already does everything I did with Nova. It supports theming, adaptive icons, you can configure the density of its grid, etc. So I uninstalled Nova. Fuck it.
Realistically I think most stock launchers are probably perfectly adequate for everything normal users want to do these days.
I used to use Total launcher to make the most convoluted home screen possible that literally nobody but me knew how to use. Like several circles you swiped on in different directions to open folders, absolutely no labels, etc. Now I just use the stock pixel one lol
I miss swiping on icons. I used it for opening folders. Like Firefox would have all my most used browsers like Chromium Firefox Focus, and Firefox Nightly. My Messages app would have all my messaging apps. Camera had Photos, and photo editing apps. I barely had to go to the drawer.
Likewise. I use Total, and I have 12 folders on my homescreen, each of which can be swiped up, down, left or right to open specific apps or run specific actions. So, 48 options without ever leaving the home screen :-)
I very rarely have to even open a folder, let alone the app drawer (in fact Total doesn’t really even seem to have a built in app drawer, although it exists somewhere in the background)
I had the same experience when I recently had to get a new phone. Stock launchers have improved a lot.
Dammit lol that’s the one I picked to use
Maybe it will keep working unchanged for a while
I switched to Lawnchair a while back (android 14 broke folders in nova for me). It’s not got the same depth of customisation, but ive found it pretty good alternative. And so far seems quick and reliable.
I used Nova for years. When they got bought out I switched to a bunch of different launchers. My favorite turned out to be Kvaesitso.
It was weird for me at first because having apps on the main screen was something I’ve grown acustomed to. You can have a row if you want though. There is an option. After using it for a few weeks, I realized their layout works best for me.
Let me know if there are other launchers you recommend. I appreciate it.
I tried to like Kvaezitso, and I loved some of the features, but it’s too strict in others that I didn’t like. I want Lawnchair and Kvaezitso to make love and have a perfect baby.
Why do you need a new launcher? You’re good to go for several years until (if) Android implements some completely new feature. Right now Nova has pretty much everything.
Yeah, just use an older version, don’t update, and it’ll function fine for a while.
When I found out how scummy they were with user data I moved to KISS launcher. It took a few days to get used to but I’m very happy with it now.
KISS launcher is exactly what I was looking for in a launcher. 5 always used apps at the bottom calendar and weather widgets on the home screen, search for everything else. It seems like it used to have a lot of problems with custom icons but lately it’s been pretty much perfect.
I’ve been using KISS for a couple years now very successfully and I love it.
Should you decide to stick with it, here’s two tiny tips:
- Should the custom icons ever actually give you trouble, most issues can be fixed by going to the KISS Launcher options → Advanced → Restart KISS. It will reload all items from scratch.
- You can actually have a couple more ‘quick access’ apps set by going to KISS Launcher options → User experience → Gestures and defining ‘Launch…’ actions. For example, I launch my messaging app with a right swipe, my e-mails with a left swipe and note-taking with a long hold anywhere on the launcher.
Been using KISS over at F-droid for a few years now after moving on from Nova Launcher. It isn’t for everyone but it isn’t run by goons.
Tried it but it has a few things I don’t like, minor things but the most important is the apps drawer as list
Fair, it has a drawer that’s a list but i realize it is slightly different than expectation.
I’m not used to it, if I need something in the middle/end, I have to scroll to the bottom. I know it has letters but I’m not used to it so I keep forgetting
I used KISS for a while and found mlauncher, which is similar in concept, to work better for me. I had to force KISS to restart frequently enough where it became a problem.
Noe launcher. used nova on my pixel 6, now neo on my pixel 8
This hasn’t been updated for almost two years, at least on f droid. And I had massive issues with my pixel 8 pro
There hasn’t been a release in some time but work is still being done.
https://github.com/NeoApplications/Neo-Launcher/commits/main/
Interesting to see, but I’m waiting for a release 😞
interesting. why would pro have issues when the base 8 doesn’t. 🤷
Initially I thought I fucked up my imported config from my OnePlus, but even after setting it up freshly it just wasn’t stable.
I still use version 7 of Nova, it’s the only launcher in the market that knows how to handle icons. Any other is frankly a disaster, they can’t make them look good at all.
I have tried Kvaesito, Niagara, Nova, Kiss and Lawnchair(and forks), personally I prefer Lawnchair because it it the most standard regarding workflow and has all if not most features one would want in a launcher. Plus the fact it is fully FOSS and supports Arcticons. If you have a small number of apps you typically launch then Kiss or Niagara(Paid Pro version recommended) would work nicely.
Where is Lawnchair? It’s not on F-droid and the Google Play store says Lawnchair 2 is for an older os (I’m on 14).
I use LawnchairRelease, a fork of one of the devs from Lawnchair. You can also use the original Lawnchair Launcher
Add Izzy’s on Droid Repo to Fdroid. It is there. Or download it directly from Github, the latest release(v14) are the Beta 1, Beta 2 and the Nightly Version.
Sounds great but is it true it won’t allow custom icons?
What will not allow custom icons? All of them support custom icons. What do you mean?
Are there any launchers that have Nova’s 2 best features?
- Swipe-to-open folders (with tap to open the first item in the folder)
- Set any icon you want as an app icon?
I’ve tried Lawnchair and it was missing these 2 features. I will switch to any launcher that supports these!
I’ve been using Neo Launcher for a while as a Nova replacement and it’s pretty good. Both of those features are included as well as things like shortcut actions when you double tap or swipe on the home screen.
Action Launcher has this I think.
Omg thanks for asking this, and thanks to the people that responded. I sincerely went through other alternatives around 5 years ago, and none of them were close to Nova in terms of folder customisation. I’m glad the landscape had changed quite a bit!
For me, it’s the ability to add multiple apps to folders with a checklist.
Total Launcher does both of those. It’s massively customisable, although a bit daunting-looking in places. I love it though.
After I switched to gesture based navigation, I haven’t found a third party launcher that works seamlessly with it.
