• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Fun/Unique launchers?

LaughingTachikoma

LaughingTachikoma

Lurker
I was hoping someone could point me in the direction of some interesting launchers. I know that's pretty vague, so here's a couple examples of what I mean: 3D Home Launcher TSF Launcher 3D Shell and to a lesser extent, SF Launcher

I get kinda tired of the standard fare launchers (admit it, they're all pretty much the same), but these aren't really being updated any more. Anyone have any suggestions for a cool one for me to try?
 
I actually did use it a long time ago, but I haven't messed with it in a long time. It seems like a happy medium between something really creative and the launchers like go launcher and nova launcher. I'll reinstall it and see how it works for me :P
 
El Presidente said:
@argedion mentioned one yesterday called Total Launcher.

It's in beta at the moment and is a little fancy for me, but it looks pretty customisable and pretty unique.

Also sslauncher is another one to look at.
Click to expand...

Lol, Total Launcher looked like it was kinda trying to be minimal to me! I'll check it out though, it does say you can "Fill it with your creativity!" SSLauncher definitely looks interesting, the tabletop example they show is really cool!
 
LaughingTachikoma said:
Lol, Total Launcher looked like it was kinda trying to be minimal to me! I'll check it out though, it does say you can "Fill it with your creativity!" SSLauncher definitely looks interesting, the tabletop example they show is really cool!
Click to expand...
Total Launcher is sslauncher 2. There are tons of customization that can be done with Total Launcher. Kinda reminds me of the Linux of Launchers there are so many options to choose from and so many different ways to set it up.
 
Although I just switched from Apex Pro to Nova Prime, I'm seriously looking at Lucid Launcher as well. The concept of vertically scrollable homepages (in addition to the normal horizontal scrolling between pages) is appealing. It seems like a great way of having uncluttered homescreens, yet keeping everything easily accessible (w/o necessitating the usual routine of tapping to enter the app drawer, then scrolling to find a particular app, and then tapping Back to return to the homescreen).
 
Mr. Lucky said:
Although I just switched from Apex Pro to Nova Prime, I'm seriously looking at Lucid Launcher as well. The concept of vertically scrollable homepages (in addition to the normal horizontal scrolling between pages) is appealing. It seems like a great way of having uncluttered homescreens, yet keeping everything easily accessible (w/o necessitating the usual routine of tapping to enter the app drawer, then scrolling to find a particular app, and then tapping Back to return to the homescreen).
Click to expand...

I think the Pro version is on sale at the moment.

I used it for a couple of days and ended up switching back to Nova. It was pretty good, but I switched back because I couldn't find anyway of setting a dock and folder management was a little messy/buggy.
 
El Presidente said:
I used it for a couple of days and ended up switching back to Nova. It was pretty good, but I switched back because I couldn't find anyway of setting a dock and folder management was a little messy/buggy.
Click to expand...
We pretty much came to identical conclusions. I purchased and played with Pro for awhile, and although it shows promise, seems to have a number of inexplicable restrictions.
  1. You can set transparency level of everything it seems, except folders. They always have what appears to be ~ 40% transparency, thus giving them a "ghost" appearance compared to everything else.
  2. No ability to have folders in the app drawer.
  3. The vertical scrolling home pages are cool, but the page indicator is a toggle - On or Off. I need to know where I am within the vertical pages, but not constantly. The way Apex and Nova implement it (optionally) is perfect - it's visible while you are scrolling, and then fades away a moment later.
  4. You can set a gesture to toggle the notification bar, but not the navigation bar.
  5. You can customize or remove the action bar Search text, but if you remove it, the hotspot is still there.
  6. The "float app" action is terrific (kind of like an on-the-fly version of the "XHalo Floating Window" Xposed module), but only works if accessed from the app drawer.
As you mentioned, I noticed that there was no dock, but I think the sidebar is intended to replace it (which is nice, because it's just as accessible as the normal Android dock, but w/o forcing you use up screen real estate).

All in all, I score it B+. I'm returning to Nova, but will try Lucid again in the future.
 
You can add folders to the app drawer, but because of the transparency thing, it looks stupidly messy because you can still see the app drawer and app icons underneath.

The launcher also FC'd every time I tried to set an alternative icon for folders on my homescreen.
 
You folder comment caused me to revisit Lucid, and you're right about the app drawer folders! The confusion (for me at least) is that I didn't notice the upper-right corner drop-down was context-sensitive to the current screen, and that the settings are in two different places. Overall folder transparency (the issue I was describing) is controlled (and resolved!) by the slider in Home Page Settings > Folder Style; the actual style is set by swiping the icon in that screen (discovered totally by accident). The messy folder transparency that I believe you were describing is determined by the color picker and transparency slider in Home Page Settings > Folder Color. Unless I'm missing something, there are still some rough edges to folders though, For example, there doesn't seem to be any way of:
  • adding an app drawer folder to a homescreen w/o recreating it again (on homescreen)
  • automatically hiding apps in drawer that are already in a drawer folder
  • sorting folder contents
BTW, I never get FCs. Hopefully, this is of interest to the OP and not OT. If it is, I can start another thread on the subject of Lucid Launcher.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom