Since a few folks seem unaware of this, I’m posting anew for visibility.

  • RattlerSix@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I may be kinda weird. My phone has looked the same for probably 10 years or more. The home screen is a wallpaper but otherwise blank. My name is at the bottom in the dock area, six letters, like M Y N A M E. When I tap a letter it opens a certain app or folder of apps. When I swipe up it opens others. For example, tap the M and it opens the camera, swipe up and it opens a folder of photo apps. Same for all six letters. I have one other page with active widgets for info I can take in visually like weather radar, news ticker, etc but on my main page, with those 6 taps and swipes I can open anything in a couple seconds max, one handed, probably with my eyes closed for oft-used apps.

    The letters of my name are 6 different images, I just typed my name in a nice looking font, took a snapshot of each letter and made the background transparent. So to set it up I drag the camera app to the dock then change it’s icon to the M.gif I have saved on my sdcard, then set a swipe action to open the photo apps folder. Really simple… as long as the launcher has those options.

    Since I read this post I’ve been looking at other launchers. I could find no way to get rid of the search bar in the dock with one launcher, another one didn’t even have a dock, it had a vertical A-Z on the side so you could open a list of apps alphabetically. Lawnchair won’t let me choose my own images for the icons in the dock, I can only select system icons or an icon pack.

    I’ll keep looking, and maybe I can make my 6 gif into an icon pack to use with Lawnchair or something. But without those options I will have to start using my phone in a completely different way than I have been using it for over 10 years.

    • Fishbone@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      To the best of my knowledge, Pear Launcher can do everything you’re asking for. I haven’t used nova in a while, but from what I recall of it, the free version of pear launcher is far more feature rich than nova.

      • RattlerSix@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Thanks! I downloaded it and it can change icons to images and swipes work fine. I just need to figure out how to do folders. It only says “folders in app drawer” in the description, I need folders to open with a tap or swipe on a home screen icon. I still have a copy of Folder Organizer although it’s been abandoned for years. I could get them to work with that if nothing else.

        • Fishbone@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Hey, dunno if you figured it out yet, but creating folders is done in the pear launcher settings (I get to the settings by a “pear actions” widget set to pear settings). From there, it’s app drawer > folders > then you can make new folders and add stuff to them.