[APP][5.0+] Widget Drawer

[Zacharee1]

Do you use widgets frequently? Are you maybe tired of having to go to the home screen just to take a quick glance at your inbox? You could just open the widget's app, but then you have to wait for the app to open and load.

Widget Drawer aims to take care of this convenience issue by adding a way for you to access your widgets from nearly any app or screen.

When enabled, Widget Drawer will add a handle to the side of your screen. Simply swipe that handle inward and you will be presented with an area to add widgets. This handle will stay on the screen whether you're on the home screen, browsing the internet, or reading a book.

Widget Drawer also provides certain customization options for the drawer itself:

• Change the height of each widget
• Set whether a widget should take up 1 or 2 columns in width
• Reorder widgets
• Choose whether or not widgets should have an opaque background

The handle has a few options as well. It can be moved vertically or even to the other side of the screen by long-pressing it and then dragging. The size and color can even be personalized from within the app itself.

Widget Drawer makes use of the following permissions:

• SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
  - Used to show the drawer over other apps
• VIBRATE
  - Used to provide haptic feedback for certain actions
• FOREGROUND_SERVICE
  - Used to start a foreground Service to keep Widget Drawer running
• BIND_APPWIDGET
  - Used to host the widgets
• INTERNET
  - Used by Firebase to track crashes and gather logs

This app is open source! https://github.com/zacharee/WidgetDrawer

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tk.zwander.widgetdrawer
XDA Labs: https://labs.xda-developers.com/store/app/tk.zwander.widgetdrawer

Screenshots:

Changelog:

v6
- Make widgets non-interactable in edit mode

v5
- Fix widget reordering and removal
v4
- Rework toolbar behavior: now hidden by default. Drag/tap arrow to show/hide.
- Rework toolbar appearance
- Decrease animation duration
- Accessibility: make handle focusable and add content descriptions
- Fix some crashes
---
- Fix back button not working
v3
- Rework toolbar behavior: now hidden by default. Drag/tap arrow to show/hide.
- Rework toolbar appearance
- Decrease animation duration
- Accessibility: make handle focusable and add content descriptions
- Fix some crashes
v2
- Add ability to add shortcuts to drawer
- Add alpha slider to handle color
- Add option to hide handle
- Add option to close drawer when tapping on empty space
- Add Activity that can be launched to open drawer from other apps
- Improve animations
v1
- Initial release

 

[kjames2001]

Just bought the app, it's a great idea.

However, some widgets could not be found (eg. Greenify). Please check.

Also, please add the function to close the panel by clicking on empty space.

Thanks.

 

[Humpie]

Good idea! I'm currently building a widget myself so it's nice to see people embracing widgets more (And see that it also works with your app yay).

Small suggestion already. Can the handle color be transparant? Should be just a small use alpha = true or something in the color picker. (I'm familiar with the library)

 

[StephenLeo]

I could not get it to work right, I'm on Oreo 8.1, I got refunded. I am interested so I'll try it again once it comes out of beta.

 

[Zacharee1]

I could not get it to work right, I'm on Oreo 8.1, I got refunded. I am interested so I'll try it again once it comes out of beta.

It'll only come out of beta if bug reports tell me exactly what's wrong.

 

[Zacharee1]

Good idea! I'm currently building a widget myself so it's nice to see people embracing widgets more (And see that it also works with your app yay).

Small suggestion already. Can the handle color be transparant? Should be just a small use alpha = true or something in the color picker. (I'm familiar with the library)

Whoops. I knew there was an option I forgot to enable.

 

[Zacharee1]

Just bought the app, it's a great idea.

However, some widgets could not be found (eg. Greenify). Please check.

Also, please add the function to close the panel by clicking on empty space.

Thanks.

What do you mean by "not found"?

 

[IAMG]

Great app! Have been looking for something like this for a very long time.

It would be nice if side triggers could be disabled and you can add a shorcut to access the widgets. That way triggers can be assigned to gestures for some of us that use gestures apps

Maybe you can check this discontinued-app functionality, in order to improve yours

Snap Swipe Drawer: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/francisco-barroso-2/snap-swipe-drawer/

 

[kjames2001]

What do you mean by "not found"?

Just don't see it in selection when adding a new widget.

 

[Zacharee1]

Widget Drawer v2:

- Add ability to add shortcuts to drawer
- Add alpha slider to handle color
- Add option to hide handle
- Add option to close drawer when tapping on empty space
- Add Activity that can be launched to open drawer from other apps
- Improve animations

 

[IAMG]

OMG! You are fast, bro! As a suggestion, aesthetically would be better if bottom toolbar only appears when the app is open (so widgets aspect can only be edited by acessing the app), and make it go away when the drawer is being accessed either by triggers or shortcuts.

Also the transition from opened drawer to closed drawer when tapping and empty space, has some lag.

Would be possible an option to remove padding?


Thanks for this app!

------ edited --------

Landscape mode not working here

 

[kjames2001]

Widget Drawer v2:

Cool man, thanks for the fast update!

Another suggestion, please allow 4 icon widgets (shortcuts) in a row.

As you can see one icon is taking up 2 columns at the moment, that's wasting space if you ask me.

 

[kjames2001]

OMG! You are fast, bro! As a suggestion, aesthetically would be better if bottom toolbar only appears when the app is open (so widgets aspect can only be edited by acessing the app), and make it go away when the drawer is being accessed either by triggers or shortcuts.

Also the transition from opened drawer to closed drawer when tapping and empty space, has some lag.

Would be possible an option to remove padding?


Thanks for this app!

------ edited --------

Landscape mode not working here

Nice idea, this will give the app a cleaner look.

As for landscape mode, if it gets supported, please make it optional.

 

[Zacharee1]

Cool man, thanks for the fast update!

Another suggestion, please allow 4 icon widgets (shortcuts) in a row.

As you can see one icon is taking up 2 columns at the moment, that's wasting space if you ask me.

I can either make each widget span a single column or span all of them. So if the division were four, it would be 1/4 width or full width. Intermediates aren't possible.

 

[kam333]

First of all, thanks for this useful app, it was exactly what I was looking for, tried a few other before this 1 but they didn't quite work how I wanted.

I have a few suggestions I hope you would consider adding as options in the settings.

1. A scroll bar, I have a few scrolling widgets (e.g. flamingo for twitter), so I need to make sure I use the widget header to scroll through your app.

2. A full immersive setting or a way to minimise/toggle your bottom bar.

3. This ones not essential but would be nice to swipe left or right to close your widget drawer.

On a final note, even though it's working great, I really hope you continue to develope this app, and if it helps to motivate development I think you should consider adding a donate option, since the app price is so low.

Many thanks

Sent from my BLA-L09 using Tapatalk

 

[Zacharee1]

First of all, thanks for this useful app, it was exactly what I was looking for, tried a few other before this 1 but they didn't quite work how I wanted.

I have a few suggestions I hope you would consider adding as options in the settings.

1. A scroll bar, I have a few scrolling widgets (e.g. flamingo for twitter), so I need to make sure I use the widget header to scroll through your app.

2. A full immersive setting or a way to minimise/toggle your bottom bar.

3. This ones not essential but would be nice to swipe left or right to close your widget drawer.

On a final note, even though it's working great, I really hope you continue to develope this app, and if it helps to motivate development I think you should consider adding a donate option, since the app price is so low.

Many thanks

1. A persistent scrollbar is a good idea.

2. I've been thinking of ways to allow hiding the toolbar. I guess a small trigger button in the bottom right that is pulled or tapped could work.

3. I'm not sure how well this would work. I'm already doing a lot of hacky stuff just to have scrolling work properly (normally, even non-scrollable widgets would block the overall scroll).

I don't have any plans to stop development for the time being. The price is actually more of a "stop and think sort of thing." I don't want people blindly downloading the app and then getting mad at me because they didn't read the description and thought it was something else.

I'm glad you like the app so far!

 

[chxnugs]

This app is great and has amazing utility! I bought it right away when I seen this thread. So far everything is working great except I can't resize the Google keep widget. My other widgets resize perfectly but keep will move up or down instead of resizing. Thank you for the awesome app!

 

[Zacharee1]

This app is great and has amazing utility! I bought it right away when I seen this thread. So far everything is working great except I can't resize the Google keep widget. My other widgets resize perfectly but keep will move up or down instead of resizing. Thank you for the awesome app!

It might have a max height set in the widget. I can't force it.

 

[kjames2001]

It might have a max height set in the widget. I can't force it.

Somehow I can't have the app run at boot complete. I have white listed the app from all battery saving apps and doze. I don't know if it's just me or someone else is also having this issue, but please check. Thanks.

 

[kam333]

Somehow I can't have the app run at boot complete. I have white listed the app from all battery saving apps and doze. I don't know if it's just me or someone else is also having this issue, but please check. Thanks.

No problems here, using Android 8.0

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