[APP]GCA Launcher (Deprecated)

[Nx Biotic]

Being a fan of Chromium OS and a passion for developing new and interesting things, I decided to build a launcher inspired by chromium os, based on Material Components.

GCA or GO Custom Android Launcher is a pixel design inspired launcher with core component features from chromium OS desktop. Its designed and built for Android Go but also offers new devices a fresh and new experience for your homescreen.

Supporting Android 5.x+, GCA offers a single screen launcher replacement app for android users who want a pixel lite experience. Alot of the offered features come from my other launcher, Sapphyx Launcher, and rebuilt to be faster, lighter and ultimately offer a better experience in a small package. It runs beautifully on Android Go, smooth on devices with Android 5 (Like the Kindle Fires) and offers a theme engine that's customizeable by the user.

GCA features are dependant on what Google Apps are installed that depend on an action, whether Google services is installed or not and specific apps that are installed (Action Dash for Dash System Shortcut)

Core Features
-A single screen setup (no grid, one widget).
-A customizeable App Drawer with multi-purpose search.
-The App Drawer features apps with system shortcuts and app shortcuts and allows users to blacklist apps.
-App Drawer supports a secondary "Work" tab to help organize apps in a better fassion.
-App Shortcuts generate a list of selectable app shortcuts in a vertical menu of the app popup.
-Recent Apps
-Easy to use launcher customization
-Pixel/Chromium desktop like Cosmetics
-Launcher uses my wallpaper app, Drywall, as default wallpaper provider. If its not installed, fallback on user selected.
-Notification Badges and Underlining. Clicking on the app will dismiss. Is not supported on Android Go unless activated by OEM.
-Adaptive Icons
-Icon Packs

Adaptive Icons
-GCA Launcher uses James Fenn's adaptive icon view library. The code itself was inspired by lawnchair's backport of adaptive icons for pre oreo devices. It pulls v26 icon assets for foregrounds and backgrounds and relayers them as an adaptive icon view which behave similar to pixel launchers adaptive icons. How you choose to use them will affect performance of the launcher and should be chosen dependant of how capable your device is. Users can select which shape of adaptive icon path they want to use. This will also apply itself to app actions, predictions and app drawer button.

There are 3 options of icons you may use for your drawer.
Pixel Adaptive - will try and generate adaptive icons based on the assets gathered by the icon and created by the system, this will slow down your app drawer depending on your hardware. (Not recommended for Android Go, Does not support icon packs)
Palette Adaptive - will disregard any assets available from the icon and simply scale the icon drawable as foreground and apply the dominant color of the icon for the background drawable (Faster than pixel adaptive, supports icon packs)
Normal Icons - normal default icon behavior and style


What's Not Working / WIP
-Icon Packs that generate their own icons like Icon Pack Studio may cause crashes, please don't use them. Icon Packs developed with BluePrint library are recommended.
-If external data usage permission is denied on first start, homescreen scrim will not be available or work correctly. Homescreen scrim will set to default white if using a live wallpaper.
-GCA is setup to change available features based on Android OS, if you notice something that may not be correct or crashes, let me know. This is your only paywall.
-Android 5.X support is limited but work in progress. Cosmetics and style need updated but it is functional. Please report back any inconveniences and crashes.
-Android 10 support has been added but we are monitoring performance and compatibility.
-Adaptive Shape Views and Adaptive Icon performance may vary on devices.

Changelog
-A detailed changelog can be found in the application settings. It is written in html so translation is your responsibility, html can be copied.

Donations
/ Pledges
-Yearly pledges have been implemented in the app. You are not obligated for any reason to purchase these but if you want regular updates, its recommended. Pledges keep the project alive and a few cups of coffee or a beer is sent my way (depending on time of day).

Downloads

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gocalsd.symphlyx

Xda Labs: https://labs.xda-developers.com/store/app/com.gocalsd.symphlyx

Telegram: Support channel can be found in the app settings

Bug Reports / Request
Please use the telegram channel or xda forums for bug reports and request. Do not use the Google Play ratings as a place for this stuff.

While making request, take into consideration how itl affect performance. We are keeping Android Go as our target OS. If itl consume memory or increase size massively , im not interested. We are aiming to keep customization minimal and the launcher simple but their could be different ways to approach currently implemented features, and id love to hear your ideas.

 

[Nx Biotic]

Android Go Nokia 1 performance demonstration

Nokia 1 and Essential Phone performance comparison

Quick Preview of Symphlyx (Latest build)

8/11/19

Il be uploading a new video soon comparing performance on a variety of devices using Symphlyx Official

 

[Nx Biotic]

Previously known as Symphlyx Launcher

 

[Nx Biotic]

Project Update Notice:
V2 is in development and I'm hoping for a beta release at the end of February 2020. The launcher has been rewritten from the ground up and includes a bunch of new features the community requested through pledges.

Sent from my HTC U Ultra using XDA Labs

 

[MadsMann]

I downloaded it and put it through the paces. I like how clean it is and I think you could be on to something. Will look forward to further development. Good job. ?

 

[Nx Biotic]

I downloaded it and put it through the paces. I like how clean it is and I think you could be on to something. Will look forward to further development. Good job. ?

Good to hear!

Sent from my HTC U Ultra using XDA Labs

 

[Nx Biotic]

Hoping to have a new update published tomorrow night. A preview of what's being worked on.

Sent from my HTC U Ultra using XDA Labs

 

[Nx Biotic]

New update today, now available on xda labs!

Changes
-Added experimental support for SDK 21 (Any devices with android 5.x are now able to install Symphlyx. Needs alot of work but its useable)
-Added Dismiss popup action for Android 5.x (Clicking outside of bounds on popup will not dismiss menu)
-Improved general performance and optimization for Android Go
-Added ability to dismiss notification underlining
-Added functional reminder widget
-Added semi function Heads Up widget (Previously known as generic At A Glance. Will behave differently on different OS's. Working on a weather provider atm but clicking on weather will ooen google weather. Heads up strings display differnet things on every quarter of the day.)
-Recent Apps now functional (Uses a position and click count logic. Recent apps hold 5 recent apps. The drawer monitors a click count up to 5. Every count is registered to a position and saves the action and icon on that click for the position in recent apps. If that action is already saved in a position, the click data is ignored but the count is consumed.)
-Added the ability to clear search results. Clicking the back button when the drawer is open will dismiss it but if search results are present, it will clear the search results focus first.
-Improved icon pack support and the chooser settings
-Increased homescreen scrim and All Apps button height position
-Fixed an issue where Sensey listener would be killed if the background process was killed by android os. This would make navigating to your apps or settings impossible.

And a few more chnages, check the changelog for a full list of changes.

Sent from my HTC U Ultra using XDA Labs

 

[Nx Biotic]

Currently working on a large update for Sapphyx Launcher atm so please leave some feedback on what could be improved, what you'd like to see, how the launcher performs on your device, etc while i take a break on this project to let it simmer.

Sent from my HTC U Ultra using XDA Labs

 

[Nx Biotic]

Currently finishing things up with Sapphyx Launcher development but a whole lot of changes are expected to be merged in with Symphlyx launcher in the coming future.

Sent from my HTC U Ultra using XDA Labs

 

[Nx Biotic]

It's been kinda quiet around here. I present a preview of the new popup menu we've been working on.

An update is expected to drop in June. Rebuilding alot of everything.

 

[Nx Biotic]

Let's talk about this new screenshot here giving some lite to Symphlyx Launcher's future.

Users will now have a dock. This dock will reflect recent app icons to the desktop from the drawer. These shortcuts have a popup menu similar to the drawer popup menu but limited to launcher actions. These do not have any sort of notification indicator.

Below the apps is a google searchbar. The searchbar also has 3 items. 2 predictive actions and am all apps button. The all apps button can be toggled while the predictive actions are only available to devices that support app shortcuts. Predictive actions behave very similar to Lawnchair 's logic behind predictive actions. When a user launches a shortcut class, its logged and saved to the prediction items. Only 2 at a time are logged.

 

[Nx Biotic]

Update Alpha 0.5 is now available on xda labs and pending on Google play.

Changes since march reveal
-Widget sliders are dead. The homescreen has been rebuilt to be cleaner, faster and better for gestures. Insteaf of Sliders, Symphkyx will rely on its stand alone heads up widget. Later on, users will be granted the ability to use their own widgets.
-Sensey gesture recognition has been removed due to click interferences we had during development. It has been replaced with our own gesture recognition system that will allow more control.
-The homescreen now offers a Shelf (dock) similar to Chromium. This shelf will later have some theme options available. Shelf will mirrow recwntly opened apps from the app drawer and add them in a 5 item dock. These shortcuts offer limited launcher actions and launcher shortcuts. Below these apps is a searchbar for google. It should open Google now depending on your os and firmware. On the end of the searchbar is an all apps button and a holder for recent actions. Recent actions can be enabled in the launcher settings and is only available to android 7.1+. Prediction actions will list 2 recenlty opened app shortcuts. These shortcuts will remain here untill a new app package is detected and/or replaced by the prediction system.
-The app drawer has had a few things done to it to improve performance and reliability. Colors are extracted in the data set instead of the adapter now and used for the popup menu and badge underlining. The drawer toolbar works the same way as before. Clicking on the google icons will open their respective activities but if something is in the searchbar, it will search that string in that environment. (ex: Google search news, Playstore search news)
-The popup menu still needs some tuning but now builds up on app shortcuts. If a shortcut is available, it will add it in a vertical list menu. This replaces the shortcut action we used to have to view shortcuts in a context menu. This menu is cleaner, faster and feels like a pixel popup. Actions are dependant of your os version and shortcuts are dependant on availability. Shortcuts and popups do not appear on recent apps in the app drawer.
-The settings menu has been cleaned up abit. This menu will only contain dynamic settings. (except icon packs) The menu now has an expansion activity. This menu will hold settings that rely on the launcher restarting or some system dependant.
-The about activity has been rebuilt with attribouter.
-The application is now built on AndroidX and Material Components. Very little 3rd party dependency is used now for a cleaner and reliable experience.

 

[Nx Biotic]

Recent Screenshots

 

[Nx Biotic]

Small update today. Tried correcting the positioning of popup menus on app item positions. We've noticed the popup menus would cut off on far right items and arrows not correctly inflating in the right sport or at all. I simply updated the popup library to correct these issues.

I might look into some sort of notification or alert count in the popup menu which would reset to 0 if cleared with the Clear Action.

A light n dark theme mode is being looked. This will be triggered by time or manually.

 

[dpdsr65]

Small update today. Tried correcting the positioning of popup menus on app item positions. We've noticed the popup menus would cut off on far right items and arrows not correctly inflating in the right sport or at all. I simply updated the popup library to correct these issues.

I might look into some sort of notification or alert count in the popup menu which would reset to 0 if cleared with the Clear Action.

A light n dark theme mode is being looked. This will be triggered by time or manually.

Could be promising. Wouldn't let me get through the permissions set-up before crashing.

 

[Nx Biotic]

Could be promising. Wouldn't let me get through the permissions set-up before crashing.

What android version are you using?

 

[dpdsr65]

What android version are you using?

8. 10

 

[Nx Biotic]

8. 10

Interesting, il see what would of caused this to happen.

 

[[email protected]]

Well I was searching for a new launcher and xda labs landed me here. Screenshots look dope, but for me launcher has bugs,
1: not able to set homescreen widget even when given all permissions
2: app drawer is cut maybe due to aspect ratio ( mine is 19.5:9)

Well if these screens help, here they are.