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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
I always come back to Smart Launcher. I grew up with category-based application menus on on PC, I can’t stand having a giant unorganized app drawer. It’s so cluttered and messy. I’m always surprised at how little mention it gets and instead everybody talks about these “minimalist” launchers that are literally just unorganized app drawers.
Its insane that custom launchers are even needed. I gave the base Samsung version a try and it wont even let me move the app drawer button, its glued to the bottom right. I’d expect an android to let me customize more than windows. Never understood the big tech companies need for this much control. Some brand manager will have a heartattack if I change an app icon, a basic feature in any version of Windows.
They keep things locked down for the 50% of the population with below average intelligence. It makes things easier to trouble shoot when you can’t move the important stuff. Also that group is usually the loudest complainers when they can’t find something, or something goes wrong.
I think the reason that the tech companies won’t allow us to have our devices our own way ( Microsoft was doing this decades ago ), is “religious”/ideological, not practical:
I think they “need” to keep everybody permanently in a headlock, with our heads all twisted, because only if we are all in permanent learned-helplessness, only then can they automatically get away with everything they intend to be getting away with, in our world.
IOW, our autonomy violates their totalitarian religion, see?
It’s the same as how ANY spirituality grates on Dawkins’ blood: he wants it all gutted/butchered/destroyed, & suicides of ones he destroyed are no problem for him, & no alternative ever can have any validity to him.
Totalitarianism, whether traditionally “religious”, or in any other ideology/prejudice/religion, is the same: it HATES violation of its homogenous dominion.
( comically: homophobic-religions want a homogenous het humankind, with no violation of that homogeneity. The existence of homosexuals is too heterogenous for them )
Autonomy is something that totalitarian supremacism ideology “needs” to obliterate from the whole world.
Consistently.
It seems to be a damn-good diagnostic for it, even!
Microsoft launcher is super underrated IMO. Lots of customization. I use it for my foldable, but it’s a bit hit or miss sometimes (scaling of folders sometimes gets messed up going from open to closed).
Yeah sorry lol, I was not clear.
When I go to add a third app it just goes behind the folder. Tried a dozen times with different apps and only ever takes 2 per folder.
Just tried again and it let me do 4! Then the 5th just goes into its own folder and cant be added.
Thank you so much! A video speaks a million words and yours helped me to instantly identify what’s causing this.
What happens is that when you remove apps from a folder until one is left, that app remains as a folder, and currently this launcher doesn’t allow you to drag one folder over another.
A workaround is to tap that “folder” and drag that last app out from its “folder”, into the other folder you want it to be in.
A fix for this is planned, thanks for highlighting this confusing behaviour ;)
Yeah I just tried it out and I’m not a fan it’s far too simple. I love Nova for being able to swipe up or down on icons for separate actions. I have a foldable so I use that to trigger multi-app groups
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