• kratoz29@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    This is a good welcome and I’d take it, despite all the hate it gets, I like Pixel Launcher because it is smooth as fuck, but this is mainly because Android stopped supporting 3rd party launchers… The joke of support that we have nowadays is… Well that, a fucking joke lol.

    Anyway Pixel Launcher lacks a lot of stuff to be usable for many… But god, it is also one of the few that freaking has a feature to automatically show the keyboard when you pull up the app drawer, then you can quickly type down for apps… Why is that so hard to implement? Even iOS has a quick search function…

    Anyway, as I said, PL is good, but tools like Pixel Launcher Extended are excellent, sadly it is stuck at Android 13 at the moment.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      5 months ago

      Android stopped supporting 3rd party launchers…

      Um, what? I’m using one in my Pixel 8 Pro.

      • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        With downgraded animations for sure…

        It is not that bad, but it is a bad implementation, I could use them too in my custom ROM (I can’t with MIUI or HyperOS) but I never want to use them, that if you use full screen gestures ofc, I think they work better with Android buttons.

      • soulfirethewolf@lemdro.idOP
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        5 months ago

        Not really “stopped supporting”, but really made changes in a way that made non system launchers unable to integrate with QuickStep (The app switcher of android). The end result is uneven animations when moving from an app to the home screen, or from the home screen to the app switcher.

        You might not notice if you use button navigation or turn off animations. But I don’t really consider those solutions, not to mention that it can be even worse on pixel tablet with the transient taskbar. Where the taskbar is embedded in animations with the PL, and if you’re using another launcher, it seems to cause all sorts of problems when doing certain things like going from the home screen to the app switcher. I actually had to move from button navigation (which I prefer on larger screens compared to smaller ones. Coupled with androids lack of gestures like on iPad) back to the default because the taskbar would just constantly disappear.

      • Scrollone
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        5 months ago

        How? I tried, but 3rd party launchers work worse because they load up after you close an app. Pixel Launcher has privileged permissions and can have smooth animations

        • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I use Lawnchair and don’t have this problem. I also didn’t do anything special, just set it up as the default launcher.

          • Scrollone
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            5 months ago

            Do you use the legacy three buttons navigation?

              • Scrollone
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                5 months ago

                Okay, so that’s why it’s working fine for you!

                As soon as you enable the new gesture navigation, 3rd party launchers will “break”

        • Martin@feddit.nu
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          5 months ago

          It sounds like the launcher app is killed while in the background. Make sure that the app is allowed to run in the background and not have any battery optimization enabled.

          • Scrollone
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            5 months ago

            It’s not killed, it’s that gesture navigation expects the launcher to be already rendered behind the foreground app, and 3rd party launchers can’t do that

        • 13617@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          They (kinda) work on Samsung now if you turn off the animations. Regardless, the custom launcher on Android is dead.

          • MaXimus421@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Well I don’t prefer gesture navigation but to suggest custom launchers on Android are dead is some of the most absurd shit I’ve read in a while.

    • Nath@aussie.zone
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      5 months ago

      this is mainly because Android stopped supporting 3rd party launchers.

      What do you mean? I’ve always used my own launcher. I’ve never used the pixel launcher - not because I have anything against it, but because I like Nova better. L