Patch: Advanced Configuration for App Launcher 72
There are a lot of patches for webOS, but after awhile the most popular ones tend to become apparent until the good folks who create them turn them into 'Advanced' patches with lots of configuration options - to the point where they almost feel like full-fledged apps.
Such is the case with Advanced Configuration for App Launcher by Sconix. It basically makes all other Launcher patches unnecessary by offering darn near all of the as configurable options. Want to set the number of icons in a row and their spacing? Check. Want to add pages, name them, and manage their order? Check. Want to hide the QuickWave Launchbar? Check. It's the kind of patch that makes you want to donate to WebOS Internals.
Be sure to remove other Launcher-related patches before you install it then spend some time tweaking your settings. You'll be glad you did. New to patching and homebrew? No worries - this how-to article will get you started.
72 Comments
This is a terrific patch. Sconix has done excellent work with this, his other patches, and Mode Switcher. Don't forget to donate to him and any other homebrewers whose patches and apps you use.
one of the best patches out there. And seeing that webos 2.0 clip, I'm hoping these wonderful folks will continue their great work. That launcher seen in the video will need some personal love by its user. Patch request... Ability to change the icons... But otherwise, thank you webos internals for making my pre fun to mess around with.
I tried the other patches for app launcher and liked them all, but this is great to have the options in one place. I tried this patch when I had to update most of my patches after updating to 1.4.5. Did anyone else have that inconvenience? At first I was a little afraid of Advanced Config because of its description, but configuring is really simple. Thanks for a great patch.
We need a special web page for the developers with their apps and all the work right next to a donate button. Finding everyone is a bit of a hassle, but can be done. I will be donating soon because these people are keeping me on the webOS bandwagon.
This is my favorite patch now, thanks sconix.
Its great to also hear that he is now part of webos Internals, which means more great things to come.
The only thing I don't like about this patch the jerkly non-flowing scrolling of the launcher pages when you enable page wrapping. I prefer the default smooth scrolling of the launcher pages. If sconix could somehow enable the same smooth launcher scrolling with page wrapping enabled, it would be perfect! Overall, great patch though!
Who needs the page wrapper if you got tabs and can just go back to page one? Even doe sconix didn't create all the patches .. He made all of them into one plus more..
It's all about options. Also, what if you don't have page headers or tabs enabled? Then you can't switch tabs. The lack of smooth scrolling when wrapping enabled just makes the launcher seem less polished imo...
Switch tabs without tabs enabled by performing a forward swipe.
Thanks for the tip! However still wish there was way to maintain smooth scrolling animation with page wrapping. Thanks! Just want to say thanks to sconix again for great patch!
Completely agree with you. That is the reason I didn't install Wrap Pages. I just don't like not having it smoothly scroll over. That takes absolutely NOTHING away from this patch. It is phenomenal, and I know having tabs will make things extremely easy for me. But there's just something about sliding the screen from page to page that I don't want to do without.
when Named Pages and a couple others borked after the update I had to EPR. Found this one because of the forum discussions and chose it. In a word: WOW! Indeed this is a great addition.
Is there something you're not telling us? I'm a poor AT&T customer without 1.4.5 and some of the sweetness described is not available on my phone - like the tabbed pages or the icon spacing.
For now I guess I have to run the 1.4.2 version of ACL and add in Icon 4x4 V5...
/john
1.4.5 was released to AT&T earlier this week, so check your updates app.
Can someone lead me in the right direction for the glass theme used in this video? Anything I've seen uses iPhone icons...blech! thanks in advance!
I don't think its a theme but the Glass Effect patch. Search for 'glass' in Preware and you should find it. I tried it but prefer to have something behind my icons on the launcher page.
by far the best patch available to put all the webosness together on the launcher
I don't like this patch at all. I like the idea but not the implementation. What I hate most about it is how it doesn't scroll smoothly from page to page of apps. It just jumps from page to page. I like the multiple other patches I have installed better. I just don't like that for some reason the named pages patch doesn't seem to work for me anymore. But I'm willing to live without that one for the implementation of the others. This patch is such a nice concept, I just wish it worked the way the previous patches did to accomplish all of those goals it aims to accomplish.
johntomfoolery, Please refer to my post above. Go to preference in the launcher tab (tap top left corner while in launcher) and disable page wrapping. This will allow smooth scrolling of the launcher pages like the default launcher. I have asked sconix in the forum thread if it was possible to fix this issue, but unfortunately he stated that it was a limitation of the patch itself...
As I mentioned, there are many things I don't like about the patch. The page scrolling is just one thing. I prefer the way the other patches work for doing each of the things that they do. I don't like the layout/menus/buttons/anything about this advanced configuration patch.
The animation effect that is normally present is removed when page wrapping is enabled. This is due to a limitation of the scroller widget which the Launcher uses.
I love this patch too. What I don't love is having to EPR my Pre to install it. The author of the app isn't kidding when he says that this app conflicts with everything.
This patch is great. Sconix really went the extra mile and incorporated every person's random wishes into the config options. I really like the pixel grid spacing slider.
This patch is awesome! Great work sconix.
yeah, i finally decided to take the couple of minutes to remove all other launcher patches and install this one last night...
i was going to post in the forums last night becuase i was pretty blown away. this patch is amazing! i can't think of any funtionality that i would add other than to have the tabs show the page title instead of just number. oh, and they should hightlight to relfect the page is you swipe to another one. outside of those two (nit-picky and somewhat trivial) gripes, this patch is perfection!
I went to this patch when Named Pages borked after the 1.4.5 update. Not all Launcher patches are incompatible, Glass Effects still works great.
Props to sconix and to all the other folks that wrote the patches that are built into this.
SHouldnt the article say donate to Sconix instead of donate to webOS internals.
He is now a part of webOS Internals.
my fav patch forsure
Do I need to remove all patches before installing this or just the ones related to the launcher?
Good idea would be to remove all launcher patches, hide/show app patches, grid patches (4x4, etc...). This patch pretty much covers them all.
Just Launcher patches.
The animation effect that is normally present is removed when page wrapping is enabled. This is due to a limitation of the scroller widget which the Launcher uses.
Sconix is part of the WebOS-Internals team. I know you can still donate directly to him, not sure how the donations work directly to WebOS-Internals for his work, etc... (shared someway I guess).
A couple really cool things about this patch:
-I'm not a fan of the launcher page titles at the top; they take up room. However, if you still want that functionality, just perform a forward swipe and you can navigate to any of your launcher pages.
-A meta-tap on empty space in a launcher brings up the edit mode.
All in all, this patch replaced a bunch of other patches and does it all better than my previous setup.
How does the meta tap thing work? I tried doing the meta tap on the empty space area in the launcher and couldn't get edit mode to show up...
All I can say is: the combination of this patch and the Launchpoint app makes waiting for the next Palm phone and WebOS 2.0 soooo much easier! Speed dialing, texting, and e-mail launch etc. has everyone I know with different smartphones jealous (not to mention the look on their faces when I show them my Touchstone-in-the-car setup!)
THIS IS JUST TOOO COOOOOOL!!!
Thanks guys!
Here is the wiki page for this patch.
http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Patch:AdvancedConfigurations
I was looking for this...Thanks :-)
Absolutely brilliant.
used to have it before my pre+ was updated the other day. now can't update/reinstall back to phone. get an error message about hunk failed. tried to make sure no other launcher patches installed. anybody else experience this problem?
great patch btw.
excellent patch sconix, been using since day 1!
sj
After upgrading to WebOS 1.4.5 with my AT&T pre plus, this application will not update or allow me to delete it to try and reinstall. I have deleted every patch and anything having to do with the launcher, so not understanding why the update and removal both fail. I get this on IPKG Log:
Unable to run command: IPKG_OFFLINE_ROOT=/media/cryptofs/apps /bin/sh /media/cryptofs/apps/usr/lib/ipkg/info/org.webosinternals.patches.app-launcher-advanced-configuration-for-app-launcher.prerm 2>&1
Unreversed patch detected! Ignore -R? [n]
Apply anyway? [n]
2 out of 2 hunks ignored -- saving rejects to file usr/lib/luna/system/luna-systemui/app/controllers/bar-assistant.js.rej
Can anyone point me in the right direction to resolve this?
I have the same issue, it would be nice to not have to remove all patches to get rid of this error. Any thoughts?
this patch is great in so many ways but i have encountered a problem when trying to update my pre to 1.4.5. it would not uninstall and kept giving me ipkg errors or something like that. i'm not the most technically sound guy so it was a big deal and i could not get it off. so i had to run an EPR and remove EVERY patch.
this patch is great in so many ways but i have encountered a problem when trying to update my pre to 1.4.5. it would not uninstall and kept giving me ipkg errors or something like that. i'm not the most technically sound guy so it was a big deal and i could not get it off. so i had to run an EPR and remove EVERY patch.
I would pay $3 for this app! Everything I could want it to do. Allows me to organize my phone how I want it! I'm off to donate!
Need some help with this patch. I had several launcher patches installed, but had an issue once when recharging, and the phone did a reset. Some of the patches I had previously installed were gone after the reset, others were still working, but do not appear in the list of installed patches. Therefore, I can't delete them, and then install this new advanced patch. I tried installing anyway, but got an error message. Any ideas on how I can uninstall these old patches?
Very well executed. I love this trend of patches being combined. Sometimes installation is hard, as you aren't sure what to uninstall first, but a great trend none the less.
This and UberCalendar are my two favs now.
I'm jealous; UberCalendar won't install for me
wow that is really good...
This looks fantastic but does anyone know how much memory is uses? I try to limit the amount of background stuff running on my Sprint Pre Minus and this looks like it must use more RAM than just a launcher patch or two.
In general, patches neither run in the background, nor do they use extra memory.
This one in particular does neither.
-- Rod
Thanks much for that tip, Rod. I applied the patch and am liking it. You guys at WebOS Internals are awesome. I donated awhile back but I think it's time for another!
I just updated to 1.4.5 and before doing so uninstalled ALL patches, After the update was complete i installed this patch for the FIRST time ever, i do not have a "preferences" option. my options are listed as follows
Edit >
App Launcher >
Quick Launch Bar >
List All Applications
Default Applications
Help
That's it, i've been thru every menu option and it's just not there! any help or guidance would be appreciated.
BTW , I installed version 1.4.1-31 it is the only option available in my Preware..
You don't see the extra features/functionality that was added to the patch because your using an old version. If you upgraded to 1.4.5, you need to update your patch to the compatible 1.4.5 version that contains what your looking for.
I installed this for the first time ever AFTER i upgraded to 1.4.5, I completly shut down my phone and after the restart i updated my feeds in Preware AGAIN, since i didn't completely restart my phone after the update to 1.4.5 Preware was seeing my phone as 1.4.1 even though device info reported it as 1.4.5! something learned here today is "Always completly shut down and restart your device after a update!" Thanks for the help, but i figured this out on my own before i checked this forum. LONG LIVE WebOS!
works with glass effect....well I removed the patch and installed it again after installing this patch. lookin good.
I like this patch and all but there are a couple of things I can't deal with which is why I removed the patch.
No animations when swiping through pages
And sconix should've built the "Named Pages in Launcher" patch into this.
Don't enable wrapping it disables the animation. Its something that can't be avoided since its WebOS scroller Widget limitation. And the named pages is build in.
This patch is full of WIN!
Hi
I want to install this patch, but first I want to remove the patch that adds pages to the launcher, but I can
This patch is the kind that makes you say "oh shi#"........well done.
I've had this patch on my Pre+ for a while and some of the options you're using are not there. Why is that? I love the patch, but there is no PREFERENCES, I don't have an option for Tabbed screens, and I was using a separate 4 x 4 Icons patch. There's no indication that it needs to be updated. I'm going to try uninstalling it and re-installing.
The latest version is only for 1.4.5 so maybe you are still running 1.4.1?
Love this patch. Love. LOVE - hearts and flowers and butterflies and scented rainbows. (lol)
But--(dark music or any thing by Amy Lee here)...
I Must say that I find the absolute user experience MESS created from the ultimate-flexibility in ModeSwitcher to make it easily the worst mobile app experience ever on any platform in any decade. That thing needs to look in the mirror and get some major plastic surgery done. Any patch that requires hours of research in order to figure out a basic setup needs real help.
BLECH. Spew.
The current UI was never meant for "normal" users. Its main focus was to allow the user to do everything that the core functionality allows so that I can find any problems with the core code etc. So more user friendly UI is coming at some point when I have the time. The current UI will stay as advanced option so that users can if they want to tweak every single option in the mode, but a bit more limiting and much logical to use UI will be the default one.
Anyone know the name of the patch he has installed where he pressed at the middle top of his screen?
is it UberCalender?
I guess you mean my System Menus Today Menu patch. It allows you to see your calendar events quickly from the top bar.