Edit: V14a2 to fix some urgent bugs and crashes.

Today I’m announcing the release of the first alpha for the upcoming V14 🙂

It consists in a huge architecture overhaul. The aim is to remove some longstanding limitations and bugs, improve efficiency in some areas and allow upcoming evolutions. It took me a lot of time to release it, but I think it works reasonably well now.

In spite of the massive amount of code changes, my aim is that V14 will remain as most compatible as possible with V12.

There are some differences though 😉 Please read http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/changes-beteen-v12-9-1-and-v14/ for the exact list.

One particular change is the ability to display the same content in multiple locations. To explain this, let’s imagine there’s a complex panel you would like to see on multiple desktops. With v12 you need to copy it. Subsequent changes to this panel on one desktop will have to be repeated on all desktops. With v14 it is possible to link the content. In other words, any change made to one version will be immediately available to all other versions.

There are more uses for this feature: the content of a folder can be displayed in a panel (and vice versa), the content of the app drawer can be displayed in a panel (that is: in a desktop), it is possible to quickly switch the content of a panel, and so on.

At the moment the feature can only be accessed through script (see Folder/Panel.setContainerId) but this API has no restriction, meaning that all kind of funny/weird/insane stuff is possible. Including recursion and the aforementioned app drawer in desktop… Please use with care… Ahem, no, don’t use with care, let’s play with it, it’s fun and as with all new strange feature, I’m eager to see what you can do with it!

As this is an alpha, please be aware that it may be unstable, corrupt your setup or crash. Make sure you have a backup and that you are able to restore the stable version if needed.

Opt-in link for the APK: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/net.pierrox.lightning_launcher_extreme

Enjoy!

I would like to give some news on the project status. Current and future.

It’s been a long time since the last stable version but it’s finally time to release an update. I just published V12.9 in the stable channel, and it introduces multi-selection which is a much anticipated feature. I sincerely hope it will live up to your expectations. Special thanks to Beta Tester for your feedback!

That’s for the good news, now some less good ones (but not that bad, please continue reading).

Five months between releases is a lot. As you may have read or hear from other independent developers, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to allocate time and efforts on apps with the Google Play revenue model. I am no exception to this and if someone was still wondering, yes, I had to slow down work on Lightning.

However, there are plenty of things to improve in the app and new features to add, ranging from simple usability improvements like recently used values in the color picker, to most advanced and geeky scripting features.

For this reason I would like to experiment with crowdfunding to give a “boost” to the project. I have heard of AppStretch for this, its goal is to help developers to fund development of new features for existing apps (not create new ones). I have already a set of features in mind if anybody is interested. Let’s see how it goes.

That’s not all. I am once again in a major rework of the project codebase, probably the biggest one since its inception. Over the time the app has grown with new capabilities but the internal architecture didn’t follow. It is now difficult to maintain the app, some new features are hard or impossible to implement, and worst, a few known bugs have no fix.

I intend to change this situation with an extended internal architecture change (almost 50% done!). On one hand it eats up a lot of my time and will cause many bugs and issues. On the other hand its a requirement for the project to keep moving.

And once again I will need a big help from you to test this new version, let’s call it V14. I will publish it as an alpha first, I expect in a few weeks, not before.

Enough speak! Your feedback is appreciated!

Edit: V12.9b3: with more fixes.

This second beta is on its way with a set of random bug fixes and minor improvements. I believe it should fix most crashes found in b1 and run reasonably stable.

Full ChangeLog: http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/change-log/

It’s been more than 5 months since the last release, but here it is, the shiny new beta version of Lightning Launcher is available, tada!

Yes, I have been quite silent for a while, but even if things are slowly moving, they are nevertheless moving forward.

So what’s new in this release?

95% of it is multi-selection. That’s a lot of work for something that is not even a feature, but if it can save a bit of time and make the life easier for many, then it had to be done. I’m glad it’s done.

Other changes are:

– support for using JavaAdapter in script thanks to Lukas Morawietz. This may sound like an obscure and rarely used feature but it has the power to enable outstanding use cases. Join me to thank Lukas again, he brought together a simple but brilliant idea and tenacity to make it work.

– icon normalization (icon size mode property)

– fixed the folder’s title not updating when changed through a binding or script (that’s for Jappie Toutenhoofd 😉 )

Enjoy!

Full ChangeLog: http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/change-log/

Just a minor update (the first of the year!) to to fix a few bugs.

Full ChangeLog: http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/change-log/

No more a beta, it’s time for a release!

There are more features to add (as always!), but this version is stable and in a good shape. I am happy to switch it into the “production” channel 🙂

Thank you all for your support!

Full ChangeLog:

http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/change-log/ ‎

A new beta with the following improvements:

The new panel edit mode is now in a pretty good shape. The only situation where entering edit mode may seem strange is when the panel is scaled or rotated (but that’s understandable)

The script editor received some improvements: long tapping on suggestions will bring you to the online help, the editor will now go to the right line upon script error, it will also remember the current line as a general rule, and a few other minor things (more to come in a future version).

At last but not least, the app will now do a much better job at requesting permissions when needed on Android 6, hopefully eliminating a cause of frustration 😉

Full ChangeLog:

http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/change-log/ ‎

A new beta with miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes, most notably related to fullscreen panel edition. I believe panels are finally becoming easier to edit!

Full ChangeLog:

http://www.lightninglauncher.com/wordpress/change-log/ ‎