You’re right Jay M, I guess it’s time to say something.
I apologize for letting the community without any news for such a long time.
At some point I felt it was needed to take a breath and at the same time I had to move on urgently on other projects. In my mind I didn’t want to give up the project and often wished to come back to work, but the fact is that it never happened. Over time it became more and more difficult to resume the development, even if I do have more time now. The result is that in practice the app is frozen.
I’m aware that it’s partly broken on newest Android version and there are certainly tons of new stuff to implement / bugs to fix but I don’t know where to start. To be honest I would prefer to start a new app by reusing the good things and removing the bad ones. However since I have been away from Android development and Android for a long time my mind may be biased and I don’t know whether this is would be a good idea. The only thing I know for sure is what I have done wrong!
And before all, I don’t even know whether someone is still expecting something from the project and whether it’s worth putting efforts in it.
Coming back to the initial topic, the shut down of G+ is becoming an urgent problem. What are the alternatives? Facebook, an independent forum, reddit, whatever, other? As an old fashion guy my preference goes to the good old forum, but ultimately the community should choose. I’m worried about the G+ content that will be lost. There are probably tools that will be built to migrate data based on the G+ API, but the time frame to do it is becoming short (less than 90 days).
Ok everyone. Feel free to suggest the one place i will not go (Reddit). I know that’s what you’re all gonna say anyway despite the fact that i refuse to go there.
A forum would be great. I am not using Facebook, I have a Reddit account. Also have an XDA account but haven’t used it yet.
Lightning was always my favorite launcher. When the community will be coming alive an active again, I think lightning would be awesome again. Doesn’t matter to me if it would be a new app. If that works best to implement new features.
I also think a forum is the best alternative. Phpbb seems the best option to check.
I’ve seen that a lot of communities are migrating to MeWe. Personally I don’t like to create a new account on a new service, but it seems to be a good alternative Google+like to consider at least.
There is Discord too, but it does also requires a new account (and it is not ‘post based’, it is ‘chat based’) so probably not.
MeWe sounds pretty cool. XDA would be fine too. One of the most important things imo is that the posts should be indexable by a search engine like Google, which is said to be coming to MeWe in early 2019.
Pierre Hébert Out of curiosity of being a developer myself: what are those things you know you’ve done wrong? What would you do different in a new app.
I’ve been playing with the idea of making an app like lightning launcher myself, but it’s also just one of the project ideas I have, so it’d probably be a while before I get to it.
Jay M I mean a launcher directly based on lightning, with lot of things in common but without direct compatibility. The general idea is drop rarely used features to focus more on things that matter.
Colin de Roos regarding the development I would focus on simplicity and maintainability. For instance I would not manage translations as separate packages, it’s way too costly. I would not bother too much about compatibility with older devices, it’s a great source of bugs. Also I would prefer slightly less powerful features if they are much less complex. For instance a container has a set of properties and items can “inherit” those properties. Now I would remove these container properties, each item would have its own properties, changing all items of a desktop would require to select all items at once and that’s all. Also I would put in place some unit testing!
Pierre Hébert Sounds like a good idea. IMPO I prefer the OLD default ll desktop better than the current one. I understand the idea behind the current one, but it means we would have to completely blank the desktop, or delete it completely and add a blank of we wanted to create our own (and tbh, i thought the idea was to create our own). 🙂 Features that no one uses can be removed entirely. There are a lot of things i can think of as well.
As a long time user, but not programmer, I am glad there is discussion to update and or recreate. This is by far the best Android launcher. Thanks to all involved, it is much appreciated.
cool im up for a new launcher based on Lightning but when you say things like “focus on simplicity” and “drop rarely used features” it makes it sound like your wanting to dumb down Lightning which doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
Jay M Pierre Hébert I think there’s a delicate balance between the simplicity of a feature and how powerful they are. Personally, I really like having the container properties opposed to every item having just it’s own properties, because then you don’t have to copy over properties when you add a new item. When used with nested containers, this even allows the user to define their own “layers of abstraction”, which is pretty amazing. Maintainability is usually my to priority when the specification of a feature is clear.
I feel like Lighting has gained an audience especially because many features like the bindings and scripting stimulate the user’s own imagination, instead of having a pre-programmed set to functions to choose from. If I were to build my own launcher, I think that would be the main idea. Besides, the complexity of those powerful features also off loads much of the content creation to the user, which saves some time and effort as well.
I dunno I think just having container properties would take away a lot of customization if im understanding it right. Whatever happens though scripting/bindings/Tasker plugin should definitely be included.
Pierre Hébert new launcher would be great if it that what you want.. I think you can’t do bad launcher so I am excited if it comes to new project..
Or if you don’t want to code anymore – open source lightning launcher, so people who in love with top customobility of LL have at less a little chance for LL reincarnation through some capable hands.
Pierre Hébert has talked about open sourcing it, or allowing community members to help in other ways before and they both would have serious problems. I don’t know what those would be though…
Sonne Kind this is an idea, but anyway I’ll have to maintain the app soon due to Google policy changes. Also building a new app would take some time, event if it’s based on existing code.
Colin de Roos to tell the truth, I would really like to open source the code but Lightning still generates some revenues. This is a low income and it will never compensate for the time I spent working on it, but unfortunately I’m not rich and I need this income. So at the moment Lightning remains closed. Regarding help from community members, we’ll probably speak again of this soon.
Pierre Hébert Sorry, I should’ve thought about how LLs revenue might be significant. But unless I’m overlooking something obvious (which is completely possible, I don’t have my own Android app), I don’t think there’s anything to stop you from asking money on Google play for an open source app. In addition: I don’t think the number of people that will go build their own APK from the source is very significant in comparison to the number of people that download the APK from illegal sources, so the revenue wouldn’t decrease that much.
I would also be happy with the community collaboration option, but open sourcing seems even better.
Regarding one obvious thing that would make making a paid app open source for it’s development pointless, namely contributors thinking it’s unfair you’re getting all the revenue: I think for some time this would be fine, because most of the app’s development has been done by you so far. I would be happy to help and spend some hobby time on it. I don’t get paid for those hours for other hobby projects anyway.
Colin de Roos the issue with opening the code of a paid app is not with users, but with not very scrupulous persons that take the code as is and publish it under a similar (or even equal) name 🙁
Pierre Hébert That would be the bad news. The good news is We all know who the real dev is. For me it’s not who will steal the work, but what the Hell they would do to it. I mean it’s bad enough to have some *hole steal the workand say it was his, but that isn’t really a big issue compared to what they would do with it.
Pierre Hébert good to know you’re thinking about the project again. I’d love to support a new project in any way possible. e.g. as a plugin dev, if there is an api. Or maybe I could even help directly with the app development. I certainly would’ve picked up lighting if it became open source.
Regarding forums: I think xda is a great place for anything related to android, and the admins are typically helpful if a project wants to use their site.
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It’s insane that everyone is screaming for his return and there’s nothing. Has anyone heard anything?
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I’m concerned too.
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dunno I haven’t heard anything from him for about 2 months
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I wish this app was ‘open source’..
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You’re right Jay M, I guess it’s time to say something.
I apologize for letting the community without any news for such a long time.
At some point I felt it was needed to take a breath and at the same time I had to move on urgently on other projects. In my mind I didn’t want to give up the project and often wished to come back to work, but the fact is that it never happened. Over time it became more and more difficult to resume the development, even if I do have more time now. The result is that in practice the app is frozen.
I’m aware that it’s partly broken on newest Android version and there are certainly tons of new stuff to implement / bugs to fix but I don’t know where to start. To be honest I would prefer to start a new app by reusing the good things and removing the bad ones. However since I have been away from Android development and Android for a long time my mind may be biased and I don’t know whether this is would be a good idea. The only thing I know for sure is what I have done wrong!
And before all, I don’t even know whether someone is still expecting something from the project and whether it’s worth putting efforts in it.
Coming back to the initial topic, the shut down of G+ is becoming an urgent problem. What are the alternatives? Facebook, an independent forum, reddit, whatever, other? As an old fashion guy my preference goes to the good old forum, but ultimately the community should choose. I’m worried about the G+ content that will be lost. There are probably tools that will be built to migrate data based on the G+ API, but the time frame to do it is becoming short (less than 90 days).
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Ok everyone. Feel free to suggest the one place i will not go (Reddit). I know that’s what you’re all gonna say anyway despite the fact that i refuse to go there.
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A forum would be great. I am not using Facebook, I have a Reddit account. Also have an XDA account but haven’t used it yet.
Lightning was always my favorite launcher. When the community will be coming alive an active again, I think lightning would be awesome again. Doesn’t matter to me if it would be a new app. If that works best to implement new features.
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wait when you say you would prefer to start a new app do you mean a new launcher or a new app? Google groups is decent, fugly but decent
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I also think a forum is the best alternative. Phpbb seems the best option to check.
I’ve seen that a lot of communities are migrating to MeWe. Personally I don’t like to create a new account on a new service, but it seems to be a good alternative Google+like to consider at least.
There is Discord too, but it does also requires a new account (and it is not ‘post based’, it is ‘chat based’) so probably not.
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MeWe sounds pretty cool. XDA would be fine too. One of the most important things imo is that the posts should be indexable by a search engine like Google, which is said to be coming to MeWe in early 2019.
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Pierre Hébert Out of curiosity of being a developer myself: what are those things you know you’ve done wrong? What would you do different in a new app.
I’ve been playing with the idea of making an app like lightning launcher myself, but it’s also just one of the project ideas I have, so it’d probably be a while before I get to it.
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Jay M I mean a launcher directly based on lightning, with lot of things in common but without direct compatibility. The general idea is drop rarely used features to focus more on things that matter.
Colin de Roos regarding the development I would focus on simplicity and maintainability. For instance I would not manage translations as separate packages, it’s way too costly. I would not bother too much about compatibility with older devices, it’s a great source of bugs. Also I would prefer slightly less powerful features if they are much less complex. For instance a container has a set of properties and items can “inherit” those properties. Now I would remove these container properties, each item would have its own properties, changing all items of a desktop would require to select all items at once and that’s all. Also I would put in place some unit testing!
I could name a dozen of other things I think 😉
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Pierre Hébert Sounds like a good idea. IMPO I prefer the OLD default ll desktop better than the current one. I understand the idea behind the current one, but it means we would have to completely blank the desktop, or delete it completely and add a blank of we wanted to create our own (and tbh, i thought the idea was to create our own). 🙂 Features that no one uses can be removed entirely. There are a lot of things i can think of as well.
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As a long time user, but not programmer, I am glad there is discussion to update and or recreate. This is by far the best Android launcher. Thanks to all involved, it is much appreciated.
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cool im up for a new launcher based on Lightning but when you say things like “focus on simplicity” and “drop rarely used features” it makes it sound like your wanting to dumb down Lightning which doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
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Jay M Pierre Hébert I think there’s a delicate balance between the simplicity of a feature and how powerful they are. Personally, I really like having the container properties opposed to every item having just it’s own properties, because then you don’t have to copy over properties when you add a new item. When used with nested containers, this even allows the user to define their own “layers of abstraction”, which is pretty amazing. Maintainability is usually my to priority when the specification of a feature is clear.
I feel like Lighting has gained an audience especially because many features like the bindings and scripting stimulate the user’s own imagination, instead of having a pre-programmed set to functions to choose from. If I were to build my own launcher, I think that would be the main idea. Besides, the complexity of those powerful features also off loads much of the content creation to the user, which saves some time and effort as well.
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I dunno I think just having container properties would take away a lot of customization if im understanding it right. Whatever happens though scripting/bindings/Tasker plugin should definitely be included.
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Jay M For clarity: I meant items will still have their own properties, which can override the container properties, just like it’s works in LL now
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ah yeah that would be cool
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Pierre Hébert new launcher would be great if it that what you want.. I think you can’t do bad launcher so I am excited if it comes to new project..
Or if you don’t want to code anymore – open source lightning launcher, so people who in love with top customobility of LL have at less a little chance for LL reincarnation through some capable hands.
Forum would be great.. Xda is also great solution
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Pierre Hébert has talked about open sourcing it, or allowing community members to help in other ways before and they both would have serious problems. I don’t know what those would be though…
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Sonne Kind this is an idea, but anyway I’ll have to maintain the app soon due to Google policy changes. Also building a new app would take some time, event if it’s based on existing code.
Colin de Roos to tell the truth, I would really like to open source the code but Lightning still generates some revenues. This is a low income and it will never compensate for the time I spent working on it, but unfortunately I’m not rich and I need this income. So at the moment Lightning remains closed. Regarding help from community members, we’ll probably speak again of this soon.
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Pierre Hébert Sorry, I should’ve thought about how LLs revenue might be significant. But unless I’m overlooking something obvious (which is completely possible, I don’t have my own Android app), I don’t think there’s anything to stop you from asking money on Google play for an open source app. In addition: I don’t think the number of people that will go build their own APK from the source is very significant in comparison to the number of people that download the APK from illegal sources, so the revenue wouldn’t decrease that much.
I would also be happy with the community collaboration option, but open sourcing seems even better.
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Regarding one obvious thing that would make making a paid app open source for it’s development pointless, namely contributors thinking it’s unfair you’re getting all the revenue: I think for some time this would be fine, because most of the app’s development has been done by you so far. I would be happy to help and spend some hobby time on it. I don’t get paid for those hours for other hobby projects anyway.
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Colin de Roos the issue with opening the code of a paid app is not with users, but with not very scrupulous persons that take the code as is and publish it under a similar (or even equal) name 🙁
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Pierre Hébert That would be the bad news. The good news is We all know who the real dev is. For me it’s not who will steal the work, but what the Hell they would do to it. I mean it’s bad enough to have some *hole steal the workand say it was his, but that isn’t really a big issue compared to what they would do with it.
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Pierre Hébert good to know you’re thinking about the project again. I’d love to support a new project in any way possible. e.g. as a plugin dev, if there is an api. Or maybe I could even help directly with the app development. I certainly would’ve picked up lighting if it became open source.
Regarding forums: I think xda is a great place for anything related to android, and the admins are typically helpful if a project wants to use their site.
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+1 for xda but IIRC it doesn’t allow paid apps
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