Project status

[falzonv]

Hello,

Long story short, due to lack of time and motivation, no more new features or options will be implemented in Discreet Launcher.
Only maintenance releases to fix bugs and maintain compatibility with new Android versions will continue.

You can find more details below.

If someone is willing to create a more active fork, no problem as long as it is rebranded to avoid confusion (different name and icon). The list of unimplemented features can be found with the label won't do/fix.

EDIT 02/08/2024
Since almost one year now (few weeks after posting this message), I have repetitive strain injuries in both wrists and had to reduce a lot my computer activities, especially programming.

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In April 2022, I announced (#210) that due to changes in my professional life, I now have very little time to work on Discreet Launcher.
This is still true, and it seems unlikely to change in the coming years.

Having less personal time and because my daily use of Discreet Launcher has always been very basic, I am also no longer enthusiastic about reducing this personal time further by adding features that I will have to maintain but will most probably never use.

From my point of view, this project is already completed and much more advanced than anything I had initially planned.

Many people (including myself) use Discreet Launcher every day so I will of course continue to fix bugs and maintain compatibility with new Android versions so that it keeps working well.
Translations can still be added and updated, and some minor improvements may also be done to existing features.

I know this announcement will deter some people from using Discreet Launcher.

• Basically, if you are happy with Discreet Launcher right now, it will not change anything for you as it will continue to be maintained across Android versions (it just won't grow any further).
• However, if you are looking for new features such as widgets, multiple home screens, changing a single app icon, or anything not currently in Discreet Launcher, you will probably need to find another launcher (there are dozens of them in F-Droid and literally hundreds in Google Play).
  Or maybe someone else will have the time and motivation to create a more active fork and publish it to F-Droid and Google Play.
  I have no problem with that as long as this fork is rebranded to avoid confusion with this project (different name and icon). In case someone reading this is actually considering to do it, the list of unimplemented features can be found with the label won't do/fix and I would be happy to answer technical questions about the Discreet Launcher code base if needed. We could also add the link to your project in the README of Discreet Launcher.

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To end this already quite long post, a bit of history, the full list of features added in Discreet Launcher and some statistics:

When I started creating this launcher in 2019, my goal was to do something very simple and minimalist, and this progressively evolved into Discreet Launcher v1.0.0 released in February 2021.
It only contained the favorites panel and the app drawer, not even a menu button!

From release to release, more and more features and options were added to the launcher as people started creating tickets in GitHub.
Here is a list of all the things which were added (the ones in bold are the ones I actually use, if all others disappeared tomorrow I would still be more than happy with Discreet Launcher):

• Related to favorites:
  • Custom sort for favorites
  • Button to sort favorites alphabetically
• Related to the list of apps:
  • Automatic app list refresh on some events (app install/remove, icon pack change, ...)
  • Long press to access app settings
  • Long press to see app store page
  • Long press to rename app
  • Long press to add/remove to/from favorites
  • Long press to add/remove to/from folder
  • Hidden apps
  • Folders
  • Number of apps in folder icon
  • Custom folder icon color
  • Visual feedback when touching apps
  • Discreet Launcher app icon as alternative menu button
  • Search
  • Open first search result with Enter
  • Work profiles support (limited to adding work apps to the main list)
  • Web shortcuts support
  • Number of columns according to orientation
• Appearance settings:
  • Theme (light, dark, system)
  • Transparent status bar
  • Dark status bar icons
  • Icon size for tablets
  • Option to hide app names
  • Option to hide folder names
  • Option to remove margins if no app names
  • Text color in favorites
  • Text color in app drawer
  • Background color in favorites
  • Background color in app drawer
  • Clock
    • Format (24h, 12h, 12h+am/pm, analog, date and time, full date and time, date, full date)
    • Color
    • Text shadow color
    • Position (combination of top/middle/bottom and left/center/right)
    • Size (small/medium/large)
  • Icon pack support
  • Fallback icon pack
  • Color filter on icons
• Operation settings:
  • Notification for quick access to favorites
  • Forced orientation
  • Option to always show favorites
  • Reverse interface
  • Immersive mode
  • Touch targets
  • Interactive clock
    • Click date to open default calendar app
    • Click time to open set clock app
  • Option to hide menu button
  • Option to hide app drawer
  • Double-tap to open app
  • Swipe leftwards to open app
  • Swipe rightwards to open app
• Miscellaneous:
  • Export and import
  • Button to set as default launcher
  • Action for Key Mapper to open quick access notification
  • Notch support
  • Android TV compatibility (somewhat limited but basic features and navigation are ok)
  • Also reported to work properly on WSA (Windows Subsystem for Android)
  • Help
  • Changelog

And finally, here are updates to the statistics from the April 2022 announce:

• Discreet Launcher is developed in Java, supports Android 5 to 12 (working on Android 13 compatibility), and is translated into thirteen languages: English, French, Danish, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian (+7 translations since April 2022).
• I have no idea on the number of users with F-Droid, but there are currently a bit more than 5400 users with Google Play (+5150 users since April 2022!).
• A single permission is requested in order to get the list of installed apps on Android 11 and beyond.
• The APK file size is still less than 2 MB.
• Although it is probably not perfect, I consider the code base to be sane, well commented and with no major bugs.
• With v7.3.1, a total of 61 versions have already been released (+11 releases since April 2022).
• For those wondering, my total income from Discreet Launcher since the beginning is 186€ (fortunately my real job pays decently).

Thank you for reading all of this and for your interest in Discreet Launcher!

Best regards.