Adjustable Side Margins/Padding

[NoveTheGreat]

My homescreen feels cramped, and I can't keep a clear mind without clear space on screen. It feels cluttered. I notice that the left margin is wide open. I recognize that there are some who may like the way that looks, but for me, it's unused space. Therefore, I'd love to see an option for adjusting the width of the left margin. I've attached an annotated screenshot showing what I mean, and how I'd hope to be able to shift apps to the left to leave more space in the center of the screen. Hopefully it's not confusing...

Just something that's been on my mind for a while!

-Nove

(postscript - My ADHD + autistic brain loves Niagara for being so free of distractions like widgets and pretty things. Thanks so much for helping me get through my day more easily and utilize my phone as a tool that doesn't divert my mind away from the task at hand. Has really improved my life ❤)

[8bitPit]

Thanks a lot for the lovely written request Nove. While it may look that the space is unused, it might be useful for anyone who holds his phone with his left hand. If you tap on the space, you can scroll through the app list as well, just like scrolling on the right side. Furthermore, the list has a generous left margin to visually balance the whole layout. Moreover, I’m very cautious about adding more options to the app, because it does make Niagara more complicated to use and to more difficult to design. Here’s a comment I wrote for a similar request (#808):

In my opinion, a good option should work in all kinds of circumstances. It would feel half-backed otherwise. Furthermore, I believe adding a toggle for all kinds of stuff is often problematic. You lose control of designing good user experience. Think of it like a combination tree. If you add 10 switches for example, there are 1024 possible combinations of their states they could be in. Niagara should feel polished regardless of the user’s settings, every switch makes the overall experience harder to maintain. That’s why I want to keep it as simple as possible. So, I would suggest using the inbuilt slider and align the favorites to the bottom.

Hope your not too disappointed from my answer Nove.

[paddynski]

My phone screen looks ridiculous as icons are padded far too much to the right (similar to above screenshot). Would be great to be able to decrease this.

[NoveTheGreat]

(Quick note: I'm ambidextrous, but I favor my right hand for many activities. Using my phone is not one of those activities.)

Actually, I've found that the left hand scroller often gets in the way; I can be scrolling through apps normally using my left hand, and I accidentally go just a little too far to the left, and suddenly I'm in a completely different place and I have to scroll around to get to the app I was looking for again. A suggestion I might make is to have a switch to determine which side of the screen the alphabet scroller is on, and have the other side be a simple margin. Once again, for me, it's unused space. I definitely see where you're coming from in terms of accessibility. And as a UI engineering hobbyist, I certainly understand that you want to keep things simplistic— that's the whole premise of the launcher, after all. On the other hand, there is a point where accessibility can get in the way of those who don't need it. Imagine if a strip mall parking lot had 50% disability accessible spots and 50% normal spots, instead of the normal ratio. It would get in the way of those who didn't have disability parking plaques. However, if there was a line in the lot beyond which parking spots could be magically switched between disability and normal, the lot as a whole would be more accessible to everyone.

[NoveTheGreat]

didn't mean to close it fbbedcfhvnhtnjgdhgngg

[8bitPit]

To better plan ahead and to give users an estimate which features will be added to Niagara, I’ve decided to close all feature requests that that are unlikely to be implemented in the next year (2020). This is one of those, unfortunately. I'm sorry. Feel free to open this ticket again in 2021 or later.

[ineghi]

Hi Guys !

Reopening this ! :)

I have a very small device with 854x480px screen size. The wrapper paddings are no issue at first glance, but as soon as the launcher tries to display an app notification, there is not enough text space, and the app name just disappear (the word for "now" is "maintenant" in french, quite a long word.), with a quite broken alignment.

Would be useful to to use more screen space for such small displays. Or to just display a dot for the notifications. I'm fine with both :D

edit: seems I can't reopen anything, I will see if I need to create a new ticket !

[DavidBevi]

I too would like an option to do it. Maybe adding a secret command, like /padding that works like /scalefont?

This could satisfy the goal of keeping the menu simple. I do realize it doesn't keep the app simple/stable, it seems a reasonable tradeoff to me, but I don't know if it actually is.