Home screen favourites

[exstntlmsnthrp]

I wasn't sure if this would be better as an issue or discussion. If I should change it, please let me know.

I've used kvaesitso since the very beginning and it is by far my favourite Android home app in the past 15 years.

However, I feel a little confused about how the favourites work. I really appreciate the ability to not have them on my home screen - which I like to keep really clean. On the other hand, there have been a few new discussions here in GitHub with people asking about different aspects and I've been playing around to understand it better.

Number 1. When I have both Home screen > Clock > Favourites disabled and I have Home screen > Edit button disabled, and do not have a favourites widget, it looks like this:

Number 2. Then, when I have Home screen > Clock > Favourites disabled, but do have a favourites widget, it looks like this:

The interesting situation with number 2, is that it only displays two of the apps I have designated as favourites. Yet, I'm surprised anything is displayed because I have the favourites option disabled.

Number 3. Next, I have Home screen > Clock > Favourites enabled and I have a widget enabled, it looks like this:

Unlike the issue with number 2, this time it correctly displays all of my favourite apps.

Number 4. Lastly, I have Home screen > Clock > Favourites enabled, but do not have any widget enabled, it looks like this:

Here is part of what's confusing for me. On all of the options I described above, I have to scroll up to view whether not the favourites are there. None of them have the favourites displayed on the home screen below the clock. The only option above that displays the way that I would expect is option number 1.

Option number 2 confuses me and I don't know what I expect displayed. This is because , in my mind, the two options are somewhat contradictory.

Then option 3 also confuses me, because under those settings, I would expect to see two different rows of favourites. One immediately below the clock and the second as a widget. Again, it does not make sense to me as is.

Lastly, we have option 4. Again, I do not understand this. My expectation is that there will be favourites displayed immediately below the clock but not as a widget. However, nothing is displayed.

@MM2-0 as the developer, what should be happening and what are your goals or expectations?

Anyone else?

[MM2-0]

Favorites are the way they are mainly for historic reasons.

At the beginning, the only option do display favorites was on top of the app grid. But then some people requested the ability to add apps to the home screen. This was around the time when I added the dynamic zone in the clock widget so I though it was a good idea to make a new "favorites" clock part (spoiler: it wasn't). I also added the favorites widget. Soon after, people complained that their apps would disappear when they were listening to media, or when they battery was low, or whenever the clock widget prioritized any other part over the favorites parts. So I added another rule: the clock widget is now able to show two parts at the same time, but only if one of them is the favorites part. But now, things got even more confusing.

1. most people don't realize that in the compact variant of the clock widget you can swipe on the dynamic zone to reveal the favorites part (I think this is the main source of confusion for you as well)
2. why is that setting coupled to the clock widget?

To make things more clear, there will be the following changes:

• the "favorites part" setting will be moved to settings > home screen and renamed to "dock"
• the dock will always be displayed at the bottom of the screen, regardless of clock widget layout and alignment

So yeah, what I think confuses you is that the "favorites" part doesn't work very well with the compact version of the clock widget. If you switch to default version, things should be a lot more obvious (yet still not ideal). Another source of confusion might be that there is a special case where the favorites widget skip over apps that are already present in the clock widget. But only if the favorites widget is in the top-most position of the widget list. This is to eliminate duplicates right next to each other.

[exstntlmsnthrp]

Firstly, thanks for the detailed and historical response. That really makes much more sense, now that I have a better understanding of both the progression and your thought process.

I can better understand your decision making and also why it's confusing. 😅

Thanks for the tip. I changed the clock and now it displays the way you describe.

As I said in the OP, I don't intend to use it this way (I prefer it minimal and to use the search), but quite a few people have asked in recent months and this will help me be able to respond to them.

Do you have any intention of enabling this to work with the compact clock style as well? Or is there something that interferes with that displaying in a similar way to the standard or default clock setting?

1. most people don't realize that in the compact variant of the clock widget you can swipe on the dynamic zone to reveal the favorites part (I think this is the main source of confusion for you as well)

What!?! I had no idea. That's brilliant. I love it! What determines which apps show up there? Do you have intention to enable multiple pages there?

[Nitrousoxide]

I do think there is value in spatially organized apps like you get with folders. Tags absolutely have a value, especially if you spend some time going through and given them terms you would usually search for, but if there are a few groups of conceptually similar apps you use all the time than you can navigate to through rote motions rather than searching is an advantage in a mobile device.

The "Favorites" widget sort of gets you partway there

I totally get that is not the intended workflow for this launcher though.