[Feature Proposal] Muscle memory-friendly multiple pies with instant access

[mockballed]

Here's a straightforward way to have different pie menus that can be used without having to look and without needing to consider where to tap on the screen:

As per usual, tap and hold brings up the main pie menu. Or... Double-tap and hold to bring up the second pie menu. Or... Triple-tap and hold to bring up the third pie menu. And so on.

This behavior would be compatible with the default "Tap on home screen" option to open the drawer. Only a small delay before displaying the drawer would be needed to account for subsequent taps.

On the visual side, appearing pie menus could push the previous menu outwards while its icons fade out.

I'm trying to come up with an elegant way to assign apps to different pies. Maybe something along the lines of dragging icons towards the left or right screen edge to switch to another pie menu configuration screen?

[mockballed]

Personally, I think having 3 pie menus with 8 apps each would be great. I'd set them up so that for any given app in the main pie menu, the corresponding apps in the same position on the secondary and tertiary menus would match it thematically.

For example: if my music app is to the right (tap & swipe right) then I'd open my podcast app with double-tap & swipe right; my voice recorder app with triple-tap & swipe right.

I've been enjoying PieLauncher since the moment it joined F-Droid and I don't think I can go back to a conventional launcher!

[markusfisch]

Hm, that sounds interesting 🤔

Currently, double (or multiple) tapping would collide with opening the app drawer, but that could be changed with a preference, of course. For example, the app drawer could open on a long press only. Although that would make launching apps that are not in the pie even slower. On the other hand there's already an option to open the app drawer with a dedicated icon in the pie, which would already work with double tapping.

About delays: I already played with using delays in https://github.com/markusfisch/PieLauncher/issues/110 which wasn't feeling very good. Even slight delays are quite noticeable, and can quickly become annoying. But I think a delay may not be necessary.

Will try… 😉

[mockballed]

Great!

True that. Even a fraction of a second waiting for the drawer after a tap would take away from the snappiness of it.

Maybe they are not mutually exclusive. The drawer could start popping up the moment the first tap is released, and if a second tap is registered within a small time window, the popup animation could "morph" into showing the second pie menu instead.

From a UX perspective, it could be interpreted as a tap and release to display all app icons, followed by an immediate tap & hold to rearrange a subset of them into another pie menu.

Count with me for testing. I'll try to get PieLauncher to compile so I can try stuff.

[devilsclaw]

The other way to have multiple pie menus would be to have sub pie menus as icons and when you hold over one for lets say 1.5 seconds it would then replace the current one with a new circle in the same position. I could offset the center to where your thumb currently is but that might make it hard to access depending where the icon was when hovering over it.

[MarshCastle]

"...have sub pie menus as icons and when you hold over one ... it would then replace the current one with a new circle in the same position."

This sounds brilliant. I currently use 12 slices in a pie, and desperately need more!

The app draw is awkward for me, so a second layer would help loads.

Of topic, but sorting the app drawer would be an easy fix for much of my woes... Maybe I should open another thread for that one though 🤔