Aug 29, 2021

5 min read

YASAN Launcher: 21.09 — The Next Generation

I am pleased to announce that the next generation of YASAN Launcher is finally being released! It's been about 2 months since the previous dev update & there are lots of new features & changes to talk about.

Since there are way too many small changes to cover I won't go into detail for most of the changes and keep it in general. You can discover smaller changes on your own!

Fresh New Style

After lots of experimentation with different styles, I have reached one that I think is the one to keep. This new style lets your wallpaper be visible all the time & the launcher content will just float over it.

Intro

New users are greeted by the brand new intro screen which tells them about how the launcher works & lets them pick their favorite apps so the initial AI suggestions are more useful.

Home

There are lots of major customization options added for Home. You can choose the position, size, roundness & color of all the elements on Home.

The setups below are created using the new Home customization options. I cannot wait to see what people create with the new customization options!

Dashboard

This is one of my personal favorite parts of the launcher. Dashboard has gotten many small and large changes on this version:

Pride 🏳‍🌈

I want everyone to be able to express themselves on my launcher making their own unique setups. That's why I have added Pride options to Dashboard. Currently, the only available option is Pride Flag. It lets you choose a pride flag to show on Dashboard.

It currently supports 11 flags but there will be more added on each update. If you cannot find your flag on the launcher, make sure to request your flag and I will try to add it as soon as possible. I might add a custom flag option as well.

Shortcuts

You can now add any apps to Dashboard as a Shortcut. It is meant to be used for apps that you want to be accessible easily but don't want to add to a folder.

Drawer

There are a few new options for Drawer including “Show Headers” which groups your apps alphabetically & a “Max Lines” option for app labels. You can also preview the icon size without having to go back to Drawer.

New Versioning Scheme

As already mentioned in the previous dev update, YASAN Launcher will no longer use semantic versioning (X.Y.Z). But the versioning scheme has already changed since the last dev update to make it simpler & more useful.

There are now two public release channels:

YASAN Launcher

This is the stable version that gets monthly major updates & hotfixes.

A version published on 15/8/2021 will be version 21.08.

YASAN Launcher NEXT

This is the more frequently updated version that gets multiple updates per month. It is obviously less stable but offers new features sooner.

A version published on 15/8/2021 will be version 21.09-NEXT.

This new versioning scheme is done to limit the stable version to one major monthly update which helps make it more stable & easier for users to follow the changes.

Note: Each one of these is treated as a different app on Google play. They can be installed in parallel but they do NOT share the premium status of the user. If you unlock premium on one, it will unlock premium only for that version.

Known Issues

YASAN Launcher is still in early access so it's not the most stable launcher out there yet. There are a few known issues that are going to be fixed asap:

After creating/editing/deleting a folder, the success message is shown multiple times. This will be patched before the release of 21.10.
Rarely, it's possible to not be able to get back to the launcher from other apps. This is a bug inside Compose (Android’s new UI toolkit) so I don't have much control over it but it will be fixed soon by them.

The Release

The new generation of YASAN Launcher is being released to everyone on the stable channel NOW! I will start pushing the update once this post is published. The update will be done in waves but I will probably push it to 100% of the current users by September 1st.

I will be posting for every monthly major release of the launcher so I suggest you follow me here & use the links below not to miss future updates.

Thank you for reading,

YASAN

Get YASAN Launcher:

YASAN Launcher on Play Store (Recommended)
YASAN Launcher NEXT on Play Store