Jan 3, 2022
YASAN Launcher: 22.01 Update
YASAN Launcher 22.01 is here! This update mainly focuses on important bug fixes but still brings a few new features!
Custom Folder Icons
This update brings back the popular custom folder icon feature from the pre-NEXT versions of the launcher. You can now choose a custom icon from 100+ currently available Material icons for every folder.
If you think I should add any specific Material icons to the options please suggest them.
The folder icon picker is very likely to be modified for the next release since a grid layout can be much more user-friendly.
Search Algorithms 2.0
All the search algorithms used on the launcher are now partially rewritten to have much more accurate results.
These changes include but are not limited to acronym search support; you can now search the first letters of the app you’re looking for instead of having to write half of the app name to get accurate results.
Explaining or illustrating the rest of the algorithm changes is not easy to do but I'm certain you're going to feel the improvements while using the search function.
Other Changes
- Many major bug fixes & performance improvements.
- Major improvements to the Dashboard Greeting system.
- 19 new greeting texts (mostly rare).
- Fixed search screen not closing after shortcut or app launch.
- Fixed apps on search screen not getting updated after app changes.
- Fixed App icon placeholders on search screen not having the correct shape.
- The launcher picker pop-up is now improved and will not open default app settings anymore.
You can see the list of every single change on the Changelog screen of the launcher (DEV tab).
2021 & The Future
It's now been about 6 months that YASAN Launcher’s rewrite, code-named NEXT, has been published to testers on Google Play Store. This new rewrite was aimed at using the latest technologies including Jetpack Compose in order to provide the best experience to users.
This made YASAN Launcher be the first & only Android launcher to be fully powered by Jetpack Compose with not a single XML layout or Fragment.
It was very challenging at first since Compose was and still is a very young technology but fortunately, I can finally say that I am happy with the direction that the launcher has taken.
I cannot wait to bring even more new features & changes in 2022!
That said, I will no longer be promising monthly “major” updates. This means I might do smaller updates some months without writing a blog post about them.
This does not mean that I will be working less on the project, it means that I can if I feel the need to. I hope this does not disappoint people, I just need to look after my own mental health by balancing my workflow. Working full-time as an Android developer & working on my indie apps in my extra time can easily get extremely exhausting.
I want to note that I have some upcoming projects including Artwalls 2.0 that I am so excited about, & cannot wait to share more about them with you once they are ready.
Final Words
YASAN Launcher 22.01 is now available to download on the Google Play store. Update now to enjoy all these new improvements!
Thank you for reading,
YASAN
Get YASAN Launcher:
- YASAN Launcher on Play Store (Stable version — Recommended)
- YASAN Launcher DEV on Play Store (Unstable version)
