LauncherPro Beta v0.6.4 available on Market
Warning: This update is mainly targeted at people having memory-related force-close issues, so if you’re not having any of those you’ll find this update pretty uninteresting (I did include something for you though!).
Ok, so the new Memory Usage option was very well received and seems to have solved a lot of issues for many, so I’ve decided to take it a step further. I’ve added an entire category in the preferences dedicated to memory management. Here you can tweak all the memory usage options for LauncherPro and make your own profile.
The old Memory Usage settings are now presets of these new settings. The “Light” option is now the “Moderate” preset, and there’s three new presets: Light, Low, and
Very Low. Try them out and find the configuration that works best for your setup.
There’s also newer memory usage options that weren’t available before, namely the type of caches to use for homescreens, and the option to disable caches altogether.
The normal cache type is the one LauncherPro has always used. The compressed type will save quite a bit of memory but might affect scrolling speed (on certain phones only, make sure to give it a try). The light type will save even more memory and might even run better than the compressed type on some phones. There’s no one-size-fits-all setup on Android, different phones have different hardware and different builds of the operating system. Please give these new options a try and see what works best for YOU.
Here’s a short log of what’s new in 0.6.4:
- Fixed some force-close issues when removing packages from the Market in Froyo
- Improved some code which should make screen rotations a little bit faster. Please note that android KILLS the homescreens when rotating, so all widgets, icons, etc. have to be redrawn. That’s just how Android works.
- New “Memory Usage Settings” screen on the preferences.
- New option to disable homescreen caches.
- New option for normal, compressed, and light homescreen caches.
- New option: outline highlights. These are like the glow highlights only they are a solid outline around the icon, so they are more visible than the glow highlights. You can choose between Classic, Glow, and Outline highlights under Appearance Settings on the preferences.
That’s it for now. Next version should include some fixes for Froyo (thanks Google for once again releasing the source code too late so us developers now have to scramble to fix whatever the new version breaks in our apps). After that, it’s back to adding more features and more eye candy 
| Print article | This entry was posted by Federico on July 1, 2010 at 12:42 am, and is filed under Updates. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
about 2 years ago
This app just continues to amaze me with the consistent updates. It runs so smoothe on my Moment 2.1. Keep up the great work!!!!
about 2 years ago
I especially love being able to go from 3 screens to multiple!!!!! Makes the phone a great organizer/tool!!!
about 2 years ago
I just wish there was a way to disable the ’3 screens to multiple’. It bugs out way too often when pressing Home.
about 2 years ago
Had some force close issuse dling new version now.
I love this launcher man best one on the market by far keep up the good work.
about 2 years ago
In Memory Usage, you spelt “foce-closes” instead of FORCE-closes.
about 2 years ago
Yeah I see this too.
about 2 years ago
Desktop Cube!
about 2 years ago
Wow! Just: wow! A whole update focused on stability! Great work!
about 2 years ago
Is there a difference between the General Settings > Keep In Memory and the new Memory Settings > Prevent Force-closes?
about 2 years ago
Yes, Keep in Memory tries to keep LauncherPro open at all times. Prevent force-closes tries to avoid running out of memory (for people that have lots of widgets/apps), thus avoiding crashes/force closes.
about 2 years ago
New option: outline highlights. These are like the glow highlights only they are a solid outline around the icon, so they are more visible than the glow highlights. You can choose between Classic, Glow, and Outline highlights under ‘Advanced Settings’ on the preferences
ERROR: Thats NOT “Advanced Settings” … it is ” Appearance Settings”
about 2 years ago
Thanks
about 2 years ago
Overall very nice. But the pinch zoom of homescreens to previews should be improved. Refer HTC sense style: The homescreens zoom according to your pinch. Slowly. As you pinch more the screen zooms out more, become smaller and other homescreen previews converge in. Bit by bit. But launcherpro works like a trigger when you pinch- displaying all the homescreen previews even when you pinch a little. Ps. It’s hard to pinch zoom-in to a certain homescreen while on homescreen previews.
about 2 years ago
You don’t “pinch zoom-in”…you just select the one you want. If you try pinch zooming in it will just select the one that your first finger makes contact with.
about 2 years ago
HTC sense was able to pinch zoom in while on homescreen previews, which launcherpro doesn’t have. This feature. That’s what I meant to say.
about 2 years ago
v0.6.3 runs so great on my Desire that I’m almost afraid to update
Gonna do it anyway *O*
Keep up your excellent work.
about 2 years ago
awsome work!
i love it
about 2 years ago
hi,
could you please add import/export settings?
about 2 years ago
Awesome app, thanks for frequent updates!
about 2 years ago
Awesome app, great stuff
about 2 years ago
LauncherPro is probably the only most amazing app for Android.
ONE FEATURE: Cube Effect -> Transition between homescreens
about 2 years ago
Love your work so far, but I have beef with the dock.
It’s very nice looking, and I find the scrollable dock is overall much better than ADW’s strange ‘pullup dock’, but when customizing LP’s dock I find it very hard to organize and set up beyond tweaking a few default activities (I change the browser app to gmail and that’s about it). It’s so tedious to setup the other two docks that I can’t even get halfway before giving up.
So if I could request any feature it would be a better way for the user to organize the dock. Something like dragging and dropping to and from the dock would be a godsend. Dragging to shuffle the dock icons around would also be very useful. I’m sure there’s other things you could add to make the process even easier (a ‘change icon’ option menu when you long press so you don’t need to hunt through menus.. maybe some sensible defaults for the other 2 docks instead of a bunch of plus icons)
Aside from that, this is a brilliant launcher. I give it three thumbs up (its a birth defect please don’t stare)
about 2 years ago
UUUUUUgggggHHHHHH this app has given me so many freaking problems. It freezes constantly, always updates every freaking day,and it just worrysome!!! PLease someone tell me how to launch this from my phone now!!
about 2 years ago
If I update, do I have to do my current setup of the homescreens all over again?
about 2 years ago
Which fixes for Froyo? Runs absolutely fine on my Nexus with Froyo FRF85B.
Still one of the best apps in the market. Thanks for your work.
about 2 years ago
Can I just say a big THANK YOU to you Mr. Developer of quite possibly the best app that has been made thus far for Android. You sir should be working for Google. I wish you all the luck!
about 2 years ago
Awesome!
may be you could add “transparency adjust” in app drawer background in the future release
about 2 years ago
Excellent work, the best app ever for Android.
Thank you so much xD
about 2 years ago
Hi i switched back to 0.6.3. Scrolling with 0.6.4 is not as good as the previous version. On my Milestone with 0.6.4 very fast scrolling will result in instant jumping of the screen. First when u sype nothing happens and then in an instand it jumps to the next page. On 0.6.3 if i sype fast the screen reacts exactli in the moment u start moving your fingerm so it scrolls smooth to the next page.
about 2 years ago
I have one problem with this version. I kept my previous versions in the system/app/ folder instead of the normal installed way in data/app/ so I pushed the apk file there and now the whole screen is black and the only thing that works is the notification bar.
Is this my fault for installing it to the system folder instead?
about 2 years ago
Already updated… Error with the widgets on my home screen… no one appears…
about 2 years ago
Amazing !
You add lots of features, and the home is always very fast !
“un vrai bonheur à utiliser !”
about 2 years ago
amazing stuff sir! screen rotation is subtly improved, everything is nice, I like the new icon outlines (I had trouble seeing the old ones but dislike the stock android highlights).
cube transitions? ok, well, I would think that’s tough to do, so yea nice but I’d concentrate on a workaround for the terrible way android handles screen rotation of the launcher.
I know as a developer that even in standard apps android by design forces what is effectively a restart of the app. however in apps there are (as I’m sure you know) fairly standard ways of working around that.
Now in launcher rotation I’m assuming that you can’t work around that since the widgets are actually apps of their own and therefore you can’t control if they restart or not.
So as a workaround is it possible to take a screenshot of each homescreen in every rotated position that the OS is set to handle (let’s assuming 0 and 90 degree rotation for now, I know 270 degree is possible in some newer rom hack builds though…)
if you can keep cached screenshots then on rotation if you could display the appropriate screenshot instantly while in the background the widgets are restarting on their own, well do you think that would help at all? I would think it’s a step in the right direction at least, unless you can think of a way to extend android’s calls so it doesn’t force restart of all widgets (which I think is impossible without a major rewrite of android’s rotation concept by google).
I don’t know how you’d know when to replace the screenshot with the running widgets, if that’s even possible to hook into. but it seems like one possibility anyway. of course it would unresponsive to taps until the screenshot was replaced, that’s another issue entirely (maybe shake the screenshot a couple times fast like a “no, not yet” kind of symbolism? LoL
anyway, if you can somehow give android fast screen rotation it would be awesome. iphone has fantastic screen rotation, icons fly around, it’s quite beautiful and really really fast. dammit…
about 2 years ago
oh, and I am wondering about putting it into system/app also like post #20 above. I assume it will run faster if I do that (as a launcher instead of as an app). any thoughts on his issue? I’ll hold off doing that until I know it’s safe…
amazing launcher – I can’t find anything better. gde is so cool and so completely useless at the same time LoL, I’ll take speed with more subtle eyecandy any time thanks to your great launcher!
about 2 years ago
Any chance of adding the ability to backup/restore settings?
Only option I am missing.
Thanks!
about 2 years ago
Hi there mate. Do you think it’s possible to have it running on a Mytouch 3G. I’ve tried and got a message saying the apk couldn’t be install on it. cheers!
about 2 years ago
Thanks for all the updates! With an app like this which is what you stare at all day, It’s nice to know that someone is aware of issues and constantly updating. I used a different home replacement app and the dev slowed down to updating every other month or so and wasn’t keeping up with the issues.
I like that the app is free. I wouldn’t have tried it if it wasn’t but you may want to throw a donate button on your site! I’m sure many people would be happy to support you!
about 2 years ago
when i go to landscape mode, the dock stays on the bottom now instead of switching to the side, so it crams all the icons together :[
about 2 years ago
a restart fixed that up :[]
about 2 years ago
Great app. I think LPro should have few new options to be definitely the best launcher.
1.Screen gestures (swipe finger up/down launches app or another action). It works good on ADW.Launcher.
2. Option to set level of transparency in drawer
3. Infinite screen scrolling (like dock loop)
I hope you can add this features.
about 2 years ago
Can you please add a backup and restore options
about 2 years ago
What if you set it up to dynamically switch profiles as memory free changes? the more memory available, the better the picture quality, less cache, etc. the less memory that is available, the more its compresses, caches, etc.
Also, have you thought of a fix yet, for apps/widgets that are on the sd card? they’re not shown after reboot, unless you restart launcher.
about 2 years ago
Frederico, your work is astounding. Why aren’t you charging for this? I would like to contribute to development and would be happy to donate.
Given how good you are with providing a polished product (and how clearly well-versed you are in coding for Android) could I persuade you to create an app that provides for cutting and pasting text in a way as convenient as the method employed by Apple? Apart from a smooth launcher (which you solved), my only other real gripe with Android is this.
about 2 years ago
Very strange bug/feature/something… just installed this on my O2 UK HTC Desire. Fantastic app, but since installing it an app called Telmap Navigator has appeared in the app drawer. Even stranger the program appears to be in German (or possibly Dutch). No idea what could have caused this but a quick Google search brought up this thread where someone has had the same problem: http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/105567-app-wont-uninstall-delete.html. The person in question also owns a UK HTC Desire on O2.
about 2 years ago
i would love to be able to add other themes for the launcher. http://forums.blackdroidmod.com/index.php?/topic/731-launcher-pro-theme/
i love this one. but its too complicated for me to install it.
about 2 years ago
Excellent app, thanks!
Feature request: iPhone/Galaxy S style app drawer, scrolling one page at a time horizontally.
And I second Kamils request for “Infinite screen scrolling”.
Keep up the good work. Hope you stay free, since I’m not in one of the few countries blessed with paid apps…
about 2 years ago
Hi there…. I just want to thank you for this. I’m LOVING it!!
I’d like to second the suggestion for Galaxy S style app drawer. When you have lots and lots of apps, it can be quite hard to locate one that you want (and you don’t want always to clutter up home screens with them) – but on my Galaxy S I was able to arrange my app draw pages into ‘groups’. Page 1 – Utilities, page 2 – games etc….
something similar would be very useful. It’s easier to remember where they are when they’re on pages, than a scrolling list. So the option would be great! thanks for listening
(and thanks for the work you’ve done on this!!)
about 2 years ago
Any idea why whenever I touch the Google search widget it flies to the top of the screen & I have to reset Launcher Pro to get it to go back to its position?