One of the beautiful things about Android is choice. If you don’t like the stock configuration of the handset you’re using, it’s simple to change most things out—there are plenty of choices on the Play Store for alternative SMS apps, cameras, and calendars, for example. Of all the options out there, however, changing the launcher arguably makes the biggest impact on overall user experience.
The Advantage of Custom Launchers
RELATED:What Custom Android Launchers Are and Why You Might Want to Use One
The launcher—which manages your home screen and app drawer—has come a long way since the early days of Android, and has transitioned from a basic home screen into a sort of dashboard for the entire Android experience. While many of the popular manufacturers—like Samsung, LG, and HTC—include very robust launchers on their handsets, they can also be very resource-heavy, and sometimes even sluggish. The quickest and easiest way to have a better (and more stock-like) Android experience if the manufacturer’s launcher is giving you issues is with a custom launcher.
Nova Launcher is generally considered to not only be the most feature-rich of all the custom launchers out there, but also the fastest. Not only that, but it gives you the ability to tweak almost everything about the home screen experience. That makes Nova the perfect launcher for everyone–from the novice user looking to get a little more pep out of their handset to the most advanced tweakers.
Nova Launcher vs. Nova Prime
There are two different versions of Nova Launcher available: free and Prime (which is $4.99). While the free version is good for simply replacing your current launcher, Nova Prime unlocks the full potential the launcher has to offer, with a handful of features that aren’t available in the free version:
The free version of Nova Launcher is great for getting your feet wet and seeing what Nova is all about without spending any money. Once you’re ready to jump into advanced functionality, however, the Prime version is the best option.
How to Install and Set Up Nova Launcher
Installing Nova is the easy part: just head over to the Play Store and search for “Nova Launcher” (or click here to go directly to the free version in your browser or on your phone). Hit the install button to start the download and automatic installation.
Once it’s installed, a tap of the home button will present the option to launch Nova or the current stock launcher. The option to execute this action only once or every time the home button is pressed will also be present, so keep in mind that if you choose “always” this will make Nova the default launcher. That’s an easy change to undo, however, so don’t worry if you accidentally select “always.”
Once Nova is up and running, you can either start over from scratch or import settings from another launcher. In this case, I’ll be importing the settings from Google Now Launcher.
Open the app drawer and click the “Nova Settings” icon along the top, then select “Backup & Import Settings from the list.
Jul 23, 2017 I've done several Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrades and haven't had an issue until now. I went directly to the Microsoft page for the Windows 10 upgrade as this was a fresh Win7 build and I didn't want to wait for the update to come. I ran the installer and the update downloaded and verified itself. At the next step is where the problem started. Windows 10 update assistant stuck at 0. Dec 27, 2015 Windows 10 update stuck at 0% My surface pro 3 is stuck on its windows updates! Ive checked task manager and my wifi and no data is downloading. Moved from Insider. This thread is locked. You can follow the question. May 21, 2019 Windows 10 Upgrade Assistant stuck at 99% or 0%. During the downloading and installing process, you may find it stuck at 99% or 0% at a certain point. And this situation may last for hours. Windows 10 update stuck at 99 or 0 percent (progress bar is stuck) The Windows Update will automatically download the latest available updates for your. Oct 15, 2018 If you’re experiencing Windows 10 Update 1803 stuck at 0%, slow or failed to update issues, here’s what you can do to fix the problem and to complete the update.The symptom of the problem is when you try to run Windows Update to install the latest Windows 10 October 2018 Update 1809 update, the update process runs very slow. How can the answer be improved?
Tap the “Import” button. Nova will provide a warning that importing from another launcher will erase Nova’s layout and make sure you want to move forward with the import. Tap “OK”.
From there, you can select the launcher you want to import from (very useful if you have more than one launcher installed), and the import will begin.
It’s worth noting that Nova can’t automatically create widgets because of a limitation in Android, but placeholders will be built where your widgets were, so once the import is finished you can just tap on the widget and allow Nova to create it from there. Rooted users can try the Root Helper option as shown above, which will attempt to read widget information from the other launcher and build it from there, but it doesn’t always work. In that case, it will default to the placeholder widget.
Nova Prime App
Once everything has been imported, you’re free to try out all of Nova’s features without the hassle of setting up a new launcher. Easy peasy.
READ NEXT
Nova Launcher is the king of Android launchers. With features galore, it's the ultimate way to customize your smartphone. You can amaze friends, confuse the ignorant and save precious seconds, often simultaneously. The sheer number of options can be intimidating, so many are often overlooked. In this article, we'll show you where to get Nova Launcher and provide a rundown of the most useful Nova Launcher tips and tricks.
Jump to:Download the latest version of Nova Launcher
Nova Launcher is often cited as the killer app for customizing Android, and in the settings you'll find a trove of options to fine-tune your experience. Not only that, but it offers great performance. If you want to try out Nova Launcher for free, it's easy enough to grab from Google's Play Store from the button below.
Nova Launcher
You can also download the latest version of Nova Launcher from APKMirror, including unreleased beta versions. To get the full functionality, however, it's worth shelling out a few bucks for Nova Launcher Prime.
Nova Launcher Prime
Note: The experimental menu, the scrolling orientation, icon customization and Night Mode are available on the free version of the app. For the rest, you will need the paid app, known as Nova Launcher Prime. We recommend Prime, which is just under $5 and well worth the money for changing your Android experience forever.
Nova Launcher Prime
9 must-try features of Nova Launcher1. Hidden folders
Here's a great way to access all your most commonly used apps quickly and without littering up your home screen. You can make an app folder that is hidden, appearing only as an icon of your choosing. When pressed, the icon will open the first app, but when you swipe up, it will open the folder, showing the full range of related apps.
I use this for my music apps, so when I press the headphones icon, Deezer opens, but when I swipe up, I see Soundcloud, Music Player, Deezer, etc.
2. Swipe actions on apps
Another way to make use of the swipe actions is to open apps that are related to other apps. I've got the camera icon set to open the Gallery app when I swipe, for instance, and swiping up on the Google Calendar app lets me add a reminder (download Google Inbox to access this feature). I also use this to open Messenger with a swipe up on the Facebook app icon.
3. Swipe actions on the home screen
You've really got to make the most of those swipe actions. The final way I use them is by adding a swipe-up gesture to the home screen to open the app drawer, a double-fingered swipe up to open Nova settings and a double-fingered swipe down to open Google Now, along with a few others, but you can choose whatever suits you best.
4. Double tap to lock
While this option could just be included in the section above, it seems worth highlighting, because it's something I use a lot and is easily overlooked. Star wars battlefront 2 1920x1080.
Now, when you issue a quick double-tap to the home screen, your device will lock. If you're not so keen on this, another very useful application is to have it launch the phone app.
5. Smooth scrolling
If you put the same widget on multiple launcher screens and employ Nova Launcher's wipe scroll effect, it produces a really pleasing way of moving between screens, with the widget remaining in place throughout. Take a look at the gif below to see what I mean.
![]() 6. Add app drawer tabs
The app drawer is Android's one-stop shop for all your apps, but how about making it a more discrete home-screen-style arrangement?
By default in Android, the app drawer is one page, but with Nova Launcher, you can add extra tabs to it that you can swipe left and right to scroll through. Name your tabs by category, e.g., Internet, Music and Work, and fill them up with related apps. It makes finding specific apps a whole lot easier, especially when your phone is a buzzing app metropolis.
Once you've got your tabs set up, you can choose whether apps show up only in the tab you've put them in or in the main app tab as well by long pressing on the tab at the top, selecting Edit Tab.., and then selecting or deselecting Keep apps in the main app tab.
7. Use emoji to label your app drawer tabs
Having app drawer tabs is great, but you can make the set up even cleaner by using keyboard emoji instead of words to label them.
8. Change scrolling orientation
One more app drawer tip: switch between vertical and horizontal scrolling between your app lists.
9. Customize icons without an icon pack
One of the best options a launcher provides is the ability to change app icons - it can completely revamp the look and feel of your smartphone. However, on Nova Launcher you don't really need to use an icon pack to do so. You can now customize icon shape, size and label (text under the app) even if you don't have Nova Launcher Prime thanks to Adaptive icons. Here's what you need to do:
However, you can also create a custom icon shape of your own (from the Adaptive icons settings) if none of the presets are to your liking. Playing with the values produces interesting results, as you can see from my lemon shaped icons in the screenshot below.
The customization options don't end there! You can even change the style of individual icons by tapping, holding and selecting the edit option. Once the edit menu is open, just tap on the icon once more. You can then select a style for it from available icon packs, built-in themes or even use a photo.
Customizing the text under icons or removing it completely is also an option on Nova Launcher. Head to App drawer, then Icon Layout. From there you can change the font, color and size of the text. It even allows you to add shadow to the icon labels and to choose whether you want the text to fit in a single line or not. With all these options, icon packs are not essential anymore.
![]() 10. Night mode
If you can't wait for Android Q to introduce the system-wide dark mode, you can still spare your eyes with the Night mode features Nova Launcher provides. Just go to Nova Settings and then Night Mode. From there, you can apply the dark theme on your search bar, app drawer, drawer icons and folders. The best part is that you can schedule the switch to Night mode according to local sunrise and sunset hours.
11. Experimental features and debugging
This final tip is for the professional Nova Launcher users out there. I don't often make use of this, but it might be helpful to have on hand.
Bonus tip:
Both the free and paid version of Nova Launcher now offer Sesame Shortcuts. You will need to install a separate app, which then integrates with the launcher to learn from you and create useful shortcuts within apps. For example, with 1 or 2 taps, you will be able to open your most frequent WhatsApp chats, or commonly used settings. It comes with API integrations to Spotify, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Slack, Reddit, Telegram and multiple other apps. Just install it from the link below, then head to Nova Settings and Sesame Shortcuts to customize it.
Sesame Shortcuts
Launcher Nova Prime
Do you know any other features Nova Launcher users should be taking advantage of? Let us know in the comments.
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |