Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow

[Lorne Kates]

I've finally got my phone in a mostly working state. Fully working, for me, is:

1. Rooted
2. Privacy apps installed
3. Adblock apps installed
4. SD Card fully functional
5. All music and podcasts restored
6. All saved game data restored
7. Other misc. apps ready to go
8. All "must have" UI tweaks done

I've got most of the above going-- just need a couple extra Adblocks, and restoring my music & games. There's plenty of "UI Tweaks" to be done, but nothing that isn't just fiddling.

So, the big question is-- how is my experience with Android Marshmallow so far?

...

First of all, fuck you to the fucking dumbfucks on Android's development team for this godawful naming convention. Nothing says "we are a serious OS that should be adopted by the world at large" more than fucking candy names. Which version is it? Who the fuck knows, unless you regularly masturbate to the Android Dev mailing list. And i18n? Go fuck yourself, too. You WILL learn English sorting to figure out what OS version you are on. Fucking Open Soores.

Okay, so that's that out of the way, how about the system itself? The phone is a CAT S60, with Android 6.0.1, and whatever the fucking UI is called. I don't know. I only owned Samsung phones, which have their own UI I think? And this is a different one? Because confusing.

Rooting was painless, once I figured it out. The rooting community is amazing and does great work, but the final guides are always a condensed version of a 100-page long "can we root it" thread. Instructions cobbled-together mish-mash of different fonts, colors and sizes. There's references to tools and terms that you have to research first (obviously, since doing something fairly technical). And half the links to "use this file" lead to defunct Mega.nz pages, so you have to hunt down the tool yourself, and there's 560 different versions. But once all that was in place, it was as easy as reboot to Emergency Download Mode, throw on a custom recovery bootloader, use that to push the "gimme root" apps, a reboot and done. Thankfully there was no custom firmware to install. A+.

Now that I actually had root, the WTFery of Android Mashmallow.Donut.UnicornBoner kicked in.

I'm coming from Android 4.4. There was this really nice feature on 4.4 called "Hey, I have a fucking massive 128GB SD card plugged into this motherfucker, how about you just let me use it, okay?" When I installed an App, a little popup would say "hey buddy this app can live on an SD card. You wanna?" And I'd say yes, because having everything on the 128GB SD card leaves the internal memory free, and makes recovery super easy. Which I had to do several times with my Samsung phones. Which is why I don't own Samsung phones anymore.

So Android 6 comes around, and they release a feature called "lol fuck you we're taking that away because we wouldn't want our phones to be too useful, would we?" The supposed "you're in control of your experience" open source people decided that, nah, you don't really need that 128GB, you can just make do with whatever's left of the phone's internal memory after the OS takes it's slice. Wow. That has to be one of the most backwards, regressive "updates" I've seen since I read about all the shit Android 4.4 took away from previous versions, so why am I not surprised?

Though, Open Sauce being what it is, of course Your Hardware, Your Software, Your Control, so you can just do something about it. And that "do something about it" is to remove the sdcard, use a 3rd party partition tool to create two partitions, one FAT32 and one EXT2. Use that tool to make those partitions-- but there's also no real guide out there as to how big you should make them, because how much space does the Apps take up anyways, is there a percentage, or GB amount, any rule of thumb NOPE JUST GUESS. Then stuff the card back into phone. The OS will ask you if you want "Internal" or "Portable" without defining what any of those are. If you guess wrong, you sink hours into Googling error messages (guess how I know). Then you pick the right one. Then you have to install a program called Link2SD, which requires root-- but since the program can't be installed directly, you have to go back and re-open all your rooting tools, go into EDL mode, load a bootloader, go into recovery mode, install the apk, reboot. Then you find out Link2SD fails with a cryptic error message because it can't, on it's own, actually mount that second partition you created. So you have to get ANOTHER utility called Apps2SD, but not App2SD because those are useless and may have malware, and Apps2SD is actually called something else in the Play store. THAT utility will create the mount scripts and THEN you can run Link2SD to move apps from internal to external and create a link. Except as far as I can tell you can't do that with apps already installed, so I might have to reinstall a bunch of aps.

Also, Windows can't read a second partition on a removable disk, so now the only way to access that part of the card is via a janky MTP USB connection that is slow and 95% of the time drops the connection for no reason.

Yes, that is all SO much easier than just using the fucking SD card like a second drive / mount point, you braindead fuckers who came up with this.

More fun as it happens!

[Lorne Kates]

Oh, also, I recently got a 5G router. It's set to auto-select the channel, because that's the default setting, and it'll avoid collisions with neighbours.

The Android 6.0 phone doesn't see the 5G signal. (Note that the Android 4.4 phone DID see it just fine).

I google to confirm the Cat S60 has 802.11n (it does). So WTF? Back to Googling For Useless Solutions, which are, in order:

1. have u tried factory reset? (Fuck you, no, I've dumped hours into getting this set up)
2. go closer to the wifi rooter, ur too far away (Fuck you, no, I even put the phone right next to the router)
3. maybe drivers are broken wait for update? (Fuck you, no, even if I was getting OTA updates, which I'm not because Canada and also Root, those updates might be YEARS from now)
4. through 99, other shit like this

Then the last solution, on what might have been the SECOND PAGE of Google results, at the bottom of a forum thread. Paraphrasing:

"Android 6.0 will only show you the 5G channels that are assigned to your country, based on the Wifi Country Region. (links to Wikipedia). So either change your router to match, or get Root, go to this location, and edit this setting's database to set your Wifi region to JP (japan), so it is completely unlocked"

whhhhh

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THIS ANDROID? Not only is that a huge regression since 4.4 saw the router just fucking fine, but now you SILENTLY IGNORE signals because Wikipedia says so? Not even a piece of UI that says "5G channels limited to xxx". Just completely ignore it?

FYI: My wife's brand new iPhone sees the 5G channel JUST FUCKING FINE. So don't give me any "oh all new wifi drivers work like this" bullshit. This is the fucking reason why I tell people "Just buy an iphone".

[Tsaukpaetra]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Android 6.0 will only show you the 5G channels that are assigned to your country, based on the Wifi Country Region. (links to Wikipedia

Wut. I could understand it not showing channels above 11,but that's for 2.4ghz...

Did I miss something?

[PleegWat]

@tsaukpaetra The exact range of the 5GHz band available for wifi use varies per country. Among other things, the range overlaps with ranges used by radar. Selling or using hardware which uses bands it's not allowed to is typically illegal.

[DoctorJones]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

I google to confirm the Cat S60 has 802.11n (it does).

I've had the same issue with my new phone (an unrelated model), and just decided to live with it.

It sounds like the phone maybe doesn't support 5ghz? AFAIK, 802.11n does not mean that it'll support the 5ghz fequency band, it can just be deployed over 2.4ghz or 5ghz.

Let us know if you manage to fix it, I'd be really keen to know, because it might help me fix the problem with my phone.

[PleegWat]

@doctorjones I've also heard of devices which only support part of the 5GHz band, because the rest of it requires auto-sensing if the band is free before sending and some manufacturers can't be bothered with that so they turn it off. Not sure if that applies in Canada though.

[Lorne Kates]

@pleegwat said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@tsaukpaetra The exact range of the 5GHz band available for wifi use varies per country. Among other things, the range overlaps with ranges used by radar. Selling or using hardware which uses bands it's not allowed to is typically illegal.

Okay, sure, but then why did the 5GHz band show up on

a) my Android 4.4 phone, which is older than this one and
b) my wife's iPhoneX, which is as new as new can be

That means that either phone older Android and newer iOS are "breakin' the law, breakin' the law"-- or that my auto-selecting router is breakin' the law?

[Weng]

@lorne-kates The S60 is the one with FLIR, right?

[Greybeard]

@lorne-kates US/Canada difference?

[Lorne Kates]

@pleegwat said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@doctorjones I've also heard of devices which only support part of the 5GHz band, because the rest of it requires auto-sensing if the band is free before sending and some manufacturers can't be bothered with that so they turn it off. Not sure if that applies in Canada though.

Technically, it's an American phone that came from America and is still set to EN-US.

[izzion]

@pleegwat
Though that restriction should only apply to the hotspot function—the client should search for anything available.

[Lorne Kates]

@weng said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates The S60 is the one with FLIR, right?

Yes.

[HardwareGeek]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow

There are things about your private life that should remain private — just you, your "friends," and the police.

[Lorne Kates]

@hardwaregeek said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow

There are things about your private life that should remain private — just you, your "friends," and the police.

Guess how I make a S'Mores Sandwich.

[HardwareGeek]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Guess

No.

[blakeyrat]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

I google to confirm the Cat S60 has 802.11n (it does). So WTF? Back to Googling For Useless Solutions, which are, in order:

I'm gonna be "that guy" but 802.11n doesn't imply "knows 5 ghz frequencies". Whether or not the device supports 5 ghz is independent of what 802.11 version it has.

That said, I wager the vast majority of n devices know about 5 ghz.

[Lorne Kates]

@blakeyrat said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

I'm gonna be "that guy" but 802.11n doesn't imply "knows 5 ghz frequencies". Whether or not the device supports 5 ghz is independent of what 802.11 version it has.
That said, I wager the vast majority of n devices know about 5 ghz.

Fair enough. Specs say "802.11n IEEE 802.11n-2009"

Wiki says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009

It can be used in the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz frequency bands.

edit: so the verdict is still "goddamn fucking Android"

[Tsaukpaetra]

@blakeyrat said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

I'm gonna be "that guy" but 802.11n doesn't imply "knows 5 ghz frequencies". Whether or not the device supports 5 ghz is independent of what 802.11 version it has.

QFT.

I'm resurrecting an HP laptop I bought for my stepmom two years ago, and discovered it can connect to the 2.4 GHz wifi just fine at 150mbps (ish), but can't even see the 5Ghz network at all.

[Weng]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@weng said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates The S60 is the one with FLIR, right?

Yes.

Been thinking about buying one of those as a shop tool. Is the 640x480 IR resolution useful?

[xaade]

Whoever took away, "move to SD card" needs to feel fire. Lots of fire.

[dkf]

@xaade said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Whoever took away, "move to SD card" needs to feel fire. Lots of fire.

They've got to queue up though. There's the morons that thought a 1GB system partition was a good idea (on a previous phone of mine) ahead.

[Tsaukpaetra]

@dkf said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@xaade said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Whoever took away, "move to SD card" needs to feel fire. Lots of fire.

They've got to queue up though. There's the morons that thought a 1GB system partition was a good idea (on a previous phone of mine) ahead.

Mine's 3Gb, and almost no apps allow themselves to be moved out!

[sloosecannon]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@pleegwat said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@tsaukpaetra The exact range of the 5GHz band available for wifi use varies per country. Among other things, the range overlaps with ranges used by radar. Selling or using hardware which uses bands it's not allowed to is typically illegal.

Okay, sure, but then why did the 5GHz band show up on

a) my Android 4.4 phone, which is older than this one and
b) my wife's iPhoneX, which is as new as new can be

That means that either phone older Android and newer iOS are "breakin' the law, breakin' the law"-- or that my auto-selecting router is breakin' the law?

Likely because those use the handset type, not the location to determine the allowed bands. Which can lead to other issues (EN_US phone not working on Canadian networks, for example).
So they decided, instead, to use the actual location, as reported by the phone. Of course, now you get EN_US networks not working in EN_CA, but that's a better (probably) problem to have, since, in theory, people will fix it the right way (EN_CA network in CA).

[Lorne Kates]

@weng said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Been thinking about buying one of those as a shop tool. Is the 640x480 IR resolution useful?

It's shiny.

[Lorne Kates]

@sloosecannon said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

handset type

It turns out it's the SIM locale that determines it. Which to change or fake requires ultra-bullshit which may or may not include a single XDA thread which links to an apk on a dodgy "download" site, which doesn't even work. So par for the course for Android development.

[Lorne Kates]

and speaking of android developer bullshit fucking useless things.

Something I saw a few times is "install Nova Launcher". From what I understand, a "launcher" is basically the desktop UI-- where all your icons and widgets are. I may be wrong about that because fuuuuuuuck yooooooooou!

Alright, what is Nova Launcher? Type it into Google. First two links are to Play Store, of course. Third link, an article on "Android Central" called "Nova Launcher: Everything You Need to Know".

CooOOOOl, sounds like that's something I should read, so I can determine if I should install this thing.

Since I'm posting it here, you can probably figure out how good the article is. But still. Humor me. Go read as much of the article as you can stomach.

Namerah Saud Fatmi  /  Dec 14, 2021  /  Apps & Software

The best Android launchers for your phone 2024

Give your phone a facelift in no time at all.

Did you even make it past the layout? Photo that is 1 screen high of a picture of some guy's phone running Nova (I think), followed by a 2 line paragraph-- in font that changes font-family between header and text, with no discernible breaks between header, article text, and hyperlink to other articles. And when I say "picture of a phone", I don't mean a screenshot of the Nova Launcher. I literally mean the fucking asshole took a PICTURE OF HIS PHONE in Suppa Kewl Lighting.

edit no really, go look at the DumbBox above. The fucker took his phone, put in on an angle, and sat it on a fucking plate. WHAT THE SHIT DOES THAT TELL ME ABOUT WHAT THE FUCK YOUR LAUNCHER IS??!?!

Let's say by SOME miracle you made it past the layout. So surely you read the article and now you know, as the title says, "EVERYTHING" you need to know about the launcher, right?

Well, if the one thing that you needed to know is that, if Nova Launcher took on human form, the author would literally lick it's asshole clean and thank Nova for the honor-- well, now you know that.

There's a lot of launchers out there, and while I find myself drawn to other launchers every now and again, Nova Launcher's siren song will find me and draw me back to its unique embrace.

I am not joking.

Okay, so perhaps you can put aside the author's "please fuck me from mouth to butt in one fell swoop you huge-cocked monster" prose-- maybe we can at least extract some meaningful informatio about Nova Launcher from the article. What's some of the tips?

Here's an example:

Nova Settings is its own little Cave of Wonders, with treasures beyond belief and a lot of settings you'll probably never touch and likely don't need to. These are the Nova Settings features you should absolutely know about.

... yes, those are the features I should absolutely know about. Which is why I'm reading the article called "EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW". You fucking asshole.

Nova Launcher has a laundry list of features (names one)

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SOFTWARE FUCKING DO!?!??!

So yeah-- even on a second (and third) reading to write this post, I still know absolutely nothing about Nova Launcher. I think that MAYBE this article is just a listicle of other articles on the same website, maybe? Because each useless paragraph has an inlaid hyperlink that's trying to click-bait to other articles. But-- well, honestly, having to deal with that bullshit on every other site, I automatically ignore those types of links. So it wasn't until the FOURTH reading that I realized that yes, indeed, that is what the article is.

In summary, this article-- the TOP HIT for "Nova Launcher" that isn't the Play Store itself-- the very first introduction anyone who is looking for information about it-- the whole article is this:

---

**useless title** # HUGE FUCKING IMAGE OF SOME DOUCHBAG'S PHONE *paragraph that is either vague or nauseating* Hyperlink to other article that has the exact same wording as the paragraph you just read, so by all appearances is an auto-generated-by-keyword clickbait link to be ignore

---

Repeat x5

edit no matter how shitty NodeBB may have laid out that mish-mash of text above that represents the article, I promise you it isn't as shitty as the layout of the actual article.

I posted up above a vague guess at what I thought a launcher is. Now I'm not even sure of that. We've all joked in the past about reading something and coming away dumber-- but I think that literally just happened to me. I think that article either imparted negative-knowledge gain-- or actually caused minor brain damage.

[Greybeard]

@lorne-kates So which channel is it? Wikipedia lists seven channels available in the US but not Canada, plus another seven restricted in Canada to indoor use only.

[Tsaukpaetra]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

I think that article either imparted negative-knowledge gain-- or actually caused minor brain damage.

Yeah, that was a pretty bad article.

Here, try the site from the fourth result, which is coincidentally

Nova Launcher

It's "Highly customizable, performance driven, home screen replacement for Android."

So, it replaces your "home screen", which, if you've used any kind of smart device, should be familiar to you.

Personally, I never trust any article titled like "X things you must know" or "This one secret trick" or any of various other eye-catchers.

You could try another article of course.

Jerry Hildenbrand  /  Jul 22, 2015  /  Apps & Software

Nova Launcher may be the best thing that ever happened for Android

If you want to customize the your phone within an inch of its life but don't want to mess with ROMs or anything that could actually break things, Nova Launcher probably is the best ...

But it's still an article, not a ReadMe.txt by any stretch of the imagination. I'd almost say you brought that on yourself...

[pie_flavor]

@lorne-kates A launcher is the home screen UI. Android comes with a default one called Google Now Launcher, Samsung overrides that with its own called TouchWiz (which SUCKS), and you can install your own.
Basically it determines everything about the home screen. How your app pages work, whether you have a bottom bar that doesn't change, what the app drawer looks like and how it functions, and how widgets are handled. It can also have whatever other features it wants, for example Now lets you swipe left from the home to get to the news feed, has a Google bar docked at the top, and selects the search bar immediately if you long-tap the app drawer.
The Play store links are correct; it's just another app you install, and the next time you hit the home button it asks you which launcher you want to use, and it doesn't ask you again until you install another one.
Dunno why the review was the third link; my third link is the project page itself:

Nova Launcher

I assume the CAT phones stick with the default launcher. If you use the news feed, keep it; otherwise, Nova's a great launcher. You can read about its actual features on the page.

Also, not to intrude on your ranting, but the article does actually say a bunch of features. Gestures, subgrid positioning, notification badges, great folder handling, and the ability to back up the entire configuration to the cloud. And if you click the link at the bottom, you get even more: Google Drive integration, app drawer customization, and the ability to import a launcher configuration from other apps.

[Tsaukpaetra]

@pie_flavor said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Google Drive integration

That really only means it can save and restore its config, try not to read too far into that...

[pie_flavor]

@tsaukpaetra Well, configuration, themes, and backgrounds.

[Lorne Kates]

@greybeard said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates So which channel is it? Wikipedia lists seven channels available in the US but not Canada, plus another seven restricted in Canada to indoor use only.

It's set to Auto and lists those channels. So I don't know whythefuck.

[JazzyJosh]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Which version is it? Who the fuck knows, unless you regularly masturbate to the Android Dev mailing list.

Alphabetical doesn't sound like a poor naming scheme.

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Nova Launcher

It's highly customizable. Change, resize, and relabel app icons. Easily go to app info for an app. Arbitrary x by y grids. Icon placement inbetween grid locations if you want something offset. Change page indicator style. Enable infinite scrolling. Change your app drawer style. Backup its settings.

[Lorne Kates]

@pie_flavor said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates A launcher is the home screen UI. Android comes with a default one called Google Now Launcher, Samsung overrides that with its own called TouchWiz (which SUCKS), and you can install your own.
Basically it determines everything about the home screen. How your app pages work, whether you have a bottom bar that doesn't change, what the app drawer looks like and how it functions, and how widgets are handled. It can also have whatever other features it wants, for example Now lets you swipe left from the home to get to the news feed, has a Google bar docked at the top, and selects the search bar immediately if you long-tap the app drawer.

And that's how a one paragraph should go. Thank you.

@pie_flavor said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

TouchWiz

That's been my only launcher so far, since I've only ever used Samsungs. I didn't mind it, it-- well, it worked. Which is good.

@pie_flavor said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Now lets you swipe left from the home to get to the news feed, has a Google bar docked at the top, and selects the search bar immediately if you long-tap the app drawer.

I've been trying to kill that since I got the phone. I managed to get rid of the "hahah you touched the left pixel here's an assdump of stuff you didn't want!" swipe left by deleting Google Now's data (which, of course, reset all the home screens). I would LOVE to kill the search bar. I would rather have another row of icons than a Google-bar that I will never, ever touch.

The Play store links are correct; it's just another app you install, and the next time you hit the home button it asks you which launcher you want to use, and it doesn't ask you again until you install another one.
Dunno why the review was the third link; my third link is the project page itself:

Nova Launcher

Search bubble, I guess?

Also, not to intrude on your ranting, but the article does actually say a bunch of features. Gestures, subgrid positioning, notification badges, great folder handling, and the ability to back up the entire configuration to the cloud. And if you click the link at the bottom, you get even more: Google Drive integration, app drawer customization, and the ability to import a launcher configuration from other apps.

Yes, that's all good, but here's why the article failed. I read all that, and came away with (just from what you mentioned above):

• What gestures, and why are they THE BEST and different?
• What the fuck is "subgrid positioning", if you're trying to sell someone on the product.
• How are notification badges different then the red "5" I see overlaid on Twitter when I have 5 new interactions? Or 20 overtop gmail when I have 20 new mails?
• "great" is subjective, I don't know what's different than me just grouping icons together into a folder. Is there something I've been missing? What's a concrete example.
• Backup everything-- cool, that was the ONLY thing that was a concrete feature I took from the article.
• I don't want to click links to read more articles. I wanted a quick, informative primer that would tell me what Nova is and sell me on why I should invest time in it.
• Google Drive: yuck
• App drawer customization: okay?
• import launcher config from other apps: huh?

[Lorne Kates]

Good morning! I would like to do an impression for you. It's a really good impression. I call it "every fucking android developer on xda and their stupid fucking inability to share tiny files".

Ready?

{clears throat, takes sip of water}

Ahem.

"oahi i am an androidd eveloper and i made apk. it fixes thing android broke for no reason.

THIS IS AS WARRANTY NONE! READ EVERYTHING! IF YOU BRICK UR PHONE IT IZ NOT MYFAULT

ok first to do is root phone twrp to dev (do usb unlock first but don't plug in usb) to load app then root again reboot done

apk is available here: {hyperlink to dodgy .ru site that, if you click on it, is either BROKEN, or the SITE IS DOWN, or requires a DOWNLOADER, or is in some other way janky-- but for some reason the developer put their apk there instead of on, like, github or just attaching it to the forum post itself because WHY THE FUCK IS IT SO HARD TO DISTRIBUTE A FUCKING .APK THAT IS, LIKE, 87k?!?!?!}

kthxbye!"

...

Thank you, I'll be here all night (trying to install a goddamn APK onto my phone)

[Jaloopa]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

How are notification badges different then the red "5" I see overlaid on Twitter when I have 5 new interactions? Or 20 overtop gmail when I have 20 new mails?

Those sound like notification badges. Most Android launchers don't have them, so that sounds like Cat have some sort of custom launcher

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

"great" is subjective, I don't know what's different than me just grouping icons together into a folder. Is there something I've been missing? What's a concrete example.

Action Launcher, another launcher I've used in the past, has a feature where you can have a folder that launches an app if you tap it or the folder if you do a gesture. I used it for stuff like having the phone app being accessible with a tap but if I wanted to get to the full contacts app I could have it placed logically with the phone but not making me do an extra tap for the one I used much more often.
There are also simpler differences between how folders work. Do they have a maximum number of apps they can contain, do they paginate or allow scrolling? Maybe customising the appearance of the folder icon.

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

import launcher config from other apps: huh?

I think that's saying that if you have your icons and widgets set up how you want, you can import that layout from your existing launcher rather than starting with a blank slate and having to add everything back in

[Lorne Kates]

@jazzyjosh said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Alphabetical doesn't sound like a poor naming scheme.

Until you:

a. Roll over
b. Have to name something stupid because nothing in your scheme starts with X
c. People don't even realize it is in order because they only hear the words and not the first letter of the word, so that pattern takes a while to sink in
d. Requires extra brain power to determine if a letter is before or after another letter, usually requiring a mental run-through of the Alphabet Song
e. Gets even worse if you're trying to align three versions in your head
f. Even if you can binary sort in your head, few people can instantly tell the distance between two versions without counting. Version 4 vs. Version 13, well that's 9 versions newer. Version Douche vs. Version Motherfucker, ummm... "A, B, C, D.... that's 4..."
g. These versions ALSO have numbers, so translating from number back to letter is harder. Version 5 is (a, b, c, d, e) Eggplant?
h. Android doesn't even line version numbers up properly. Android 6 is Marshmallow, which is M, which is not the 6th letter.
i. Minor versions fuck things up. Android 4.4 is... "Kitkat point 4"?
j. Fucks over internationalization completely. There is no alphabetical naming scheme you can come up with that will work in more than one language.
k. Since you don't care about i18n, you don't give a fuck about anyone who speaks a different language than the primary one. Meaning it's just "when" and not "if" you pick a word that ends up being horribly offensive in another language. "Are you using Android Faggot?" "No, I haven't upgraded yet from Android Nigger-Fucker".
l. From a purely visual standpoint, you don't have a consistent namelength. If you're going numbered, you probably only have to worry about PRODUCT NAME [0-9]{1,2}. With PRODUCT NAME [a-z0-9 ]+, you will need to constantly redesign the layout of your logo
m. You will chose a naming scheme that lacks the professionalism needed to be taken seriously in a wider market. I'm sure there's plenty of industries that just said "Fuck this, we're buying iPhones" when told they all have to install the OS named "Lollipop"
n. As hard as it is to remember all the versions in what I've listed above, it becomes exponentially harder the more arbitrary words you attach to the product.
o. You can't "roll back" an old version name if it turns out to be a problematic word after-the-fact, or becomes problematic later on.
p. It's a security risk. You now have opened yourself to several avenues of typosquatting on the name
q. It's a legal risk. You have now opened yourself to several avenues of trademark infringement / copyright trolls.
r. This one isn't your fault, but I bet somewhere there's someone with a patent for "sequential naming of product based on X", where X is whatever naming scheme you chose
s. It can date your product. Forget the "problematic" words, you might pick something that was "super cool", and then the fad instantly died. Now people look back at your product name and mock it
t. Or because you are a fad-chaser, the fad died after locking in the name, but before release, so you RELEASE an "uncool" name
u. If you're doing anything with proper nouns, you risk alienating a portion of your userbase who has bad associations with that name (an ex of theirs, a bully, a teacher they hated, etc)
v. Or you alienate someone by picking THEIR name and now they have to go the rest of their lives hearing "oh hahaha, just like the OS!"
w. Or you end up with an unhinged psychopath who thinks you are targeting them directly, and tries to murder you. (No, really)
x. People have to type more letters to talk about your product, so in a small way you are contributing to increasing the overall rate of RSI injuries wordwide
y. And also contributing to e-waste by wearing out keyboards that much faster
z. Because I said so
a. this isn't an issue, I just wanted to see what happens when I rollover NodeBB's auto-lettering

edit what the fuck I thought NodeBB did the auto-lettering <ul><li> thing on letters as well as numbers?!?!

[Lorne Kates]

@jaloopa said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Most Android launchers don't have them, so that sounds like Cat have some sort of custom launcher

Or maybe that was just TouchWizzInMyPants

@jaloopa said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

I think that's saying that if you have your icons and widgets set up how you want, you can import that layout from your existing launcher rather than starting with a blank slate and having to add everything back in

Ah.

[heterodox]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

g. These versions ALSO have numbers, so translating from number back to letter is harder. Version 5 is (a, b, c, d, e) Eggplant?

Wait until you find out about API levels.

[Lorne Kates]

Tried Nova launcher. Went to set up widgets. They don't have a calendar widgets. Are you ducking serious? I do not have the patience to fuck around trying to hack in a basic stock feature.

[Lorne Kates]

Also, double fuck... Swype was discontinued. Gboard is a piece of shit and keeps popping up a search box when I type. Swift key is inaccurate and annoying and doesn't do backspace or long touch word for select.

Hope pirate Bay has Swype.

[bb36e]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

They don't have a calendar widgets.

WOMM:

[bb36e]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Hope pirate Bay has Swype.

https://www.apkmirror.com/ has a bunch of old apps

[Lorne Kates]

@bb36e said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

WOMM

Fuck you, give me a calendar widget.

[Lorne Kates]

@bb36e said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Hope pirate Bay has Swype.

https://www.apkmirror.com/ has a bunch of old apps

Are they full of malware and cooties?

[Parody]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Fuck you, give me a calendar widget.

Your Calendar application has to provide them. The ones available on my phone come from Google Calendar.

[Lorne Kates]

@parody said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Fuck you, give me a calendar widget.

Your Calendar application has to provide them. The ones available on my phone come from Google Calendar.

I only have Google Calendar installed.

[Parody]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@parody said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Fuck you, give me a calendar widget.

Your Calendar application has to provide them. The ones available on my phone come from Google Calendar.

I only have Google Calendar installed.

Huh. Don't know what to tell you then; I have Android 6 and Nova as well and my choices are the same as shown above. (Calendar version is 5.8.22.)

[bb36e]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Are they full of malware and cooties?

whatever malware is on there hasn't affected my phone's performance or battery life, so its probably ok

[pie_flavor]

@lorne-kates said in Lorne Fucks Around With A Marshmallow:

Tried Nova launcher. Went to set up widgets. They don't have a calendar widgets. Are you ducking serious? I do not have the patience to fuck around trying to hack in a basic stock feature.

The launcher doesn't create widgets, apps do. The launcher just displays them.