lens-launcher icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
lens-launcher copied to clipboard

A unique, efficient way to browse and launch your apps

Lens Launcher

Lens Launcher is a unique, efficient way to browse and launch your apps.

Alt text

Instead of scrolling long lists or swiping through multiple pages, Lens Launcher implements two unique features:

• An Equispaced Grid that displays all of your apps, regardless of screen size or app count.

• A Graphical Fisheye Lens to quickly zoom, pan and launch apps using touch gestures.

Lens Launcher also includes a full Settings menu to tweak all aspects of the Lens; Distortion, Scaling, Icon Size, Haptic Feedback, etc.

The Graphical Fisheye Lens algorithm is derived from methods proposed by Manojit Sarkar and Marc H. Brown. Their original 1993 paper, titled Graphical Fisheye Views, can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6Nqy9y098RLa2pqNVFUcUhIZXM

Major contributions to Lens Launcher have been made by Rish Bhardwaj (@CreaRo)

You can download Lens Launcher on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nickrout.lenslauncher

Build from Source

If you'd like to build from source, you may do so easily with Docker, but if you are wanting to contribute it may be better to install the build tools on your machine.

Easy Way

Building the APK is extremely easy using docker-compose, all that is needed is to run the following inside the repo's directory:

docker-compose run --rm gradle

Then download the APK inside lens-launcher/app/build/outputs/apk/app-release.apk to your phone to install.

For Development

  1. Install the latest Android SDK from Android Studio and accept the licenses.

  2. Install Java JDK 8 from Oracle.

  3. Run keytool and create a keystore following the command prompts.

  4. Generate an APK with gradlew like below:

    gradlew assembleRelease \
      -Pandroid.injected.signing.key.alias=$KEY_ALIAS \
      -Pandroid.injected.signing.store.file=$KEY_STORE_PATH \
      -Pandroid.injected.signing.store.password=$KEY_STORE_PASSWORD \
      -Pandroid.injected.signing.key.password=$KEY_PASSWORD;