That's where I ended up too. It seems to be the closest to what Nova used to be.

I've been using Octopi for a few months now. It works for me, but I do miss a few features. I really want the ability to store folders in folders. And I wish the landscape layout was derived from the portrait layout, instead of being separate. At least the first of those issues seems to be on the list of planned features, so I am hopeful.

I was hoping for something open source so I wouldn't have to deal with it becoming crapified at some point down the line. While Octopi currently doesn't contain trackers, it IS dependent upon Google Play Services which is a bit of a turn off.

However, I gave it a try & was having the most bizarre behavior trying to place widgets exactly. While they'd start out where I dropped them, upon resizing & trying to fine-tune placement I repeatedly wound up with the widget partially off the right edge of the screen & unable to move it back - each additional attempt would move it further off the edge.

Maybe I'll try again once I've got Graphine installed & running, but no go for now. Thanks for the suggestion nonetheless.

I switched to Octopi when I started to get ads on the homescreen with Nova

Where is the Lawnchair repository that is currently active? I tried the obvious one and got a message that it is built for older versions of Android. There must be another variant that is still being developed.

Kvaesito is great but definitely not what he's looking for. I love it though. Very different from any of the other launches I've used

I looked at that one 2-3 years ago,. Yeah, i could see it for certain uses, but not what I'm looking for on my phone. Thanks, tho.

TY, but yeah - tried it already & it's not there, and I doubt the kind of granular control I'm looking for over my home screen is anywhere on their feature implementation roadmap. FOSSify apps seem to target complete functionality of a minimal expected feature set, but with few frills added.

Thx for the suggestion, tho!

Just had a look, and I can't see Lawnchair on Fdroid for some reason.

There are a ton of copycats of this launcher style on F-Droid (and likely more that aren't). They don't fit my usage style whatsoever.

The biggest drawback for me is the sheer number of apps I have both for work and personal use. This style of launcher requires that I'm always able to think of the name of the app I want every time, as opposed to finding them in the category folders I've set up. Even those that support categorization would require me to search 2x & probably still scroll (whereas currently I can open the app drawer and immediately open the category folder I want from muscle memory). With my aging brain (Gen X, and a life not lived in a manner most healthy for my brain function), remembering every app name is just not happening.