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6 reasons the loss of Launchpad sucks
- Thread starter KES3059A3
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Looks good.
And I like that it allows user-choice order of icons, but no sign of user-created and named folders within that allows user to bundle icons of a kind into them - like 'Video and Photo' or 'Media Playback' or 'Online Storage'.
Will keep your project in my back pocket, but will stick with my solution as earlier posted on this thread for the moment.
@pappkristof thank you for sharing for starters 
Assuming this doesn't devolve into the pay-as-you-go category, may i express some thoughts?
(and by all means feel free to ignore)
- folder creation;
Don't know if it's possible, or how easy/practical it is, but it would be a big step.
- you feature "smart search", aka i suppose incremental search;
Kindly, kindly consider a toggle for that: Incremental/Off (upon complete word). The more one ages, the more confusing it is having characters pop up while you're typing something else. Not a wonder so many request this, or that so many Mac programs have just such a toggle.
- Scaling, fading, animations;
Yet again ideally, a toggle for all the unnecessary eye candy would assuredly go a long way.
You have a look at the comments here and in other similar, launchpad-related threads? Practical first, trendy looks and gizmos.. not so much
My subjective input aside, many thanks once again for your sharing this.
Assuming this doesn't devolve into the pay-as-you-go category, may i express some thoughts?
(and by all means feel free to ignore)
- folder creation;
Don't know if it's possible, or how easy/practical it is, but it would be a big step.
- you feature "smart search", aka i suppose incremental search;
Kindly, kindly consider a toggle for that: Incremental/Off (upon complete word). The more one ages, the more confusing it is having characters pop up while you're typing something else. Not a wonder so many request this, or that so many Mac programs have just such a toggle.
- Scaling, fading, animations;
Yet again ideally, a toggle for all the unnecessary eye candy would assuredly go a long way.
You have a look at the comments here and in other similar, launchpad-related threads? Practical first, trendy looks and gizmos.. not so much
My subjective input aside, many thanks once again for your sharing this.
Thanks for sharing. Any feedback or support is appreciated. The folders creation is the next feature I plan to implement.@pappkristof thank you for sharing for starters
Assuming this doesn't devolve into the pay-as-you-go category, may i express some thoughts?
(and by all means feel free to ignore)
- folder creation;
Don't know if it's possible, or how easy/practical it is, but it would be a big step.
- you feature "smart search", aka i suppose incremental search;
Kindly, kindly consider a toggle for that: Incremental/Off (upon complete word). The more one ages, the more confusing it is having characters pop up while you're typing something else. Not a wonder so many request this, or that so many Mac programs have just such a toggle.
- Scaling, fading, animations;
Yet again ideally, a toggle for all the unnecessary eye candy would assuredly go a long way.
You have a look at the comments here and in other similar, launchpad-related threads? Practical first, trendy looks and gizmos.. not so much
My subjective input aside, many thanks once again for your sharing this.
I thank you
(btw if i got this right [given the contributors' naming.. "scheme"], pretty cool if this is a 'family business'!)
Promising!
As already mentioned, make sure to add an option to disable animations (any UI animations can only be optional).
Actually it wasn't there when I first upgraded. It was only after I did the recent patch that added that functionality (otherwise I wouldn't have complained about it).
Exactly. Mine didn't show up until I did the recent update. I had to disable "iPhone mirroring" to turn it off. Glad to see there's an actual button now instead of having to disable other OS Features.
Can you please attach a screenshot for those not on the beta? Would be much appreciated!
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I’ll be happier when they fire the person or persons responsible for getting rid of Launchpad.
and since that's not going to happen, is the new window better for you?
I’ll be sticking with the existing tool that’s already in place, Spotlight. I’m still kind of lost as to why they’d remove one app to add another that’s just a stripped down version of the same search functionality as Spotlight. They’re the same thing! One just does way more than the other.
spotlight does it.
being used to launchpad, i find myself, on instinct, opening apps with the trackpad swipe, but sometimes invoking spotlight. either way, i get to where i want to go. i like this 👍
I'm one who never really liked it, I found it superfluous and spotlight was a better option. With that said, after googling the loss has annoyed and angered quite a lot of people.
Spotlight only works when you can immediately recall the name of the app you want to open. And not all apps are intuitively named or used often enough to be foremost in your memory. 😉
Launchpad allowed users to move apps on screen to a place that was intuitive to them and / or build folders of apps named in a way that made sense to them - not Apple, as is the case with Apps.
open 'apps' & scroll until you recognize the app you were looking for. or make a folder of apps that you don't remember the names of, put that in the dock. or try one of the 3rd-party apps, like QAL pro.
sure, these are all workarounds, but... find one that works for you 👍
So, essentially, do the work that Apple used to do.
For the moment, I've built a desktop folder - basically duplicating Launchpad - with shortcuts to my mostly used apps, and with sub-folders with shortcuts of similarly-tasked apps in them. I tried it in Dock, but in typical Nanny mode for Apple, it opens a window with the shortcuts moved around - so on the Desktop it stays for the moment.
Watching QAL Pro and the project that pappkristof is doing above with interest, but shouldn't need to be reinventing the wheel just to make Apple happy.
(BTW - I don't use the iOS App Library for the exact same reason Apps in MacOS 26 is useless to me)
ok got it. but since launchpad is gone, what else is there to do, but find workarounds? seems great that there are developers offering possible replacements...
It's definitely a start. But can you organize the apps yourself?
I still find this Spotlight thingie beyond ridiculous (not that I intended to use it anyway).
First, it's nearly impossible to resize. That is, it's resizable - but the cursor doesn't always change to the "resize" symbol at the window edges. And if you miss that tiny mysterious area where the window can be dragged to resize, the window is dismissed.
Second, even if you manage to resize it, Spotlight doesn't remember the last window size anyway - and always reverts to its useless default size. Wow.
This is below an amateur newbie development project grade.
don't use spotlight, use the 'apps' app; you could put that in your dock, and/or setup a key command for it (am using my mac trackpad). much better overall (as of 26.1 beta 1) than spotlight for this...