Comment by cachius
16 days ago
Man there are about 50 Android launchers on F-Droid: https://search.f-droid.org/?q=launcher
Feels like picking a distro when going to Linux.
Notable changes compared to it's base Finn's Launcher: https://github.com/jrpie/launcher/blob/0.1.0/docs/launcher.m... (link is broken in readme on master branch)
Compatible with work profile, so apps like Shelter can be used.
Compatible with private space
...
The name of this one is a bit too clever: On GitHub in the URL it's just launcher, on HN uLauncher, actually on the website and stores it's µLauncher. I don't even know how to type and pronounce this 'micro' character - or is it 'mu'? https://old.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/wy53dr
For accessibility and shareability to people without an academic background an easier name would be better.
> Feels like picking a distro when going to Linux.
Yes, there are lots of options, a community member started compiling a list of open source launchers some time ago: https://launcher.jrpie.de/docs/alternatives/
The reason for µLauncher to exist is that I really like the approach of Finn's Launcher (gestures for the important stuff, search for everything else) - massive thanks to Finn! - and had been using it for years, but - after switching to GrapheneOS - I needed a launcher with support for private space. Launcher was unfortunately no longer actively maintained, so what started as a weekend project to implement some improvements ultimately lead to me becoming maintainer of a fork.
> The name of this one is a bit too clever
The name of the original app is simply "Launcher", hence the name of the repo - as I said, I didn't intend to maintain a fork when starting this. Not being very creative (and unaware of uLauncher) I just called my fork µLauncher (I'm pronouncing it 'mu'-Launcher like the greek letter). On a German keyboard, µ is readily available and I had never imagined that this small fork would be used by anyone except a few friends...
I guess it's been a while, but using µ in a name isn't exactly unprecedented, μTorrent was the BitTorrent software to use at the time, and so that discussion played out then. Everyone just called it uTorrent because it was the easier thing to type and made the pronunciation obvious and singular.
Until just now I would have sworn uBlockOrigin used μ. It's the first thing I've installed after the OS since it existed, but your lack of mentioning it made me check.
Yeah. Plus the fact that ulauncher is already an existing launcher-type app for Linux: https://ulauncher.io/
The character "μ" itself is called μι or μυ (both pronounced "me"), and is the exact equivalent of Latin "m". For some reason, English speaking countries tend to pronounce it "mew" (they also pronounce "π" as "pie"). But English speaking countries mispronounce so many words it's par for the course anyway.
Pet peeve: I really hate when they replace "μ" with "u". Completely different letters. Of course replacing capital Latin "E" with capital Greek sigma ("Σ") is even worse.
As to the μlauncher: It's anyone's guess as to how the author meant for it to be pronounced. I'd call it "me"launcher or "micro"launcher (micro is also pronounced wrong in English BTW, it's not MY-crow, it's more like mee-CRAW )
"u" has the advantage of correctly rendering basically everywhere, which"μ" does not. My initial attempt to share this was automatically corrected to "Mlauncher" for example. I'm pretty sure this is the reason the one symbol is used so often where it should be the other.
The solution is just to stick to the Latin alphabet, but you can't deny that mixing in a little Greek every now and then is fun.