App launcher

The app launcher puts your app drawer inside the keyboard: a searchable grid of every launchable app, with the ones you pinned and the ones you opened recently in a row on top. Tap an app to jump to it. Hold one to look inside it and open a specific screen, like a settings page or a compose view, without going through the app’s own navigation first.

It’s handy mid-conversation: someone asks for a booking reference, you hop to the airline app, copy it, and the keyboard is still where you left it when you come back.

Screenshot pending

The app grid with a pinned row on top and search in the header.

Opening the panel

Open Apps from the toolbar, or the toolbox if you haven’t pinned it. Typing apps or launch offers the tool on the suggestion strip too. On a hardware keyboard, use the leader key: double-tap Ctrl, then press J.

The grid

• Search sits in the header. Tap it and the keys come back under a shortened panel, filtering live over app names and package names as you type.
• Pinned and recent apps lead the grid in their own row. Pin an app from its detail view, or hold an app in the shortcut row to unpin it. Recents track the last 10 apps you opened from this tool and never leave your device.
• Tap launches the app. The panel closes itself, since you are about to leave the app you were typing in anyway.

Screens inside an app

Hold any app in the grid to open its detail view: the app’s icon, name and package, a pin toggle, an App info shortcut to the system settings page, and every screen (activity) the app declares.

Screens the app allows others to open are listed first; tap one to open it directly. Android blocks the rest for anyone but the app itself. Those stay hidden unless you turn on Show private screens, and then they show dimmed with a lock so you can explore what an app contains without wondering why a tap did nothing.

This works without any special permission. The keyboard sees the same launcher list the home screen does, and for those apps it can read the full screen table.

Options

WM Keyboard›Tools›App launcher

The screen opens with the three rows every tool has:

• Enabled — which way this starts depends on how you answered the setup wizard. The app launcher is only in the “show me everything” starter set, so the two simpler answers leave it off until you turn it on here.
• Icon colour — only shown while colorful tool icons is on globally (it is by default). Overrides this tool’s icon colour, a deep purple out of the box.
• Trigger words — “apps, launch” to begin with, under a Keyword shortcut heading, with a Match capitals toggle (off by default) below it and a Reset to defaults row that turns up once you’ve edited the words.

Then the launcher’s own group:

• Sort order — A to Z by default, or Recent first to lead with the apps you opened most recently.
• App names — on by default. Off leaves bare icons with no label underneath.
• Recent apps — on by default. Turning it off stops the tracking and deletes the stored list of 10.
• Open screens inside apps — on by default. This is the hold gesture; with it off, holding an app pins it instead.
• Show private screens — off by default. Lists the screens other apps may not open, dimmed. They’re debugging fare: a tap on one does nothing.

Privacy notes

• The app list is read from the system on your device and never leaves it.
• Recents and pins are stored as plain package names in the keyboard’s own settings, nowhere else.
• The tool is unavailable before the first unlock after a reboot, like every tool that starts other apps.