Earlier this week, images of Google’s new Nexus launcher were leaked, showing some interesting changes to the user interface. First off, the dedicated icon on the home screen for the app drawer is gone. But the app drawer itself is still there; it is now accessible by swiping up from the bottom edge of the home screen, which makes it slide into place. Google Now is still accessed by swiping from the left edge, but now there is a small tab in that area that can be pulled, to give users a visual queue that there is something to the left. Among other small changes, the launcher settings are available by swiping up from the bottom edge of the home screen while in screen editing mode.
One of the best qualities of Android is its flexibility. It does a fantastic job of allowing users to modify just about every aspect of it, and one of the most enjoyable modifications is changing the way it looks. And thanks to that flexibility, fortunately, you don’t have to be a Nexus owner to take advantage of the new Nexus launcher – you can recreate it yourself using a few helpful apps. You’ll need a few things to get started. First off you’ll need Nova Launcher, a highly customizable launcher replacement available on Google Play. Next, you’ll need Zooper Widget Pro to set up custom widgets, which are the brains behind this workaround. Lastly, you will need the Polycon icon pack, and specific Zooper Widget preset available through the source down below.
Once you’ve downloaded everything you need, there are two parts to duplicating the Nexus launcher. The first part involves setting up the widgets in Zooper Widget Pro. After moving the files to the appropriate places, a 4 x 1 widget needs to be created and resized to fit your screen’s dimensions, followed by another small widget for the arrow above the app dock. The second part of the configuration is getting Nova set up. There are a few settings that need to be tweaked so that they more closely resemble the Nexus launcher. For example, setting the app drawer to vertical scrolling, setting the dock transparency to 90%, removing the persistent search bar and setting a transition animation for the app drawer. The full list is of changes that need to be made is available on the tutorial page.
Once you have it set up, it’s up to you to modify everything to your liking. Nova Launcher has a huge number of options that can be changed, so there is quite a bit to play around with. For the full tutorial with more detailed step-by-step instructions, check out the XDA post by following the link below.