Wallpapers

• Added ability to tint/colorize wallpapers
• Added ability to tint the wallpaper shadow overlay
• Added ability to use a solid color as wallpaper
• Added ability to request a new wallpaper by long pressing the "play/pause" button on the remote control
• Changed the wallpaper selection algorithm to limit the chances of seeing one that has already been displayed recently
• Added a "fit-center + blurred background" to show portrait mode picture above the blurred same picture in the background
• Improved wallpaper image transitions and added a few choices : fade, zoom, slide H, slide V, random
• Wallpaper provider [custom folder]: updated to use the wallpaper caching mechanism, which lets it take advantage of the new selection algorithm
• Wallpaper provider [custom folder]: now recursively scans sub-folders (fixes #405)
• Wallpaper provider [Reddit]: removed hard-coded filter on ratio/height. The filtering is now only based on user wallpaper appearance settings (bad ratio/quality preference)
• Wallpaper provider [Reddit]: added a fallback mechanism in case of 403 errors
• Wallpaper provider [Reddit]: added a few new subreddits
• Wallpaper provider [Focused program]: when poster art image is not present, fallback to thumbnail (if available)
• Wallpaper provider [Focused program]: although technically not a "program", now playing card is also used when possible
• Wallpaper provider [Now Playing]: added a new provider that displays the currently Now Playing image (when supported)
• Wallpaper provider [Theme]: added a new provider that fetches wallpapers from the applied theme (the .pltheme file -in zip format- should be in STORE mode, no compression)
• Wallpaper provider: CardFocused event now also sends the card's title and app's package name to the providers (cf: spocky/projectivy-plugin-wallpaper-provider#5)
• Wallpaper provider: Added ability to request wallpapers refresh if their settings have been updated outside Projectivy (ex: Aerial Views)
• Decreased the minimum wallpaper update delay to 30s (fixes #396 #130)

Wallpapers (video)

• Added ability to extract dynamic color from video wallpapers
• Added preference to define how often the video wallpapers should generate new dynamic colors
• Added ability to use hardware rendering (tunneling) on video wallpapers (depending on your device and the video format, this might not work as expected)
• Video wallpaper will now resume from its last position when returning to the launcher (provided that it lasts more than 30s and its position is further than 10s from the end)
• Fixed "about / this wallpaper" taking a long time to show with video wallpapers (preview is now disabled)
• Added DASH to the supported video formats
• Added support for RTSPT and RTSPU schemes (RTSPT will force TCP use, RTSP and RTSPU will first try UDP then fallback to TCP)

Cards

• Fixed initially selected card was not animated (in case of Animated Gif)
• Fixed Animated Gif card not automatically stopped when launcher goes idle
• Improved support for animated images format (gif, apng, webp) as wallpapers and custom icons (fixes #322)
• Animated cards (gif, apng...) now reset to their 1st frame on stop (instead of pausing)
• Added ability to disable the ripple effect on card press (fixes #292)
• Added ability to override the focused card tint/background colors (behavior is : no override, swap icon and background colors, custom colors)
• Added a few more glow animations
• Added ability to customize glow size (small glow length will show as a simple outline) (fixes #362)
• Fixed missing shadows under some cards
• Fixed Shortcuts cropping their icon by default and not restoring their crop state upon restart
• Added ability to customize card glow color globally (=not individually)
• Fixed category "show icon in front of title" setting available even if "show title" is disabled
• Added ability to set fully transparent custom icon tint. For example when using the Projectivy Icon Pack if you define a card background color and set the custom icon tint to a fully transparent color, the icon will "punch a hole" in the background, letting you see the wallpaper through it.
• Fixed card size and spacing was dependent on the device resolution (fixes #333)
• Shortcut cards ratio is now set to the same ratio you set for Tv Apps (fixes #406)

Categories

• Added ability to customize category left/right margins (globally and individually) as well as top margin (individually) (fixes #33)
• Added ability to customize a grid category background color aka dock. "Blur" is currently unsupported though, as background animations (video wallpapers, picture transitions) would not be compatible (fixes #368)
• Added ability to define the max number of rows visible in a category
• Fixed last cards on the current row not always appearing in grid mode (fixes #244)
• Fixed missing apps icons in watch next category in some cases and missing apps in the Channels list (ex: Amazon Prime Video) (fixes #98)
• Fixed some channel programs missing when already present in another channel (fixes #348)
• Added ability to scroll categories only when necessary (the focused category won't always be in the same position on screen) (fixes #228)

Statusbar

• Added ability to hide the notification icon (fixes #209)
• Added ability to tint the clock in the statusbar (fixes #115)
• Allow smaller minimal clock size (fixes #329)
• Added ability to resize and tint icons in the statusbar
• Added ability to customize clock format with support for : 2 lines, date formatting, markdown-like styling (beware when adding seconds, as the parser will have to work its magic each... hem... second) (fixes #370)
• Wifi icon now varies depending on the signal strength (fixes #395)
• Added a "Clear all" notifications button on the notification side panel when needed (fixes #355)

UI/UX

• Updated to Material 3 Expressive theming
• Font: added ability to customize Projectivy font (including size) globally (fixes #289 #144)
• Font: added ability to download font from Google Fonts, either by specifying its name or by choosing in a (much too long) list (premium only)
• Added icons to all entries in settings
• Added immediate refresh of the launcher screen when an icon pack or wallpaper plugin is updated/uninstalled
• Fixed cards and left headers not read aloud by talkback accessibility service (fixes #325)
• Fixed Qr-code too small when device resolution is 4k
• Fixed side panel edit category animation stuttering
• Improved side menu navigation : cycling in menu (from top to bottom or the other way around) will only happen on button single press (meaning it will stop on both ends when holding up/down buttons) (fixes #79)
• Fixed cards could be removed from their stock category
• If default category is not available (=hidden, empty...), automatically fallback to the 1st visible category
• When already on the first item of the row, the back button will take you back to the default category (fixes #210)
• The legend icons next to settings depending on the accessibility service will adapt to the current context (ex: turn red if the service is not running, dim when it's running)
• Added folder support through a new dynamic category "category folders" that will list all custom categories as cards. When clicked, their content will show in the side panel (fixes #157)

Misc

• Added ability to import/export themes (=appearance settings, individual stock categories settings, local wallpaper(s)) (premium only)
• Network: Fixed wrong HTTP response code filtering (only 200 was accepted, now all 2xx are accepted) (stupid me)
• Network: Improved network connectivity and performance
• Purchase: fixed a bug that prevented premium to be detected without network in some circumstances (fixes #401)
• Now playing: casted media should should no longer miss artist/album
• Now playing: added play/pause and seek to next/previous media buttons (support may vary per app) on the contextual side panel
• Now playing: card won't disappear if you temporarily pause your media and its description will reflect its state
• Idle mode (launcher): Added ability to define the timeout duration before the launcher idle mode kicks in
• Idle mode (general): general idle detection can now usually detect when a media is playing (experimental, requires the Notification special permission) (this highly depends on the app playing the media, but most apps I've tested work) (fixes #65)
• Idle mode (general): when using the "internal tv view" and the option mentioned above is enabled, the idle mode won't - Install 3rd party apps: updated custom URL text to make it clear that it also supports Downloader codes
• Install 3rd party apps: regrouped apps per category
  trigger regardless of the notification special permission (as this can be detected internally) (fixes #444)
• Added Live Tv support (probably imperfect as it's often depending on the OEM). You need an app such as the deprecated Live Channels app to use it) (this might fix #50)
• Fixed Hdmi inputs sometimes not appearing
• Added optional delay before auto-start app/channel is launched on boot (to let the system finish booting)
• Added ability to prevent screensaver from running while on the launcher
• Fixed "Shutdown action" setting disabled when "power off on CEC disconnect" is enabled
• Improved reliability of "start app upon resuming from standby". The accessibility service will be mandatory to do so (fixes #437)
• Fixed notifications/media sessions listeners still active while Projectivy was in the background, sometimes causing useless cpu work
• Fixed calibration videos not displayed on some devices (eg Mi Stick 4k)
• Improved purchase flow reliability in case of errors
• Added a few localizations (Portuguese-PT, Swedish), a big thanks to all the translators who help make Projectivy truly global (fixes...

Hey, another 4.6x version ! 🤷

• Improved the purchase flow on recent Android versions where it was sometimes impossible to connect to the Google Play Services (thus pay or retrieve a previous purchase 😬 )

If you have already purchased and have no problem retrieving premium upon boot, no need to update.

• Fixed programs details being displayed under the description instead of above it
• Fixed a few more crashes on specific devices
• Updated localizations

This version is also available on Google Play.
This will be the last release of the 4.6x branch, see you on the 4.70 ! Until then, have a great 🏖️, ⛷️ or whatever seasonal activity you love 😎 !

• Fixed Google Tv Profile Picker not always visible when launched
• Fixed Google Tv 14 can't import settings from Projectivy settings
• Reverted Animated Gif stopping on first frame bc it caused crashes that couldn't be intercepted on some devices. Should hopefully be back on 4.70
• Improved http cache behavior : urls specifying no-cache,no-store or must-revalidate headers will now be ignored
• Improved reddit wallpaper provider : when the request leads to no wallpaper (ex: server error), the response is removed from the cache
• Changed http timeout from 10 to 30s
• Many more fixes towards stability and memory usage

• Fixed notifications panel not updating correctly
• Fixed Projectivy side panel showing partial settings in some cases
• Fixed too aggressive caching of local wallpapers (=custom file/folder). Projectivy should now detect if a file has been replaced and shouldn't use the cached version anymore.
• Fixed HDMI input launch on Xiaomi family Android 6 Tv/Projectors
• Improved connectivity detection on Android 6
• Added partial workaround to start screensaver on Android Tv 14+. This will probably only work for AerialViews (Google removed the possibility to start the screensaver from a non-system app)
• On animated gif cards, the animation is now stopped (instead of paused) on focus lost

• Improved cpu resource usage in idle mode
• Added shortcut to Profile Picker on supported Google Tv devices. Note that the Profile Picker is an internal part of the Google Tv stock launcher, so it should not be disabled (meaning Projectivy should be set as your default launcher using the accessibility service or launcher manager). This will be the only way to access the Profile Picker until Google authorizes other launchers to manage/switch profiles (it requires a System permission, see here: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/377528728)
• Improved startup time
• Improved Premium checks reliability upon startup
• Internal Tv: back button now goes back to the launcher when pressed while searching for inputs (no need to wait for the timeout if you misclicked)
• "Crop to fill" icon setting is now also available for non-customized icons. This should let you visually fix icons that don't respect the standard size without necessarily having to customize them.
• Cards appearance settings (custom icon, crop to fill, title) are now also available on Programs cards (movies, series, etc.) so you can now customize them too
• Updated font to hopefully prevent some kerning issues on a few TCL devices (Android Tv 9)
• Relaxed "override current launcher" checks to only apply to a specific activity (the one that is the launcher) instead of the whole app, so that other activities can be launched from the home screen (ex: settings, all apps, profiles picker, etc.)
• Fixed all apps declaring a launcher activity being mistakenly overriden by Projectivy when accessibility service is enabled (oops)
• Fixed custom icons/wallpapers not always appearing after reboot
• Fixed battery icon not initializing immediately (for devices that support it)
• Fixed crash on startup on a few Android Tv devices with exotic config (Orion, B866V2...)
• Fixed the remaining strings not always honoring the recently changed locale until app is restarted
• Fixed bottom to top wraparound on the settings when the first item is a title
• Fixed grid categories didn't immediately recompute their number of rows when cards were added/removed
• Fixed crash when screen dimensions are reported incorrectly by the system
• Fixed inputs erroneously being protected by "also protect settings & UI changes" parental control setting. Warning ! If you relied on this setting to protect your inputs, you will now have to protect them individually.
• Fixed card shadow still partially visible when the card background was set to transparent. Now shadow will only be displayed if the card background is opaque enough (opacity >= 200).
• Fixed card tint not applied correctly in some cases (ex: transparent tint + inverted colors when focused)
• Fixed a few memory leaks and a bunch of other bugs
• Updated translations

• Fixed strings not always honoring app's preference locale
• Fixed other launchers mistakenly overriden by Projectivy when accessibility service is enabled
• Fixed unselected category title doesn't honor opacity setting
• Fixed picture manager for AmLogic devices on Android 6.0
• Fixed channels programs and watch next bypassing the parental controls
• Fixed Autostart app on boot bypassing the parental controls
• Fixed ability to change app/category icon in certain cases
• Fixed statusbar battery sometimes not updating
• Fixed settings side panel misbehaving when long pressing the remote control "menu" button
• Fixed Home button not selecting the default category when statusbar is focused
• Fixed autostart on boot not saved correctly when set from the HDMI input contextual menu
• Added Glow effect on transparent cards (note that due to how it's handled, if there are rounded corners, the glow will not only appear on the edge of the card but also underneath). The dropshadow will require a card background color opacity of at least 200 to be displayed.
• Added ability to set the volume of video wallpapers
• Added ability to disable zoom effect on focused program cards
• Added ability to hide the program card badge
• Added ability to customize app shortcuts icon
• Dissociated Channel programs from their WatchNext counterpart (so that hiding it in WatchNext has no effect on the same program in its channel)
• Many more fixes and perf tweaks

• Fixed mobile apps not appearing in custom categories
• Fixed wallpaper update delay cannot exceed 35min
• Let users add apps to a category directly from the "all apps" panel (+ long-press app)
• Added direct access to "all apps", "Edit categories" and "Edit channels" panels from the "settings" category

• Added fallback path if your device can't pick up a Wallpaper Folder : [external app data folder]/wallpapers (which should usually be located in /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.spocky.projengmenu/files/wallpapers). Drop your files there to get them picked up by Projectivy 🎉
• Improved video wallpaper handling : when "ignore timer on video wallpaper" is disabled, the video will change at the end of the timer and loop before that if needed. If enabled, it will wait until the end of the video to change the wallpaper, no matter the timer events (no loop in this case). Should fix a temporary black screen on some devices when the video ends.
• Improved RTSP support for video wallpapers
• Added a "fit-center" display mode to display portrait wallpapers in the center of the screen without cropping them
• Set HDMI input icons to 16:9 format for consistency's sake (+ they will be easier to customize)
• If a category doesn't contain any card with a description, don't reserve space for it
• Improved "pick icon from picture" compatibility with file managers
• Improved deduplication of programs listed multiple times by a few streaming apps
• When a settings backup is exported, it's also automatically saved in the Projectivy "backups" folder (which should usually be located in /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.spocky.projengmenu/files/backups)
• Strengthened the parental control protection on the launcher
• Added ability to reset cards order in a categorie
• Fixed streaming apps misbehaving when using a video wallpaper on some devices
• Fixed resources not being always localized to the current locale if changed from Projectivy general settings
• Fixed missing default icon for custom category in settings
• Fixed seekbar still responding to input when disabled
• Fixed Google SmartHome app not launching
• Fixed long pressing an app in the All Apps side panel
• Fixed app shortcuts sometimes not launching
• Fixed WatchNext items couldn't be added to a custom category
• Fixed ability to hide cards in channel categories
• Fixed Channel icon long-press bypassing parental control
• Fixed settings not always opening the main page when reopened
• Fixed "Now Playing" sometimes appearing for a second after leaving a streaming app
• Fixed Lottie wallpaper not correctly detected by folder wallpaper provider
• Fixed multiple different crash scenarios
• Slightly optimized UI perfs

4.60

Note : as always with every new "major" update, there will be bugs. Nothing too problematic hopefully, but if you're looking for a completely stable and bug-free version, this is probably not the version you are looking for.

• Accessibility

  • Added ability to disable keypress interception from Projectivy's accessibiltiy service (might fix service getting killed by recent Google Tv updates, but will also render some features ineffective. Not tested, please report)
  • Added experimental workaround for long-press volume keys support : when the on screen volume overlay is showing, key press interception gets disabled during 5s, so long-press volume will work during that period (but "home" override won't).

• Wallpapers

  • Added support for animated gifs wallpapers and partial support for animated webp (not scaled or blurred)
  • Added option to allow playing of the video wallpaper audio track
  • Fixed video wallpaper sometimes displaying grey screen
  • Added "Projectivy Wallpapers", "Projectivy Unsplash", "Projectivy TMDB", "TMDB Wallpapers" Subreddits to the Reddit wallpaper provider, thanks to the community for the submissions !
  • Added ability to request another wallpaper immediately (in about/wallpaper)
  • Added background picture adjustment (brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, blur, vertical/horizontal overlay length and opacity)
  • Changed how update delay is handled : countdown won't be restarted when coming back to the launcher screen so it won't seem to be stuck

• Cards / Categories

  • Added ability to customize the app title
  • Added ability to customize cards spacing
  • Added ability to globally choose if you prefer icon or banner for apps
  • Added ability to customize cards/category icon individually [premium only] : choose from icon pack or local image (with support for animated gif and partial support for animated webp)
  • Added ability to apply icon pack to the whole launcher
  • Added support for tinting the customized icons (useful if monochromatic) with custom/dynamic color
  • Added ability to customize card's default background color with custom/dynamic color
  • When customized background/tint color are used, added ability to swap the icon and background colors on the focused card
  • Added option to choose whether or not to remember the last focused card on each row
  • Added ability to hide the programs progressbar in watch next category

• Localization

  • Added Danish localization (thanks to Chris Power)
  • Added Greek localization (thanks to Retrial)
  • Added Slovak localization (thanks to xbobak)
  • Added Romanian localization (thanks to traidory)
  • In settings, Languages are now listed in their own language, no more try and guess selection if you ever change it by mistake

• Misc

  • Improved premium checks so that you don't lose premium features when Google Play Services are temporarily out of reach
  • Added an "All Apps" right panel (open it from settings or direct remote control button "all apps")
  • Always show the "install 3rd party apps" feature for the non-playstore Projectivy version (was previously available only if Google Play was not available)
  • Install 3rd party apps now support entering a custom URL
  • Added ability to disable Channels support (for people not using it) to save memory and improve startup performance
  • Added ability to directly boot to screensaver on startup
  • Added apps shortcuts (if available and Projectivy is the "real" launcher) in the contextual app menu (not vastly widespread, for example VLC, Just Player or Emby provide a few shortcut actions)
  • Improved the parental control when app is directly launched from a remote control button (ex: Netflix) (still requires the accessibility service)
  • Added ability to import settings from adb command line (either from local file or remote url)
  • Fixed now playing picture not displaying for some apps
  • Appearance settings now show a realtime preview of the changes
  • Cards are now automatically refreshed periodically while on the launcher main screen so that live tv cards can update their content
  • Added automatic refresh of apps when usb storage is (dis)connected
  • Added a link to open Google Home panel on supported Google Tv devices
  • Many other bugfixes and optimizations

• Notes:

  • Import settings from adb feature : for the import validation popup to not be displayed, the uri/url should contain "unattended" as well as your Projectivy instance unique Id (can be found and changed in about/this device/ID)
    Use this command: adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d "file:///sdcard/..../savefile.unattended.[your instance unique id].plbackup" -n com.spocky.projengmenu/.ui.launcherActivities.ImportSettingsActivity
    The file should be accessible by Projectivy, so you might need to push it in Projectivy's data folder first
    Replace the file path with the remote url if you want to import from a remote location

  • Icon pack support has been tested on icon packs based on Candybar and Blueprint which seem the most popular template for icon packs.
    Note that these apps are not developed for Android Tv, so you'll have to sideload them. Selecting an icon should work with the remote control, but some other parts (not essential) of the app might require a mouse to navigate.
    Limited adjustments are required on these packs to be published on the Android Tv Play Store, opening an issue (just one, please) there to show your interest might help the developers to prioritize the work (on which I might be able to help).
    Icon packs based on Candybar before this PR will not return a link to the chosen icon in the icon pack, but rather expose the bitmap directly. This will lead to a few annoyances : the icon will have a slightly lower quality, it will take space on your storage, and if you export your settings, the icon will not be saved. Icon packs updated after this PR (or based on Blueprint) should work as expected regarding import/export.
    Sideloading an icon pack might be totally invisible to its developer, so don't forget to support the developers by donating or buying the packs on the Play Store.
    Icon packs only exist in standard app format (1:1), but Projectivy should theoretically be able to handle banners pack (16:9) if one is ever created.
    When applying a single 1:1 icon, you can choose "Crop to fill" to have the icon fill the whole banner space. No custom scaling is available to keep the scrolling and global UI experience smooth.

  • Cusom card background supports opacity. If opacity is not set to the maximum, the glow/shadow effects will be disabled because they don't look good with a semi-transparent background. They will still be enabed on cards that are detected to be opaque. This detection is not perfect, though, so glow might be disabled on some cards that appear totally opaque.

  • Thanks to the community for the translations, Projectivy is now available in 26 languages ! Unfortunately, this means that our translation platform is about to reach its limit for the free tier, so we might have to switch to another one in the future. A self-hosted solution like Pontoon might be a good option, but not until this issue has been fixed. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.