RELEASE Homebrew Details - A Homebrew App Manager

[Latest Change: Copy or Move Apps, better AppStore scan]



Homebrew Details - A Homebrew App Manager [v0.90]
By: Chris Bradel​

What is it? This is an app that allows you to view details about, launch, categorize, and manage all the .nro files on your Switch using borealis for a native-feeling UI. It also includes a toolbox of handy quick actions like rebooting to a payload. It is nearly a feature-complete replacement/alternative for the official hbmenu.

What's the current feature-set?
- Launch Apps
- Scan your SD card for homebrew programs (.nros)
- View details about your apps
- Sort the files into AppStore-acquired and local app categories
- Rename, Copy, Move, Delete an app's files
- Reboot to a payload
- Check online for and download HD updates
- Themeable image assets
- Status info in the main page header (Date, time, battery level, charging status)
- Customizable Controls
- Use an installable forwarder nsp to access directly from the home menu
- Pin/Favorite Apps to the top of the list (Available now in debug mode)

What will it be? Hopefully, an all-around manager for all your apps. Some people have already expressed that they'd like it to be a full hbmenu replacement. With app launching, it's just about there already. Coming soon is blacklisting folders in the scan, checking for and updating app store apps, and more.

Why does it exist? Two main reasons: I've contributed some code to the official hbmenu, but I wanted to try making something totally original for practice working with Switch dev tools. Also, I wanted a new and modern way to do the above current and future features, but there wasn't really a centralized app with a pretty GUI that accomplished all of that.

Spoiler: Screenshots

How can you try it? You can find the full source and the compiled .nro on the new Github page for the project, or you can download the compiled .nro attached to this post and drop it into the /switch/ folder on your SD card! After you have the .nro, you can also download and install the .nsp to place a convenient icon on your home screen!

What's next? Things are already blazing along! I've already gotten a great lot of suggestions from the community, but feel free to chip in your ideas and desires! I'm working as fast as I can to make the best, most well-rounded project I can. There is also a Trello planning board that is kept up to date with ideas and features in progress where you can vote on features you want to be higher priority.

How can you help? Comments, criticism, and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged. I'd love to make the greatest product I can for the community and I'm generally happy to cater to your specific requests when possible. All I ask of you is to enjoy using it. I'm making this in my free time, and if you'd like to monetarily support me to allow me to have more free time, you can find a sponsor/donation link on the GitHub page to toss me a buck, but that's not necessary and not expected of you. This project will always be free for all.

Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoy it!

Spoiler: Changelogs

v0.90 - 2020/08/06
- Better AppStore app scanning (Should find them all now!)
- Protection against moving AppStore apps (Until I make a fancier solution soon)

v0.89 - 2020/08/05
- Copy App Files
- Move App Files
- Little Fixes

v0.87 - 2020/08/02
- Added control stick support to borealis

v0.86 - 2020/08/02
- Threaded Scanning
- Scan Progress Bar

v0.85 - 2020/07/30
- New native and more efficient folder scanning
- More info about available updates

- Version, name, description, release date​

- New staged Update Wizard

- Threaded downloads for updates
- Updater progress bar​

- Status info in the main page header

- Date, time, battery level, charging status​

- App Launching 99% reliable (especially when launching HD from a forwarder app for max RAM)
- Image assets exported to a folder (/config/homebrew_details/assets/) for theming/customization(?)

- Edit/Replace any assets in this folder and see the changes in the program
- Delete them and they'll be regenerated to default on next launch​

- Lax App Store app scanning setting (if it's missed some apps in the past, this will get more of them)
- Better newline support in App Store descriptions (and everywhere)
- Some additional setting descriptions
- Customizable controls for launching/details so you can choose whichever you'll use more often
- Made the whole program much more streamlined and modular
- borealis update to be more stable all around
- Tons of little fixes
- Pin/Favorite Apps to the top of the list (Available now in debug mode)

v0.74 - 2020/07/20
- Experimental App Launching support! It doesn't work for all apps yet and is still a huge work in progress, but if you wanna try it, you can enable debug mode in the settings. After a restart, you'll have a new option in the app's pop up menu.

v0.73 - 2020/07/19
- Debug Mode toggle in settings to turn on a bunch of insider-info
- Autoscan toggle to make it so you don't have to push to start when launching
- The path of the .nro is now shown under the name in general lists
- Misc little fixes to protect against crashes
- Trello board created where you can see what I'm working on and vote on things you want to be higher priority

v0.71 - 2020/07/17
- This version (and later) will properly update itself no matter where or what it's called, be it /switch/homebrew_details.nro or /switch/hedgehog/butts.nro

v0.70 - 2020/07/17
- Now you can update directly from the app on your Switch!

v0.65 - 2020/07/16
- Add more search options, including scanning the SD root and the full SD card
- Added a safe mode so that if the app crashes during a search (for example, when scanning a full SD card would take toooo long and you force close the app) it resets some settings to default so you never get locked out of the app

v0.60 - 2020/07/15
- New Toolbox menu with atmosphere's Reboot to Payload!

v0.50 - 2020/07/14
- Fix for app store app counting
- New debug panel that shows variable states and some deeper stats I'm soon going to use in the future
- Full settings framework for easily saving and loading preferences to file
- As such, there's a new settings panel with the first toggleable option, scanning just the /switch/ folder or the /switch/ folder and all subfolders

v0.435 - 2020/07/13
- Fixed another edge case with the update checker from v0.42

v0.43 - 2020/07/13
- Possible hotfix for v0.42

v0.42 - 2020/07/13
- App counts now shown next to category type
- Update checker to notify you if there's a new version available (can't auto-update ...yet)
- New Manage tab in an entry's menu with Delete function (Note: deleting an app does not remove its entry until a rescan, but the file is gone and you can't delete it twice)
- You can now go back to the intro screen to rescan your app folder for changes

v0.40 - 2020/07/12
- New intro screen to sit between launching and scanning (so you don't have to watch a blank screen while it loads) which also holds framework for a progress screen in the future
- Even cleaner fixes for different cases of 0 apps
- Version number noted in app
- Some small tweaks
- General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience

v0.31 - 2020/07/12
- Fix for 0 app store app crash in v0.30

v0.30 - 2020/07/12
- Apps that you've downloaded from the HB App Store are detected and categorized. They also come with a lot more metadata, which is scanned and shown.
- Text entries that are too long are automatically clipped and able to be expanded.
- A Forwarder NSP that you can install to your home menu for quick access.
- Groundwork for launching apps directly from HD.

v0.20 - 2020/07/11
- Rewrote and optimized huge chunks of the code
- Better sorting when dealing with capitalization
- Full source now available on Github
- Tweaks and placeholders to prepare for upcoming features

 

Excellent idea! Thank you for the suggestion and the (lack-of-) crash report!

 

Thank you! I appreciate the sentiment! Launching has been on my mind since the beginning, so you very well may be able to use it as a drop in replacement... someday!

------------------------

I was able to sneak in one more giant update before bed.

Changelog: [v0.20]
- Rewrote and optimized huge chunks of the code
- Better sorting when dealing with capitalization
- Full source now available on Github
- Tweaks and placeholders to prepare for upcoming features

Have fun!

 

Thank you! My current thoughts for view settings are flipping between Flattened (all apps and subfolder apps in one list), and a File-Browser-Like (where folders and apps show up and can be delved into), and the latter could certainly include an 'ignore folders with no nros in them'. In addition, I'm planning to allow the user to hide and unhide any app (or folder) without deleting it from the card. Launching is certainly on the Horizon. Did a bunch of research into that today!

An NSP? Good call! You got it! Just whipped up a forwarder, also attached to the top post.

Great thinking. I'm now one step closer to that, being able to gather a lot of data from the App Store downloaded apps. Will definitely look into a built-in updater. I tried to get HD onto the App Store for much easier updates, but ran across an error. Currently working with the App Store guys about that.

And thank you! Absolutely can do. Happy to add "Also Scan SD Root" and "Scan The Whole SD Card (Might Take Forever To Scan)".

-------------------------------------------------

And now the big reveal...

Changelog: [v0.30]
- Apps that you've downloaded from the HB App Store are detected and categorized. They also come with a lot more metadata, which is scanned and shown.
- Text entries that are too long are automatically clipped and able to be expanded.
- A Forwarder NSP that you can install to your home menu for quick access.
- Groundwork for launching apps directly from HD.

See the top post or the github release for downloads and check out the new screenshots below for a preview!

Spoiler: New screenshots

 

I think I can see it in my head perfectly now. Great call. Maybe something like this? App Store apps would come with a default category already and it should be trivial to allow the user to change or add new sorting options!

 

Yay! ...Oh no! Thanks a ton for the report and the logs! This is why you don't fire a big new release at 5:30am lol... I'll look into that asap!

EDIT: Done and done! There's a little weirdness here and there in the menus but overall we should be rolling again! (Now I sleep... see ya in a few hours.)

Changelog: [v0.31]
- Fix for 0 app store app crash from v0.30

 

Polishing that up right now! Thanks! Attached is an alternate forwarder for you that points to: /switch/homebrew_details/homebrew_details.nro

Thank you! Settings is empty for now, yep. Coming very soon.

I'd like to have touch support, but that's on borealis. I was certainly considering contributing to that project, too. So, in short, yes!

Launching apps is definitely in the cards.

Tried to get it on the App Store but the website had a problem. Working on that with them now but...

...I'd definitely like to add that functionality! Thanks!