Homebrew RELEASE Homebrew Details - A Homebrew App Manager

[Chrscool8]

[Latest Change: v1.05 - hbmenu Replacer]



Homebrew Details - A Homebrew App Manager [v1.05]
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
- Add custom notes to an app
- 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 (updated!)
- Pin/Favorite Apps to the top of the list
- Blacklist folders from search
- Replace hbmenu

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 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

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.

Download:
> Github <
> GbaTemp Files <
> HB App Store <​

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

---

Latest Version:
v1.05 - hbmenu Replace - 2021/08/17

Feature:
- New setting to toggle going to or returning straight from to HB-D from menus or apps!

Spoiler: Earlier Changelogs

v1.04 - Long Time, No See - 2021/05/08

Feature:
- Show app icon in app panel

Tweaks:
- Don't check for updates on first run
- Avoid potential slooooow black screen opening

v1.03 - Encoding Fixes - 2021/02/18

Feature:
- Info module on main screen

Tweaks:
- Battery info notice when info not available

Crash Fixes:
- Check text encoding before writing to json
- Stricter validation of nacp info to avoid crashing or reading garbage

v1.01 - New Forwarder App - 2021/02/13
Features:

- New "What's New" panel on main screen that shows recent changelogs (like this!)
- New Forwarder .nsp installable to your home menu

Fixes:

- Tiny potential problem affecting early 1.0 updates fixed
- Fix situation where blacklists may not apply

New Forwarder Overview:

- Display versions of HB-D on your card
- Choose and run your choice manually
- Automatically run your choice without additional input
- Included in this update and can be found at "sdmc:/config/homebrew_details_next/forwarder/HomebrewDetailsForwarder_v2.nsp"

v1.0 - The Complete Overhaul - 2021/02/07
New Features:
- Scan files more than twice as fast
- Cache app lists to json and instantly reload them on next run without having to rescan
- Cache app icons for instantly reloading menus
- Sort list by categories (name, path, author, size, category)
- Sort list ascending or descending
- Group sorted lists by category (none, author, category, from appstore)
- Groundwork for language localization
- Groundwork for multiple view styles (icon grid and icon list coming soon)
- Welcome Page and Introduction for first run
- Settings is now a categorized json
- Pin Favorite apps to the top of the list
- Move Settings and Updater into their own panels accessible by list or main screen
- Delete folder if deleting app and it's the only thing in the folder
- Basically every other aspect rewritten for speed and stability

Frameworks:
- Updated nlohmann json
- Updated libnx
- Updated borealis ui
- Updated curl

v0.95 - 2020/10/11
- Added a new setting of what to exit to (between hb-menu and hb-d).

v0.94 - 2020/10/08
- Added a new multi-forwarder nsp that you can install to your home menu so you can organize the actual hb-d.nro where you'd like as follows:

Using your favorite nsp installer, install the forwarder that is attached to this post or found in this location after running the app once:

sdmc:/config/homebrew_details/forwarder/HomebrewDetails_MultiForwarder.nsp

It will check for and launch this application from any of the following locations:

sdmc:/switch/homebrew_details.nro
sdmc:/switch/homebrew_details/homebrew_details.nro
sdmc:/switch/homebrew-details/homebrew_details.nro

- (Also an info panel with this information in the toolbox tab)

v0.93 - 2020/09/28
- Added a new panel in the settings menu where you can add blacklisted folders (they'll be skipped during search)
- Added the ability to pin your favorite apps to the top of the list for easy access

v0.92 - 2020/09/27
- Added a new panel in the settings menu where you can add blacklisted folders (they'll be skipped during search)
- [Debug Mode Feature] Pinning favorite apps is mostly working but not quite done. If you wanna try it, you can enable debug mode in the settings!

v0.91 - 2020/08/12
- Added a new notes panel to each app

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

 

[Fgamer]

Cool project! I'd like to see a feature where we can add our own notes for each particular homebrew, it could be pretty nice if we could write them up on a computer and then store them in some form of text file in the homebrew details folder for it to read. It could just be our own description, or we could leave tips and reminders there and even mini guides for others.

Neither v0.10 nor v0.15 crashed for me in album or title override by the way.

 

[Chrscool8]

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

 

[Billy Acuña]

Nice! I'm not a big fan of the official hbmenu design so I hope this becomes an alternative, someday.

 

[Chrscool8]

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!

 

[octopus]

That looks awfully nice. The first thing that came to my mind is that it could be a replacement for hbmenu, too.

I don't really like the way that hbmenu handles folders and subfolders. E.g. if there is no .nro in the folder, it would show up anyway with no way to hide it. The homebrews with hardcoded paths are messing up the categorization too.

If you would add launching and a possibility to categorize in the left menu, we would be golden. Please keep it up.

 

[mvfsullivan]

Can you make an NRO version so we can use it as an app from the homescreen?

 

[LeyendaV]

I think the most interesting feature to see would be a build-in updater, so we can checks if there are new versions for each app and if they are pre-releases or stable builds. And of course, being able to download the updates as well.
This also applies to HD as well. I haven't download it yet, but the option to update the app from within it is something that always comes handy.

 

[mathew77]

I'd love to receive any comments or suggestions.

Nice work, thank you!..

An idea to realization: I've many .nro's in folders in the root of the microSD, '/'. Could you please add function to scan .NROs in all folders instead of only /switch/; the entire card?

 

[Chrscool8]

That looks awfully nice. The first thing that came to my mind is that it could be a replacement for hbmenu, too.

I don't really like the way that hbmenu handles folders and subfolders. E.g. if there is no .nro in the folder, it would show up anyway with no way to hide it. The homebrews with hardcoded paths are messing up the categorization too.

If you would add launching and a possibility to categorize in the left menu, we would be golden. Please keep it up.

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!

Can you make an NRO version so we can use it as an app from the homescreen?

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

I think the most interesting feature to see would be a build-in updater, so we can checks if there are new versions for each app and if they are pre-releases or stable builds. And of course, being able to download the updates as well.
This also applies to HD as well. I haven't download it yet, but the option to update the app from within it is something that always comes handy.

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.

Nice work, thank you!..

An idea to realization: I've many .nro's in folders in the root of the microSD, '/'. Could you please add function to scan .NROs in all folders instead of only /switch/; the entire card?

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

 

[octopus]

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'.

What I had in mind is an ability to create separate menus like "games", "emulators", "tools" and so on.

 

[Chrscool8]

What I had in mind is an ability to create separate menus like "games", "emulators", "tools" and so on.

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!

 

[octopus]

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!

Just like I imagined it!
BTW, 0.3 crashes for me (does not even load, black screen), 0.2 works.

 

[Chrscool8]

Just like I imagined it!
BTW, 0.3 crashes for me (does not even load, black screen), 0.2 works.

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

 

[satan89]

Tried 0.31. It launches, but crashes when I select "App Store Apps", also, it shows no apps downloaded under this category. (I think I have downloaded some apps from the App store, but i recently deleted a lot of unnecessary ones, so can't be sure.

Tried it on fw 9.2.0 with atmosphere 0.13

Also a suggestion - can you direct the forwarder nsp to /switch/homebrew details/homebrew_details.nro, rather than /switch/homebrew_details.nro ? having folders within /switch feels more organised than having the nro i

 

[Arctco]

This is incredible, I can see myself ditching hbmenu for this easily, can't wait for the all functionalities!

Also, is settings menu empty or it's something on my side? And, is it possible to upload this to HB App Store for automatic updating? Do you plan on adding touch support?
One last question, do you plan on allowing the user to open apps using your homebrew?

Thanks for developing this!

 

[LiveMChief]

Great work! I second a built in updater.

 

[Chrscool8]

Tried 0.31. It launches, but crashes when I select "App Store Apps", also, it shows no apps downloaded under this category. (I think I have downloaded some apps from the App store, but i recently deleted a lot of unnecessary ones, so can't be sure.

Tried it on fw 9.2.0 with atmosphere 0.13

Also a suggestion - can you direct the forwarder nsp to /switch/homebrew details/homebrew_details.nro, rather than /switch/homebrew_details.nro ? having folders within /switch feels more organised than having the nro i

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

This is incredible, I can see myself ditching hbmenu for this easily, can't wait for the all functionalities!

Also, is settings menu empty or it's something on my side? And, is it possible to upload this to HB App Store for automatic updating? Do you plan on adding touch support?
One last question, do you plan on allowing the user to open apps using your homebrew?

Thanks for developing this!

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...

Great work! I second a built in updater.

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

 

[Tyvar1]

This is amazing, thank you!

 

[Patatas]

This is really great, and I can't wait to see the improvements. I have a question, can you already delete homebrew with this? I didn't see the option.

For suggestions/requests I have several ideas, pick the ones you like!
- Pin/favorite homebrews, and it would be nice to be able to toggle the view with a button (like ZR) to show all/only favorites inside each category easily and fast.
- Autoupdate of Homebrew_Details even in the nsp form (I don't know if this is a hard thing to do).
- Battery/wifi/time indicators at the top are always welcome.
- If you implement the app updater for other apps, it would be nice to have an 'Updates' category where you see all the apps that could be updated. Also, it would be nice to have an icon in the basic list view to know that an app can be updated that shows in any category view. Something like: AppName 1.0
- Number of homebrew and the current position in the list. Like 3/12 at the bottom. and in the categories on the left having something like: All apps (12)

- Also, a couple of small issues, the extended info is not scrollable and the linebreaks in the text appear as '\n' (pretty obvious stuff so just take those as a friendly reminder).

Thanks a lot for the app, so far looks really interesting and I really want to see what it becomes!