Nova on the pixel.

Nodnerb

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Anyone else using Nova notice whenever you close an app there is a second where your homescreen is blank before Nova refreshes the icons etc? This has never happened on any other phone I've had. I have the developer animations etc set to 0.5, like I always do. I'm typing this on a Samsung tab s6 also running Nova and same settings. Icons are there immediately when closing an app. But on my p5 there is the delay. I've seen reports of this on Reddit etc. but no solution.

Anyone have any ideas?
 

HyperM3

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Anyone else using Nova notice whenever you close an app there is a second where your homescreen is blank before Nova refreshes the icons etc? This has never happened on any other phone I've had. I have the developer animations etc set to 0.5, like I always do. I'm typing this on a Samsung tab s6 also running Nova and same settings. Icons are there immediately when closing an app. But on my p5 there is the delay. I've seen reports of this on Reddit etc. but no solution.

Anyone have any ideas?
Honestly never noticed until you said something. Thanks a lot
 

Javier P

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That's the way it is with any custom launcher and navigation gestures after Android 10. Blame Google for the changes they made with the Recent apps feature.

Some brands managed to make those transitions a bit better and others still don't allow navigation gestures while using a custom launcher.
 

B. Diddy

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I see that on my Pixel 3 XL as well. Very slight delay -- small price to pay for the great versatility of a 3rd party launcher.
 

Nodnerb

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I get what you are saying, I love Nova launcher, but I've used Nova on my last 5 phones or so and this didn't happen. Or on my Samsung tablet. So I'm just curious why it is like this on the pixel only. But if it is what Javier posted, it may be an android 11 thing. Not a good thing though.
 

mustang7757

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Anyone else using Nova notice whenever you close an app there is a second where your homescreen is blank before Nova refreshes the icons etc? This has never happened on any other phone I've had. I have the developer animations etc set to 0.5, like I always do. I'm typing this on a Samsung tab s6 also running Nova and same settings. Icons are there immediately when closing an app. But on my p5 there is the delay. I've seen reports of this on Reddit etc. but no solution.

Anyone have any ideas?
You talking about when you swipe away a recent app and go home screen? I have Nova on my pixel 5 and not expericing any lag
 

Morty2264

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I just started using Nova, myself, and have now noticed a very small delay, as well. I'm liking my experience so far.
 

frankenhooker

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As Javier mentioned, it’s a problem with gestures post Android 10 and third party launchers. Every third party launcher has the same problem on every handset running Android 10 and above to varying degrees.

If you switch to the old soft button navigation the problem should be rectified, it’s just that you sacrifice gestures which personally I couldn’t live without. It doesn’t look like it’ll be fixed any time soon.
 

Rukbat

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Nova on a Pixel 2 running Android 11, animation disabled. I just checked a few apps - no delay between closing an app and seeing the homescreen icons.
 

mustang7757

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I'm running Nova on pixel 5 and Note 20U not experiencing this , maybe try restart Nova or if your in Nova Beta , opt out .
 

Javier P

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But did you compare it side by side with the Pixel Launcher?
Exactly, that's when to see the difference. The animation with the home gesture is more fluid with the stock launcher than with a third party one. The difference will be more or less noticeable depending on the brand and the personal settings but it will be always there. The reason is that the stock launcher is a system app with direct access to Recents/Quick Step.

In my OnePlus 7 running 10, with the new Nova 7 apk and animations at 0.5x the transition is quite good but still a bit different than with the stock launcher.
 

Javier P

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Another way to see the difference is keeping Nova but switching to navigation buttons, if possible. That small delay is not there anymore, since the actions for home and Recents are separated.
 

Javier P

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This is the explanation from the Nova guys.

PLEASE READ THIS IN FULL

Everything mentioned below is still present with the release of Android 11 on September 8th, 2020. Google has made it very clear that they have no plans to completely fix gesture-related issues any time in the near or even distant feature.

Please take note that Google admits to this being broken on their end of things and that a fix will be coming in a future update to Android (stated March 2019).

However, it's now well over a year later and there are still many issues with full system gestures and 3rd party launchers on both Android 10 and Android 11. These issues will remain for the foreseeable future as Google have now made it clear that they have no plans to completely fix their full system gestures.

Notable issues with gestures on third party launchers include:
• Close all/Clear app button not appearing(scroll all the way to verify it's not there)
• Not being able to tap icons for a short time after returning to the home screen
• Animations not being as fluid as expected

Please understand, there is absolutely NOTHING WE CAN DO TO FIX OR CHANGE THIS IN ANY WAY! Contact Google or your device OEM directly with these issues as we have absolutely no control over it whatsoever.

Samsung Users

Samsung has allowed full system gestures to be used within 3rd party launchers with their One UI 2.5 update. This means you can now enable and use gestures, but there are still several issues regarding animations and the like.

As stated, there is nothing that Nova (or indeed any other 3rd party launcher) can do about this and it is ultimately up to Google and OEMs to fix navigation gestures.

Google's statement and Nova's statement

Google: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/07/android-q-beta-5-update.html
Nova: https://help.teslacoilapps.com/faq/gesture-navigation
 

Javier P

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Enabling Gestures

As of the December 2019 Security Patch from Google, you can now enable full system gestures within 3rd party launchers on Pixel devices. However, the caveat of this is that you are likely to experience the issues mentioned above. To reiterate, this is still all up to Google to fix at some point in the future and to get things working 100% the way everyone expects them to be.

If and when you experience issues with gestures on 3rd party launchers, we highly recommend you contact Google and not Nova Support because, as we have said, there is absolutely nothing we can do to fix Google's problems.

Devices From Other Manufacturers

As some members in this Discord have noticed, some devices from certain manufacturers provide a reasonably usable experience with gestures. In particular, OnePlus devices on Oxygen OS 10 and above behave reasonably well with gestures.

This is because OnePlus (and other manufacturers) are using their own implementation of gestures rather than Google's which means that you might not get all of the issues referenced above. However, just like before, we (Nova) have no control over these and any issues you do experience should be brought up with the manufacturer and not us.
 

Javier P

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Action Launcher's False Claims

Action Launcher made an announcement back in late December 2019 which is completely misleading. When stating that they support system gestures, They are referring to the back swipe edit zones and other features within the app not interfering with Android's own system gestures. As before, full system gestures are completely controlled by Android and are not something a launcher can just suddenly add support for or change in any way. When using gestures with Action Launcher, you'll quickly notice that the experience has just as many issues as it does with Nova or any other 3rd party launcher, reiterating the point that it is not something that any third party launcher can change or improve.
 

Javier P

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Sorry, they cut the text in three sections. :)

https://discord.gg/novalauncher

By the way, in that Discord server (official) you can download the new Nova 7 that is under test and not available in the Play Store. I've been using it for a while and it's running great with tons of new features.