Added ability to stack widgets

[gvijayakumar-16]

Added a small commit to create stackable widgets
#2456

Attached a simple recording showing how it would work

Recording.mov

[marunjar]

Hi @gvijayakumar-16 , thanks for your effort.

Can you please give some more information on what exactly is the benefit of having stacked widgets?
I tried this now and for me personally it feels not really that fluent or like following KISS principle.

There is no indication that there is some invisible/stacked widget you can switch to.
So sometimes something happens on fling or double tap, sometimes not.

Interception of gestures is also not behaving that well IMO.

• double tap on widget changes to next widget and also triggers single tap on the widget itself and opens another activity
• if widgets have different sizes and you double tap on some space where next widget won't occupy, history of KISS is shown
• after going back new widget is visible
• I haven't tried what will happen with widgets that have scrollable content, but these exists
• stacked widgets with different sizes results in free space between widgets if one of the smaller ones is visible

Code is not checked in detail for now, but as format of settings changed also "__v" in ExportSettingsPreference must be increased to current version + 1 at least.

[Neamar]

Hey @gvijayakumar-16 thanks for the work (and the video!)

Support for multiple widgets has been a recurrent request, and this seems to be a step in that direction :)

I do agree with Marunjar however that the UX is hard to figure out: without seeing the video above, I'd have had a hard time figuring out how this works without looking at the code.

Granted, KISS UX isn't always optimal, but the "key features" are normally available through mostly standard gestures.

I guess for widgets, maybe we should use the "standard" patterns of "page swipes" with page indicators at the top (tiny dots that tells you how many pages there are, and the page on which you are currently).

Something like this:

So, by default, when you add your first widget, show two dots above (a large one [current page], and a small one [empty new page]).
Swiping (or touching a dot) would bring you to that "page" of widget, and then the context menu on the widget, rather than "stack", becomes "move left"/"move right"?

What are your thoughts?

[gvijayakumar-16]

Thanks for the feedbacks!

Why stacked widgets: I usually use KISS in minimal mode and it was hard to have multiple widgets in the homescreen one below the other. This was making double tap to lock difficult for me, hence the idea.

I use the custom built apk to stack weather, calendar and banking widgets. When widgets like calendar which has scroll gestures in built, I agree the stack gestures are a bit difficult to move (but working). Working a fix for those. But, for other widgets, the scroll between them were seamless. Can you please confirm if the widgets you had tried had any gestures attached to it?

@Neamar , the page indicators might get in the way of clean design which is there now. Also, I agree with you both that without the video/docs, it might get difficult to use. Will try a few different ideas and probably update the PR and the video.

@marunjar , the widgets are only scrollable. Double tap should invoke the widget action only. Widgets with different sizes provide actions only on the widgets, not on the space the previous widget was occupying. Atleast, this is the direction I have taken. Please let me know your thoughts or the direction this should be implemented in. Thanks!

[gvijayakumar-16]

Added dot indicators with the option to hide it in settings so that it can have a minimal UI