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Some Tips for the App Drawer

In this post, I would like to let you know some tips for the app drawer that you might not have noticed yet.

1. Smart picks

As you already know, it picks up your favorites apps to the top automatically when you set "Sort order" to "Smart" in the app drawer options. By the way, have you guessed out that the top apps are picked differently according to some situational factors such as newly installation, current time of day, your location, or whether your headset is plugged or not? Your favorite apps can be different depending on it's day or night, at home or at work, and with your headset or not. The app drawer of Square Home analyses your use cases based on the situation and picks the most proper apps to the top. You can change the number of top picks in the app drawer options.


2. App search

To search an app quickly, you click the magnifier icon on the bottom menu bar of the app drawer and select a index letter. By the way, have you ever tried to sliding on the index letters? You don't have to click twice (one tap on the magnifier button and another tap on the letter) to search apps! Just slide your finger from the magnifier buttons to the letter to search.

Sliding on search index

Another good feature is that it searches English names of apps as well if your language is not English. For example, my language is Korean and I have 3 map apps named 지도, 카카오맵 and 네이버 지도. Their English names are Maps, KakaoMap and Naver Map respectively. When I'd like to access one of those apps, I can search them just with the letter "M".

If too many apps are searched up from one index letter, select "..." for multiple letters search. You can make it default search method by turning off "Use search index" in the app drawer options.


3. App drawer as a page

Many users are asking me how they make the app drawer sliding from the right side like Windows phone. There is a perfect way to do it. You can put the app drawer "as a page" in the right side of the home page. Please refer to the item 2 in FAQ to know how to add a new page.


4. Quick scrolling

If you want to scroll quickly to the position based on the initial letters of the app names, just slide vertically on the right edge of the app drawer. This feature is available only when you set the sort order to "Smart" or "Name".

Quick scrolling

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