A Quick Look At ‘Ivy’ – A Mini-Launcher With Widgets And An RSS Reader Built In

In this era of full-fledged custom launchers, something different has emerged, a sort of mini-launcher that displays app and contacts “ribbons”, widgets and an RSS ticker when activated by a swipe from the edge of your screen. This unique UI (user interface) enhancement, which goes by the name Ivy, doesn’t require root access yet it can change your experience in a way reminiscent of custom ROMs.
One of app’s developers, Steve Spear, is a former member of the team that developed the popular custom ROM AOKP. One of AOKP’s most popular innovations was a “ribbon” you could swipe out from the edge of your screen with shortcuts to apps of your choice. Though the popular ROM is not currently in active development the “ribbons” live on in Ivy. To acquaint you with Ivy’s myriad of features, I have included the following screenshot tour. The screenshots are divided into the following categories:

Settings screenshots to familiarize you with its main features
Ribbons screenshots to show you how to customize the Apps Ribbon and the People Ribbon
RSS screenshots to help you customize the RSS ticker
Widgets screenshots to explain how to customize the widgets you want to include in Ivy
Ivy Panel screenshots to show how the main panel looks when you swipe it out from the edge

Ivy Settings

: Main settings

: Main settings bottom of the list

: Settings slide-out drawer

: App settings

: I prefer Night Mode

: Handle settings

: Ribbon settings lets you change ribbon color, text color, icon size and text size

Ivy Ribbons: Apps and People

: Apps ribbon settings/Items tab is where you can choose which apps you want to include in your ribbon

: Apps ribbon settings/Settings tab is where you can choose a third-party icon pack

: After tapping “Icon pack” in Apps ribbon settings/Settings tab, you can choose from this list of all the icon packs you have installed in your phone

: People ribbon settings is where you can choose which people you want to have contact card shortcuts for on your People ribbon

Ivy’s RSS Ticker

: RSS Feed settings/Items tab is where you can choose which RSS feeds you want displayed in the bottom ticker

: RSS Feed settings/Settings tab is where you can choose options such as scrolling speed, refresh frequency and text color among other things

: When you tap the floating add button in the RSS Feed settings/Items tab you can choose from preselected feeds in four main categories or a “Custom Feed” for specific feeds you wish to add (you’ll need to enter its URL)

: Each category contains a list of preselected feeds to choose from

: To add a specific RSS feed not included in the curated list, choose “Custom Feed”

: After tapping “Custom Feed” you’ll be prompted to enter the feed’s URL (for example, http://feeds.feedburner.com/yourtechexplained)

: You can remove a feed from the list by swiping to the right

: Tap on the tiny caret near the bottom center to switch feeds or manually refresh them

: Here is what the RSS feed switcher looks like after tapping on the tiny caret symbol

Ivy Widgets

: In the Widgets settings/Items tab the floating action button lets you add a widget, delete it or move it to the right or left

: In the Widgets settings/Settings tab you can choose background appearance, animation duration and whether to force the widget to allow you to override its minimum height

: When you choose “add widget” from the floating action button, you see a pretty standard widget picker

: When Widgets are enabled, the Ivy panel shows the Widget button between the Ivy settings and the app drawer buttons at the bottom left

: In Widget view, the floating button array lets you dock the widget to the top of the screen or the bottom (left button), resize the widget to your liking (drag the center button up or down) or close the widget (right button, which takes you to your previous screen rather than the Ivy panel)