Quest App Launcher

An app launcher for Quest implemented in Unity.

Features

• Supports launching both 3D and 2D apps
• Auto-categorizes apps as Quest, Go / GearVR or 2D
• Support for custom categorization
• Support for custom app icons and names (by default, uses app name and icon from the app's apk)
• Support for resizable grid
• Support for downloading app icons and names, including auto-updating

Downloading app icons and names (and auto-updating)

By default, the launcher uses the default app name and icon (from the apk). Sometimes, however, it is desirable to override these - for example, the icon may be the default Oculus icon instead of the actual game icon; or the app name may these do not map to the actual app name and icon in the Oculus Store.

To automatically download app names and app icons, go to Settings and chooose "Update Now". To enable auto-updates, go to Settings and enable "Auto-Update". This will automatically download new app names and icons as they become available.

Default repository for app icons and names is [https://github.com/tverona1/QuestAppLauncher_assets]. This can be configured in config.json.

Manually overriding app icons and names

It is also possible to manually configure app icons and names rather than automatically downloading them. This section describes how.

Override app names

Create a file called appnames.txt. Add a line per app with comma-separated package-id and desired name. Example:
appnames.txt:
com.mycompany.myapp,My Application
com.othercompany.otherapp,Other application

Copy this file (appnames.txt) to the following location on your Quest: Android/data/aaa.QuestAppLauncher.App/files

Note: Multiple appnames*.txt files are supported. If multiple files are present, they are applied in sorted order of the filenames. This allows for a single "master" appnames.txt file and then additional files to override it (like appnames_custom.txt).

Override app icons

Create an iconpack.zip file that contains a jpg file per app with the package-id as the filename. Example:
com.mycompany.myapp.jpg
com.thirdcompany.yetanotherapp.jpg

Copy the iconpack.zip to the following location on your Quest: Android/data/aaa.QuestAppLauncher.App/files

Note: Multiple iconpack*.zip files are supported. If multiple files are present, they are applied in sorted order of the filenames. This allows for a single "master" iconpack.zip file and then additional files to override it (like iconpack_custom.zip).

Note: Individual jpg files are also supported at the /Android/data/aaa.QuestAppLauncher.app/files path. These override any corresponding jpgs in iconpack*.zip files.

Configuration

The launcher can be customized by creating a config.json file and copying it to the following location on your Quest: Android/data/aaa.QuestAppLauncher.App/files.

The following options are supported:

Categories (tabs)

By default, the launcher will display automatic tabs (Quest, Go/GrearVr and 2D) and any custom tabs specified in appnames.txt file. These can be overridden with two fields - "autoCategory" and "customCategory". Both fields support the following values:

"off": No not display the categories
"top": Display categories on top
"left": Display categories on left-side
"right": Display categories on right-side

Setting Grid Size

The default grid size is 3x3 cells. The grid size can be customized by specifying grid rows and columns as in the following example:

{
	"gridSize": {
		"rows": 2,
		"cols": 4
	}
}

Showing / Hiding 2D apps

To show or hide 2D apps, set the "show2D" field to true or false

Example config.json

Here's an example config.json:

{
    "gridSize": {
        "rows": 3,
        "cols": 4
    },
    "show2D": true,
    "autoCategory": "top",
    "customCategory": "right"
    "autoUpdate": true,
    "downloadRepos": [
      {
        "repoUri": "tverona1/QuestAppLauncher_Assets/releases/latest",
        "type": "github"
      }
    ]
}

Appnames.txt syntax

This section describes the syntax for appnames.txt entries

Custom Categories (Tabs)

As described above, the launcher supports custom categories (tabs). This can be specified in the appnames.txt file by adding up to two custom categories per entry. The syntax is:
packageName,appName[,category1[, category2]]

For example, this will categorize the two entries below in Action and Puzzle tabs:

com.mycompany.myapp,My Application,Action
com.othercompany.otherapp,Other application,Puzzle

Comments

Comments can be added to appnames.txt by prepending "#".

Source structure:

• Assets/Scenes/QuestAppLauncher.unity: The main scene
• Assets/Plugins/Android: Android-specific implementation to retrieve installed apps etc, written in Java
• Assets/Scripts: Main set of C# scripts for grid population, scroll handling etc.

Credits

A huge thank you to fecheva [https://github.com/fecheva] for creating / maintaining the app names & icon packs!

Also thank you to noxx for creating the app's icon!