I’ve shown how Wave Launcher works before, but since then I’ve stopped using it in favor of other solutions. However, with the introduction of my DIY Tasker-based settings/utility widget, I found a new use for it.
Wave Launcher allows you to access a second launcher using a gesture, and unlike any other non-root app I’ve found, it doesn’t require you to push a button or anything like that to activate gesture sniffing (or more precisely, it hides this button in a clever way). You can access several shortcuts or widgets from this launcher, but what I did for this use of it was to add a single shortcut that activates the scene I made in Tasker. In other words, I grab a very tiny portion of the bottom of the screen, pull up, release, and there’s my DIY pop-up with various settings and controls. I can activate this from anywhere, and it adds itself as an overlay, so I can be in the browser, for example, and copy a link and use the gesture to access the link input field I have in my pop-up.
I dare say this has a lot of potential when used with custom scenes, but of course the result wouldn’t be too different with settings widgets. By settings I mean things like brightness, auto rotation, WiFi settings, and so on. Even on phones that have some of these settings in the drop-down notification menu, full screen apps disables the ability to use those while in the app, so being able to access those settings regardless can be quite useful.