ECHO 2.8.1

The XMB

• The Play and Shelves buttons under a game, and Launch, Edit and Favorite under an app, are gone. Everything they did is in the item's options menu (Menu, or a long-press), which now shows all of it. Down moves straight to the next item, and holding A still launches.

Dual screens

• Quick settings ▸ Screens switches between Dual and Single. Single hands the second screen back to Android and puts everything on one screen; Dual brings ECHO's second screen back. The tile only appears on a device with a second screen.
• The README has a new Dual screens section that explains the companion screen, Swap, taps and the controller, and how emulators and the keyboard behave.

ECHO 2.8.0

Dual screens

On a handheld with a second screen, such as the AYN Thor, ECHO now uses both.

• The bottom screen follows the top one. Info shows the game or app under the cursor, and while a game you launched is running, it shows that game with a Resume button.
• Last Played moves to the bottom screen as its Recent page, with its filters. Tap to pick, hold to launch.
• The App Drawer, Search and Settings open on the bottom screen, whether you open them with LB, RB or a tap. The controller still drives them, and Search opens the keyboard there.
• Tap a screen to move the controller to it. B on the bottom screen gives the controller back to the XMB.
• Swap puts the XMB on the bottom screen and the companion on the top one. ECHO remembers the choice.
• DS and 3DS emulators keep the bottom screen while a game runs, and ECHO comes back when you return.
• Games and apps always open on the main screen.

Setup

• Setting ECHO as your home app no longer sends setup back to the first step.
• The ECHO folder is now the second step, so a folder from an earlier install brings back your settings before the rest of setup.
• Linking an ECHO folder that already holds a settings file now reads it first, instead of writing ECHO's fresh settings over it.

New installs

• New installs open apps and games with ECHO's own Lens animation and start on the Black colour scheme. Existing installs keep what they had.

ECHO 2.7.2

Artwork

• Fetching art now fills every game's tile with its box cover (Steam, ScreenScraper, IGDB or SteamGridDB), in the box's own shape. It used to fetch only wide Steam headers, and nothing at all without a SteamGridDB key.
• Re-Scrape All Games no longer throws away art you picked, locked or put in your ECHO folder yourself. It only refreshes what a scraper fetched.
• A scrape never overwrites a file you put in the folder by hand.
• Scan & Relink Library no longer puts box art or miximages in the logo slot. A box cover fills an empty tile, and a miximage an empty background.
• Scrape Missing Games Only also fills games that have no tile cover.

App Drawer and Search

• The App Drawer shows three columns beside a wider details column, always two whole rows, with nothing cut off at the bottom.
• A game's cover keeps its own shape on its case: square Game Boy boxes and tall Switch covers both show whole, with ribbed VHS plastic round them instead of a blur.
• Search's highlighted result is now the same VHS case as the App Drawer's.
• App icons on their cases are larger.

ECHO 2.7.1

Sound

• The boot, launch disc and GameBoot sounds can be heard again. The menu music used to start with ECHO and play over them; it now waits until the animation is over.

ECHO 2.7.0

App Drawer

• A new look: the selected app's details on the left, and every app as a case with a VHS spine in four columns. The selected case stands a little bigger and the rest step back.
• Library games now have their full Options menu (Game Info, Shelves, Metadata, Hide and more), the same as on the crossbar.
• Steam games launched through GameNative now appear in the Games tab, with a Steam Games filter.

Search

• Results stand on one shelf: the likeliest match in the middle as a whole case, the rest as spines on both sides. Left and right slide smoothly along it, and a drag works too.
• LB and RB filter by kind: Games, Apps, Music, Video, Books.
• Your wave runs behind the shelf.

Covers

• A game's cover everywhere (crossbar cover rows, the drawer, Search and GameBoot) is its icon slot; the main art is used only when the icon slot is empty.

Notifications

• The bell is now an island at the top right: the ECHO mark with the count, or your profile picture when nothing is waiting.
• Press Home (or tap the island) once to see your notifications as a card; open an app with A, dismiss with X or a swipe. Press again for the full panel.
• A new notification drops out as a card on its own. Notifications already waiting at boot no longer do.

Accounts

• Artwork services (SteamGridDB, ScreenScraper, IGDB, TMDB) now live under Settings > Accounts > Artwork, next to Achievements and Discord.
• A key saved by another install (for example from a restored backup) cannot be read on this device. It now shows as not set so you can enter it again, instead of being sent as unreadable text and failing.

And more

• The boot animation uses the wave you chose, and the Lens launch glows in the waves' colour.
• The top bar's cards and the footer's card now grow out of their icon as one shape, and the footer's hints no longer move when the card appears.
• The A to Z rail works on Recent and on lists sorted by date, and sits centred between the bars.
• Overview's background art is no longer see-through.

ECHO 2.6.0

Setup

• Setup now starts by asking what ECHO is for: Gaming and Media, each on or off. Both on is the full suite; both off is a launcher only. What you turn off is left out of setup (its folders, its permissions, the Emulators step) and its columns are hidden from the crossbar. Home > Libraries brings any column back.

Launching

• Launch Disc Style: the launch disc can now play as the disc or as Lens, the same choice GameBoot already had (Look & Feel > Boot).
• The Lens animation now glows in the same colour as the waves behind it.

Recent and Search

• Apps you open after ECHO starts now show up in Recent. Before, an app only appeared after a restart or an install.
• Search everything now covers apps plus the libraries on your crossbar, and its hint names only those.

Controls and menus

• B with the on-screen keyboard up hides the keyboard; the next B goes back.
• The App Drawer's menu now closes after you choose something, like Hide Everywhere or Remove from Recent.
• The A to Z rail is now plain letters: the chosen one is biggest, its neighbours swell a little, and the rest are dimmed.

Docs

• New screenshots and an updated README.

ECHO 2.5.0

New animations

• A new boot animation. A line of light crosses the screen and becomes the ECHO mark, with three echo rings. It takes about 3.5 seconds. Press A or B to skip it with a short fade.
• Lens, a second game launch animation. The game's art spins inside the ECHO ring, then opens over the screen as the game starts. Choose it in Settings > Look & Feel > Boot > GameBoot Style. The disc is still there.

Home screen and Recent

• Recent filters and App Drawer sections with nothing in them are hidden.
• Holding a game or app on the Recent screen or the Recent panel launches it. A tap still only selects it.
• An album on the Recent shelf can now be removed.
• App icons on the Recent screen are drawn above the wave.
• Crossbar text is always white or your text colour, never black.
• Remove from Recent brings the item back when you use it again. The new Hide from Recent keeps it off the panel until you unhide it.
• Hide Everywhere, now also in the App Drawer's menu, hides an app from the whole launcher: the drawer, Recent and Search.
• In a media category or a category of apps, Options > Move Up / Move Down puts apps and rows in your own order.
• A media category with no folders keeps only its apps.
• The battery line now runs up the left edge.

Search and the App Drawer

• Search and the App Drawer share one larger banner. Search shows Open and Options in the banner and lists results in two columns.
• Opening Settings from the top panel while the drawer or Search is open now shows Settings straight away.

Notifications and the top panel

• Tapping a notification opens its app.
• The top panel opens with a tap on the bell, not by sliding down. Slide up to close it.

Settings

• New Library section. Media Libraries adds, rescans and removes your music, video, photo and book folders. Hidden Items moved here from Emulators.
• Overview is redesigned, with your recently played games, game counts and a media column for the categories you have on.
• Quick Settings: the Wave tile steps through all wave styles, Background (game art or your theme) replaces "Crossbar shows", and a new tile shows game rows as icons or cover art.
• Adjust Crossbar Layout can size the top bar and the footer separately, per device.
• Permissions lists every folder ECHO reads and lets you grant a lost one again. Setup shows lost folders too. The folder picker opens on the folder itself.
• Setup and Settings use the same permission rows. A permission Android stopped asking for opens ECHO's App info. A note explains Android's "restricted settings" block for apps installed outside a store.

Fixes

• The A button in the footer and the touch Back button stay round on large screens.
• Removing one video, photo or book updates the counts on the crossbar straight away.
• Changing the Books folder removes the old shelf and scans the new one.
• Search hints point to Settings pages that exist.

ECHO 2.4.2

Look

• The Colour Scheme picker opens as a side panel, like every other options menu, with the artwork and wave behind it. Each row shows its colour swatch. The live preview on the crossbar is unchanged.
• The Songs browser's footer runs along the full bottom edge, with A in the centre and Back on the left, like the other screens.
• The Artwork Studio's provider screen uses the same layout and footer as the rest of the app. A uses the provider, B closes, and X opens Change Match, which before you could only reach by touch.

Other

• The project moved to Sonophage/echo-launcher on GitHub. Old links and downloads redirect.
• Internal: the network client used for artwork lookups now lives with the data layer. Nothing changes in use.

Docs

• The README guide is checked against the app: the emulator table lists every supported system and emulator, and the notes on video snaps, artwork import, the book reader, Search and motion wallpapers now say exactly what the app does.

ECHO 2.4.1

Fixes

• Photos and songs open from Search again. Picking a photo or a track in Search did nothing; it now opens the photo viewer or starts the track.
• The Launch and Play buttons under an app or game take the hold, like holding A on the item itself. A quick press, or a quick tap, no longer launches anything.
• Video posters show again on films whose poster went missing after moving from PSPLauncher with Backup and Restore. ECHO repairs them on start. Restoring a backup now keeps video posters and thumbnails pointing at the right place, and Match Posters fetches again for a film whose poster file is missing.

App Drawer

• Menu (≡) opens an app's options and Y opens Search, the same as everywhere else. X no longer does anything in the drawer.

Docs

• The README's music, video, photo, Artwork Studio and settings screenshots are retaken on 2.4, and it gains the drawer's options, the Libraries panel, Songs, Videos and the Emulators page.

ECHO 2.4.0

The ECHO folder

ECHO's own folder (named ECHO) now holds its look and settings as files you can edit with any file manager.

• ECHO writes them there: settings.json (colours, wave, layout, controls and default players), and in Look/ your sounds, boot audio, wallpaper and custom icons. It keeps them current as you change things.
• ECHO reads them back: edit the files, then choose Reload ECHO Folder in Settings, Emulators, Artwork, Artwork Folder & Import. ECHO applies settings.json; any sound or icon named after its slot (sound_back.mp3, boot_audio.mp3 and so on); a .ttf or .otf font in Look/Fonts, which changes ECHO's font; and the newest picture or video (mp4, webm, gif) in Look/Wallpapers.
• Your edits are kept. ECHO never writes over a file in the folder that is newer than its own, and never deletes anything there. A file is applied only when it is newer than ECHO's and different from it. A file ECHO cannot use is named in the result, with the reason.
• Changes made while ECHO was closed are applied when it starts.
• No passwords, API keys, account details, folder paths or reading positions are ever written to the folder.

Android's wallpaper follows ECHO's

• When ECHO's background changes, Android's home and lock wallpapers change with it. Clearing ECHO's wallpaper leaves Android's as it is.

Settings

• Every settings page uses the ECHO look: slim rows with a white highlight, like the setup wizard and the menus.

Setup

• On a new install, setup is the one place that asks for notifications. The system prompt no longer appears before the welcome screen.
• If you pick a general folder for artwork in setup (such as Documents), ECHO makes an ECHO folder inside it and never renames the folder you picked.

Fixes

• Two hints named the old buttons for options; they now name Menu (≡).
• The README guide matches the current controls and screens.