TaskDeck 3.0 — Dock customization, backups and controller fixes

TaskDeck 3.0

All changes since the last public release, 2.0. Local milestones 2.1–2.7 are included here. This describes the final behavior; intermediate designs remain documented as history.

Download APK · Installation guide

Dock customization

• Separate Dock / Background and Icons menus replace the combined form. Changes stay on their menu; Back restores the originating Settings entry.
• Bounded, top-aligned panels use two columns in landscape and stack in portrait. Captioned visual choices replace stretched cards and layout popups.
• Independent Dock Size and Icon Size, both 50–160%, use matching centered minus / percentage / plus steppers. Icon scaling fills a fixed box instead of enlarging the background or Dock height. Saved sizes initialize icon scale once on upgrade.
• Background colors: None, Follow theme, Black, Graphite, White, Blue, Purple, Green, Red and Amber. None removes persistent fills/outlines, hides Background Shape and preserves its stored choice without affecting icon sizing. Navigation can still show a focus outline.
• Independent background shapes: Rounded, Round, Square, Squircle. Icon masks: Round, Squared, Squircle. Focus backgrounds and logo masks no longer control each other.
• Background previews show neutral forms; icon previews show masked app artwork without an extra plate. Layout thumbnails remain independent of Dock color/scale and use theme-appropriate contrast.
• Saved selection uses accent fill plus a tick; controller focus has a separate consistent outline. None has a slash; Follow theme has a split symbol. Focused color names appear separately from the stable Background Color heading. Graphite is distinct from black; edges are thin and conditional on contrast.
• Artwork is centered in its boxes. Focus magnification and running/current dots reserve space to avoid crop/overlap at masks, bubbles, sparse corners and screen edges. Actual Current status remains green.
• Dock behavior has matching On/Off controls for Always show Dock, Magnify focused icons, Running indicators, with explanations for the focused/hovered setting.
• The actual-size bottom Live preview uses distinct real apps, saved order/sides first and alphabetical extras next. Neutral samples reveal chosen colors. Count changes never pin/unpin apps. Thumb Corners has independent left/right count pairs; Floating/Shelf have one pair.
• Preview buttons have drawing clearance and no native lift. Unavailable range/count actions are dimmed; focus moves to a usable sibling at a size limit. Preview order also matches capped legacy lists.

Favorites and app picker

• Limits are 6 apps for Thumb Corners, 8 for Floating/Shelf, including preview samples.
• Existing oversized lists are preserved: only the permitted first apps render; the picker exposes saved extras, count/limit and Trim to limit. No silent deletion.
• Remove, Clear Dock and Trim offer 10-second Undo Dock change, restoring exact order, layout and sides. Undo works with gamepad, survives recreation during its window, and returns focus safely on expiry.
• The favorites rail uses readable fixed-height icon rows with bounded overflow instead of shrinking every app into a tiny strip.
• Initial catalogue results fade in over 220 ms. Existing 360 ms paging starts after layout; canceled/stale fades cannot replace later pages/searches.
• Clear search and an explicit D-pad target recover zero-result searches. Clearing returns focus to results. Full-Dock attempts explain the limit while favorites remain removable.

Appearance and accessibility

• Normal, Black and White, Accent Color, Glass styles apply to Dock and main task icons. Glass is a stylized monochrome gradient, not Android blur or an Apple rendering API.
• Remove the redundant Follow accent checkbox; use Accent Color directly. Legacy overrides migrate to the explicit style when applicable.
• Adaptive layers are masked before look filters, fixing round system masks surviving square/squircle choices. Pre-rounded raster artwork cannot reconstruct missing corners.
• Appearance has consistent title placement: themes in one row, Group apps/Stay open after clearing/Vibrate on close in the next where space permits. Long labels wrap with sufficient padding and equal pane button widths.
• Accent Colors retain responsive complete rows. App icon style follows the actual palette with a consistent gap; D-pad moves from palette into styles.
• All icon-look cards reserve two caption lines and adequate space, so Normal/Glass and Black and White/Accent Color show equal full-size artwork.
• Drawn captions follow system font scale; bounds/column counts adapt. Above 125%, affected content reflows/scrolls with navigation outside the content. Normal-size forms stay compact.
• Reduced motion skips setup completion animation and fixed delay. With animations enabled, completion remains a short drawn check and Confirm can continue.

Controller and navigation fixes

• Start opens Settings rather than exiting. It is reserved; previous Start mappings migrate to available buttons. Start/Select have matching outlined badge proportions, Start shares a background with Settings, and a divider separates tools from the legend.
• Every Back action uses the mapped controller badge plus Back text, including forms, Settings/setup submenus and app selection. Step/page actions keep their distinct labels.
• Back restores the originating Settings content button; another Back returns to categories before leaving Settings.
• Spatial D-pad/stick navigation covers Dock steppers, Swap sides, colors and shapes. Immediate focus restoration prevents rapid Confirm from accidentally activating Back during a rebuild.
• Task-card Close hints use actual mappings and vector PlayStation/swapped labels instead of hard-coded X. Protected badges align above icons like Current; Current plus protected share a badge.
• Settings recording is disabled without shortcut access, with an Enable shortcut access action. Missing access and backend disconnection show recovery feedback; Refresh can request reconnection.

Closing and RAM

• A known transient close failure may receive one retry after 50 ms, after fresh task identity/protection checks. Already-absent ordinary tasks can be confirmed without another command.
• Permission/protection failures, uncertain transport, expired/interrupted work and ambiguous launcher results are not replayed. Batch deadlines remain bounded; persistent failures are reported after the permitted retry.
• Failed/unverified closes name affected apps. Remaining task descriptions expose Retry close with the mapped button. Successful-close overlays and the removed Last action menu stay out of the main flow.
• Per-app RAM shows sample age, loading/unavailable states and stale state after 30 seconds. System totals remain live; app estimates are not presented as summing to system usage. RAM values remain MB.
• Refresh RAM updates memory independently, without re-reading tasks or changing selected task identity.

Local settings backup

• Settings > About > Settings backup exports/imports local JSON through Android's document picker. No new network/storage permission.
• Validate schema version, a strict settings allow-list, types/ranges, packages, mapping/chord conflicts, layout limits and a 64 KB maximum before applying anything.
• A paged preview shows app names/order and printed controller labels, using mapped Previous/Next controls. Apply import is explicit; omitted customization returns to defaults.
• Android grants and setup completion are not imported. Back/cancel discards pending data, including reads completing after cancellation. Trim an old oversized Dock before export.

About, documentation and packaging

• About shows actual Ko-fi/GitHub destinations. Ko-fi uses its official cup with bundled attribution. Author SilasDV, vibecoded disclosure and optional support remain.
• Reuse grid placement/layout parameters to reduce measurement allocations. Release includes signed APK/AAB, tracked source ZIP and SHA-256 sums, with the same signing identity as 1.0/2.0.
• Public installation, interaction, privacy and validation documentation reflects the consolidated release; historical milestone notes remain available.

Install/update and known limits

Android 10+ and running, authorized Shizuku are required; root is optional. Download TaskDeck-3.0.apk. Update over signed 1.0/2.0 or local 2.x builds to retain settings. Earlier 0.x debug builds used a different key and require uninstalling, which clears data.

Pairing alone does not start Shizuku. Without root it needs starting after reboot; follow the official guide. Hotkeys need optional shortcut-service access; notifications are optional. No advertising, analytics or network permission.

See validation results and physical test matrix. Simulations cannot certify physical mapping, firmware, Bluetooth/USB hotplug, sustained load, native document providers, banners or haptics. Android may restart HOME/services; closing recent tasks is not a universal force-stop or guaranteed performance gain. RAM estimates remain approximate. Use disposable state for closing tests.

Compare 2.0 to 3.0 · Milestone history

Free/open source under MIT. Vibecoded with substantial AI assistance, guided by SilasDV. Optional support: ko-fi.com/silasdv.