[Bug Report] partial search no longer work after 0.3.2

[gawa971]

Checklist

• I will make sure to have the issue written in English with an English title.
• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - which I could contribute my information to.
• I've verified that this issue hasn't been addressed in the changelogs.
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Phone Make & model

any

App version

0.3.2

Android version

Android 13

How did you download the software?

F-Droid

Bug description

The search / lookup / filtering feature in the application list stopped working after the latest upgrade to 0.3.2.

Before 0.3.2 I could search for only parts of the applications. A search for a few characters, whatever their case and position in the string name of the app, would show all the partial match.

Since the last update of the app to version 0.3.2 I cannot reliably find the applications in the application list. It makes the whole app unusable for me. See the "Steps to reproduce" and "Expected behavior" for the details.

Steps to reproduce the bug

Configuration:

• Application upgraded to 0.3.2
• I renamed all my applications, but I only used simple english characters (no fancy symbols, emoji, other language characters...). For instance "Clock" renamed to "Alarm Clock", "Google Authenticator" renamed to "OTP".
• Auto Open Last App : on (and thus this bug is very annoying as it opens the wrong app). Turn this off for testing the filtering and not launch the app.
• Search From Start : on
• Filter Strength : 25

Test 1:

1. go to the app list with your gesture. Notice that all the applications are listed, including, for instance, the application "Contact".
2. Search for a part of the app. For instance "tac" for "Contact". It doesn't show up.

Test 2 :

1. go to the app list with your gesture. Notice that all the applications are listed, including, for instance, the applications "Contact" and "Currency Converter".
2. Search for a part of the app. For instance "con". Only the application "Contact" shows up, not "Convert Currency". If Auto Open Last App is set to On, it would launch the Contact app, which is wrong and not the behavior I had in the past.

Test 3 :

1. I have two applications for the camera, one named "Camera" and the other named "Camera Google Gcam".
2. Search for "cam", only the first "Camera" app shows up. In the past (before 0.3.2) I would have seen the two apps.

Expected behavior

Search for partial names of the applications should filter and show the applications with partial match.
By partial search I mean only a small part (a few characters, but I noticed it needs to be at least 3 chars) of the full name of the app. It can be:

• letters at the beginning of the app name
• letters, characters at the end of the app name
• string in the middle of the app name
• case sensitivity does not matter (capitalized, uppercase, lowercase...). Searching has always been case insensitive for me, I can find the apps with both "Con" and "con" (which is good).

What I expect from test 2: if I have the applications named "Contact" and "Currency Converter", searching for "con" should show both. Before 0.3.2 it filtered both apps and I could continue filter them further by adding the letter "v" or "t". Since 0.3.2 it shows only the Contact app. Now the application for Contact launches automatically after writing "con". In the past, since the two app showed up, I had to add more letter to distinguish them so adding an extra letter v (searching for "Conv") would launch the Currency Converter, while adding "t" would launch Contact.

Screenshots/Screen recordings

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Logs

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Additional information

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[github-actions]

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[gawa971]

I found a solution. This is probably not a bug but a feature (although I could not figure out what the feature is). The new behavior was introduced by this fix: ff7ecb1

It looks like it's related to the "Filter Strength" and that the commit enabled something that should always have been enabled?

By default, Filter Strength has always been set to 25 (as far as I know. At least I don't remember ever touching this). Since the change introduced in 0.3.2, it changes the logic (see the commit diff).

By setting the Filter Strength to "0", I can get back the behavior I had before the upgrade.

In other word, the "fix" introduced in 0.3.2 is a breaking change for a few people who got used to a certain behavior. I can't believe I'm the only one which this upgrade essentially broke Easy Launcher and made it unusable. Obligatory XKCD comics.

Tl;DR: to get back the partial search anywhere in the name of the app, go in the Launcher Settings options, in "Features", set "Filter Strength" to 0.

I tried to find documentation about this option. I also did a few tests with different values. I have no idea what this option does. Maybe it could be documented somewhere? I think it should be written somewhere that to get partial search we need to set this value from the default 25 to 0.

In any case, my big thanks for everyone developing and contributing to this app. I like it a lot :)