Teal / Launcher

The drawer should still feel like RETUI.

A command-first launcher still needs a place to browse. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to open. Sometimes I just need to look. The app drawer exists for that second moment, without dropping me into a generic wall of icons.

Typing is the fast path. Browsing is allowed.

RETUI does not punish you for forgetting an app name. Type `apps -ls` and the drawer opens over the launcher. If swipe-up drawer access is enabled, the launcher also exposes that route from the toolbar.

apps -ls

The keyboard closes, the drawer takes focus, and tapping an app launches it. Once the app opens, the drawer gets out of the way. Tap outside the panel when you simply want to close it.

A terminal window, not a second launcher

The drawer is drawn as a bordered terminal panel with an attached header and footer. Your launcher remains behind it, including the wallpaper outside the panel. It feels like opening another working surface, not leaving RETUI for a completely different interface.

The header tells you how many applications are in the current view and whether you are looking at everything or one group. The footer reports the number of groups and alphabet sections. Useful information, but kept out of the app list itself.

Groups on the left

The left rail begins with `ALL`, followed by the groups you created through the Apps command. Longer group names are shortened to three letters on the tab, while the full group remains the actual command-side identity.

apps -mkgp favourite
apps -addtogp favourite Firefox
apps -addtogp favourite NewPipe
apps -ls

Selecting a group rebuilds the list around its visible members. Group foreground and background colors also carry into their tabs when you have set them.

apps -lsgp

See the groups that can appear in the left rail.

apps -lsgp <group>

Check which apps belong to one drawer group.

apps -gp_bg_color <group> <color>

Give a group tab its own background.

apps -gp_fore_color <group> <color>

Set the text color used by that group tab.

The alphabet on the right

The right rail is built from the letters that actually exist in the current list. Tap a letter to jump to that section. Scroll normally and the highlighted letter follows your position.

Apps are sorted alphabetically inside the drawer. Labels that do not begin with A to Z are collected under `#`, which keeps the navigation honest instead of pretending every app name fits the same pattern.

This is faster than a search box when you only remember roughly where an app sits. It also preserves the feeling of scanning a terminal index rather than paging through icon grids.

The command still decides what appears

The drawer only uses visible apps. Hide something with `apps -hide` and it disappears from both the normal suggestions and this list. Restore it with `apps -show` and it returns.

apps -hide Instagram
apps -lsh
apps -show Instagram

I prefer that relationship because it keeps one source of truth. The drawer does not grow its own private set of organization rules that you have to remember separately.

The drawer is there when memory fails or browsing is simply easier. It does not replace the prompt. It gives the prompt a visual counterpart that still speaks the same language.