Edit: I edited this first post because it caused misunderstanding and confusion about the app drawer.
Hi Sailfish community, Hi Sailfish dev team,
I own a Sony Xperia XA2 , which I have been using with SailfishOS 5 for a year now (previously on 4.6 before updating a few days ago).
Before that, I owned a Nokia N9 , which I absolutely loved (I still have it, and it still works). I adored its OS, but it’s now outdated.
I really like SailfishOS , its gesture-based navigation , and its simplicity , and I also enjoy using the XA2 .
Here are some features I would love to see in future SailfishOS updates:
-Display the AppSupport status icon in the top bar without requiring activation through Patchmanager (GitHub - carmenfdezb/patch_aliendalvik_statusbar)
-Implement native battery wear percentage calculation without relying on an Android application.
-Introduce dynamic clock and calendar icons without the need for third-party applications (GitHub - dseight/clockwork: Tool for Sailfish OS launcher icons customization)
-Enable a time duration slider when connected to a Bluetooth car radio.
-Allow song artwork to be displayed on Bluetooth car radios.
-Add support for the ASF audio format / gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad (Used into Windows Media Audio 2 (WMA v2))
-Develop a native Jolla file browser application with support for SMB, CIFS, NFS, and FTP protocols.
-Update icons to a more modern design or adopt a style similar to Nokia N9 Harmattan (I LOVE Harmattan icons!) (GitHub - speactra/harbour-themepack-n9ish: N9ish Icon Pack for SailfishOS)
-Allow the SD card to be integrated as part of the main storage (unplugging the card should trigger device shutdown).
-Allow applications to be displayed either as icons or as a list, similar to Windows Phone.
-Increase ZRAM to 2.5GB on the Xperia XA2 (In my experience, this helps prevent crashes and app malfunctions. My device can reach up to 4GB of combined RAM and swap, especially when using Android apps).
-Provide an option to choose between 2 types of application drawers:
The current SailfishOS style
A third-panel layout , similar to the Nokia N9 with Harmattan (a Pre-SailfishOS version) (Picture below)
-Introduce a paid beta testing program to support and test active development.
-Move the “Restart” option to the top menu instead of keeping it under “Developer options.”
Hope my ideas can be useful.
Alfly_Alyx
The three panels of the Nokia N9 running Harmattan (Pre-SailfishOS version) use a horizontal swipe to navigate between them.
The vertical swipe is only used to navigate within the apps panel or to show the pulley menus.
I’m sorry… but did you consider the general usefulness of these wishes?
Please don’t. Icons are not the place for dynamic info.
It would appear it is an antiquated, proprietary (gstreamer-ugly) format. So why?
Does anything else actually do this successfully?
It sounds like a terrible idea from a robustness perspective.
The newer phones has big enough storage for this not to be an issue anyway.
And 3x the testing and impact from changes?
I’m going to have to side with how Apple thinks here - find the best way and stick to it.
So a fourth application drawer?
Paid in what direction? (Both seems like bad ideas).
“I’m sorry… but did you consider the general usefulness of these wishes?”
These are just ideas and feature requests. I don’t understand your response, which comes across as quite unfriendly.
“Please don’t. Icons are not the place for dynamic info.”
I disagree with that subjective opinion . This feature could be useful for many users.
An optional setting could allow those interested to enable it, while others could simply leave it disabled. Anyway , this is already possible with Clockwork. I just found the developer’s idea interesting enough to be implemented into the OS.
“It would appear it is an antiquated, proprietary (gstreamer-ugly) format. So why?”
ASF is used in audio WMA containers . You may consider it outdated , but it is still in use. Third-party applications can already play this format, so it’s not an issue, but integrating it into Jolla’s excellent native player would, in my opinion, be a good idea.
Attah, Are you implying that I shouldn’t share my opinion or ideas? And are you explicitly saying that they are not well thought out? Do you believe yourself to be much more thoughtful?
Despising people doesn’t help things move forward!
I think participating is better than just pontificating.
Since you asked; yes.
I generally don’t think of myself as exceptional. But i have this insight, so this is why you won’t find a post, let alone a whole new thread, with a random collection of personal wishes from me.
You are free to think whatever you want, but dismissing ideas just because they don’t align with your perspective doesn’t make them less valid. A wishlist is a place for suggestions, and if you don’t find them relevant, you can simply ignore them instead of trying to impose your own way of thinking on others.
By the way, not contributing a wishlist doesn’t make you more insightful—it just means you don’t share your own ideas publicly. There’s a difference between being selective and being dismissive.
Constructive feedback involves engaging with ideas, discussing their feasibility, and providing arguments. What you’re doing is simply rejecting ideas outright and acting as if your opinion is the ultimate filter for what deserves to be discussed.
If everyone followed your approach, this forum wouldn’t be a ‘mess’—it would just be empty, because no ideas would be worth discussing unless they met your personal approval.
As for being selective, that applies to decision-making, not to shutting down discussions before they even happen. If you truly had insightful ideas, you’d recognize the value of brainstorming and open discussions rather than dismissing them as ‘self-centric’.
The only self-centered approach I see here is dismissing other people’s ideas outright while believing your own perspective is the only valid one. Discussions aren’t about enforcing a single view—they’re about exchanging ideas, which is exactly what a wishlist is for.
A wishlist is meant for sharing ideas, not for presenting a fully detailed feasibility study. If ideas were required to be fully fleshed out before being discussed, no brainstorming, no creative exchanges, and no innovation would ever happen.
Also, dismissing something outright doesn’t equate to ‘constructive feedback’. Critiquing feasibility is one thing, rejecting ideas without discussion is another. If you want to discuss feasibility, feel free to do so, I’d be happy to exchange ideas about it—just don’t pretend shutting down suggestions is the same as constructive input.
I understand that some ideas might seem unnecessary or difficult to implement. My goal here is simply to explore ways to improve SailfishOS.
I (rarely) listen to .wma files and to my knowledge there’s no licensing/patent issues. But of course that could be different for a commercial project like SFOS.
It’s the same answer for most “Why doesn’t X work oootb on Linux” questions.
After some research, you seems to be right. Here is what I found
"The specification is downloadable from the Microsoft website, and the format can be implemented under a license from Microsoft. However, this license does not allow the distribution of source code and is not compatible with open-source licenses.
ASF was patented in the United States ([United States Patent 6,041,345] by Microsoft until August 10, 2019."
Source : Wikipedia
ASF is used in WMA/WMV files. It seems that these formats can’t be used freely in commercial softwares.
One drawback of wish lists is that the discussion tends to be all over the place, making it hard to follow what has been said about any one specific item. I assume that you are aware of this and find it is ok at this early stage in the process.
I don’t understand what you want to achieve. Where, how and why do you want that?
This sounds like the existing app drawer to me, except it’s along a vertical screen edge. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) Why do you want it vertical and how do you envision this to work with existing navigation gestures?
The agenda icon could show the current day’s number.
The clock icon could display the actual time.
About the menu:
In SailfishOS, there are two panels: one for view and notifications and another for opened apps. The three-panel mode is inspired by the Nokia N9, which is the origin of SailfishOS. The idea follows the same gesture system as the Nokia N9.
Regarding the discussion tracking, I can provide a summary of the key points or ideas in the original post if that helps keep things organized.
The app covers on the home screen do this, and - in my opinion - in a better way than animated icons would.
What advantage would we get from looking in the app drawer (with lots and lots of icons, potentially in folders) instead of the home screen (with just the currently running apps)?
Thank you for the background to your wish! Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with the N9, so I still don’t understand how it is different from the current app drawer, why it would be better along the vertical edge, or how you think it would fit in with existing navigation.
Or did you want to replace current navigation with how it worked on the N9? Then I think you need to cover (edit:) all the other parts as well, not just the app drawer.
(Edit: Missing words in last sentence made it hard to understand.)
