So I've picked up a great new launcher called, strangely enough, Lnchr. You can find it
here. It's very simple, and while it could use some configuration options and a clean uninstall (right now it forgets to reassign the launcher pointer to the default one, so your home button does jack after deleting Lnchr... to remedy this simply reinstall and uncheck the "Lnchr is default launcher" option under Preferences)
Lnchr has a few unique features (ok, I've seen some of it done before in Initiate but didn't like the interface enough to try it) and does them simply, which is what makes them great.
It has a current date listed in the main screen (well there are two views, one looks like the normal launcher for the most part and the other is the one I'll discuss here) and an icon list at the bottom of the most recently run apps.
To launch an app, you can tap either the tiny or normal sized icon, you can 5-way nav to it and click, or you can type-and-search till it narrows the list down to the appropriate app. By default, if it narrows to a single, unique application, it will launch it automatically. This is great!
You can also switch by pressing space or using the menu (either turns off the current date display
) to go between "123" and "abc" modes. This is a bit confusing because the two modes basically operate simultaneously in "123" mode, which is the one I've described here. The icons are laid out in a 3x3 grid and correspond to the numeric keys 1-9 on your Treo's keyboard. The only catch is you have to type the numbers using the Option key, which I find a bit tedious.
Personally, I would prefer that pressing space turned off/on the auto-numeric entry mode, and that to jump between views you exclusively used the menu.
Anyhow, I've been asked by the developer to start a thread on a Treo forum, and ET seems to be my favorite, nicest looking one. Please concentrate all discussion of this software in this thread.
Peace!
-thynctank.