Simple LG launcher
You get a clock, the weather, your day from Google Calendar and one row of apps, laid over a wallpaper of your own.
- Sideload / dev mode
- Stable
- Low brick risk
- Reversible
This project hasn't been claimed by its maintainer yet, so its details come from the community. Is it yours? Claim it
- Cards in columns (
lib/boardlayout.ts): the clock and the weather, then the calendar or the news, with the quote of the day under the calendar or the news. With both the calendar and the news on, three columns of 560 px; the clock puts the date under the time there and shrinks its digits only when the time would not fit. A card alone in its column takes the whole height (the calendar and the news without the quote, the quote alone). With the news and the quote off, everything stands exactly where it did. ↑ from the app row goes to the column above the selected tile; ↑ from a card with nothing above it goes to the next column on the right (the weather still leads to the calendar). - News (Settings → Widgets → News): headlines from Google News for a chosen country (52 editions; in the launcher's language when the country has an edition in it, else in the country's own). Until one is chosen, the TV's country when it has an edition in the launcher's language, otherwise that language's own country, so all thirteen languages get news in them and from up to eight RSS or Atom feeds of your own. RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 and Atom are read, in any encoding the feed declares (windows-1251 too); the feeds are joined newest first, without repeats, and only the last two days are kept. On the card ↑ ↓ choose a headline, ← → turn the pages (they turn by themselves every 20 s while the remote is elsewhere), and OK shows the headline over the screen with its description and a QR code of its link (
qrcode-generator, MIT). Most sites send no CORS headers, so on a TV the feeds come through the Homebrew Channel: curl or wget saves them to a file, which is read back in pieces. - Quote of the day (Settings → Widgets): from Wikiquote, in the launcher's language. The editors' quote of the day from the main page where there is one (en, es, pl, zh, ko, tr, pt, uk; the Italian one from its feed); otherwise, and on a day left empty, a quote picked by the date from the page of one of about 400 writers, poets, thinkers and scientists born before 1920 (a Wikidata query, kept for a month). Wikimedia lets the web view read both, so it works without root. The text is set as large as the card allows.
- ← → between the cards. On the weather they choose the day and, past the first or the last, go on to the card beside; on the news they turn the pages and go on past the first or the last; on the calendar's events they go on at once. The calendar has two steps: ↑ above its first event goes to its head (the date and the arrows, lit up), where ← → change the day, ↓ goes back to the events and ↑ opens the month. In the month ← → again go to the cards beside, ↑ goes to its head, where ← → turn the months, and ↓ from the month's days goes back to the day.
- All the day's events on the calendar card, in a list that scrolls an event at a time with ↑ ↓ (or the wheel); it fades out at an edge with more beyond it.
- In three columns the weather card shows five days instead of seven, so the names and temperatures keep their room.
- The pointer on the home screen: pointing at the weather, the calendar or the news gives the card the focus (a day or a headline is chosen too), and pointing back at the apps returns it. With the pointer resting near an end of the app row, the row glides on by itself, faster the nearer the end, and stays where it stopped.
- Wallpaper gallery: Settings → Wallpaper → Picture shows the places, folders and pictures as tiles, five across, each picture with its preview (← → ↑ ↓, or the pointer). The TV has nothing that shrinks a JPEG, so the launcher makes the previews itself, one at a time and nearest to the highlight first, and keeps them while it stays loaded (
lib/thumbs.ts). Photos from a camera or phone carry a small preview of their own in their first bytes, so only that much of the file is read. - Several pictures for the wallpaper: in the gallery OK ticks pictures (in any folders), as the apps are ticked in Settings, and leaving the gallery shows them: one picture, or a slideshow of the ticked ones (with the same interval and shuffle as a folder). The default background and a folder's Slideshow tile are still chosen at once.
- The weather's hourly curve is drawn at the card's own width.
Before you start
- How hard is it?
- HardUses the command line or developer tools.
- What you need
- Comfort with the command line
- A computer
- Another hack installed first
- Can it break my device?
- Very unlikely to break anything.
- Can I undo it?
- Yes. You can go back to the official software.
Did it work for you?
Did Simple LG launcher v1.10.0 work on your LG OLED C3?
No reports yet for v1.10.0.
One-tap reports from owners. Bricked reports are checked before they count.
Compatibility
Devices: LG OLED C3.
No compatibility information yet.
Getting started
From the project's README ("Installing it yourself"):
git clone https://github.com/fardroid/Simple-LG-launcher.git cd Simple-LG-launcher npm ci npm run build && npm run package # makes build/tld.my.simplelauncher<version>all.ipk TVHOST=root@<tv-ip> npm run install:tv # copies it over SSH, installs and opens it
You can put TVHOST=root@ in a tv.env file (copy tv.env.example) so you don't have to type it each time. If you don't want to use SSH, webOS Dev Manager can install the .ipk too.
Updating. The same commands. The TV keeps the launcher loaded in memory (in the Swap way below, a second copy too, the one behind the Home button), and a copy left loaded keeps showing the old version. npm run install:tv closes them, and from 1.9.2 on a copy that was missed reloads itself the next time it goes to the background. No need to restart the TV.
Risk and recovery
- Brick risk
- Low
- Reversible
- Yes
- Requires opening the device
- No
From the project's README ("Making it the home screen"):
On the TV: Settings → Home screen → How the launcher opens. It lists four ways, each with how it works and its pros and cons; OK twice switches. The way that was on is switched off first, and if the new one does not take, the old one comes back.
- Official (the one I use on webOS 25). webOS lets you choose which app is Home, the way a computer lets you choose its browser: the launcher declares itself a Home app (appCategory: ["home"]) and is chosen with the TV's own setDefaultApp. The Home button and Back out of the last app then open the launcher. Waking from standby does not ask for the Home app: the TV opens LG Home by name when its start with Home setting is on, and otherwise its last input. So this way switches start with Home off and names the launcher as the last input (the trick of openhome-webos); opening an HDMI input names that input again, so the launcher names itself once more whenever it comes to the front or goes to the back. The three settings are put back when you switch this way off. And when the TV goes to standby its app manager closes every app but a short list (LG Home is on it), so the launcher would start from scratch after waking; this way adds it to that list (keepAliveApps, a copy of the TV's config file mounted over it in RAM at every start, then the app manager restarted), and it is back about a second after waking. Nothing of LG's is replaced or mounted, it lasts across a full restart, and LG Home stays on its own tile. Only on TVs that offer t …
Releases
| Version | Name | Released |
|---|---|---|
| v1.10.0 | 1.10.0Latest | 29 October 2026 |
| v1.9.5 | 1.9.5 | 29 October 2026 |
| v1.9.4 | 1.9.4 | 29 October 2026 |
| v1.9.3 | 1.9.3 | 28 October 2026 |
| v1.9.2 | 1.9.2 | 28 October 2026 |
| v1.9.1 | 1.9.1 | 27 October 2026 |
Credits, license and support
- License
- MIT