Description

A fast, efficient task switcher for your favorite applications, Underground hooks into the Home key so it's always available. Unlike other Android task managers, no clumsy notification is needed.

For more information, see my original blog entry. You can browse Underground's Market entry via Cyrket.

I'm also keeping a few other projects here, which are also open-source (in this case, I've got a simple webkit host named "Cobweb" and a developer tool/Locale plugin named Intent Lab).

Under Development

no guarantees, though.

• UI theme selection (floating vs. fullscreen, white and black backgrounds) added in v1.2
• Better options support (using the menu button) added (very minimally) in 1.3
• Custom sort order, application name editing
• Slightly less ugly I'm calling this also as of 1.3
• List/setting DB export to SD card
• List/setting DB upload for Google's fancy new cloud setting storage

FAQ

• Q. Can Underground replace the long-press action on the home button instead?
• A. Sadly, no. Android 2.0 makes long-press button events available, but not for launching--only for applications that are already open.

• Q. My home screen keeps resetting itself since I started using Underground. Is there a way to fix this?
• A. Kind of. As far as I can tell, the problem occurs when Underground is registered as the default action for the home button. When that happens, the Android system treats it as an actual "home" application, giving it priority for memory and CPU time over other non-foreground apps--including the actual Home screen. On devices with the bare minimum amount of RAM, including the G1 and some models of the HTC Magic, after launching a couple of new applications from Underground, Home will be terminated to keep everything else running, and has to restart itself. Oops. Sorry about that.

If this happens to you and you have a stock phone with the manufacturer's unmodified OS install (i.e., most people), disabling the "use by default" option and alternating between Underground and Home as needed will help matters a little, because you'll keep reminding Android that you want the latter to be kept in memory. It's a crappy solution, but it's all I've got. I've tried to make Underground use as little memory as possible and kill itself when you leave it, but Android is built to manage its multitasking automatically, and these kinds of side effects do happen.

If you have a rooted device, you may be able to lock the Home application in memory on Cyanogen's builds, although I've heard this can cause problems. Another solution on rooted/dev phones is to reset the threshold for Home termination by editing init.rc. Specifically, there's ro.HOME_APP_ADJ and ro.HOME_APP_MEM properties you can change. I can tell you that on my ADP1 this solved the problem. I can also tell you that this is a low-level, unsupported change that can void your warranty and possibly stop your phone from booting. Try at your own risk.

• Q. I use a replacement home application. Can I still use Underground?
• A. Yes. I stopped being lazy, and versions 1.1 and higher no longer hard-code the default Android home application. On the Nexus One or other devices with a new launcher, Underground should set itself the first time that you press 'home' or (if Underground is the default button action) double-click the home button. If there is more than one application that declares itself as a launcher, Underground should present a list for you to choose. You can also manually trigger this behavior by long-pressing on the 'home' list item.

• Q. It doesn't work on my device!
• A. Leaving comments in the Android Market is certainly one way to let me know, but it's not much space and I only check them when I upload a new version, which happens rarely at best. A better solution is to send me an e-mail via android@milezero.org with the details of what went wrong, what triggered the problem, and what device you're using.

• Q. Will there ever be a paid version of Underground? What about one with ads?
• A. No and no. I'm doing this as a hobby and a learning experience. I'll never charge for Underground, nor will I pester you with advertising.

• Q. Man, this thing is ugly/buggy/slow. Can I help you?
• A. Sure. Send me a note at android@milezero.org, let's talk. If you send in a few patches that I like, I'd be more than happy to give you commit rights here on the repository, and you can contribute directly.