Sentio Desktop Features & Limitations (Part 1)
Features, features, features! There are an abundance of features in Sentio. It might be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. This guide is the first of a series of posts written to help you get the most out of your Sentio Desktop experience. Today’s post covers our right click menu, how to set Sentio as your home launcher, file hyperlinking, and the Sentio App Chooser.
Whether you have used Mac, Windows, Linux, or something else, all desktop operating systems provide a base of comparable features, which have been implemented slightly differently. Sentio is no exception; our implementation was designed with mobile first in mind. Our goal at Sentio is to bring a rich desktop experience to every Android phone. We have come a long way, yet there are still limitations of Android OS.
Let’s jump right in to some of the features offered by Sentio and how you can use them.
The Sentio Home Launcher
Setting Sentio as your primary launcher is fairly tedious, but the benefits are tremendous. As a launcher, Sentio is empowered with new abilities that help you work better. Sentio will proxy your preferred launcher when you don’t want to use the desktop environment, so it will still feel like your normal phone.
As your primarily launcher, Sentio will convert your home button into a “Show Desktop” button. Don’t worry, you can always exit Sentio by looking at the Task Bar, clicking the Settings icon, and clicking Logout.
The next benefit of being your launcher is unlocking the right click menu. It adds quick actions via right click and is a great feature for productivity. Read more about this below.
Setting Sentio as your home launch take several steps.
- When Android asks who to use for your home launcher, select Sentio and click “Always”. Don’t worry, you can always change this later under the Android Settings if you change your mind.
- Select the preferred launcher you want to use when not inside the desktop environment. This is typically your previously selected launcher.
You only need to do this once, unless you download another new launcher.
Congratulations! Now you have control of your home button and your app short cuts inside of the Sentio Desktop.
LIMITATION: Not all custom Google shortcuts will work; many were not designed for the multi-window environment. Secondly, we do not have control of the apps that are opened with these shortcuts. Any crashes or bugs that happen are due to the app’s inability to operate in multi-window mode.
The Right Click Menu
Most of the icons in the Sentio Desktop have a right click menu associated with them. This menu is triggered with either a right mouse click or a long press. Each one has a unique menu that is contextual to the use case. If you are on Android 7.1 and above, you also get custom app shortcuts! Go ahead and try them all. In our experience, these shortcuts really increase productivity.
LIMITATION: The right click menu is a compelling feature of the Sentio Desktop, but it only works inside of Sentio. We cannot add it to the other apps on your phone (trust me, we have tried).
File Hyperlink
With the Sentio File Explorer, you will be able to put your favorite files and folders right onto your desktop. Finally! Proper file management on Android! You will have all the same functionality as if you are opening the file/folder from the File Explorer.
LIMITATION: We are still building file editing on the Sentio Desktop. It will arrive soon!
App Chooser
The Sentio App Chooser is a beautiful redesign of the original android App Chooser. We added several smart features to make your productive life a bit easier.
We have added a new “Open With” option under the right click menu. You can easily switch the default app for different files and select which app to use at that time.
The Sentio App Chooser gives you the ability to create a sublist of apps that you want to see when open different file types. You can hide the ones that you do not use and change the list as you install new apps on your device.
e.g. Hiding Alipay from the list of apps that can open a photo.
Once hidden, they won’t show up in your “Open With” list unless you click “See all apps”.
LIMITATION: The Sentio App Chooser will only work while opening apps within our desktop environment. For now you will only see this UI within Sentio Desktop and File Explorer.
Conclusion: Part 1
That wraps up this part of the feature showcase and limitations. We hope this guide will give you a better understanding of the features and a more productive desktop experience.
Stay tuned for more guides on unlocking the potential of Sentio Desktop.
Please email us with any feedback at feedback@sentio.com.
Send your support questions to support@sentio.com
Our undying love,
❤ Sentio Team
