ZuxOS Desktop Plus

An LSPosed module that turns ZuxOS desktop mode into a real desktop. Plug the tablet into a monitor and you get a home screen you can arrange, widgets, folders, a liquid-glass app drawer and a taskbar of the apps that are actually open. It also fixes a handful of bugs in ZUI's own desktop mode along the way.

Early alpha - experimental. This module is under heavy development and changes several times a day. Things break, behaviour changes without notice, and some features are half done. There is no public release yet: one will come once it is fully stable on the developer's own tablet. Until then, use it only if you are happy to test, and keep a way to disable LSPosed modules from recovery.

Tested on a real device. Every build has run on a Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 with ZuxOS 2.0.10.026 (Android 16), driving an external 2560×1440 display. Each fix here came from that device's LSPosed logs and the module's own probe dumps, not from guesswork.

Device	Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 5 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5)
OS	ZuxOS 2.0.10.026, Android 16
Launcher	com.zui.launcher, desktop activity SecondaryDisplayLauncher
Needs	Root, LSPosed, and the module scoped to the home app

Status (2026-10-12, build 0.0.238) - builds are numbered 0.0.x while in early alpha (the earlier 1.0.1-1.0.213 count on from the same number, so updating keeps your settings and folders).

The work now is making every feature run through ZUI's own code - its folders, menus, drag, animations and edit mode - so it looks and moves like ZUI itself.

• Drawers: ZUI's own folders in both of the tablet's drawers, with ZUI's look and motion, Add apps and Uninstall. The folders open the same way in all three places, including over Recents.
• Menus: ZUI's own popups. Shortcut icons have ZUI's icon shape. Close and Close all have different icons. Open, Close, New window, App info and Select are in the system's language.
• Select on the home screen: Select in an app's menu opens ZUI's edit mode with that app selected. Tap more apps to add them, then drag them together. Selected apps wiggle.
• Drag onto the taskbar: an app dragged out of the taskbar's drawer and let go on the bar is pinned there. Anywhere else it still opens as a floating window or in split screen.
• Tablet bar:
  • The open apps stop at the navigation keys.
  • The keys sit flush with the bar's right edge.
  • The start button's eyes follow the drawer frame by frame.
• Monitor: after a replug, its touchscreen and pen stay on the monitor.
• Bugs fixed, and which the owner has confirmed on the device: docs/ROADMAP.md, "Fixed".

Known bugs, still open

• Window "…" menu on the wrong screen: a window's menu can open on the tablet instead of the monitor after the window has moved between screens. It is being traced through SystemUI's own window log.
• Bar at the top of the monitor: the notification and quick-settings panels may not show when pressed (traced, waiting for a log).
• Recents on the tablet: a pale blank square at the left (waiting for a probe taken in Recents).
• Game Assistant: its overlay does not come up over games on the monitor.
• Bypass charging: it holds at rest, but under heavy load the battery still gives current.
• Charging port: charging from the USB 2.0 port while the fast port carries a hub without PD pass-through (the kernel picks the port).
• Folders: not yet ZUI's own on the monitor.

Roadmap, in order

1. Drag and drop everywhere on the tablet, through ZUI's own drag:
   • taskbar drawer -> home screen when the home screen is behind it;
   • taskbar -> home screen (moves the app off the bar);
   • home screen and ZUX Home's drawer -> taskbar (moves the app off the home screen);
   • reordering inside both drawers, where dragging to the top edge closes ZUX Home's drawer to the home screen;
   • Select in the drawers too.
2. The monitor's folders as ZUI's own, themed Glass or Retro.
3. Seamless unplug and replug of the monitor.
4. Customise the UI: taskbar, drawer, folders, menus, panels - colour, shape, transparency. The foundation is built.
5. Animations for every control.
6. Live notifications, and customising the pop-ups further.
7. Taskbar position on the monitor: top is built; left and right are planned. Then taskbar colours of your choosing.
8. Window looks and animations: colours, corners, title bars, a full-screen button, and a window manager editor.
9. A boot animation.
10. Less CPU, GPU and heat; the tablet's own heat management (both being measured).
11. Adapting to ZUI updates on its own.
12. No root for the monitor's keys and quick-settings toggles, widgets without the "allow" dialog, and work mode.
13. Native Linux: Linux apps and games beside Android ones, hardware accelerated.
    • The Linux itself: an ARM64 Linux in a chroot (no virtual machine), started and stopped with the monitor's desktop.
    • Graphics: Mesa's Turnip (Vulkan) and Zink (OpenGL) straight on the tablet's Adreno GPU.
    • Windows: no Termux:X11. Every Linux window is its own Android window, from our own Wayland compositor (with Xwayland). It opens, moves, resizes and minimises like an Android app, with ZUI's window frame, and it shows in the taskbar, Recents and Alt-Tab. The picture goes to the window straight from the GPU, never copied through the CPU. Touch, mouse, keyboard, pen and the clipboard go to the Linux program.
    • x86 apps: x86 programs and Steam through FEX-Emu, and Windows games through Wine/Proton with DXVK and VKD3D-Proton. Options per app.
    • Apps as apps: Linux apps in the drawer, pinnable to the home screen and taskbar, and tracked as open in the bar.
    • Status: the probe already names the GPU and the kernel features a chroot needs. The next step is to read that probe on the device.

Built and awaiting the owner's test:

• apps on the monitor never killed;
• no status bar on the monitor's desktop;
• the Retro theme;
• maximise and full screen;
• notification pop-ups on the monitor;
• editing the quick panel's tiles;
• one layout per monitor;
• the start animation.

The full list, with every step's status and what each fix was: docs/ROADMAP.md.

At a glance

• A home screen with free icon placement, pages, folders, widgets and shortcuts.
• The launcher's own app drawer, organised: your order, your folders, hidden apps.
• A taskbar of open apps, with pins, folders, reordering and a hold menu on every icon.
• Liquid glass (a refracting, lens-like glass effect) on the drawer, folders and menus.
• Back, home and recents on the monitor that act on the monitor, not on the tablet.

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What it adds

Home screen (external display)

• Place anything anywhere. Drag icons to any cell, and drop one icon on another to make a folder. Drag to Remove at the top to take something off.
• Pages. Arrows at the sides move between pages. Drag an icon onto an arrow to send it to the next page, and dragging past the last page starts a new one. Page dots are optional.
• Widgets. A real AppWidgetHost runs inside the launcher, which ZUI's desktop mode has no support for at all.
  • Hold a widget anywhere and move to pick it up. It lands with the spot you grabbed under your finger.
  • Hold and let go for the resize frame.
  • Widgets are rebuilt at their real size after every restart, so they don't spill out of their frame.
• Shortcuts. Pin an app's deep shortcuts ("New message", "New private tab") onto the desktop. A page or file pinned from any app (a browser's Add to home screen) lands here too, instead of only on the tablet.
• Motion. Dropped items glide into their cell. Folders grow out of the icon you tapped and shrink back into it.
• Menus. Right-click, or hold and let go, for a liquid-glass menu with an icon on every row. App menus include Close and the app's own shortcuts with their icons. Menus open above the taskbar, never under it.

App drawer

• The launcher's own drawer, organised. Your order, your folders and your hidden apps are applied to ZUI's drawer as well as the module's. The two share one set of data. This works on the tablet's drawer too.
• Hold to choose. Hold an app and let go for its menu: Open, Close, App info, its shortcuts, Pin to the taskbar and Add to desktop. Hold and move to drag it out onto the desktop or the taskbar. On the tablet, ZUI's own drag is left alone.
• Folders that open like ZUI's. A compact panel sized to its contents, with the name in the corner, zooming out of the icon you tapped.

Taskbar

• Only open apps, lined up like Windows. The drawer button sits at the left, then your pins, then open apps in the order you opened them, one row from left to right. The row stops before the tray and scrolls when full.
  • Apps you have open inside a folder get an icon of their own, and the folder gets a mark.
  • ZUI's recent and recommended apps never reach the bar: the call that adds them on every launch and close is skipped, so nothing flashes.
• Pins. Drop an app or a folder on the bar to pin it.
  • Hold a pin and move it to reorder: the other pins slide aside to open a gap.
  • Hold and let go, or right-click, for its menu.
  • Pinned folders open in place.
• A hold menu on every icon: Open, Close, App info, and the app's own shortcuts with their icons. This includes ZUI's icons and the icon of the app in front.
• A mark under every open app.
• The drawer button is moved to the far left, beside the navigation keys, and shows the green Android head as a start logo (optional). It is ZUI's own button, moved, so it opens ZUI's drawer as before.
• Scrolling. With more apps than room, the row scrolls and its ends fade.
• A status tray: network, battery, temperatures and a clock, with a quick panel behind it for toggles, media and notifications.
• Notification pop-ups on the monitor (optional): what would pop up on the tablet shows above the tray for a few seconds, with its buttons and a reply box. Needs notification access.
• Glass taskbar (optional). Under the glyphs it adds the lightest tint that keeps them at a 3:1 contrast ratio over any app, so white icons don't vanish over a white app.
• Retro theme (optional, monitor only): everything on the monitor as Windows 98 drew it - the bar, Start and its grey start menu, the tray, menus, panels, window previews, pop-ups, folders, the home screen's buttons, recents and the screenshot card - grey bevels, navy selection, a pixel font and pixel keys. Open apps are raised buttons, the one in front pressed in. Nothing moves and no glass is captured, so it is also the lightest look. The tablet keeps glass.
• Taskbar at the top (optional, monitor only), over the monitor's status bar strip. Menus, panels, pop-ups and previews open below it, and maximised windows start under it.
• No status bar on the monitor. ZUI's bar there only shows icons; the tray does its job, and apps get the strip back. Maximised windows keep their buttons. Needs System UI ticked in LSPosed, which also keeps windows clear of the taskbar wherever it is.

Liquid glass

The drawer, folder panels and desktop menus bend what is behind them through a signed-distance lens. The rim compresses the backdrop, fringes it with chromatic dispersion and carries a two-lobe highlight. The optical model is ported from LiquidGlass for Android (MIT); see NOTICE.md.

To do that, the panel takes a snapshot of what is behind it. The snapshot is rendered through the GPU (a RenderNode drawn by a HardwareRenderer of the module's own). A software capture fails on this device as soon as a blurred pane or a widget is behind the panel. If a capture does fail, only that one panel falls back to a real blur.

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ZuxOS bugs it works around

All of these were found in logs and probe dumps from the device above.

What goes wrong in stock ZuxOS	What the module does
Back, home and recents on the monitor's taskbar act on the tablet (the system sends them to whichever screen it last thought was in front)	Sends each key to the monitor's own display. The launcher isn't allowed to inject keys, so this goes through root
The taskbar crashes the launcher with IllegalStateException: The specified child already has a parent, from ZUI's RecentUsedModel rebinding the row	Catches that one exception, so the bar skips a refresh instead of the launcher restarting
Recent and recommended apps flash into the taskbar on every launch and close	Skips ZUI's call that adds them, and hides any of its icons the instant they are added
With ZUI as the main launcher, open apps that live in a hotseat folder never show in the bar	Gives every open app its own icon; the folder gets a mark
The all-apps button floats in the middle of the icons	Moves ZUI's own button to the left edge
Apps tapped on the monitor sometimes open on the tablet	Optional: gives each launch the display it was tapped on
The stock drawer has no folders or custom order	Applies the module's folders, order and hidden apps to it

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How it works

The module does not try to talk the stock launcher into features it was built without. It adds its own surface to the desktop-mode home activity and builds the features itself, with public Android APIs: LauncherApps, AppWidgetHost and drag and drop. Where it does reach into ZUI's launcher:

• Class names survive R8, field names do not. ZuxOS ships a minified Launcher3, so the module looks things up by class name (TaskbarView, TaskbarModelCallbacks) and finds fields by their type and shape, not by name.
• Nothing foreign goes inside TaskbarView. The bar animates every child as one of its own icons, and an outside view there crash-looped the launcher during development. The module's row, tray and drop target live in the taskbar's drag layer beside it.
• Hooks sit on methods ZUI's classes declare themselves. Xposed only hooks methods declared on the class it is given, so a hook on an inherited method silently does nothing. The log reports how many methods each hook caught (x2, x0), so a hook that caught nothing is visible.
• Drags cross windows. The desktop, the taskbar and the stock drawer are separate windows. Drags carry their payload on the clip as well as in local state, so an icon can go from the drawer to the desktop to the bar.
• Everything is reversible. Hidden icons, moved buttons and taken-over listeners are remembered and put back when their setting is turned off.

There is also an optional stock launcher unlocking feature, which flips the launcher's own "editing disabled" switches where they can be identified. It is a bonus, not a dependency. See docs/TUNING.md. Where the project is going, and in what order: docs/ROADMAP.md.

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Install

1. You need root with LSPosed (Zygisk on Magisk, KernelSU or APatch) working on Android 16.
2. Install the APK, enable the module in LSPosed and scope it to the home app (com.zui.launcher on this firmware). Then restart the home app or reboot. Tick System Framework too to keep apps on the monitor alive, and System UI to take the monitor's status bar away.
3. Open ZuxOS Desktop Plus once. The banner says whether LSPosed has really loaded it.
4. Connect the monitor and enter desktop mode.

Updates install over the top, with no uninstall and no lost settings. Every build is signed with the same key and has a higher version code.

Using it

To	Do
Open an item's menu	Right-click it, or hold it and let go
Move something	Hold it and move
Make a folder	Drop one icon on another
Get the desktop menu (add apps, widgets, shortcuts, folders, sizes, export)	Right-click empty space
Pin to the taskbar	Drag onto the bar, or use Pin to the taskbar in a drawer menu
Reorder pins	Hold a pin and slide it along the bar
Get the taskbar menu (task manager, settings)	Right-click empty bar space

Your layout is stored in the launcher's own data folder (files/zux_desktop_plus/), so it survives restarts and reboots.

Settings worth knowing

Setting	Default	Why you would change it
Which desktop mode	External only	The tablet has a desktop mode of its own too
Stock home content	Hide the icon grid	Switch to "hide everything" if you still see duplicated icons
Only open apps in the taskbar	Off	The taskbar shows what is open, not ZUI's hotseat and recommendations
Keep the launcher's recents off the taskbar	On	ZUI's recent and recommended apps never reach the bar
Navigation keys act on their own screen	On	Back, home and recents on the monitor act on the monitor
Drawer button on the left	On	ZUI's all-apps button beside the navigation keys
Mark the apps that are open	On	A line under each running app, folders included
Menu on a taskbar icon	On	Hold an icon for Open, Close, App info and shortcuts
Glass taskbar	Off	Experimental: a translucent bar with a contrast floor
Theme	Glass	Retro: Windows 98 on the monitor's bar and panels
Taskbar position (monitor)	Bottom	Top; read when the launcher restarts
Hide the monitor's status bar	On	Off brings ZUI's back, the next time the monitor's desktop starts
Status tray / Show temperatures	On	The tray at the right of the bar
Drag apps out of the stock drawer	On	Hold and move in ZUI's drawer to drag to the desktop or bar
Use the stock taskbar drawer too	On	Your folders and order in ZUI's own drawer
Glass app drawer	On	A translucent pane behind ZUI's drawer
Desktop pages / Page dots	On / Off	More than one page; the dots are optional
Open apps on the screen you tapped	Off	If apps keep opening on the wrong screen. It changes every launch, so it starts off
Use root	On	Needed for the navigation-key fix, quick toggles and screenshots
Dump launcher info on attach	Off	Writes a probe dump. Turn on when reporting a bug

Other modules

These were seen hooking the same launcher on the test device. They are worth knowing about when something misbehaves.

• ZTool (com.qimian233.ztool): its launcher recent task memory view option runs just before a dispatchDetachedFromWindow crash in the launcher. If the launcher crashes when its desktop closes, turn that one option off.
• ZuiRecentsFix (io.github.miner7222.fixrecents) also patches Recents. Turn it off when testing this module's navigation keys.
• unfuckzui and other ZUI modules: no conflicts seen so far.

Reporting a problem

1. From the taskbar's menu, take a probe, or from the desktop, right-click → Export layout + launcher info. Each writes probe-<date>_<time>.txt to Download/, a new file each time. Dump launcher info on attach writes probe.txt on every attach, replacing the last one.
2. Export the LSPosed log (Manager → Logs → save).
3. Send both, with a screenshot if it is visual.

The log has one line per taskbar whenever its contents change, like taskbar running: display 2 open=[...] zui=[...] ours=[...]. That line answers most "why isn't this app on the bar" questions on its own.

Known limits

Once limits, now worked around:

• Glass refracts what is behind it, other apps included. Android does not let one app read another's pixels, but the window manager can capture the screen for the device's recents app, and ZUI's launcher is that app. So the panels and menus capture what is behind them live - apps, other windows and the wallpaper - and bend it, only while they are on screen. If a device refuses the capture, the panes fall back to the system's blur, and the log says so.
• ZUI's own folders are reused in both of the tablet's drawers - the home's and the taskbar's
  • with ZUI's own icon, view and motion (ZUI's Add apps dialog in them is built, awaiting test).

Still limits, each planned to be bypassed (rows in docs/ROADMAP.md):

• The monitor's folders are still the module's own, drawn to look and move like ZUI's. Planned: ZUI's own folders there too, next on the roadmap.
• Root is needed for the monitor's navigation keys (the launcher is refused INJECT_EVENTS, and the system would otherwise act on the tablet), and for some quick-settings toggles. The tablet's own keys stay ZUI's. Planned: the system process, which the module already runs in, does these for the launcher, so root is no longer needed.
• The layout is stored per kind of display (external or tablet), not per monitor. Planned: one layout per monitor, picked by the monitor's own id.
• Widgets need the launcher to be allowed to bind them. System launchers normally are; if not, Android's own "allow this widget?" dialog appears. Planned: the system process allows the launcher, so the dialog never appears.
• Work mode is not touched. It makes a different app the home (Work Launcher), which the module does not load into. Planned: support for it; how far is the owner's call.

Not a limit to bypass, just how it works: system hooks need System Framework ticked in LSPosed and a reboot - the monitor's touchscreen and pen on the monitor, and keeping the monitor's apps alive.

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Building

There is nothing exotic here. The Xposed API is vendored as compile-only stubs in xposed-api/, so the build never depends on the often-offline Xposed maven repo.

./gradlew assembleRelease     # app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk
./gradlew :logic:test         # the unit tests - seconds, no Android SDK needed
tools/check.py                # a real compile check and the unit tests, no Android SDK
tools/deadcode.py             # what nothing in the module reaches, to delete

Or grab the APK from the Build module APK GitHub Actions run for any pushed commit.

Tests

Everything that can be decided without a device lives in logic/, a plain Java module with no Android dependency. It holds the layout format, the taskbar's ordering and spacing, pin moves, drag payloads, and the glass and contrast maths. ./gradlew :logic:test runs anywhere. On a machine that cannot reach Google's maven repo, add --configure-on-demand. CI runs the tests before it builds the APK.

The hook and view code needs a device, so the tests are a safety net under the logic, not a guarantee about the UI.

tools/check.py is the other half of that net. It compiles everything against Robolectric's android-all jar, which is fetched once from Maven Central and cached outside the repo. Plain javac can't do this: it gives up inside every class that touches a framework type, so a deleted method compiles clean and only fails in CI. It then runs the logic tests with JUnit, fetched the same way. Run it before pushing; it says what CI will say.

tools/deadcode.py keeps the code free of what nothing uses. It compiles the module, asks ProGuard what no entry point reaches (kept from the Xposed entry point and the manifest's components), and adds fields that are written but never read, and constants, imports and private methods named nowhere else. Things reached only by name are listed in its KEEP set.

Release and debug APKs are signed with the key committed in keystore/, and the version code climbs with the commit count, so every build installs over the previous one. The key is deliberately not secret. Use your own signing config if you distribute this.

Repository layout

app/src/main/java/com/zuxos/desktopplus/
  core/      settings, logging, storage, reflection, root, tone, menus
    glass/     liquid glass: shaders, live backdrop, glass views
    motion/    iOS springs, animations, hover, refresh rate
    icons/     the start button robot, menu glyphs, tray icons
  hook/      LSPosed entry point and what every hook shares: windows, overlays, probe
    system/    runs in the system process - must never crash (boot loop)
    taskbar/   ZUI's three taskbars: our app row, start button, tray, menus, nav keys
    drawer/    ZUI's own app drawer: folders, order, drag out, glass, account bar
    home/      home screens: our desktop on the monitor, ZUI's dock and folders
    panel/     quick settings, sound, notifications, tray state
    shots/     screenshot button, preview, share sheet
    recents/   the monitor's recents, recents press routing
  model/     items, desktop/drawer persistence, app and icon repository
  desktop/   the desktop surface: grid, icons, folders, widgets, menus, drag and drop
  drawer/    the module's own app drawer
  ui/        the settings app
logic/       plain Java, no Android: the layout format and the decisions worth unit-testing
xposed-api/  compile-only Xposed API stubs (never packaged)
tools/       check.py (compile check + tests), deadcode.py, glass_preview.py
docs/        TUNING.md - adapting the module to another ZuxOS build
             ROADMAP.md - the agreed plan; read it before starting new work