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Apps and home screen launcher

The Apps section has three tabs. Installed, /?tab=apps, is for removing apps, the web pages saved to the Home screen, and the memory LG's background apps and services take up. Catalogue, /?tab=catalogue, is for installing apps from the Homebrew Channel, other catalogues, a URL or a file. Home screen, /?tab=homescreen, is for what LG's Home screen shows and what the remote's keys do. Native Tv Home has a fourth tab where the TV offers it.

Apps

Manage applications

Lists the apps downloaded from the LG store or installed by hand, with their version, vendor, and storage badge showing disk footprint. Launch opens the application on the TV, while Uninstall deletes an app completely and frees its storage.

Streaming services such as Netflix, YouTube and Prime Video, and LG's own apps such as the Web Browser, Camera and Media Player, show a matching icon: the brand's own logo, in its own colours, on one dark rounded tile (LG's apps get a glyph in one accent colour on the same tile), so the list looks alike on the dashboard, on Native Tv Home and in Home Assistant without changing any brand's look. An app the set does not cover shows the icon it ships with. Adding an app to the set takes a line or two. LG's built-in apps can't be removed this way; they can be hidden instead.

Install homebrew apps

Lists the Homebrew Channel catalog, with category filters (All, Media, Games, Utilities, Ambilight, Screensavers) and keyword search, and Install, Update or Uninstall for each app, with Launch beside an installed one. The list shows 10 apps at a time, with Show 10 more beneath; a search or category looks through the whole catalog. Downloads are checked against the catalog before they are installed, and the dashboard asks first when something needs a decision, such as replacing a copy installed from the LG store.

After a settings backup is restored, the apps it listed that this TV lacks and the catalog has are shown on the Installed tab, above Saved web pages. Install all installs them one after another, each as if picked from the catalog, so it stops for any decision; Dismiss forgets the list.

Other app catalogs

Catalogs other than the Homebrew Channel's, such as the one a developer keeps for a fork of an app. Pasting a catalog's address and choosing Add catalog lists its apps here, each with Install, Update or Uninstall (and Launch, once installed) and the catalog it is from, and they are checked for updates with the rest. A GitHub repository's page can be pasted in place of the address, and the dashboard reads the repo.json it keeps, as many such catalogs do. Each catalog shows how many apps it offers, or why it could not be read, and Remove takes it off the list; apps installed from it stay on the TV. Their apps show 10 at a time, as the Homebrew Channel's do, with a search box once there are more than 10.

These apps are listed apart from the Homebrew Channel's, so an app both list, such as YouTube AdFree and a fork of it, shows in each, and Install or Update installs the one in that list. Where the TV has an LG store app under the same id, as YouTube is for YouTube AdFree and its forks, the catalog's app shows as not installed, and installing it asks before replacing the store's. An app from an added catalog is never given root without asking, as for an install from a URL.

Adding or removing a catalog needs Install app from a URL or file turned on, or a token, since whoever runs a catalog chooses what it offers to install. Catalogs listed in config.json show here too.

Install app from a URL or file

Installs an .ipk package from outside the catalog. From URL... downloads one from an http or https address, with an optional sha256 to check it against, and Upload .ipk sends one from the browser. Both show the same preview as a catalog install.

It is off until it is switched on in this section (after a warning) or a token is set, since a package from outside the catalog can run anything on the TV. A request from the TV itself is always allowed.

Saved web pages

Lists the web pages on the Home screen, each of which opens in the TV's browser. A page saved from the browser takes its whole title as its name, so a long one can be given a shorter name here. Pages can also be added, pointed at a new address, or removed.

Home screen and remote

Home screen layout

Switches parts of LG's Home screen off, for a Home screen with only the apps and inputs on it:

  • Banner: the large picture at the top, with LG's adverts or, with them off, its own message and a Go to Apps button. The profile, notifications, settings and search buttons beside it go with it; Settings and search stay on the remote's own buttons.
  • Quick Cards: the coloured buttons for LG's offers, Sports, Gaming, Music and others.
  • App tiles: the row of apps and inputs.
  • Recent Input and Device Functions: the last input used, and cards for editing the app list, the TV guide, the user guide and Home Hub.

At least one part stays. A change takes a few seconds, while the Home screen starts again, and lasts through restarts and power cuts. While Native Tv Home is on, LG's Home screen is not changed here; the layout set here is kept, and is what LG's Home shows when opened from Native Tv Home or once Native Tv Home is switched off. The rows further down, such as Live TV and LG Channels, come from LG's servers and stay.

Inputs on Home shows each HDMI input as a tile, dimmed while it is not on Home; choosing one adds or removes the Home screen's tile for it, named as the TV names the input. The input tiles go before the apps, in HDMI order; adding one moves any input tiles moved elsewhere back to the front, and starts the Home screen again to show it. It is LG's own tile for the input, so it can be moved or removed on the TV like any other.

On webOS 9, highlighting an input tile shows its HDMI port and the CEC device names, including devices behind a receiver, or the TV's own name for the input where no device gives one. Long names scroll in LG's title area. Titles are read again when the Home screen opens and shortly after the TV switches on, never while it is in standby. Only input tiles added by Native Tv are updated; a failed discovery keeps the last good title.

Put back LG's Home screen shows every part again and takes off the input tiles added here; ones added on the TV stay. The TV app has the same switches.

It is offered on webOS 9 (LG's webOS 24), where it has been tried on a C2, and as an experimental feature on webOS 10 (LG's webOS 25), where it has been tried on a C2 with webOS 10.3.1. webOS 3 and 4 have a much plainer Home screen, so they do not have it. A webOS 8 TV may have the same home app as webOS 9, and webOS 11 a layout of its own; neither is offered it until one has been tried.

On webOS 10 the section has a switch at the top, with its warning, and nothing in it changes until that is on. The parts that can be switched off there are the Side buttons (profile, notifications, settings and search), the Quick Cards and the Recommended shelf. The banner stays.

Quick Access

Sets what each number key on the remote opens when it is held: an installed app, an HDMI input or Live TV, for keys 1 to 9. The keys are tiles laid out as the remote's number pad, each showing what it opens; choosing one opens the choices under its row, as for Remote keys. Holding 0 shows the list on the TV. A change applies straight away, the same as changing it in the TV's own Quick Access list, which shows it too.

None leaves a key opening nothing, including one LG set itself, such as its help on 9. A key LG set for an app that is not installed, as it does for some regions' channel apps, shows as App not installed, with the app's id beneath. A key set to a live TV channel on the TV shows the channel, and can be changed here but not set to another channel. The TV app lists the keys without changing them.

Remote keys

Sets what a key on the remote does: As LG has it, Nothing, Input switcher, a media control (Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, Fast forward, Volume up, Volume down or Mute), or opening an installed app, an HDMI input or Live TV instead. A media control acts as the remote's own play or pause key would on what is on screen. The volume controls change the volume as the remote's own keys do, a sound bar on HDMI ARC included, and repeat while the key is held. Input switcher opens LG's list of inputs, as the remote's Input button does; it is offered on TVs that have LG's quick input picker, such as a C5 on webOS 11. Each key is a tile showing what it does now, grouped as streaming buttons, color keys and other keys; choosing a tile opens the choices under its row. The keys listed are the ones this TV's own key handling names, so a C5 lists its Disney+ button and a CX does not; Netflix, Prime Video, Guide, Input, TV, Search, Info, Help and the four color keys are typical, and recent Magic Remotes add Alexa and Google Assistant buttons. The microphone button is not offered, since it drives voice control itself. Home, Back, volume, mute, channel and power are not offered.

The list is what the TV handles, not what any one remote has. A Magic Remote has no Guide, Info or color keys, and a plain IR remote no Netflix or Prime Video button, while the TV handles all of them because other remotes send them. LG also ships the same key handling to many countries, so a UK TV names Hulu and Sling TV; once the TV has reported its country, keys only sold on remotes elsewhere (Hulu and Sling TV in the US, BBC iPlayer and Freeview Play in the UK) are folded away under Buttons on remotes sold elsewhere, unless already changed. Look at the remote before setting a key: a key it cannot send does nothing when set, and does no harm either.

A change applies straight away, on whatever is on screen, and lasts across reboots, working before the server has started. Setting every key back to As LG has it gives every key back to the TV; tvwebctl restore-keys, which uninstalling from the Homebrew Channel runs, also takes Native Tv's filter out of the TV's key handling.

A key set here is taken before any app sees it, so it wins over an app's own use of that key. YouTube uses Guide for its own guide, and Live TV and the HDMI inputs use the color keys for their banners and teletext: with such a key set here, those apps no longer get it, whatever is on screen, until the key is As LG has it again. There is no per-app setting. How it works is in Remote keys through the compositor's filter chain.

On webOS 11 (LG's webOS 26) LG handles keys differently. The streaming buttons, Apps, Guide, Home Hub (the house in a circle on an MR25 Magic Remote), the AI and Alexa buttons and the ? button can be changed, the ? button separately when pressed and when held; Input, the color keys, Search, Info, Home and 123 cannot, and are not listed. A streaming button set to Nothing shows LG's short notice instead of opening an app, and the ? button cannot be set to Nothing. Media controls are not offered there, since LG's handling of these keys only opens apps. Guide set here still opens the guide of Live TV or an HDMI input while one is on screen. LG puts its own streaming buttons back each time the TV is switched off or on; the server sets them again within a few seconds. A streaming button pressed to switch the TV on still opens LG's app.

The AI button is answered by LG's voice assistant itself, which no setting changes, so setting it here switches the voice assistant off: voice search, the AI assistant and the microphone stop working until the button is As LG has it again, which switches it back on, as uninstalling does. Native Tv then opens what was chosen about a second after the press. After the TV restarts, the button does nothing until the server has started.

The Alexa button set here keeps Alexa from opening until it is As LG has it again; LG's voice assistant is left as it is. Native Tv opens what was chosen right after the press, and for 4 s from it no notice is shown on the TV, so that Amazon's "Alexa is loading" does not appear; a notice anything else sends in those seconds is not shown either. How it works is in webOS 11: LG's own values.

Hide home screen system apps

Hides built-in LG apps that can't be uninstalled, such as Gallery, Music, Sports, Alexa and the User Guide, from the Home screen ribbon. Each app is a tile, dimmed and marked Hidden while hidden; choosing one hides or shows it. The apps themselves stay on the TV, and switching the feature off brings every one back. The Web Browser is not offered: hidden, it no longer opens, and saved web pages and links from other apps open in it. A TV that had it hidden shows it again.

On a TV where the app manager can be made to reread its apps through LG's region list (webOS 9 has it, webOS 4 does not), hidden apps come back hidden at each start without restarting it. Elsewhere it is restarted at each cold boot, which can blank the screen for a moment before the active input returns, and the section says so.

It is experimental, and off until it is turned on under Server → Advanced → Experimental features; see Experimental features for why. It is not offered on a Homebrew Channel install.

Background

Apps kept ready in the background

LG keeps some apps loaded so they open faster, including ones that are never used, and each takes up memory. Each app is a tile with roughly how much memory it takes once loaded, and whether it is loaded now; choosing one switches it off, or keeps it ready again. A switched-off app's tile is dimmed and marked in orange, the colour the Apps tab uses for a change from LG's own setting.

Switching an app off frees its memory once the app is next closed or the TV restarts, and it then takes a few seconds longer to open. Switching it back on returns it to LG's setting. Home, Live TV, the HDMI inputs and the other parts the TV relies on are not listed, and the section only appears on TVs that keep such a list.

Turn off background services

Stops background services that most TVs don't need, such as the connected-car listener, the USB camera watcher, LG's diagnostics and telemetry uploaders, its advertising service, Live Plus, push messages and sports alerts, and the ThinQ smart home, cloud and Family Care services. None of them is needed for casting to the TV. Only the services present on the TV are listed. A service switched off stays off across restarts, and is stopped again if something on the TV starts it. Most switch in under a second; LG Promotions & Tips Popups takes about 12 seconds, in both directions, so the switch waits that long for the TV.

Notes

  • Live TV, Settings, Home, the HDMI inputs, the Homebrew Channel and Native Tv itself are protected: they can't be hidden or uninstalled.
  • Everything on this tab also works from the TV app, except saved web pages and installing from a URL or a file, which are in the browser dashboard only.
  • Apps that check they were installed from the LG store may refuse to run when installed another way, and apps built for a newer webOS than the TV runs may not launch.