feat(home): Customizable home screen sections with recommendation disable toggle (bandwidth & battery savings)

[ashwkun]

Overview & Motivation

Listeners have diverse usage patterns: some appreciate algorithmic discovery and curated shelves, while others prefer a minimalist, distraction-free interface focused purely on their subscribed library. Furthermore, disabling external recommendations allows users on metered or low-bandwidth connections to significantly reduce network calls to the Cloudflare proxy, saving bandwidth and device battery.

Proposed Scope

1. Home Screen Section Management (Settings UI):
   • Add a "Customize Home Screen" preference menu (under Settings → Appearance or Library).
   • Provide granular toggle switches for dynamic discovery sections:
     • Recommendations / "For You"
     • Trending & Category Shelves
     • Editorial / Deep-Dive Carousels
     • Continue Listening (optional toggle)
2. Fixed Non-Removable Anchors:
   • Hero Banner: Kept intact for current playback / prompt context.
   • Your Shows: Core subscribed podcast carousel remains permanent.
   • Explore Jump: Direct path to search and explore remains available.
3. Network & Backend Optimization:
   • When recommendations and trending shelves are toggled OFF, HomeScreenViewModel must completely bypass the associated Retrofit calls in PodcastRepository.
   • Results in instant home-screen load times and zero unnecessary proxy egress.
4. State Persistence:
   • Persist layout preferences in DataStore (user_preferences).

Acceptance Criteria

• Users can toggle individual dynamic sections on and off from Settings.
• Core anchors (Hero, Your Shows, Explore) remain permanently visible.
• Disabling recommendations prevents outgoing backend network calls for those sections.
• Changes apply immediately to HomeScreen without requiring an app restart.
• Unit tests verify preference persistence in DataStore and conditional ViewModel fetching logic.