I have a great idea. With the problem most brown/bronze G1 users are having with their keyboards in low light situations (see here for more info) I had an idea for an app.
We need an app that controls the keyboard backlight based on ambient lighting. It can use the camera to poll the light level and enable/disable the keyboard backlight accordingly. Ideally, it would be configurable in terms of what levels trigger the backlight off and on.
This would probably cause a small drain on the battery, but would more than likely be counteracted by the savings from the backlight being off when not needed.
And, thinking about it now, it could also control the display backlight level! Darker surroundings=dimmer backlight, and vice versa.
Any thoughts or aspiring developers want to work on this?
Ryan
The problem for me (I have a black G1) is that the keyboard doesn't stay lit up. This is really annoying when the screen is on but the keys go dark.
Ideally, the keys would simply stay backlit anytime the keys are open. Especially when its dark out... the keys going dark can get rather frustrating.
I totally and completely agree with the idea, however I was thinking a little differently.
The ambient light is not always a good tell tale sign of whether or not I can see the keyboard, especially since the camera is facing down when I am typing. I was thinking of a simple keypad shortcut that would turn off the backlighting. It could be reset once you close the keyboard or reset using the shortcut again, or the option of both.
If I had any clue how to do it myself, I would. I am just one of those hopeless G1 users who has to beg for apps.
Thanks.
Keyboard backlight off
I just put a small application in the Android Market that turns the keyboard backlight off. It doesn't even show anything on the screen, so it is easy to use by binding it to a keyboard shortcut with Settings->Applications->Quick launch.
The application is in the Market in Applications->Tools and it's called Dark Keys.
steffann said:
I just put a small application in the Android Market that turns the keyboard backlight off. It doesn't even show anything on the screen, so it is easy to use by binding it to a keyboard shortcut with Settings->Applications->Quick launch.
The application is in the Market in Applications->Tools and it's called Dark Keys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey can you fix it to where you're able to enable the backlight again? I'm able to turn the backlight off, but not on again if needed. Any maybe integrate a GUI to let users choose on and off.
steffann said:
I just put a small application in the Android Market that turns the keyboard backlight off. It doesn't even show anything on the screen, so it is easy to use by binding it to a keyboard shortcut with Settings->Applications->Quick launch.
The application is in the Market in Applications->Tools and it's called Dark Keys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any way you can give the option to keep it on as well? I have the black g1 and when im texting at night its a pain in the butt when it keeps turning off!!
steffann said:
I just put a small application in the Android Market that turns the keyboard backlight off. It doesn't even show anything on the screen, so it is easy to use by binding it to a keyboard shortcut with Settings->Applications->Quick launch.
The application is in the Market in Applications->Tools and it's called Dark Keys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just dl'ed it last night and I love it! Thanks for creating this app. BTW, to reenable the backlight just wait til the other hard keys go out, then move the trackball.. Although it WOULD be nice to do it via keystroke...
Ryan
stats555 said:
Any way you can give the option to keep it on as well? I have the black g1 and when im texting at night its a pain in the butt when it keeps turning off!!
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Click to collapse
thats real easy to do. open up power manager, edit whicher setting you want the keyboard to stay on for (or change them all), goto stay awake > keyboard > enable. now anytime you have the keyboard out, the keys stay on.
tehseano said:
thats real easy to do. open up power manager, edit whicher setting you want the keyboard to stay on for (or change them all), goto stay awake > keyboard > enable. now anytime you have the keyboard out, the keys stay on.
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Click to collapse
Cool thanks never played around with power manager before, thanks for the tip!
New version
FYI: I just released Dark Keys 2.0, which includes most of the suggestions I received from users.
isn't this in the wrong section?
steffann said:
FYI: I just released Dark Keys 2.0, which includes most of the suggestions I received from users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
awesome app- i have a black G1 and always hated it how the keyboard light went off, esp. at night. Now with your app i can have it stay on whenever the KB is open.
One suggestion, and i am not sure it is possible, can you make it so it's a timer thing- say, it would turn off after 1min, 2min, or 3min. etc
***edit**** it seems to be turning it off automatically some times- it is obviously dark keys doing it as the notification keeps coming up......
steffann said:
FYI: I just released Dark Keys 2.0, which includes most of the suggestions I received from users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great application! Thanks!!! Like many others, I hate when the keyboard backlight goes blank on me, and this app keeps the keyboard lit so long as it is extended. This app truly has the "Zen of Android" - just like the old Palm Treo had the "Zen of Palm".
steffann said:
I just put a small application in the Android Market that turns the keyboard backlight off. It doesn't even show anything on the screen, so it is easy to use by binding it to a keyboard shortcut with Settings->Applications->Quick launch.
The application is in the Market in Applications->Tools and it's called Dark Keys.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GREAT APP! I just added a desktop icon and tap it once to make the keyboard lights stay ON. Or, I can tap it again to turn off the light, but it's ON that I need! Thanks a bunch
oes it stay on these days? last time i tried it it kept turning off the keyboard while i was typing and at other strange times...
MontAlbert said:
oes it stay on these days? last time i tried it it kept turning off the keyboard while i was typing and at other strange times...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, your right. It worked fine until I plugged it in to charge. Next morning it was all BUGGY as it would "auto turn off kb light" when the phone "auto rotates".
I wish someone would write an app that has the option of "keyboard (and home keys for that matter) ALWAYS ON when kb open". Being always ON is so important to me! When the kb light goes off on my BLACK G1, the keyboard is "invisible" unless the screen is off!
l_____l said:
Yep, your right. It worked fine until I plugged it in to charge. Next morning it was all BUGGY as it would "auto turn off kb light" when the phone "auto rotates".
I wish someone would write an app that has the option of "keyboard (and home keys for that matter) ALWAYS ON when kb open". Being always ON is so important to me! When the kb light goes off on my BLACK G1, the keyboard is "invisible" unless the screen is off!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have Power Manager installed? It also manages keyboard on/off so you might have conflicting apps.
cigar3tte said:
Do you have Power Manager installed? It also manages keyboard on/off so you might have conflicting apps.
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Click to collapse
Wow, your right, I do. ...and I just have to edit the stay awake to enabled while keyboard open. I guess if I didn't have power manager, dark keys app would be mandatory to keep lights ON (or off if needed)
Thanks for your help!
Old topic but about the very similar thing....something that popped into my head recently that I do not think anyone has asked about...I searched but couldnt find anything on it...
The led light on the top of the phone (speaker is) can change multiple colors, I definitely assume that the hkb has also LED lights underneath. Catch my drift?
So any good coders out there know if there is any api or functionality possible to alter the HARDWARE keyboard lights to any color like the missing call app??? That would be amazing!!
Thanks
@johnnylicious - yes, wrong section. Should be in the
@steffann - I installed your app (although I want the backlight ON feature I don't really need/want Power Manager) and received a continuous error/force close message. It was all I could do to get Gscript open between force closes... But, I used Gscript to write a logcat output text file (attached).
Please let me know if you can see what the issue was. I would like to use your app.
Sorry if this has been covered already; I searched but didn't find anything, but then I may not know the right terms.
My question is: is there a hack or app to adjust when the hard buttons illuminate? I always forget they're there, and when I do remember I still have to look at the buttons. What I'd really like is to make them light up whenever the dial pad comes up or maybe even when the screen is fully illuminated (not staying on when the screen goes a little dim when you don't touch it for a while). I'd also like to be able to change the hardware Windows button to go back to the Sense home screen, rather than the Start menu.
i use KeypadLedControl, it enables the hardware buttons to light up whenever the screen is on
Excellent, thank you!
Just as the tittle says.
It's been a month and I still keep hitting the back button way too often when using the keyboard and trying to hit spacebar.
Solutions besides more training? Its rather annoying. Makes me want some hardware buttons instead of these.
Do you mean "desensitize"?
You could try using the widget called "keep the lights on" to make these buttons light up 100% of the time. That's what I do. Then you'll have a visual reminder to not press the button.
you are right.. somehow the spell checker corrected into that...
But... you don't need a program... you can do that via settings-display-touch key light duration. which i actually have on all the time.
Problem is that I don't look at the keys i am hitting... Never had to on the iPhone :facepalm:
highlanderx said:
But... you don't need a program... you can do that via settings-display-touch key light duration. which i actually have on all the time.
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Click to collapse
That's awesome!
That option was not available in my Infuse and I just assumed it wasn't available in the GSII either so I just used the same app for this that I used on my Infuse!
The soft key lights on this device seem to work differently then most other android devices with back light soft keys. I've been trying to figure this out for a while. When exactly does the phone decide to turn them off, and and why can't I turn them off using apps like screen filter, and even on the stock t mobile rom?
Is this a hardware or software issue?
What I know is that the soft key lights in kj6 (gingerbread) roms turn on every time you turn the screen on or touch the screen, and turn off after 3 seconds of inactivity (not touching the screen or pressing any buttons).
But it seems that in some situations the soft keys turn off and stay off, even when touching the screen, which is seemingly random. Why does it do this?
Does anybody know when exactly the soft key lights decide to turn off?
From what I can tell, the Team Acid ICS driver does what it is supposed to do -- turn on and off the lights when the magic number is written to the right sysfs location.
The control of the lights is supposed to happen in the Android world with PowerManager and LightsService. The "problem" is that it seems as though the chip that controls the touchkeys and their backlight have a mind of their own and turn on the lights when you touch them. This gets the Android world's idea of if they are on or not confused, resulting in LightsService not "turning off" the light as it thinks they are already off.
I'm working through a good way to resolve this. Messing with the framework code is not the best as it means that TeamAcid would have their own version, and keeping up with upstream changes would be more difficult. Unfortunately, how it was done in GB is something of a mystery as it isn't clear to me from the Samsung code drop.
https://github.com/teamacid/android_device_samsung_galaxys4gmtd/issues/32
Are the soft key lights on the sgs4g the same as the original us versions of the Samsung galaxy (the vibrant/captivate)? If they have a fix for this (I assume they might because they have a larger development community) , would it work for our device?
I'm looking into if I can find some dev information for the Cypress/Melfas key controller, and possibly the Atmel mXT224 and looking for other devices that use it (Motorola Atrix, for example). If I can disable the "LED on when touched" behavior, things are a lot easier.
i was wondering about this as well... my back button, is messed up and has no sensitivity at all so im trying to disable the whole bar and just use an onscreen nav bar. i know that paranoid as it in their settings but that rom eats up the battery like a mad man ill be down to zero by noon i dont get that problem with CM9 BUT CM9 doesnt have the onscreen Nav Bar
does any one know where i can find more info on adding this nav bar to CM9?
Aokp has it too
V1R3Z said:
my back button, is messed up and has no sensitivity at all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might try Hefe Kernel Of Darkness (second post in that thread) to mainly turn off the touchkey backlight.
I'm curious as to what poor back-button sensitivity problems you are seeing. You can PM to keep the thread clean.
Saw some requests for the possibility to disable the capacitive buttons. So I made 2 zips, one to disable the buttons and another to enable them again.
It's of course best used in conjunction with on screen buttons
The buttons still lights up when touched, but no vibration response and the buttons are deactivated. I'll look into disabling the lights also if theres a demand for it
Just flash either one of the zips from recovery, and reboot.
Both are tested with Foxhounds rom (ME2), but should work on any Touchwiz roms (And possibly AOSP roms (let me know if you test it)).
Enjoy!
whooper90 said:
Saw some requests for the possibility to disable the capacitive buttons. So I made 2 zips, one to disable the buttons and another to enable them again.
It's of course best used in conjunction with on screen buttons
The buttons still lights up when touched, but no vibration response and the buttons are deactivated. I'll look into disabling the lights also if theres a demand for it
Just flash either one of the zips from recovery, and reboot.
Both are tested with Foxhounds rom (ME2), but should work on any Touchwiz roms (And possibly AOSP roms (let me know if you test it)).
Enjoy!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sorry if i ask,
what's the purpose of this?
especially for the light issue..... it is a setting option. i have no vibration nor light.
sorry again if i have not catch your meaning.
cheers
giangishanghai said:
sorry if i ask,
what's the purpose of this?
especially for the light issue..... it is a setting option. i have no vibration nor light.
sorry again if i have not catch your meaning.
cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Completely okay
People activate on screen buttons with this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2285624
And like the guy in the 2nd post is saying, he always touches the capacitive buttons accidentaly.
This mod disable the buttons functionality, so this doesn't happen
In regard to the light issue.. I've forgot there was a setting for it!
Hope I made myself clear!
whooper90 said:
Completely okay
People activate on screen buttons with this: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2285624
And like the guy in the 2nd post is saying, he always touches the capacitive buttons accidentaly.
This mod disable the buttons functionality, so this doesn't happen
In regard to the light issue.. I've forgot there was a setting for it!
Hope I made myself clear!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i see my friend.
thanks for your effort.
cheers