How do the soft key lights work? - Samsung Galaxy S (4G Model)

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.

Related

Bottom keys backlight issue

Hello guys.
I want to ask you regarding Home/Back/Green/Red keys backlight,that is often on,while in suspend state with slided-out keyboard.
IOW:
- keyboard slided out
- backlight of bottom keys is ON
- while suspend the backlight goes NOT OFF(sometimes is it working normally)
This happens with WM6.1,WM6.5 as well.
Can someone help with this?
Is anyone else having this same issue? I can confirm that it is happening to me on the stock ROM/RADIO and on EnergyROM 3.0 and the latest ATT radio.
I go to check my messages using the slide out keyboard, and when I'm done I put the phone in standby and close the keyboard, the DPAD backlight is still lit. To 'clear' it, I have to turn the phone on again and press a button on the DPAD (like the center button) and then turn the phone off.
This isn't a show-stopper or anything, but it sure does worry me that one day I'll put my phone in my pocket and take it out at the end of the day with an empty battery... Any help would be most excellent!
Thanks!

Hack/app to illuminate hardware buttons too?

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!

how to Disable capacitive buttons backlight

How can I do this with out rooting or modification
Is there a App
Can't do this without rooting, you'll need a kernel with backlight dimmer.
Is there any way to actually *disable* the buttons themselves, and not just the backlight?
I really want to convert my Nexus S to a "pure" ICS device with the onscreen buttons only. The problem with simply disabling the backlight is that you still get accidental touches yanking you back to the homescreen at the worst times!
damn I just want galaxy nexus look there has to be a way
People say screen filter works but doesn't shut of the
Back light I heard people say a app called tasker works
But I haven't try it
So is this possible!!!!
pkilla said:
So is this possible!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't see why remapping the keys incorrectly, essentially making them not function, isn't possible. The file(s) to edit should be in /system/usr. Try a Google search on "Nexus S remap."
Sent from my Nexus S
You can do as ragnarok said and remap the keys incorrectly (or not at all). Then if you have a kernel which enables backlgiht dimmer (BLD) you can set the delay to 0 and effectively have the always off.
I've noticed that it does flash SOMETIMES even with this setting, but thats because i'd be using them to navigate since i'm not using the onscreen buttons.

[Q] Totally disabling Softkeys and backlight?

Hi!
I'm running CM9 on my Nexus S and I'm using the On-Screen-Button-MOD.
It's no problem to disable the functions of the softkeys, but the problem is the backlight.
A workaround is to use a kernel with BLD, but there has to be another way I think.
The general problem is that the Nexus S's touchkey-firmware doesn't support to switch off the backlight and can't be modified, since there is no source available.
Anyway, it should be possible to completely disable the touchkeys I think! BLD is meant to dim them, but still let them work. But here they could be switched off completely.
Is there any way to completely delete the firmware or s.th. to switch off the softkeys completely (including the backlight)?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21229764&postcount=201
sean1984 said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=21229764&postcount=201
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the trick I know, but it only disables the actions by remapping the keys to nothing, the keys themselfes stay active and the backlight does. I want to entirely switch them off.
I'm looking for the same thing, let me know if you find something
Open up the phone and unplug the capactive buttons cable from the motherboard.
Sent from my LG Nexus 4

How do I turn off the soft keys back light on ics rooms?

Right now I am on aokp and it seems like its impossible to turn off the soft key (menu home back search) lights. I've tried apps like screen filter and it does turn the lights off but they turn back on as soon as I press one of the buttons or if I lock and unlock the phone.
They are very annoying when watching a video or reading. Is there any way I can turn them off?
Sent from my SGH-T959V using xda app-developers app
As a workaround, if you're watching video that's stored on the phone you might wanna try MX Player. It's got an option to disable the softkey backlights while you're watching video and it's worked well for me. I forget the name of the option but it's in the settings for the app.
This is a known problem with all of our ICS roms. :/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mxtech.videoplayer.ad
Thank you for responding. Another work around i found is to use the navigation bar in aokp instead of the physical keys, but this cuts off the keyboard. Doesn't this have to do with the bln support in the kernel? If you guys were to make a version of the roms you guys have without the bln support, would the soft key lights function normally?
I thought it was BLN causing the issue too. I tried reverting the patch and trying out the new kernel bug the bug was still there so it looks like it's something else causing this.

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