Develop Bugs

Battery indication on screen

I previously sorted out the locking up problems with help from you guys on here, and I'm sure that I have seen something about a battery indicator on screen when not using O2active but can't find it. Can someone post a link to the thread if it actually does exist or does the function not exist out of O2active?It's quite possible that I had a "moment" and imagined that I saw this of course - it's an age thing, hopefully!
Cheers. Alan

Why not load up the GPRS monitor program that the device come with and configure that to display Battery status on the screen - after its free, and a damn good utility if you use GPRS to track the cost - Mike

Or download Batti (just search for it - it's free)... I use it, and love it, for various reasons I won't bother to detail here

Thanks for that, I'll do a bit more digging. I don't use GPRS for monitoring (as far as I know) so I'll have a look at batti.

In. Done. What a handy little thing! Thanks again.

There's several, really... I like to classify them graphically as...
A. Applications
B. Today screen/Tray
C. Task bar
D. Top/Bottom overlay
The first group, Applications, I wouldn't even bother with. They tell you what the battery level is, and sometimes more information, but you do need to actually run the application. So there's no quick view of what the battery level is at any time.
The second group is nice if you're on the Today Screen a lot. They typically have nice graphics. However, they'll only be on your Today Screen, and take up space there. Very often the larger "Does everything!" applications that use the Today Screen will have one of these, typically along with indicators for memory and storage space.
The third is a bit nicer already. You can see it on any screen, as long as the task bar is in view. There's just one problem - they take up space on the precious task bar - and there's not a whole lot of space there on a QVGA device when in portrait mode. Some solve this by putting a tiny little bar underneath the clock - so much for getting a readout 'at a glance', though. In addition, any application that hides the task bar, will hide that indicator as well.
The last category, at least for me, is ideal - and Batti belongs in that category. Thes are the battery indicators that are usually just a line of a few pixels (or even 1 pixel, like Batti) high, going across the top/bottom of the screen. They're always visible, and you can easily tell how full your battery is even if it's just a white solid bar (such as what's in MagicButton).
They usually come in two flavors.. a solid bar going from left to right, or individual little bars, so that you can easily count in percentages. One of SPB's products comes with one of these, for example. Which style you prefer is really a matter of personal likings.
What's extra nice about Batti is that you can set it up to change the color of the bar at two percentages (e.g. 33% for 'low' with an orange color and 10% for 'critical with a red color), all user-definable. It can also indicate charging, and has a nice textual read-out of charge, voltage, temperature, etc. if you click on it (optional). The frequency with which it updates can also be setup. Some of the battery indicators poll every second, for example, thereby actually draining the battery a good bit itself more than it needs to. I have mine set up to update every minute, which is more than enough.
The *only* thing I would love to see added to it is alarms for the two percentages - which I've requested from the author, but haven't heard back from him as of yet Some of the other battery indicators may have alarms, so that might be something to keep in mind.

Batti
Where can I download Batti from ?????

http://www.google.com/search?q=pocketpc+batti

Battery meter.
I downloaded Batti and I dont think its very good at all !!!. The battery level indicator that comes with Pocket Hack Master is way better. However what I realy Real Real need is the OLD battery level software from WM2003. You know the one with red and green in the settings folder. Unfortunately I deleated it when I hard reset my phone.
Please anyone out there who has the old WM2002/3 still on file. Can you send me a copy of the file I need to make that work again.
Thankyou
Rob

I guess you'd have to state your reasons for liking the one that comes with Pocket Hack Master better
There's three things that are at play, to begin with...
1. Pocket Hack Master isn't free. Of course, if you are looking into the functionality it offers (CPU clock speed tweaking, etc.), then its built-in battery meter is a nice bonus when you do buy it anyway.
2. Pocket Hack Master doesn't run on all devices. Due to the fact that it is an application mostly geared towards CPU clock speed tweaking, it will refuse to run on unsupported processors such as the TI OMAP processor. I believe this doesn't apply to the Blue Angel, but does to e.g. the Wizard.
I have an HTC Wizard.
3. Personal preferences. Everybody will prefer their own style of battery meter, etc. You didn't fully explain why you like Pocket Hack Master's better, and unfortunately I can't fully review it as Pocket Hack Master refuses to work on my device. However, from some screenshots it appears that you can only set colors for battery or A/C (i.e. no change of color based on the charge level), the size appears limited (though you can make it a small 2px bar or a series of 4px blocks), and you can't set the refresh rate. On the other hand, you can fully control its positioning and hide the border. All in all - though again.. I'd have to actually be able to run it to make sure.. I haven't seen an screenshot of the 'gradient' method for example - I'd still have to stick with Batti on features alone.
Hopefully they'll add TI OMAP support soon, as it would be worth getting for that, for sure

For the curious, Batti was updated to version 1.4.
Added: Sound Events
Added: Option for turning off the frame around Batti
Added: Option for blinking on critical level
Added: Battery status on Info page (Charging, On AC, On Battery)
Added: Custom color for charging*
Some bugfixes
* charging is different from being fully charged. Sound events can be defined for charge start and charge end as well.
And I forgot to mention in my main rant that you can change the strings for localization easily - most of the main languages are already available for download

My question about this utilities, is which takes least memory space and battery life?
I hate to install something very usefu which on the downside slows down the device and makes me go crazy with the battery.

Of course anything that continuously monitors the battery performance will take up extra battery life itself, though it's typically negligable. Batti itself can be configured to poll only every N seconds - I have mine set to 60 seconds, but obviously there's no real reason to even set it to this frequency - the battery won't drop that much in a minute
As for memory use, I can't really report on others, and you have to keep in mind that several of the battery monitors are part of a larger whole; and if you want the larger whole anyway, then you typically won't lose any additional memory from enabling the battery monitor functionality. For example, MagicButton has a battery indicator line as well.
Batti takes up roughly 40KB

If you want a pure battery monitor proggie:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=364278
One of the best

Always Visible CPU Usage?

Good morning folks,
Can anyone think of a way to always be able to see CPU usage on the Rhodium?
The only way I can see CPU usage now is to use a program called Virtual Explorer which provides a percentage view of CPU usage (along with a graph).
Does anyone know a program which would bring CPU usage information to Windows Mobile (perhaps on the top by the clock)?
I am on the stock Tmobile WInMo 6.1 ROM.
Thank you!

Bump!
Anyone had any luck with this?

fade2black101 said:
Bump!
Anyone had any luck with this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try BattClock.

Here's a program I use a lot, Task ManagerEX. When running, tap the Menu and install the CPU Monitor. it will put a small box in the taskbar that shows you CPU use. Blank, no use, more bars, more use. It runs all the time even if you don't have Task ManagerEX running. It's great for seeing that the CPU is doing something during those long pauses instead of wondering if your command has been recognized. You can adjust where it shows up in the Taskbar so it doesn't cover any of the other icons.

batclock is what I use also. I have it set so CPU is a stripe below the start icon and text, with a black collor for low usage, dark grey for moderate, and bright white for heavy usage... that way I don't really notice it on my black taskbar unless I have heavy usage slowing down the device...

Miami_Son said:
Here's a program I use a lot, Task ManagerEX. When running, tap the Menu and install the CPU Monitor. it will put a small box in the taskbar that shows you CPU use. Blank, no use, more bars, more use. It runs all the time even if you don't have Task ManagerEX running. It's great for seeing that the CPU is doing something during those long pauses instead of wondering if your command has been recognized. You can adjust where it shows up in the Taskbar so it doesn't cover any of the other icons.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your help. That program is pretty much what i'm looking for. However, it appears you can't set the position for both the portrait and landscape at the same time, which causes it to go out of position when switching and covering other things. Which is a shame.
Will give battclock a go too

[Q] How to make the screen Darker?

Hello, I'm looking for a way to reduce the screen brightness even more than currently possible. It is too bright for me to read at night at the moment.
Is there some way?

Check the market. There are way too many apps out there to do the task you wanted.
via xda app

I already have but none of the applications on the market allow me to make the screen really dark. It's still pretty bright even after using programs like AdjBrightness or ScreenDim.
I'm curently using Screen Filter but that only puts a grey overlay over the Displayed Applications.

Try this one: https://market.android.com/details?id=mobi.pruss.superdim
I haven't tested it though.

Please use the Q&A Forum for questions Thanks
Moving to Q&A

Already tried that, it is no darker than the lowest setting from the built in menu. Other Android devices can go much darker. I was hoping, that it is just a kernel issue or something like this.

How is it that sreec filter doesn't do exactly what you want? It gets very dark, doesn't it?
One other possibility would be to use Cyanogenmod or any other Rom that lets you set the light sensor levels manually. In my experience, this feature seems to save lots of energy. IF you manually set those levels to very dark, you may get what you are looking for ...

[Q] Screen color correction in CM10?

I'm thinking of getting the SGSIII now that it's out in black. I had the white version earlier in the year but returned it as I wanted to wait for black
I keep looking on the internet to see and find out if the latest version of Cyanogenmod includes settings to calibrate the screen but haven't really found any evidence to support or confirm this. I know there is sometimes confusion when using the word "calibration" when it comes to android, as users want to calibrate the accuracy of the touch sensors more so than the display.
In iOS, there's a fantastic tweak in Cydia called "Color Profiles" which allows the user to calibrate the colour of the display (system-wide, that includes gaming, video, apps etc). You get white balance, gamma, temperature and black level control
Is there any such option in Cyanogen mod; now or in the future? It would be great to have full access to RGB controls to calibrate an OLED screen

[Q] Z1compact: getting minimum brightness LOWER

Hello Everyone,
I have a problem with my amami and I doubt I am the only one but for some reason people do hardly complain: the brightness even at lowest possible setting is still too bright.
I had this back when I had original FW and I am having the same issue with CM11 (latest nightlies). Using manual control or auto-brightness doesn't make much difference, i.e. in a totally dark room the ambient light sensor reports 0Lux and the screen is still too bright.
I found a workaround already (the ScreenFilter app that people recommend all over the internet) but it sucks because it heavily reduces the picture quality, i.e. visibly reduces contrast and especially the gray color resolution. And it also doesn't reduce power consumption like real brightness value change would do.
I looked around for possible solutions and there is a trick with writting a new value of current limit to Linux settings (some mA value between 0 and 20 to some max_current file in procfs). And this really helps but also impacts the maximum brightness, the screen is hardly ready in sun light with reduced current.
Is there a silver bullet? I am thinking about writing an app for that but it would require SU permissions and is kinda dirty to implement. Can anyone recommend a better solution?

have you tried the xposed Modul "minimum brightness" ?

Install Lux Brightness. from play store.
You can overboost it or make the screen so dark that you can't even see it.
Another great screen mod is Twilight which basically dims the screen red based on clock so it helps fall sleep faster when using phone before bed.

New Folder said:
Install Lux Brightness. from play store.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, another vote for Lux. It lets you set brightness to negative levels, mine is usually around -50%. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux&hl=en

Vote for Lux here too.
Nothing comes close

camaro322hp said:
Yes, another vote for Lux. It lets you set brightness to negative levels, mine is usually around -50%. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vito.lux&hl=en
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the hint. I tried the Lite version and AFAICS it simply uses the same trick as ScreenFilter and other "sub-zero" regulators, putting an alpha overlay on top of the image stack.
You can identify this kludge easily by looking at the button areas, they don't get darker anymore. And you can see the black level not getting real black, i.e. the power consumption is not reduced.
However, Lux seems to be one of the better toys because of the plugin interface. Unfortunately there is no HW plugin for Sony devices but judging by the quick look at the Nexus-4 plugin (it's open source!!) it should be possible to adopt this method to Z1 as well. So, maybe when someone could eventually implement that.

xposed Modul "minimum brightness" works, i tested it for you. you can make the screen dim to complete black with your normal display brightness slider without grey or black overlay. it just sets down the minimum brightness level to 1 or 0 (default is 10 or 20), so it should also work with enabled auto brightness

chertVdetali said:
I looked around for possible solutions and there is a trick with writting a new value of current limit to Linux settings (some mA value between 0 and 20 to some max_current file in procfs). And this really helps but also impacts the maximum brightness, the screen is hardly ready in sun light with reduced current.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as i remember, /proc is only used to call upon information, not to set specific values. What you are looking for is placed within /sys.
To be precise in /sys/devices/leds-qpnp-ee125e00/leds/wled:backlight/. There you will find a file called max_current with which you can easily control the brightness and set it to a very low level. Note that this actually dims the screen and not just applies a filter like most apps do...
One drawback is that the value will change again after you restarted the device. I set up a little flow with Automate β that takes care of this for me. I find this solution a lot better than all the screen filter apps.
This is true for CyanogenMod 11 and GreatDevs Kernel. It might be different on Stock. I know that the path for my Nexus 7 is sys/class/leds/lcd-backlight.
I hope this helps you a little bit.

rob rich said:
xposed Modul "minimum brightness" works, i tested it for you. you can make the screen dim to complete black with your normal display brightness slider without grey or black overlay. it just sets down the minimum brightness level to 1 or 0 (default is 10 or 20), so it should also work with enabled auto brightness
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am wondering how you can claim that the result is complete black. Calling this black is like saying "TN monitors have good black values" (I know such people, they change their mind quickly when they see my Eizo with a VA panel at night).
No, seriously, the default was already 10 (see config.xml in cm11 repo) and the difference between 1 and 10 is hardly visible. It's still way too bright for work without eye strain in the darkness.
@Wooaarr: thanks, this is apparently the way to go, I just need to find time to configure it. And yes, of course, the file is in sysfs and not procfs (automated typing, when I grew up with Linux there was no sysfs out there ).

chertVdetali said:
I am wondering how you can claim that the result is complete black. Calling this black is like saying "TN monitors have good black values" (I know such people, they change their mind quickly when they see my Eizo with a VA panel at night).
No, seriously, the default was already 10 (see config.xml in cm11 repo) and the difference between 1 and 10 is hardly visible. It's still way too bright for work without eye strain in the darkness.
@Wooaarr: thanks, this is apparently the way to go, I just need to find time to configure it. And yes, of course, the file is in sysfs and not procfs (automated typing, when I grew up with Linux there was no sysfs out there ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
when i disable autobrightness and push the slider to the left my screen goes completely off, so you wanna say that screen off isnt black? funny

chertVdetali said:
Thanks for the hint. I tried the Lite version and AFAICS it simply uses the same trick as ScreenFilter and other "sub-zero" regulators, putting an alpha overlay on top of the image stack.
You can identify this kludge easily by looking at the button areas, they don't get darker anymore. And you can see the black level not getting real black, i.e. the power consumption is not reduced.
However, Lux seems to be one of the better toys because of the plugin interface. Unfortunately there is no HW plugin for Sony devices but judging by the quick look at the Nexus-4 plugin (it's open source!!) it should be possible to adopt this method to Z1 as well. So, maybe when someone could eventually implement that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting information, I did not know that. You are correct, the navigation buttons are brighter than the rest of the screen at negative values. I had noticed that before but didn't know why. Works well enough for me though.

rob rich said:
when i disable autobrightness and push the slider to the left my screen goes completely off, so you wanna say that screen off isnt black? funny
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, you claim that it works for me because you tested it on your device. So... yeah, why not, I could say what you mentioned above just following the same logics. :silly: