Screen Capture capabilities in Gingerbread API- without root - Android Software Development

Good news, it looks like our Google folks added screen capturing API to surface flinger!
Take a look at
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=pl...9cacfcaa057;hb=refs/heads/gingerbread-release
I'll implement the feature on Droid VNC server when have time.
People having screen capture applications, its a good time to update!

Did anything ever come of this? It looks like you need ot be shared uid with graphics or have a system signed permission.

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Is a focus-free camera possible?

My pet peeve on HD is the camera auto focus. It's nothing to write home about, but OK for a phone, to my taste. The major problem with it is the autofocus which takes forever to work. Since it's difficult (for me) to hold the device steadily for such a long time, my guess is that a "focus free" mode (setting focus to infinity IINM) would make things way better for most uses. At least it work well on my Asus P750.
Does anyone know if it's possible on HD?
This is an interesting question. I havn't got my HD yet, but I can imagine, one of the things which stops this handset being used for quick snaps, is the auto focus.... I'd be intruiged to hear suggestions on this.
....Ib a n e
Problem is these camera units often have to be wide open apertures, to compensate for the tiny sensors. If it was F8 or something most stuff would be in focus all the time, but pictures in anything but bright sun would be just a huge blur because of the long shutter time needed.
Basically, camera phones will always be useless, regardless of how many megapixels they shoehorn in there.
Well, I can live with blur, actually. As long as there's something in the picture. But this 3 second long focusing just doesn't allow me to capture anything!
I don't want to live with blur at all, no point if there IS someone in the picture but they look like tom welling in smallville using super speed
vangrieg said:
Well, I can live with blur, actually. As long as there's something in the picture. But this 3 second long focusing just doesn't allow me to capture anything!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Check the user manual. It might me a user defined setting let you change the duration taken to say 1 second?

Droid Dev Newb - Camera Dev Help :(

Hey,
I'm new to android dev (extremely) but I'm not new to software dev, but I'm very confused.
So here's my end objective: To capture a photo and be able to edit it at the pixel level.
I'm completely lost in how to do that. Okay, let me rephrase, not completely lost. PLEASE don't link me to a bunch of tutorials, I've read them all.
I'm lost on a few apparently key concepts:
- SurfaceView - What exactly IS a surface? I read the doc from android dev for it, but I'm not quite grasping it. Is it just used to display or subclass it for OpenGL, or picture viewports? Or is there more to it?
- Every camera tutorial mentions subclassing surface.holder, implementing canvas methods methods (changed, create, destroyed), and that's that - which is fine, if you're going to preview an image there, which I want...but what about taking the actual picture, that leads me to..
- StartPreview function, what the hell does this thing do, all it does is crash my phone, I don't want to "preview" anything, I want to take a picture using the built in camera activity, and store in a surface, do whatever pixel manipulations I need, and possibly write it back out to the SDCard
What does the preview have to do with anything? Every tutorial (including android's includes it), but I can't figure out for the life of me what the thing does...I could see if you wanted a camera viewport in your app, but I don't.
Now what I DID do was start the camera activity using the intent, then store the callback "data" into the surface, the problem with this, though, is it's EXTREMELY pixelated, the image previewed in the surface is of horrible quality, like it's a thumbnail. What gives? I used this code:
Code:
Bitmap thumbNail = (Bitmap)data.getExtras().get("data");
mImageViewer.setImageBitmap(thumbNail);
So yeah, sorry the questions are so sparsed out, just been confused as hell and am unfortunately on a truncated time table - nobody's been able to explain anything so far, just have what I have from playing with it..
TIA, sorry for the long post
Bump*
Anybody? Somebody's had to use the camera before in an app..

how could samsung screw up the camera THIS badly..

besides unnecessary parental control put in place on the camera, like battery limitations, forcing your music to stop when its loaded, and inability to function when mediascanner is running, theyve also, and made a unmutable shutter sound and auto focus sound, and removed the option to adjust saturation, sharpness, and brightness.. and in the video camera, removed the the ability to pause the video, now you have to straight out stop it and take another one.
why did they do this you might ask? because they added extremely watered down picture editor, and video clip editor. and they somehow think that adding these after picture/video editors was such a good idea, that they should just remove them from the camera entirely.. wtf samsung?
now what i wanna know is what WE can do to fix this? is it possible to take these settings from the galaxy s1's camera app, and add them in to the s2's? the camera apps are extremely similar
EDIT: a solution?
i really think these things can be fixed, maybe not adding the saturation, sharpness, and brightness back, that seems like alot of hard work, and i guess it isnt TOO hard to edit the picture afterwards.. but i think removing the 'parental controls' put in place, is simply a matter of deleting that area of the app's code. i wonder if adding the ability to pause the video would be hard, it seems like a simple enough thing to do.. but i dont fully understand how one would go about doing this..
for SGS1 owners, do you guys remember Fr4gg0r? he created a hacked camera app that removed the battery limitation, music from stopping when camera loads, and even added the ability to use the hardware lockkey as a camera shutter button!, and he added a thumbnail of recently taken picture in the bottom right hard corner (which we now see built in to the sgs2). really amazing work! however i spoke with him, and he doesnt plan to get the sgs2, but i wonder if we looked at his changelog from the origional apk to the modded, if then we could just make the same mods to the s2..
can anyone a little more knowledgeable than me give me their thoughts?
SGS [APP] Hacked Camera.apk <- link to his thread for original hacked camera app
Modding the camera app is very difficult since it's closed source. Might be able to take the AOSP camera app and hook the driver up, but that's hard too... amount of work depends on how good the camera driver meshes with the AOSP camera app.. I think?
I've never tried to do anything with the camera so hopefully someone with more knowledge of it can pitch in!
As to your complaint about the settings... do you really sit there before taking a picture on a phone camera and fiddle with contrast/brightness settings? I wish I had your dedication to taking good pictures!
I'm guessing suspending other applications when the camera's running is to preserve resources. I don't think I've ever been listening to music when I've used my phone as a camera. I don't agree with taking away flexibility but I think the percentage of people impacted isn't going to be high.
I can understand your concern but I don't think these restrictions justify saying they screwed up the camera badly.. maybe if they used a crappy sensor, but judging from the photos and video's I've seen posted quality looks very acceptable!
the reason i expect u cant use camera whilst media scanner is running is due to the fact samsungs internal memory, where pics are stored by default, is mounted like an SD card... also ive only ever had media scanner running once re-mounting from mass storage or when turning phone on... although ive never actually tested this senario as my phone is always on and storage mounted...
neither of those issues are a problem for me though... at least ive never encountered them during usage...
Dickie
i know removing the battery limit requires deleting some lines of code, same goes for it killing music, and forcing a shutter sound and focus sound, but would it be incredibly hard work to add the ability to pause a video, as i find this really necessary when taking videos
soraxd said:
i know removing the battery limit requires deleting some lines of code, same goes for it killing music, and forcing a shutter sound and focus sound, but would it be incredibly hard work to add the ability to pause a video, as i find this really necessary when taking videos
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree about pausing a video recording. I've often used that feature on my SGS, and find it very puzzling, and annoying, that they would eliminate it. Quite odd.
i really think these things can be fixed, maybe not adding the saturation, sharpness, and brightness back, that seems like alot of hard work, and i guess it isnt TOO hard to edit the picture afterwards.. but i think removing the 'parental controls' put in place, is simply a matter of deleting that area of the app's code. i wonder if adding the ability to pause the video would be hard, it seems like a simple enough thing to do.. but i dont fully understand how one would go about doing this..
for SGS1 owners, do you guys remember Fr4gg0r? he created a hacked camera app that removed the battery limitation, music from stopping when camera loads, and even added the ability to use the hardware lockkey as a camera shutter button!, and he added a thumbnail of recently taken picture in the bottom right hard corner (which we now see built in to the sgs2). really amazing work! however i spoke with him, and he doesnt plan to get the sgs2, but i wonder if we looked at his changelog from the origional apk to the modded, if then we could just make the same mods to the s2..
can anyone a little more knowledgeable than me give me their thoughts?
SGS [APP] Hacked Camera.apk <- link to his thread for original hacked camera app
screw camera up??? except for the battery and music "issue" in my opinion this is one of the best cameras on a mobile, i tried many different modes and the pictures are quite good ))
unfortunately we cannot always have everything in just one gadged )))
well we may not be able to have everything, but i wont stop until i get some results.. ive been talking to a clever developer lately, whos on board to help me modify this app
I've started modding the camera app for battery level etc. Will take a look more today
These mods shouldn't be hard to implement and there is no closed source when it comes to android. We have apktool and smali / baksmali, we don't need source code from Samsung for this.

EPD x keyboard = outdoor word processing?

Can somebody please tell me whether it is possible to use the yotaphone 2's EPD as a (small) display to do some basic word processing outdoor out in the sun? I.e. to attach a keyboard/mouse to it (e.g. via bluetooth), to open some simple word processing app or even sthg like google docs, and then to just start working.
I have actually been looking for quite some time for some way to do this and I can't for the life of me understand why there aren't better solutions out there. I am always pleasantly surprised when I type notes on my Kindle Paperwhite. Of course it's a lot slower than on an LCD, but I am not a fast typer anyway, and I could live with some lag - if that's the price I'd have to pay to finally be able to work outside. I have thought of the Raspberry Pi x Kindle solution (but you can only type on sthg like vim); of ebook readers with an open OS that you can attach a keaboard/mouse to (like Onyx Boox that runs on Android 4.0 - and I'm still thinking about that); or of an e ink monitor (too expensive). But it is time for me to change phones, and if this works, I might actually consider it.
If anybody has any experiences or thoughts or - better yet - videos to share on this, I'd be very grateful... Thanks!
-Stephan
I haven't tried this personally, but I am fairly certain that this would work. Android supports bluetooth keyboards. The only limitation would be that you have to use mirrored mode, because there are no proper word processing apps made native for the EPD. Plus the system might not enable external keyboard for EPD apps only. Not sure on the latter though, I don't have any bluetooth keyboard/mouse to test this with.
Jeopardy said:
I haven't tried this personally, but I am fairly certain that this would work. Android supports bluetooth keyboards. The only limitation would be that you have to use mirrored mode, because there are no proper word processing apps made native for the EPD. Plus the system might not enable external keyboard for EPD apps only. Not sure on the latter though, I don't have any bluetooth keyboard/mouse to test this with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Jeopardy. Can you (or anybody else) tell me whether there is an active developer community working on those EPD apps? And also - if you have to use mirrored mode, does this mean you have to open the phone and the AMOLED screen has to be 'on'? On can all of this just stay in the 'background'? And does mirroring to an additional lag beyond the usual - and much slower - e-ink refresh rate? If anybody has any first-hand experience with this, I'd really be curious... Thanks!
sdspieg said:
Thanks Jeopardy. Can you (or anybody else) tell me whether there is an active developer community working on those EPD apps? And also - if you have to use mirrored mode, does this mean you have to open the phone and the AMOLED screen has to be 'on'? On can all of this just stay in the 'background'? And does mirroring to an additional lag beyond the usual - and much slower - e-ink refresh rate? If anybody has any first-hand experience with this, I'd really be curious... Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well there are some developers, myself included, working on EPD applications. But not a lot. There should be more once Yota releases the device in USA around mid-August.
Mirrored mode does not need the color screen to be turned on. Of course behind the scenes it will wake up the system to similar state as if the AMOLED screen was on, but that's handled automatically. This means more battery use, but you should get a lot more out of it than using the color screen, especially on static apps like word processors which don't update often.
You can handle everything from the EPD. You can, for example, create a shortcut on the EPD for a word processing app, which will automatically enable mirroring and open that application. The lag on EPD when mirroring should be about the same as on native EPD applications, but of course you will notice it more because you can easily compare it to the non-laggy color side. There's only a few extra algorithms for turning the color image to nice greyscale, and some logic for creating additional "flashes" to fix ghosting when switching between apps etc. Should be fine for word processing, especially on external keyboard, provided you can write without constantly checking which letter you just pressed. The refresh rate on the EPD is about 8 frames per second, or one frame every 0.12s.
If you're seious about outdoor word processing may I suggest a rooted Nook Simple touch? It is small and light and a fraction of the price of a Yotaphone... as well as having a much bigger screen! You can pick these up for around 40GBP in good/new condition and although it will be a fair bit of messing around with rooting you are unlikely to come totally unstuck, and there is a lot of support on XDA to get you help if you do. With the NST device, you use the OTG USB mode to attach a bluetooth dongle, hard wired full sized keyboard or whatever to your desire. Pop over to the NST forum and there are many threads on this topic, but to whet your appetite here's someone who is doing that with a solar panel to power the setup!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/nook-touch/general/nook-simple-touch-solar-power-t3068849

Any way to remove “adding finishing details” post processing on Windows 10 Camera app

Hi, I wanna ask is there any of you here know any hack, Interop app tools tweaks or any settings, even on when you’re only Interop Unlocked or jailbroken your Windows phone to disable that pesky “Adding finishing details” which is basically post processing the images, not just ruins it but also slows the process of taking pictures. Because of that, you’ll end up with “Saving…” message on your Windows 10 Camera app on 10 pictures straight you taken, you can’t take unlimited pictures.
Here's some pictures to tell you how it really ruins the pictures. The first every photo is what after the photo is taken, the post processing is still loaded, but basically a screenshot of the screen. It’s almost as good as what really the camera is seeing. The second ones are after the post processing.
Btw. I’m using a Lumia 830 and the very latest build available for it. Yes I got the most recent and latest Camera app update on mine, I dunno but I really think an app update after are what starts ruining the images here, I’m really sure this “Finishing details” aint here before Microsoft implemented this half bakedly, my phone aint shooting pictures this bad. The camera aint that really bad, it’s just the post processing that ruins it. It’s annoying and unacceptable. I can’t file this on Feedback Hub and ask for a fix, since I can’t get any newer updates since Insider Preview ditched my model already on Insider Preview. So please help me fix this the hard way.
Please help me remove this pesky process if it’s possible. I don’t’ want to use a third party app since no other 3rd party camera app has integration with Photos app, aint got Panorama feature, and I don’t want to screenshot every other photo I’ve taken after just to preserve that details.

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