Database Users

App Request : Enable keypad backlight while screen is on

For any devs out there...
Would it or is it possible to develop an app that will keep the backlight on for the keypad ? i.e. On while the screen is on and go off when the screen goes off ?
In the dark its very annoying when using the Hero and having to fumble for the right key to press - Home, Back, Search etc.

i second that

well erm just press any key and the light will go on dude, you dont need an app for this

So you fumble and hit Home or even power off (to sleep) the screen when you only wanted to hit search or back.
Flicking the scroll wheel is the only way to light up the keys and not press the wrong one by mistake, but that tends to highlight a button, link etc... and sometimes if you hit the ball too hard, you select a screen element.
Still a pain and TBH not like any handset I used before. Backlight time out was always linked to screen time out.

You dont need to hit any key, just move the scroll wheel even slightly and lights come up. And it does need decent amount of pressure to press the scroll button, you wont accidentally press it.

er, yer, I know... but I don't want too

lets just say "even if it doesnt make sense to some people, WE want it!"
btw, there is one app "dark keys" that keeps the backlights of the keypads off all the time. this was made for the white G1. maybe it can simply be rewritten to make the reverse happen?

joemax said:
For any devs out there...
Would it or is it possible to develop an app that will keep the backlight on for the keypad ? i.e. On while the screen is on and go off when the screen goes off ?
In the dark its very annoying when using the Hero and having to fumble for the right key to press - Home, Back, Search etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
i'm beeing annoyed by the keys not being lit as well ...

Glad I'm not the only one

Yeah, I want it too. Thanks for bringing this up!

I think it's good idea, btw it looks cool at night. I want it too

Good idea. +1

So which dev is gong to earn a couple of $$, ££, €€ by writing this for each copy sold then ??

From what I can tell of the API docs (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/PowerManager.html, the SDK only allows for the keyboard backlight to be on in FULL_WAKE_LOCK state, meaning the screen will have to be full brightness.
So I don't think this request can be achieved by a pure SDK app.

How come it lights up at any screen brightness on the Hero ?
Surely its also a hardware call and not just an OS call ? These would be independent of Android and particular to each manufactures handset, else they would all be the same.
Not questioning you, but it would seem strange that its not addressable separately to the screen ???

joemax said:
How come it lights up at any screen brightness on the Hero ?
Surely its also a hardware call and not just an OS call ? These would be independent of Android and particular to each manufactures handset, else they would all be the same.
Not questioning you, but it would seem strange that its not addressable separately to the screen ???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm by no means an Android SDK expert, just posting what I found in a quick search round the docs. Happy to be proven wrong!
Lee

Of course - wasn't criticising at all

Might be able to dabble in the /sys/class/leds/ folder.
I'll take a look when I get in.
Not a dev though. Lol.

soulehmoo said:
Might be able to dabble in the /sys/class/leds/ folder.
I'll take a look when I get in.
Not a dev though. Lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct.
echoing a value to:
/sys/devices/platform/i2c-adapter/i2c-0/0-0066/leds/button-backlight/brightness
through adb shell turns on the backlight.
I think an SDK app could be created as a service with a broadcast receiver listening for the power state changing that just writes a positive value to the file above.
Loads of similar examples here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=565015
I'll take this on, just about got it working.

Wicked thx
You are stars (especially fullerlee)
Don't make it too expensive though

[Q] Configure Hardware Button Backlight?

Hi,
is there any way to configure the hw buttons backlight behaviour? In WinMo there was a little app called Keypad LED Backlight, which kept the HW buttons backlid as long as the display was on. I like that behaviour very much, especially when you are using your phone at night.
Right now the hw buttons backlight turn off after a certain time, even when the screen is still on.
Are there any apps or mods to configure the backlight behavious?
thanks
boba

I looking for this as well.I've tried some things but nothing seems to work.
did u find any solution yet ?
boba23 said:
Hi,
is there any way to configure the hw buttons backlight behaviour? In WinMo there was a little app called Keypad LED Backlight, which kept the HW buttons backlid as long as the display was on. I like that behaviour very much, especially when you are using your phone at night.
Right now the hw buttons backlight turn off after a certain time, even when the screen is still on.
Are there any apps or mods to configure the backlight behavious?
thanks
boba
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I use button saviour (from market) so I have touch buttons on the screen, similar to how opera mobile pops its menu.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

not exact what i wanted but better than nothing
thanks anyway for info
wearefree said:
I use button saviour (from market) so I have touch buttons on the screen, similar to how opera mobile pops its menu.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Trackpad sleep??

Is this possible by any means??
What I mean is we have trackpad wake, which is nice. But is there anything we can do so that when you long press the trackpad it locks the phone? Just an idea I've had floatin around..
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA App

Good idea but the phone would unlock easier in ur Pocket...not a big fan of Pock Dialing - I'll stick to the OldSchool Method on this one...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

Y49Si said:
Good idea but the phone would unlock easier in ur Pocket...not a big fan of Pock Dialing - I'll stick to the OldSchool Method on this one...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh? How would this make the phone easier to unlock on your pocket? I think you misunderstand. The OP is asking about a feature to LOCK/SLEEP the phone using the trackpad button. Did you think he meant wake/unlock the phone?
A mod to wake the phone with the trackpad button already exists, and its pretty awesome. It turns on the screen, but does not unlock the phone, same as the "normal" power button. You still have to swipe to unlock. And doing so in your pocket is very unlikely.

Ahh u are correct....I mis-read his post. My apologies to the OP and its actually a pretty good idea!
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

I need this too, cause my power button is broken(sometimes works), I dip it on cup holder with water
Sent from my HTC Vision using XDA Premium App

Is there a possible link that we may be directed to?

from what ive hear it doesnt exist becuase I was looking for this earlier. the trackpad has a mind of its own sometimes...

Mog said:
from what ive hear it doesnt exist becuase I was looking for this earlier. the trackpad has a mind of its own sometimes...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes...Very True - in certain lighting condtions my cursor jumps all over the screen unless I cover my tackpad with my thumb...
Sent from my T-Mobile G2 using XDA App

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.katecca.screenofflock&feature=search_result
Can take over the default long-press of the search button. And if your running CM7 you can change the search button to launch the app, so no need for a long press

Remap the trackpad press to the power button.
IE - it becomes the power button, you could then change the power button to something like Play/Pause, Trackpad, etc.
It will still boot with the power button, a remap only affects the Android system.

I crave a brightness button

I have found all kinds of widgets for controlling brightness, but they all have one disadvantage - you have to first go to the home screen and then click on the widget. I really want a way to control brightness from any application without having to leave the application to go back to the home screen. The CM9 based rom I'm using (Paranoid Android) actually has something like this ... but I don't like it for two reasons. The first is that it takes two taps to bring up the brightness slider. (One tap to open the notification window, and a second tape to bring up the toggle screen). The 2nd reason (and more significant) is that the slider is quite small and for me it does not feel very responsive or easy to control. The brightness slider control from some of the widgets I have tried are much easier to use.
Ideally I could bring up a brightness widget by long pressing on the physical home button. Currently this long press on my note will bring up the recently used apps, but this function is already served by a soft button provided by CM9. I've read that the ADWlauncherEX will allow you to reprogram the function of the long press - although installing and learning how to use a launcher seems like overkill, especially since I have a rom that already includes quite a sophisticated launcher.
I found an app that would bring up a brightness slider when you clicked on the vol up or down buttons. This worked well for brightness although was a major drag when all I wanted to do was adjust the volume. I also found an application that would allow you to call an app or a widget in response to a double or triple click of the volume buttons. That seemed ideal because it would give me quick access to a brightness control without interfering with the main use of the volume rocker. Unfortunately that application seems to have been discontinued (why!) and I couldn't even seem to find an old verison of that.
Another idea would be to reassign one of the soft keys provided by CM9. Since these soft keys merely duplicate the functions of the existing galaxy note keys (the physical home button and the two buttons on either side of it). Unfortunately I have yet to find an application that can remap one of those buttons. Another idea would be to add another soft button near the 3 soft buttons that are already there. (Are their any applications that can do that?)
And finally I figured that brightness could be controlled via screen gestures. I did find some applications that claimed to be able to do this, although I couldn't get them to work on my Note.
If you know of any application or method that can provide a brightness control button, please let me know as this is the only remaining aspect of the note's user interface that is still driving me nuts.
Thanks
~Paul

Wasn't there a feature in CyanogenMod 7 that would allow to change brightness via sliding sideways in notification area? Too bad it never worked for me in any of the phones I tried CM7 in. I understood it should have worked with no slider? Just sliding your finger accross the notifications area? That would be better than a slider imo.

I've not used paranoid android, I'm using the RC of CM9 and that does have status bar brightness control. To turn it on you go to system, then Status bar and there is a tick box. Maybe that is still included in PA if it is CM9 based? It lets you control the brightness from anywhere just by swiping left and right on the status bar.
It is not as nice as the notification tray slider you can find in AOKP roms, and there used to be a mod for CM9 that did this, but it no longer works, but it is better than nothing.

Ekreed said:
I've not used paranoid android, I'm using the RC of CM9 and that does have status bar brightness control. To turn it on you go to system, then Status bar and there is a tick box. It lets you control the brightness from anywhere just by swiping left and right on the status bar.
It is not as nice as the notification tray slider you can find in AOKP roms, and there used to be a mod for CM9 that did this, but it no longer works, but it is better than nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly what I meant.

I use QBright it works great.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...Bright&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd
John.

hi bro,
i m using switchpro widget. u can put the widget inside notification bar. and can set the brightness level.

Tinderbox (UK) said:
I use QBright it works great.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...Bright&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tip John. Qbright certainly has one of the best brightness slider bars I've seen and the configurable buttons are great. However I have to say I'm somewhat mystified about how you use it. Qbright says you can activate it by long pressing on the search button. Search button? Do we have such a thing? On either side of the physical home button I only have the menu and back buttons. By long pressing the menu button I do get the search menu ... but it doesn't bring up Qbright. There is also a "Google" button at the top of the launcher. Pressing on that also brings up the search menu, but again it can't bring up Qbright. I'm running Paranoid Android. Maybe that's the problem. Does the stock ICS have a search button?
Thanks
~Paul

To edit the setting.
Open the QBright app and then press the hard menu button left of the home key.
John.

Tinderbox (UK) said:
To edit the setting.
Open the QBright app and then press the hard menu button left of the home key.
John.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Tinderbox. Thanks for your reply but I think you seriously misinterpreted my question. I mentioned that I like that the Qbright buttons are configurable so I obviously found the preferences menu. But I was asking how you bring up the Qbright widget (other than clicking on its icon from the home screen of course). The documentation suggests this can be done by "long pressing on the search button". (There is no preference item related to this). I couldn't bring up the Qbright widget by long pressing on anything, so I'm wondering how you do this. If you actually have to go back to the home screen to start the widget, that would greatly detract from the beauty of the widget (which I'm sure is why they put the search long press capability into Qbright). But as I indicated in my previous message, it seems that the galaxy note does not have a dedicated search button, so this feature may not work. There are so many ways one could start such a widget I'm somewhat amazed that no one has figured out how to do it. (Or maybe they have and I am just in the dark or very confused). One way would be to long press on the back button. As far as I know, this currently does nothing so there would be no drawback what so ever. Perhaps a long press on the volume up or down button could also work for such a thing. Or an extra item could be added to the menu that appears when you press the power button. Or since I have a CM9 derived rom, it gives me three more soft keys (back, home, and recent apps). A long press on any of those could be used to bring up the widget. Or even a regular press on the first two could be used since they are duplicates for buttons I already have elsewhere.
Is this a valid question, or am I out in left field somewhere?
~Paul

I once accidentally set my brightness so low that I couldn't see the screen AT ALL.
I found myself really wishing there was some foolproof way to reset the screen to 100% brightness.
For example, rebooting the phone auto-resets the brightness to 100% or something.
I also tried using tasker so some obscure combination like volume+home could also reset the brightness.
I don't recall how I managed to reset my phone - i couldn't see anything. I think I just flailed about on it.
- Frank

Paul...i am lookingforthis too...qbright should have an option to change that... So you can ise the long oress menu button for us note users wjo dont havr a search butto
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

Try kimi's.15 toggles. Gives you 15toggles in the notification bar, brightness being one of them. Need to flash it via recovery though.

Can i flash that in temprary cwn? I have a stock rom with the temp.cwm root.method
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

I think it should beok to flash via temp cwm. Ask in the kim's thread just to be sure.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rubberbigpepper.DisplayBrightness&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInJ1YmJlcmJpZ3BlcHBlci5EaXNwbGF5QnJpZ2h0bmVzcyJd
I use this you can put it anywhere on the screen.

Download Slider Widget and add it to home screen.

Alexanderbooth said:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rubberbigpepper.DisplayBrightness&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsInJ1YmJlcmJpZ3BlcHBlci5EaXNwbGF5QnJpZ2h0bmVzcyJd
I use this you can put it anywhere on the screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At first I thought that might be the answer, but I ran into two problems with it. The main one was that I would accidently change the brightness pretty often when I was just trying to click on an icon for instance. (Unless I made the slider very thin ... but then it was too hard to grab the slider). The other problem was that some of my full screen applications would force themselves on top and the slider would not activate.
Someone in another thread suggested what I now feel is the ultimate solution:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote:
Originally Posted by aalupatti View Post
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....home2shortcut
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh my gosh!!! You weren't kidding. Such an application does really exist
This solves all my problems with the galaxy note.
I can't believe this was so hard to find. I can't imagine that anyone would uninstall this application after trying it. It's like getting 3 extra hardware buttons for free!
I'm using:
- Home,Home to bring up Qbright.
- Home,Back to bring up papyrus (you never know when you need to scribble a note)
- Home,Menu to bring up a toggle widget (haven't decided which one yet, although I'm sure it will be easier to use than the built in PA one).
Thanks a million.
~Paul

Paul what is this app called the link doesnt work
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda app-developers app

asf58967 said:
Paul what is this app called the link doesnt work
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Type in "Home2 Shortcut" into the play store. Or you could probably type in the author's name which is "Hideki Kato".
~Paul

You can adjust the brightness on most Note ROMs by deactivating auto brightness and tap + hold on the statusbar and slide the finger.
Left = Decrease the brightness
Right = Increase the brightness
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

Turn off capacitive backlights?

Is there any way to set the backlight to our capacitive keys to stay off? If it helps, I am rooted.

Lux on Play store

danger2u said:
Lux on Play store
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That or screen filter which requires less setup. That's coming from someone who bought lux

Screen filter doesn't work, lux creates issues.

Capacitive Buttons app from the play store works.

Screen Dimmer
Sent from my XT1254 using XDA Free mobile app

I use Darker and don't have any issues. Free version works perfectly.

gqskrub said:
Screen filter doesn't work, lux creates issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha this is beyond funny. I'm using screen filter now with no captivate button lights. Please explain how that is not directly related to me downloading and installing screen filter?

gqskrub said:
Screen filter doesn't work, lux creates issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What issues had lux created for you, I have been using it for months without any issues with the capacitive backlights.

The thing is I don't want it to affect my screen in any way. Only the capacitive buttons on the bottom. The reason I ask is because when viewing apps in Google cardboard, I can see the capacitive buttons to the right which takes away from the immersion. I tried the capacitive buttons app bqw suggested, but it didn't work.

bill0405 said:
The thing is I don't want it to affect my screen in any way. Only the capacitive buttons on the bottom. The reason I ask is because when viewing apps in Google cardboard, I can see the capacitive buttons to the right which takes away from the immersion. I tried the capacitive buttons app bqw suggested, but it didn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Use darker, set it to 100% but check of turn of capacitive backlight.

In gravity box there is an option to do exactly what you are asking. It is under display tweaks at the bottom called button backlight mode.

bill0405 said:
The thing is I don't want it to affect my screen in any way. Only the capacitive buttons on the bottom. The reason I ask is because when viewing apps in Google cardboard, I can see the capacitive buttons to the right which takes away from the immersion. I tried the capacitive buttons app bqw suggested, but it didn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you launch the Capacitive Buttons app and tap the top darked out sun icon?
My capacitive buttons instantly turn dark. The bottom app icon to turn them back on doesn't work though and I receive a Kernal error selecting the center icon (half brightness I assume). The buttons light back up after reboot.

bqw371 said:
Did you launch the Capacitive Buttons app and tap the top darked out sun icon?
My capacitive buttons instantly turn dark. The bottom app icon to turn them back on doesn't work though and I receive a Kernal error selecting the center icon (half brightness I assume). The buttons light back up after reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried, but for some reason the lights would turn back on when I launched certain apps. Thanks for the suggestion though. Gravity box ended up fixing it for me.

frozenbear said:
In gravity box there is an option to do exactly what you are asking. It is under display tweaks at the bottom called button backlight mode.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This. is. it.