Notices

Wow I can't believe it. You actually made it better!

From great idea to bloatware in just 2 days and using just mockups, I think that's a new record.

Commenting on the actual application, though; the main purpose of a lock screen is to get a quick glance at info and then unlock it easily. No need for so many widgets, just big text with an easy way to tell the type apart. Same for the clock, it should be bigger. Music player controls are a convenience, so they shouldn't take so much space and call so much attention to themselves.

Another thing, the edge to edge drag to unlock bar is really uncomfortable in a device as wide as the N900, you need to move your finger more with this enhanced lockscreen than with the default one. That's definitely a strike against ease of use. Even if it's just a button, like on 0.1, it shouldn't be on the edge of the screen, center it more, place it where your finger would naturally rest after grabbing the phone from your pocket. (Don't mention Android lockscreens, those are usually for portrait oriented display phones.)

I'm actually pretty happy with the current N900 lock screen's layout, I'm interested in this project for the possible extensibility and customization (removing that "slide to unlock" text, making it single tap so it's faster, etc) It's not like you need many fancy unlocking processes if you need to press the power key first anyway.

It was a brainstorm idea in screen design from Hurrian, & its implementation may be found unwanted or just impractical by Mohammed, but the message & call notifications with names seemed to me as a user very practical & desirable.

When doing a quick check, it would be nice to just hit the button to see not just if any messages or calls had come in, but from whom. There are lots of times you need to make a quick check, & the decision on whether to respond immediately is usually based on who the calls & messages are from.

Also FWIW: I think the icons are a better choice because they alleviate any need for setting a language for the application and the associated files for accomodating different languages. It might also reduce comprehension time for a new user to have an unlock padlock icon somehow associated with the slider.

I'm not sure about you, but certain emails, calls, messages are more important than others. Having a list instead of or as well as the number of such new items would be of great use to me. Getting a borderline spam email is very different then getting an email from a close friend, or from my employer. Looking at the lock screen with this information would be very useful. So to reiterate, I know this was considered in previous mockups but using a small font showing date,sender and subject would be very very welcome. Keep up the thought process. So far it looks like a great project.

fwrnando you don't want a "cluttered" lock screen so perhaps you should be productive and specify exactly what you want to see rather than what you think everybody should want, and step away from putting down others' ideas of a perfect lock screen. Some of us are audiophiles and use our phone largely to listen to music. I know that when I'm cycling a lock screen similar to what has been developed with the feature I specified above would be perfect.

You have obviously never had my problem, namely unlocking the phone while it's in my pocket only to start some random application or call some random person. There are reasons for the lock screen. Actually I would be interested in a more complicated mechanism for unlocking like Android had at least in 1.5-1.6.

Erm... i used leafpad... is that ok?
so instead of nano

I go:

Add
but the lockscreen doesn't change wallpapers?

It is so damn hard to please everyone.

Here's my htop:


I don't know really what it means but it looks big numbers

Nothing personal, but I must shun you now - copy and paste is something the N900 does just fine in my opinion. (Although I have Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys mapped to Fn+[Arrow Keys], and that can combine with Shift for very easy mass-text-selection.

The current camera-ui2, i.e. the camera-ui replacement in the CSSU, has an option to disable camera opening at lens-camera-open.

ave you tried Camera Lens Launcher? It lets you disable Camera launch at camera lens open and either launch any other program (flashlight included) or have it pop-up a menu with whatever programs you could possibly want to launch. (Package name for apt-get is cl-launcher, but it's visible/downloadable through FAM/HAM too.) Might not be in the lower repos though. I have it set to launch a menu with Flashlight, all three basic camera apps (stock, BlessN900, and FCamera), FrontView900, and the barcode scanner. Maybe something else, I don't recall.

I think they should just go in the bar with the time/date, in the upper corners. MohammadAG, if you're going to implement this, please have it use the standard theme icons for this.

Being that this is a forum, I presume he's read what I said and will comment when/if he feels appropriate.

I'm not saying it won't be useful for some people (I'd say no for auto-hide unless it doesn't impact processing at all; let it be configurable with GConf and those who don't want it can just disable it.)

My first point was that since it's a lock screen, and ideally one that's lightweight, we'd want to limit functionality only to the things that are more realistically going to be used by many people - as much as I hate to marginalize minorities, the fact of the matter is that unless anyone else here asking for features is awesome enough to code them, we're basically sitting around going OMG MohammadAG plz can we haz teh featurez?

And MohammadAG, amazing as he is, is a human with a life and limited time.

So first priority goes to the features that are actually likely to be used by many many people, and features that will add less-than-necessary features that aren't really needed on a lock screen shouldn't be added unless a system is coded-in that doesn't load them up and execute them in the background if people don't want them.

My second point was that we shouldn't look for reasons to add features - features that need to be added will add themselves, so to speak, because we'll realize there's a want/possible-need for them, and then we can add/make room if needed.

I didn't understand why you embedded it in the binary though. Also, I'm not sure why you're avoiding using the 'currently set theme' approach to pull the background.

The directory /etc/hildon/theme/ always symlinks to the directory of the currently selected theme (unless of course something screws it up - I don't know if it'll reset itself at boot if something deletes it or symlinks it elsewhere or overrides it, but I haven't heard of that happening in the entire time I've been on this forum).

The directory startup-wizard in a theme's directory contains the background for the wizard you see when the N900 looses charge and/or gets the battery pulled long enough for the internal mini battery to discharge enough for it to ask you to confirm the date. This is, in most themes, the same background you had hardcoded into the binary initially.

So /etc/hildon/theme/startup-wizard/wallpaper.png is, in most themes, the same red version of the water splashing NSeries/alpha Theme background. I just don't see why there's a need to hard-code the default background into the binary - or if you do, why it can't by default check in the theme directory for the image (if you want themes to provide a special image for the enhanced lock screen background), instead of requiring the user to manually make a config file.

That said, having an optional config file is something, at least, and I appreciate already having that option.

Regarding fwrnando's points: He's mostly right in my opinion - I just fiddled with the 0.2 version and the slider isn't big enough to comfortably paw at it with your thumb - it takes actual precision.

I actually thought aesthetically it was nice to have it along the entire length of the screen, but realistically, yes, it's too long for a comfortable swipe. Having it at the bottom also means you can't as comfortably thumb it all the way to the end / all the way from the beginning with the thumb of the hand you're holding the device in. Honestly, even using the SAME size and location of the default lock screen is very convenient (it does portrait too in CSSU with forced rotation - the background isn't meant for portrait though, causing it to look ugly). The same dimensions would also mean you can use the same icon and background as whatever the theme's lockscreen is - then the theme just needs a portrait background and boom - not only do we have a more single-hand-unlock friendly layout, but we also have the foundation of a CSSU-usable lockscreen recode.

More flexibility/customizability could be added to that as time goes on, of course.

I also think like some others here that the text would be nice - icons can be used of course, but text showing the sender/caller/whatever of the notification would be nice where applicable, specifically because that's part of the information you might like to have when opening a lock screen. Though I do agree that icons for explaining WHAT a given notification is of is prob'ly better then text - I.E. Email Icon | [number of emails and names of senders], in general terms. I just really don't want to see fragmentation in images used.

ESPECIALLY because THIS may actually make it's way into the CSSU if it's polished up and modified so that the defaults all provide just stock lock-screen appearance + customization versatility.

happymonkey: I never shared your problem of managing to unlock the lock slider with a case... Honestly, that's what lock codes are for. The only time's I've ever accidentally done something like that is by leaving the screen unlocked when putting it into my case or something. BUT, I can understand what you're saying. Still, it doesn't change the above issues with the current lock-slider. A more complicated way is doable certainly, but I don't think it should be the default. Plus, if you properly lock the screen, to unlock it in-pocket through the lockscreen you have to have your pocket arrangement such that the power button gets pressed often - it's surprising to me you don't reboot/shut-off your phone in your pocket, honestly. But I understand your issue and can see how it would be annoying; I just think that we'd be getting into the extra-feature-bloat thing. (Oh and if your phone opens to lock screen in portrait, which I suspect is the position it's in in your pocket, this lockscreen rotates, and the portrait mode slider length is close to the stock landscape one.

dark_angel: You have to either reboot or

Ctrl+C will then get you back to being able to enter commands. Near as I can tell Ctrl+C doesn't stop the enhanced-lockscreen once launched tho.

Finally: both opening the lens cover and sliding open the keyboard seems to have an "unlock" effect currently, in that they exit you out of the unlock screen just as actual unlocking would.

Other than that, I can visibly see a split second after unlocking that the lockscreen is there before it vanishes - I get that this is an inevitable consequence of using hackery to get it working, but just saying.

Its home screen or lock screen ? Add a menu button to complete this

Mentalist Traceur: cl-launcher does nothing but break auto-launch for me. If I select it to launch blessn900, when I open the screen, it does nothing but open the screen.

I didn't really have time to word my cut and paste statement, I should've said that since handling the TMO forum submit textarea is fiddly at best with the touchscreen, it's difficult (for me, who usually uses the mouse to select text.)

EDIT: Can somebody please, please give me better icon glyphs for the signal indicator, WiFi and battery?

They're all lock screens.