[OS2008] Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Advanced Backlight is a statusbar applet that replaces Nokia's built-in backlight and volume applets. The goal is to provide the user with access to the full 128 levels of backlight, as opposed to the 5 levels that Nokia provides, and to reduce statusbar clutter by combining the volume and brightness applets into a single applet.

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploa...creenshot1.jpg

The applet provides 128 levels of backlight for the N810 and 127 levels for the N800. The N800 does not have the option to turn off the backlight, as it would be unreadable without the transflective screen (though a future release may include an option to enable this "dangerous" feature). The icon is made up of 7 levels of backlight and 6 levels of volume (mute and 0-4) for a total of 42 icons.

http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploa...creenshot2.jpg
http://www.legacyoflies.com/devuploa...creenshot3.jpg

WOOHOO! advanced-backlight is now in the extras repository!

Easy installation (Chinook): Install
Easy installation (Diablo): Install

Get the .deb:
Chinook: advanced-backlight_0.14-3_armel.deb.
Diablo: advanced-backlight_0.14-3_armel.deb.

See the Garage page: http://adv-backlight.garage.maemo.org/.

Change Log:

Advanced Backlight 0.14 (7/18/2008):

• Now (again) supports 770 with fanoush kernel for backlight updates (built for OS2008HE, use chinook deb).
• Changed icon format to better show muted volume level.

Advanced Backlight 0.13 (7/16/2008, -devel only):

• Initial volume should be correct now.
• Added GConf notification on volume change.
• I18n support.
• Added translations for: de es fi fr nl pl ru se. Thanks to all translators!
• New approach for beep on volume change (daperl).
• Fixed mute at zero volume bug.
• Updated appearance of default iconset.

Advanced Backlight 0.12 (07/14/2008, -devel only):

• Switching directly to maximum brightness will now work correctly.
• Muted icon will display correctly when mute is set with volume 0.
• Now using threaded volume/brightness updates, patch by daperl.
• Using delayed brightness updates also improves smoothness.
• Added a new iconset, "Hildon". Thanks, loki!

Advanced Backlight 0.11 (7/10/2008):

• Fixed volume beep.
• Fixed brightness slider (was stuck at max 1/2 brightness).
• Improved rotation icons to function more logically.

Advanced Backlight 0.10 (7/9/2008):

• Added jott to the Advanced Backlight team!
• Added labels to the sliders.
• Added rotation support.
  • Supercedes jott's rotate-sb-plugin.
    
  • If you have rotation support installed, the applet will show an orientation selector.
• Changed brightness slider to match the volume bar.
• Changed the settings dialog to better match the rest of the platform.
• Changed to calling dsme syscalls directly, instead of through dsmetool.
• Finally have a proper container for the applet. Many, many thanks to jott (for this and many other improvements)!
  • Tap anywhere outside the applet to close it now.
    
  • Style now matches the Nokia applets.
    
  • "Settings..." is no longer a button, but a real menu entry.
• Fixed crash when changing the volume for the first time.
• General code cleanup.

Advanced Backlight 0.9b (6/27/2008):

• Added hardware button configuration options.
• Added beep on volume change.
• Added option for beep on volume change.
• Fixed regression with control panel icon.

Advanced Backlight 0.9 (6/6/2008):

• Added support for hardware buttons (brightness: left/right, volume: up/down, close: escape).
• Added a configuration GUI.
• Added the option to disallow/allow turning off the backlight entirely.
• Settings now persist across reboots.
• Added support for icon sets.
• Added LCARS icon set.
• Changed the applet list icon.
• Changed the capitalization in the settings menu (GAN).

Advanced Backlight 0.8 (2/12/2008):

• Added a volume slider.
• New icon set showing 7 levels of backlight and 6 levels of volume.

Advanced Backlight 0.6 (2/5/2008):

• Now in a black frame (looks much better).
• Uses a hildonized popup method, so it responds much better to focus changes.

Advanced Backlight 0.5 (1/21/2008):

• First Garage release.
• Changed from full window to popup.
• Removed system() in favor of g_spawn_async().

To Do:

• Update icons to show more accurate data when muted. [Done in 0.14]
• Update icons for compatability with above task. [Done in 0.14]
• Add support for OS2007HE on N770. [Done in 0.14]
• Add support for the N810's light meter. [Half-done]
  • Need to flesh out implementation details... What exactly will it do?
• General code cleanup.
• Consider adding "Settings..." links similar to the original volume/brightness applets.

Other Notes:

I'd like to thank all of #maemo for testing/suggestions, and especially GeneralAntilles for contributing custom icons and tons of motivation (and typing up most of this post)! :)
Also, many thanks to Advanced Backlight's newest team member, jott, and the many translators that helped us provide localization support for many languages!


If anyone has any more suggestions, I'd be happy to consider them and possibly add a few more things to my TODO list.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Nice ! Even if it didn't do anything better than the existing icons (which it does), saving space on the toolbar alone would make it worthwhile !

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Wow! Thanks a lot, I've been hoping somebody would make something like this eventually! I've always wondered why Nokia thought it was a good idea to limit the brightness levels so much, especially with the difference between level 1 and 2 brightness which is like huge.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Love the tool, with the other two icons turned off, and this one in its place, my desktop seems so much less cluttered... will run in for a few days and watch what happens, but my guess is that all around it is a winner. Thanks,

Thor

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Very handy! I'd also be interested in knowing how you got that clock up there in the statusbar??

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

bow: That's osso-statusbar-cpu

And thanks for the compliments everyone! :)

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

http://people.debian.org/~tschmidt/maemo/chinook/

It's the tschmidt repository on gronmayer.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

This is a great program, but I can't use it. Can you add a light meter support, like an original applet?

This is possible. See http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=16414

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Did you mean that you can't use it because the light meter support is an essential feature to you, or because it actually doesn't work for some reason?

I don't have an n810 so I don't know how the original applet for n810 interfaces with the lightmeter. Does it try to automatically adjust the light level somehow? Explain a bit more if you could, and I will consider adding it to my TODO list...

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

The N810 has a ambient light meter on the front beside the camera (that I keep annoyingly covering up with my thumb). The brightness is automagically adjusted using this as an input to keep the same apparent brightness of the screen. It will turn the brightness down in a dark environment and turn it up in a bright one and the range offset is adjusted by the brightness slider, not the brightness directly. I haven't found a way to turn this off.

It is a neat feature but I have found that it is non-ideal in two ways:
1) I keep on falsely triggering it to think I am in a dark room when I am not by covering the sensor with my thumb.
2) The adjustment is quite step-wise and delayed.

If you could implement it with fixes to both smoothness of transition and latency without gobbling CPU time with frequent hardware polling, that would be superb. Otherwise, I think that I will install your applet now just because it disables the effect ... the fact that it is a cool applet-bar space saver is a bonus.

Not sure that you can do anything about my thumb :]

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Does this support 2007he and the 770? Could it?

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Is there any way to run/use this from command line? Looks like a really neat app :D

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

The program essentially just provides a gui to a commandline hack. You can do:
where # is in the range 1-127 and it will change the brightness. :)

I was talking with someone in #maemo earlier about this, and it didn't appear to work (just because of how it does the brightness changing at the moment). It is possible for a future version to include support for os2007HE though, so don't give up hope!

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Thanks!!!

Not sure what others are seeing, but the light meter still adjusts things according to ambient light on my n810 after installing the new control.

It's amazing to see how bright the screen can get... wow..

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Shiny! very nice, I like it

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

dsmetest cannot do this in OS<2008. You need modified kernel. See
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...990#post138990
The fine grained control in dsme (and dsmetest) was done for supporting N810 light sensor, previous versions have only few hardcoded levels and workaround is needed in kernel.
http://fanoush.wz.cz/maemo/#backlight


Still, some previous version of this applet worked with such modified kernel, not sure if the current one still does and/or is available for OS2007.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Umm............kind of embarrassed that I am the only one asking this question. Uh...how do you make the original light/vol icons disappear? I am now seeing 3 icons on my desktop, both N800 and N810 running 2008Os. Thanks and thanks for a cool app,



bun

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Go to Settings and click control panel > Panels > Status Bar

From here you can click which ones you want to show (checkmark box) and move the order to display them.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

control panel->navigation->status bar
Tick on/off

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Yes, I was afraid of that. You are correct though, the original applet was designed to use the modified kernel, so I could VERY easily return that functionality as the default when installed on 770 hardware. Could someone get me the contents of /proc/component_version on the 770 so I can add detection of it to my platform_check() function? :)

Edit: Asked in #maemo and got this:

product SU-18
hw-build 1602
nolo 0.9.14

Apparently I'm doing platform detection in an odd way, but it seems reasonable to me...
SU-18 = 770
RX-34 = n800
RX-44 = n810
RC-48 = *insert speculation here*
Thoughts?

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Great applet! A suggestion or two:

In the Control Panel/Panels/Status Bar tab, the icon is the same as Display (the built-in one). Should be different.

I'm accustomed to disconnecting my BT headset from the sound icon, do you think that's readily possible? I keep the BT icon up anyhow, so I'm going to start retraining myself to disconnect the headset from there.

And this is OT, but I'm trying to eliminate the Presence applet. If I could trash that, I'd have room for the fat clock. Any clue would be appreciated...

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

I worked up a custom icon, but I think rm_you had some trouble in getting it to load properly. Should probably be put on the To Do list, though.

A good idea (I had considered this problem myself when the volume slider was added), but without Nokia's source for the volume applet, it may be a little difficult getting this setup.

Totally or have it combined with another applet? I'm not sure how feasible either of those options are.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

I *have* an icon for the Control Panel bit, I was just thoroughly failing to get it to work correctly (it just didn't want to show up!) so I went ahead and released with the old icon instead of delaying for something trivial. That really should be listed on my TODO list though!

I have also considered adding the "Settings..." buttons similar to the ones that are included in the original volume and brightness applets, and I have now properly added that to my TODO.

As for the presence applet, you could try deleting this file:
Or, at least move it somewhere for safekeeping. That *might* work! :P I haven't tried though...

Edit: GeneralAntilles and I apparently posted in parallel... Hopefully one of our answers is helpful. :)

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Well maybe you could check for OS2008 instead? N800 can have both OS2007 and 8 so RX-34 won't tell you which one is installed. Also in that case it doesn't matter if it is 770 or N800.

Check for OS version can be done like
cut -d _ -f 2 /etc/osso_software_version

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Nice app - thanks!

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

It worketh with a mighty working!

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

I do need to know the hardware difference as well so I can disable 0 backlight on n800 and enable light sensor / keyboard light code on n810. Maybe I will end up checking both....

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Didn't notice this before (don't restart, like, ever :D), but a friend brought it up.

The brightness setting doesn't persist through reboots. I guess write the current level when the applet popup closes and load it up again when the applet's loaded on startup?

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Yeah, I noticed that in the first versions but it seemed to have "magically" fixed itself... Or so I thought. :(

I will revisit this along with configuration file parsing, which should easily allow me to save the current brightness level.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Very nice applet.

One observation: all other status bar applets close their popup windows when the stylus is clicked outside of the window. It would be nice if this applet did it as well, for consistency's sake.

Hmm, on further investigation, clicking on the desktop background will not close the pop-up. Clicking anywhere else will.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

That's a neat job and much appreciated. Thanks.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

might be stupid question, but what is the "presence" icon?

john

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

If somebody wants to inform the group about how Nokia got those sliders into the GTK entities they did, then we're all ears. ;)

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

It's the icon for the default chat client (which also handles sipphone). It's usually a green/red/yellow dot if you have anything setup there. The color indicates connection status.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

ah, yes, thank you. i guess i never knew it had a name. if it was to go away perhaps someone could combine it with the battery icon which doesn't have any colour purpose, the overlay wouldn't affect the battery notification.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

It seems that clicking on the mute audio icon crashes my hildon desktop. it restarts after a while (white screen while waiting) but all applet layout (and the applets themselves) are gone after that. I have to reactivate them to get it working.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

I very much like this applet. But I noticed that after having it running for about a day, it eats up more than 100 MB of RAM. There must be huge leak somewhere... :(
So for now I deinstalled it again. But I'm eagerly waiting for a fixed version. :)

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

I know exactly what you're talking about, as I had that problem in one of my debug releases... But I haven't seen it since then. Could you give me a bit more information? I'm guessing you're using my 0.8 deb on OS2008, but what hardware are you using? Do you have any other custom applets running? Does it do that consistently? Does it actually APPLY the change before it crashes, or does the mute state stay the same?

I would also ask you disable my applet, change the mute state with the original applet, and then re-enable mine and try muting with that again. If that fixes it, I may have an idea what's wrong.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I don't claim to be great at C memory management, though I went over it fairly well around my 0.6 release... It's entirely possible something added since that release is causing a problem. I'll go through it again before the 0.9 release and have a few more people look at it as well. I *REALLY* want to make this a quality applet, so if anyone else has statistics on this, please let me know. Hopefully I can get some other people in #maemo to look through it as well! :)

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

It seems that now even the original applet crashes the desktop. It has never happened before with the original one. To answer your second question. It does activate mute and then crashes. Strangely enough, it has not crashed so effectively that all I see is the white screen and it is persistent between reboots. Thankfully I can still ssh into device so I should be able to repair whatever damage has been done. At the moment all I can say is that the hildon-desktop segfaults. I will investigate further.

Re: Advanced Backlight Statusbar Applet
 

Has anyone got the idea where the applet settings being stored on the tablet ?