hopbeat | # 1 | 2010-01-03, 20:30 | Report

shortctud is now available in extras-devel. IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, DON'T GO THERE, IT MAY HURT YOU.

This is a daemon for handling proximity sensor and camera key to access dashboard (task switcher) and phone application. Key features at the moment:
-press camera key when the lens cover is closed to access dashboard
-touch proximity sensor briefly (two vibrations) to access dashboard
-touch proximity sensor longer (three vibrations) to access phone application
-touch sensor much longer (~3s) to disable sensor (long vibration). Do it again (long vibration) to bring sensor again
-proximity sensor can be disabled permanently by editing config file:
-application requires proximityd
-app enters power saving mode when keyboard is locked

This application is created by me and hqh

This is just first and basic preview, we would like to ask you for your feedback, both technical and about usage patterns and options that you would like to see.

Known issues at the moment:
-after unblocking the phone (slider, power button, keyboard) it can take up to 5 seconds for the application to activate. This is related to the power saving mode.
-Everything is basic and rough, to remove just uninstall the application.

A little see before you buy

DaSilva | # 2 | 2010-01-04, 09:26 | Report

It works great! Do you know if it uses a lot of energy?
If no applications are running and you are on the desktop nothing happens at two vibrations. Instead I would prefer to see the menu.
And if I disable the sensor after three seconds how can I turn it on again with the same gesture? Isn't the sensor turned off?
What happens if I get a call and I put my phone to the head? Will the sensor be deactivated after three seconds or is it disabled automatically when the phone application runs?

hopbeat | # 3 | 2010-01-04, 09:45 | Report

About energy: it enters the power saving mode when you lock your keyboard/phone, so no impact there.
Energy impact when active depends on your usage pattern of other applications: shortcutd is not heavy on the processor (you can check this with top command) but, as it uses sleep(), it requests a lot of CPU wakeups, which can prevent the processor from entering the idle state. We will work on optifying this, still it shouldn't have any serious impact on your battery life at the moment. Any feedback on this would be appreciated

Disabling sensor with long touch means that it won't bring up dashboard/phone application. The sensor itself is still checked, so you can reactive its functions with long press again. To turn it off permanently, you can use config file (and reboot in this version).

No impact of the application during calls (not really our work, simply the keyboard is locked during phone call with the proximity sensor, so the application enters idle state).

DaSilva | # 4 | 2010-01-04, 10:23 | Report

Thanks, I have tested it now.
When the screen is unlocked both daemons together use between 1%-4% of the CPU but mostly not more than 1% (together). If I switch the screen off I cannot even see them in top so I think it should not drain the battery too much. Good work

hqh | # 5 | 2010-01-04, 10:40 | Report

Effect on battery life will probably further improve when bug 7070 gets fixed.

codeMonkey | # 6 | 2010-01-06, 16:44 | Report

Cheers for the app, guys.
I was previously using camkeyd, but wanted to update since I think you probably won't maintain that as much.

In terms of use-cases I'm using it exactly like camkeyd at the moment - I've disabled proximity through the config file because I often accidentally cover the proximity sensor.

hqh | # 7 | 2010-01-06, 22:01 | Report

A new version of shortcutd is available in extras-devel. It consumes significantly less power than the previous release (should be fine now for everyday use).

If you have camkeyd installed, it needs to be removed before installing shortcutd (the packages now conflict).

Yeah, the functionality of camkeyd has been integrated into this program and camkeyd is no longer maintained. The camkeyd package will remain in extras-devel while shortcutd will get promoted to testing some day.

---

Last edited by hqh; 2010-01-06 at 22:05.

DaSilva | # 8 | 2010-01-07, 10:56 | Report

Currently I want to use shortcutd only like camkeyd and I changed the config file but I still get the vibration near the proximity sensor. Do I have to restart proximityd? If yes, how (don't want to restart the phone)?

hqh | # 9 | 2010-01-07, 11:11 | Report

Shortcutd needs to be restarted after modifying the configuration file.

stop shortcutd; start shortcutd
(as root) does the trick

jcompagner | # 10 | 2010-01-07, 13:02 | Report

I think what would be nice if pressing the camkey i get the dashboard but pressing it again brings me to the desktop..

Of course even better would be if the 3 shortcuts would be configurable and we can choose that it should show the dashboard, desktop, application menu (or directly the more apps) or start any application we want..
And what the second action of the shortcut is if the first action (like the dashboard) is currently the active one.