Official myLock thread - we don't like the lockscreen

[Martin030908]

Thanks for all your hard work on this app.

I just read through this entire thread and it seems that most people want to be able to bypass the slide to unlock. However, I would prefer to keep it because I don't want to make pocket calls.

You did mention offering the slide to unlock option. Will this be implemented in such a way that the camera or volume buttons will wake the screen and present the slide to unlock screen? I find it awkward to have to reach to the top of the device to wake the screen. It would be much nicer, in my opinion, if the camera button could wake the screen... but I don't want to eliminate the safety of the slide-to-unlock.

As icing on the cake, if the lock screen allowed a widget to be placed, as has been discussed, that would be awesome. Then, finally, I would be able to control the music player without having to unlock the darn screen! But I still prefer to have the slide-to-unlock.

Only the power button wakes the phone... so pocket dialing would be extremely difficult.

[kenkamm]

Oh, my mistake. I thought I read that there was some kind of camera and volume button functionality.

Still, I don't think its impossible to press the home button on a droid in a pocket. I tried one of those other programs and found that out.

[kenkamm]

Ok, wait, I'm not crazy. There was mention of the camera button and/or volume rocker:

long live alpha 1 then.


tonight I got progress in defining custom buttons/actions for unlock.

I can put my own lockscreen in place every time the screen sleeps (cancelling the regular lockscreen). Then I can respond to keys however I want. While I can't stop the cpu from waking up because android doesn't give apps permission to define wakeup rules, my lockscreen doesn't turn your screen on unless its a button that we actually want to wake it up. It sends the cpu back to sleep in 5 seconds. Since it isn't doing anything it doesn't impact battery at all.

This pre-alpha test build lets camera key wake it up (once awake you see a clock, and you can use the notification panel, or press back to unlock) and keeps volume and focus camera key presses from waking the screen. Power still instant unlocks just like the rest of the myLock versions.

I am skipping alpha for this as the first implementation of it is already in myLock complete (though non-functional) and my test build APK is also up for download because I forgot to deleted.

The beta of this won't be ready for a bit, quite a few to-dos detailed over on the blog.

I've been trying to eliminate all bugs in the test builds, so I am not sure which versions you might be getting as I am constantly uploading minor revisions so i can download and test. the bug I just posted about is what is causing you to see the waiting screen.. some apps are causing the normal procedure that would prime at screen off to get delayed till you wake it back up. So far my most solid functionality is with the custom lock turned ON (you only wake that up with the camera key), but it still encounters the bug occasionally and most often when locking over dolphin browser.

[petjakob]

You did mention offering the slide to unlock option. Will this be implemented in such a way that the camera or volume buttons will wake the screen and present the slide to unlock screen? I find it awkward to have to reach to the top of the device to wake the screen. It would be much nicer, in my opinion, if the camera button could wake the screen... but I don't want to eliminate the safety of the slide-to-unlock to get to the home screen.

As icing on the cake, if the lock screen allowed a widget to be placed, as has been discussed, that would be awesome. Then, finally, I would be able to control the music player without having to unlock the darn screen! But I still prefer to have the slide-to-unlock.

You just summarized the vision of myLock... we want useful things on the lockscreen, if we have one at all. Some of us particularly don't view the slider as useful. Some of us do. Most of us agree some other wakeup options would be good besides the top power key.

Alpha 3 feature release will have the option of customized wakeup & instant unlock.

I was using a palm pre the other day (co-worker got one) and I liked how their unlock slider works just like a design idea I had earlier while I was still only brainstorming features- the slider is radial so you grab it from the very middle of the screen at the bottom, and slide it up past a boundary. You can slide whatever direction is natural for your thumb, as long as you take it far enough from the start point and cross the boundary, you unlock. My idea was for a shortcut launcher that worked exactly the same. First Mockup
The idea was to touch the android (and keep your finger there) to display the shortcuts, and slide it to any one of them to unlock while launching the app. I scrapped the idea after it occurred to me that we could just let app shortcut icons be placed onto the custom lockscreen or just let the homescreen exist with shortcuts, with no lockscreen at all.

So when I do the slider I want to make the myLock version to take advantage of that idea, minus shortcut launching, but also use the source code from the existing unlock slider to provide the default one also as an option. The a3 feature release probably won't have either, making it so the back & home touch keys do unlock when you have awakened the custom lockscreen.

[Martin030908]

I've tried installing myLock_a3_0204.apk but installation fails.

[kenkamm]

So when I do the slider I want to make the myLock version to take advantage of that idea, minus shortcut launching, but also use the source code from the existing unlock slider to provide the default one also as an option. The a3 feature release probably won't have either, making it so the back & home touch keys do unlock when you have awakened the custom lockscreen.

I'm very happy to hear that you do plan to offer the existing unlock slider as an option. The reason I like that idea is that I'm used to it. I'm just about to the point where I can unlock the phone without really having to look at it. And, I do like the slider because of the protection it offers against accidental unlocking.

My wife actually wants this even more than I do. She puts the phone in her purse, where other objects can easily press the top button, and she's worried that elimination of the slider would cause too many pocket calls for her. She's had that issue with other devices. But she has small hands, and finds the top button hard to reach when holding the droid in one hand. She and I agree that it would be nice to be able to wake the screen with the camera button, but would still like to see the existing slide-to-unlock presented.

I'm really looking forward to using this app when it gets to that point!

[BullDroid]

Gotta say that I love this app! ALso to the people worried about it waking up and making a call. You do realize that our screens require a physical touch to open apps/do various tasks on our phone. In other words I don't think its very likely that something in your purse/pocket can touch anything on the screen since it requires a warm human finger. I am thinking right on this right??? because you cant use a stylus or anything like that on our screen its goota be your finger. So I can't see how something would "touch" your phone app and then also dial numbers and "touch" the call button. makes sense to me anyways... lol

[Martin030908]

Installed 0204.... not running persistent mode at the moment (don't want anything in my notification bar)..... initial finding is that my phone will not 'sleep'. The screen won't black out unless I manually press the power button.

After installing, my screen timeout setting kept clearing from 30 seconds to nothing. So every time I 'awoke' the phone, it immediately blacked out. Did a reboot of the phone and was able to keep the 30 second time out to remain in the settings, but now the screen isn't turning off at all.

Screen time out setting keeps clearing out. Not sure what's going on.

Edit: Screen will not time out with persistent mode not enabled. I'm trying in persistent mode now.

[mkstn]

I would love to have more time to swipe the unlock... if you don't get to it immediately you have to start all over. I could not find any time settings for this like the time settings on the sleep feature.

[petjakob]

Your bug doesn't seem to duplicate for me. Having never tested non-persistent yet in this set of revisions, I tried launching with persistent unchecked, and also launching persistent and unchecking it to have the running service turn off the notification.

I think what actually might be happening to you is a bug with the stay awake setting. I need to add back key handling to the settings screen because if you press back after checking stay awake, it cancels the visual check but the code doesn't react to the change and can cause an unexpected state of stay awake that screws up the rest of the functionality that is expecting auto-sleep.

Also, do you have any task killer or other app that runs a service?
Check running services under the Applications category in settings