Official myLock thread - we don't like the lockscreen

[petjakob]

Yes, I'll be putting up the first Featured alpha 3 build soon as I've been testing all day and I'm sure I fixed the bug, and handcent is cooperating.

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What's outstanding in the finish list is to get the stay awake mode integrated so it no longer interferes with the functionality that handles when a non-wakeup button gets pressed (the phone has to be allowed to go back into full sleep from that for power management reasons), and integrate the shake option code-wise. Then throw in some options so you can choose which buttons will unlock or just wake up to the alpha replacement lockscreen (once I get a good clock display running it), have stay awake engage when slider is opened, and the choice of seeing a slide to unlock at the bottom or just using back/home to unlock.

 

[Martin030908]

Thanks for the updates Petjakob!

 

[deputc26]

Wow, I interacted with you briefly on this over at Howardforums. "Shake to Wake" would be the coolest feature and personally I *want* to have the option having *all* buttons wake up the phone looks like some great work.

 

[petjakob]

I am hard at work to get shake working actually. I discovered a fix out there in the open source community which bypasses the new power management that disables sensor listening when the phone goes to sleep. It seems it is only going to work in the foreground/persistent mode. I'll update again once I have the proof of concept running.

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Yes indeed, yes indeed, it works. Now I just have to get the logic into the regular part of myLock that watches the screen/phone and work out some of the finer implementation details.

 

[yankee112792]

app works perfect for me, but how do i place widgets on the mylock screen?

 

[petjakob]

How you add widgets is wait for the beta in which widget customization will be fully operational ;]

You can also help us get there by helping test the 0204 alpha 3 revision. I need feedback on every day usage. Like any bugs it might have interacting with other apps, a main focus of improvement for this version. When I get some spare time I'll be fixing stay awake and shake but don't try to test them in combo with myLock running.

Head to the blog or project downloads page to grab it.

Http://mylockandroid.blogspot.com

If you get a specific conflict with any app or notice a behavior that always happens in response to something you do on your phone, please email me the details to mylockandroid at gmail, this will really help us improve for the feature alpha 3 release.

I am really looking forward to having it finished and out on the market, then focusing on implementing all the great features of the customizable lockscreen.

 

[rjax]

A couple observations about the 0204 alpha 3 version -- which has been working fairly well overall, with these couple exceptions:

1) Twice now I've plugged in my phone to charge it with the screen turned off, and at some point during the charging (probably once the phone has been fully charged), the screen is turning on and showing the empty myLock widget screen.

2) I'm using Home++ as my home replacement, and I when I switch between what the dev calls "Safe Mode" being on and off, (Home++ has to restart itself to do this), and it's usually done very quickly. However, since I've installed the alpha, the screen stays black after Home++ shuts itself down until I either long press on the power button or open the keyboard. Then I get a screen that shows only my wallpaper. To get back to the Home++ home scree from that, I have to hit the home key.

 

[rjax]

Correction to point 1 -- it looks like the screen powers on to the myLock empty page maybe a minute after I plug it in, even before it's fully charged.

 

[petjakob]

do you have stay awake when connected to charger turned on (under settings => app => development)? anytime the screen gets woken up and myLock loses main control, it turns the screen on. this is to allow things like handcent popups to work. if something wakes up the screen but doesnt take control, i've noticed the screen flips on even though it will still be asleep/locked behavior-wise.

try power key twice for the case where you find it in lockdown. what's happening when a power key fails the first time is that it was actually awake behind the scenes waiting to timeout into cpu sleep. so it reads your power key as a go to sleep. there are a few cases where this still happens. another is when you close the slider while it is asleep. it is doing a 5 second wakeup where the screen is kept off.

 

[kenkamm]

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 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.

 

[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. :heart:


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.