Sorry to make a whole new thread about this, but just curious if anyone else has been having this 'issue'
ive flashed quite a few of the roms on the forums, and for some strange reason, i cant seem to find a rom which just WORKS
the main thing i use my handset for is email and SMS messaging, in any given month easily 4000+ SMS' will be sent and the same number received.
this for some reason appears to 'break' a lot of the rom's
the phone slow's riiiight down and when exiting one conversation to go to the next, it hangs every single time, when i go to select the messaging application, it just hangs, or doesnt even go in at all.
i've used the Energy roms, the Chrome roms, Da_G's clean rom, NATF's roms
i've been through pretty much all of the rom's on here and they ALL break once the SMS count gets in the 3000+ region, and i appreciate its simple to just 'delete' the messages, but this isnt particularly practical, at the moment i'm having to hard reset every month or so and this really takes the piss
can anyone point me in the direction of a nice lean rom that can handle an obscene amount of SMS' and emails?
with thanks
I guess no one send and receive 4000+ SMS' per month except you
that's why nobody tried to check with this issue
but the phone should be able to handle it! i mean, one of my older nokia's can handle the 4000+ with ease
The microsoft SMS program just cannot handle that many of messages. Either back them up (remove from inbox) periodically, or delete them periodically.
you may want to disable sms conversation (threading).
just out of curiosity, why do you need 4000+ sms a month ?
one question... where are your messages stored? in phone memory or on the storage card?
Pampilius86 said:
one question... where are your messages stored? in phone memory or on the storage card?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
for the email, the attachments are stored on storage card
otherwise, i never knew we could change where SMS's are stored?!
the 4000+ sms's are just what i use tbh, thats on a good month tho, usually hovers around that mark however
i remember back in the wizard/hermes time clean rom's were all the rage, now, since we've got the devices with huge amounts of ram/rom all we're seeing is bloated rom's!
bursucul said:
you may want to disable sms conversation (threading).
just out of curiosity, why do you need 4000+ sms a month ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the thing is, i use the threading facility a LOT, back before wm6/6.1 i actually had an application i would install on my ppc to have the SMS' threaded
but to be honest, why should the tp not be able to handle that many SMS's without slowing down?!
duke_stix said:
Sorry to make a whole new thread about this, but just curious if anyone else has been having this 'issue'
ive flashed quite a few of the roms on the forums, and for some strange reason, i cant seem to find a rom which just WORKS
the main thing i use my handset for is email and SMS messaging, in any given month easily 4000+ SMS' will be sent and the same number received.
this for some reason appears to 'break' a lot of the rom's
the phone slow's riiiight down and when exiting one conversation to go to the next, it hangs every single time, when i go to select the messaging application, it just hangs, or doesnt even go in at all.
i've used the Energy roms, the Chrome roms, Da_G's clean rom, NATF's roms
i've been through pretty much all of the rom's on here and they ALL break once the SMS count gets in the 3000+ region, and i appreciate its simple to just 'delete' the messages, but this isnt particularly practical, at the moment i'm having to hard reset every month or so and this really takes the piss
can anyone point me in the direction of a nice lean rom that can handle an obscene amount of SMS' and emails?
with thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont think this would be the ROMs fault. You see the more messages you store in your fone the less memory and stability it has. Instead of having old messages in your fone why not delete them? Talk about practicality, whats practical about having old messages in ur fone just to take up excess memory? So someone texts u one question, u answer it and have no intentions of messaging them back, yet its more practical to keep these messages in ur fone and then complain that u have to hard reset instead of deleting a few messages due to having all these redundant mesages that u really dont need? Seems to me an intelligent person would rather delete a few messages rather than hard resetting their device and lose everything. Maybe u can make a fresh ROM with no extras and nothing more than a fone and an email device. I mean, why have a PDA if all ur gonna do is text and email? Seems to me u can save a few hundred bux and just get a cheap lil fone that has no customization whatsoever to leave all the room for messaging? Sorry if I sound like I have an attitude, honestly I dont, I just think that the chefs u mentioned have awesome ROMs that keep getting better and better yet u diss them cuz ud rather hard resest and lose everything rather than simply deleting a few hundred messages that u dont need anyway.
It's like if you don't clean your house regularly and just throw your rubbish everywhere, then you complain that you're living in a pig sty and your house fills up with rubbish so fast you can't move around the house as quickly as you used to. Then after a month, you need to fully renovate the whole interior of the house again so that you have space to walk...
My suggestions :
1) start learning some housekeeping(make that little effort to delete the sms yourself)
2) get a bigger house (new phone with more ram and faster CPU)
3) get a cleaner to come in to clean your rubbish once in awhile (there might be some sms program out there that can auto delete your sms on a regular basis)
4) or reorganise the layout of your house so that it's more efficient (forget about sms threading and use the conventional format, I'm sure it'll speed things up a bit since it doesn't have to load the entire conversation everytime)
duke_stix said:
but the phone should be able to handle it! i mean, one of my older nokia's can handle the 4000+ with ease
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is your older nokia using sms threading and displaying the whole history of the conversation everytime you enter the inbox?
I highly doubt it.. so you've got your answer there already.
I used to be a project manager, I would send about 500 emails a day at work easily. After a month of working it would take FOREVER to open outlook. Thats because it has to load the entire contents of 10k + emails. Its the same with your phone. Back up and delete or don't complain. Flash a stock ROM and open your windows folder, and then flash a custom ROM and do the same. you will see the speed increase there. Also, if you leave SMS open and just hit end key it wont have to reload everything every time you open a message.
I have the same problem that your talking about since i average about 7-12K a month of sms.. Like everyone said the only way to deal with it is just to clear your inbox or put it to unthreaded.. Our phones just werent meant to hold that much sms i suppose..
duke_stix said:
the main thing i use my handset for is email and SMS messaging, in any given month easily 4000+ SMS' will be sent and the same number received.
this for some reason appears to 'break' a lot of the rom's
the phone slow's riiiight down and when exiting one conversation to go to the next, it hangs every single time, when i go to select the messaging application, it just hangs, or doesnt even go in at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe most of the problem here is that you don't precisely understand what's going on behind-the-scenes. Your CPU/processor is only capable of running a single instruction at once- and thus only process a finite amount of data per unit time.
When designing an algorithm (in this case, the algorithm that reads SMS/E-mail database entries and displays them onscreen), tasks which apply to more than one or two items are usually completed by either iteration or recursion. For a task such as enumerating SMS messages onscreen, the process would be iterative; for example, if you were to break it down into simple steps, those steps might be:
1. Read the current SMS message from the database.
2. Display it on screen.
3. If there's another text message after this, repeat this process for it.
Step 1 itself actually is composed of several detailed steps, which take the time to perform a second algorithm, which tries to locate the current SMS message in the database, usually based on a unique identifier and a hashing algorithm. This takes time, but is faster than the alternative- which is to check each SMS and ask "is this the one I want?". Instead of having to check each message, the device usually only has to check a few until it finds the right location.
You can think of this as the device automatically categorizing messages into virtual 'boxes'- you have to spend a hell of a lot less time digging through a box to find 1 document out of 10 then by searching through a much larger heap of 4000 documents.
Step 3 is also composed of several steps, as the device has to figure out which SMS message is really next. As the user is capable of configuring the way in which the messages are sorted (by date, sender, etc.), the message that's next in the database is probably not the next message that's stored in the database. Time has to be spend finding the message, usually by yet another algorithm.
The problem is, each of these steps, and each of their sub-steps, and each of the sub-steps required to run those (all the way down to the machine code level) take time, and each have to be executed for every message the application would like to display.
Thread-view further complicates the matter by creating additional relations between the messages, and requiring the OS to look for even more posts during each step.
And this process isn't all that's going on at once- the operating system is trying to do something called TDM, or Time-Division Multiplexing (Multitasking), which allow you to run more than one program at once on a single CPU (which in turn can only do one thing at once). This basically lets the individual processes take individual turns so quickly that they seem simultaneous.
Because of all this, computer scientists rate their algorithms by degradation. We actually have a measure called Big-O (asymptotic) notation that tells you how well an algorithm handles load.
A good algorithm generally has performance of O(N) or better. This means that for every N elements (in your case, e-mail), it takes approximately N iterations to complete. Note the assumption that each "base iteration" executes in a (roughly) fixed time.
Assuming the WM message app uses a sensible algorithm (and it would be difficult for it not to), we can assume its efficiency is approximately O(N)- as it is simply O(N) for non-threaded, and it is O((N/S) * S) for threaded, which simplifies to O(N). This means that for every 4000 messages, it will need to iterate 4000 times.
Considering the application can't store 4000-messages worth of data, it spends a lot of time during each iteration moving messages in and out of memory.
Given all of this, the Windows Mobile message parsing algorithm is the cause of your 'slowness' and 'hangups'. These periods of non-responsiveness are simply WM trying to run through the algorithm for all of the huge quantities of messages.
Hence, the problem is that Windows Mobile simply wasn't designed to bear the load you were forcing it to bear. This means the problem isn't related to the implementation in any given ROM.
can anyone point me in the direction of a nice lean rom that can handle an obscene amount of SMS' and emails?
with thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A ROM isn't going to be your solution- every ROM uses the same core Windows Mobile messaging applications.
It is possible that a combination of a data structure and message parsing algorithm (with the addition of hash and cache optimized for the way you specifically use messaging) could handle all of these messages without any considerable degradation; but it would run far less efficiently on small amount of messages than the current WM scheme. (And think: how many users have as many messages as you?)
Since no one really needs as many messages as you seem to, consider your options:
1) Implement a database optimized for large amount of messages. Implement a program that hooks all messages and places them in this database instead of the WM one. Write your own message reading/writing application and use in place of the WM one. Note that no one will do this for you. It's not a public interest: if you want it, you'll have to write it. We can help you- but we're not here to do the work for you.
2) Try a third party SMS reader/writer like Vito SMS-Chat. I don't think these will fare much better (in fact, they may fare worse), but if they implement any database of their own and any type of localized caching (especially of recent messages), they may work a bit better.
3) Remove your older SMS messages. This is probably the best option. If you don't need those messages anymore, a Microsoft applet called InboxExtender adds buttons to delete all messages (and to mark them all as read.)
4) Don't use threaded mode. This will decrease the time each parsing iteration takes.
---
This isn't a bug; nor is it a glitch, nor is it WM being crappy. It's much the same as if you tell photoshop to open an 8GB file on your desktop. Your computer may slow to a halt and take forever doing it- but the cause isn't that your computer is crappy, but rather that you're trying to open such a huge file.
Wow! Talk about a detailed explanation. Great explanation ktemkin, u obviously know what ur talkin about. Im actually a part time computer programmer. The biggest problem I see/hear about is people sayng their systems are getting way too slow. No surprise that the biggest reason for this is the used space in their computers hard drive for out-of-date programs, used cache space, ...basically all of the things theyve used before and just never cleaned out. I install 1 program, free their computer up of its junked up memory and update their programs. On this I get credit to simply sit on my butt and delete a few things, lol. Id suppose regardless of the device/computer its all the same. IE, the more room u have to work with, the faster the device's responsiveness is.
Best advice for these PDAs and smartphones for emails is dont leave all of your emails in your inbox folder. Make different folders, then as u go through your emails simply move the selected ones to the selected folders. Then DO NOT sync all of your folders to your device. Only sync the inbox to your device. Then if u ever need a message, u will know which folder its in, then sync that 1 folder, download the message(s), then after ur done, remove that folder from your sync list. When u organize your emails this way u will have a much enjoyable and longer life experience with your device. Hope this helps.
panthersdzynes said:
I dont think this would be the ROMs fault. You see the more messages you store in your fone the less memory and stability it has. Instead of having old messages in your fone why not delete them? Talk about practicality, whats practical about having old messages in ur fone just to take up excess memory? So someone texts u one question, u answer it and have no intentions of messaging them back, yet its more practical to keep these messages in ur fone and then complain that u have to hard reset instead of deleting a few messages due to having all these redundant mesages that u really dont need? Seems to me an intelligent person would rather delete a few messages rather than hard resetting their device and lose everything. Maybe u can make a fresh ROM with no extras and nothing more than a fone and an email device. I mean, why have a PDA if all ur gonna do is text and email? Seems to me u can save a few hundred bux and just get a cheap lil fone that has no customization whatsoever to leave all the room for messaging? Sorry if I sound like I have an attitude, honestly I dont, I just think that the chefs u mentioned have awesome ROMs that keep getting better and better yet u diss them cuz ud rather hard resest and lose everything rather than simply deleting a few hundred messages that u dont need anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The fact of the matter is, that a lot of the messages on my handset DO need to remain on there for at least the remainder of a fortnight following receipt of said message.
the only 'qualm' i was having was that my older wizard and hermes devices seem to have managed that number of SMS' and more perfectly fine, but my Raphael begins to struggle.
lukesky said:
It's like if you don't clean your house regularly and just throw your rubbish everywhere, then you complain that you're living in a pig sty and your house fills up with rubbish so fast you can't move around the house as quickly as you used to. Then after a month, you need to fully renovate the whole interior of the house again so that you have space to walk...
My suggestions :
1) start learning some housekeeping(make that little effort to delete the sms yourself)
2) get a bigger house (new phone with more ram and faster CPU)
3) get a cleaner to come in to clean your rubbish once in awhile (there might be some sms program out there that can auto delete your sms on a regular basis)
4) or reorganise the layout of your house so that it's more efficient (forget about sms threading and use the conventional format, I'm sure it'll speed things up a bit since it doesn't have to load the entire conversation everytime)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have already tried disabling the SMS threading and although it speeds it up a little, i then also lose track of what message has come from whom.
i understand that 'doing a bit of house keeping' is what i should be doing, however, i barely have time to do said house keeping, and when i do attempt to delete a large volume of messages in one go the phone hangs on me again!
panthersdzynes said:
Wow! Talk about a detailed explanation. Great explanation ktemkin, u obviously know what ur talkin about. Im actually a part time computer programmer. The biggest problem I see/hear about is people sayng their systems are getting way too slow. No surprise that the biggest reason for this is the used space in their computers hard drive for out-of-date programs, used cache space, ...basically all of the things theyve used before and just never cleaned out. I install 1 program, free their computer up of its junked up memory and update their programs. On this I get credit to simply sit on my butt and delete a few things, lol. Id suppose regardless of the device/computer its all the same. IE, the more room u have to work with, the faster the device's responsiveness is.
Best advice for these PDAs and smartphones for emails is dont leave all of your emails in your inbox folder. Make different folders, then as u go through your emails simply move the selected ones to the selected folders. Then DO NOT sync all of your folders to your device. Only sync the inbox to your device. Then if u ever need a message, u will know which folder its in, then sync that 1 folder, download the message(s), then after ur done, remove that folder from your sync list. When u organize your emails this way u will have a much enjoyable and longer life experience with your device. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my emails are already pretty much organised, and i've only got it syncing the last 7 days for me, emails to be honest are fine its moreso the SMS side of things.
I was not complaining nor targetting any particular chef, i was merely voicing my concern that a device as powerful as the raphael seems to baulk at the prospect of a few thousand messages when the older wizard and hermes seem to manage perfectly fine.
i'm not exactly expecting an instantaneous loading of my inbox, i'm not entirely thick, i appreciate that having such a large number of SMS' will inevitably slow the handset down, however, i do not see why the handset should HANG when i try to open the messaging application, or why, when i try to go and open the messaging application it just doesnt register that i've asked it to open the application, just stops and i have to 'tap' it a few times before it opens.
duke_stix said:
the main thing i use my handset for is email and SMS messaging, in any given month easily 4000+ SMS' will be sent and the same number received.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4000+ sms' send AND receive???
so that means:
8000 per month / 30 days in a month = 266,667 per day
266,667 per day / 960 minutes (16 hours * 60) awake a day = 0,278
so say you are 16 hours awake on a day than you send/receive a sms every 15 seconds?? don't you have a real life?
TheWeird1 said:
4000+ sms' send AND receive???
so that means:
8000 per month / 30 days in a month = 266,667 per day
266,667 per day / 960 minutes (16 hours * 60) awake a day = 0,278
so say you are 16 hours awake on a day than you send/receive a sms every 15 seconds?? don't you have a real life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not all of the messages that are sent and received are single SMS' long!
majority, if not all will be 3/4+ messages long and the replies can be twice as long
duke_stix said:
The fact of the matter is, that a lot of the messages on my handset DO need to remain on there for at least the remainder of a fortnight following receipt of said message.
the only 'qualm' i was having was that my older wizard and hermes devices seem to have managed that number of SMS' and more perfectly fine, but my Raphael begins to struggle.
I have already tried disabling the SMS threading and although it speeds it up a little, i then also lose track of what message has come from whom.
i understand that 'doing a bit of house keeping' is what i should be doing, however, i barely have time to do said house keeping, and when i do attempt to delete a large volume of messages in one go the phone hangs on me again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 thing's for sure, the wizard and hermes are definitely non-threaded sms. But it's hard to compare apple to apple. Did you have 4000 in your Inbox and Sent folders on your Wizard and Hermes too?
I don't think the phone has hung, it's probably doing the processing for you. Have a little patience and let it sit there for awhile and do it's thing and see if it's really hanged.
duke_stix said:
my emails are already pretty much organised, and i've only got it syncing the last 7 days for me, emails to be honest are fine its moreso the SMS side of things.
I was not complaining nor targetting any particular chef, i was merely voicing my concern that a device as powerful as the raphael seems to baulk at the prospect of a few thousand messages when the older wizard and hermes seem to manage perfectly fine.
i'm not exactly expecting an instantaneous loading of my inbox, i'm not entirely thick, i appreciate that having such a large number of SMS' will inevitably slow the handset down, however, i do not see why the handset should HANG when i try to open the messaging application, or why, when i try to go and open the messaging application it just doesnt register that i've asked it to open the application, just stops and i have to 'tap' it a few times before it opens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you should try Da_G's test ROM.. the feedback is that it's very fast. If that doesn't work for you, it's time to get a new phone.. maybe consider one of the 1GHZ models...
i have 8000 plus messages on my tp n it doesn't slow down
thing is, i don't use threaded sms. can't get used to it cos i've been using wm since wm5 n it doesn't have it. i guess i got used to the older stuff
Hy everyone,
I've tried searching the forums for a solution but no luck..
Is there any way to save a number while having a conversation?
if i select the "keypad" during a call, and write down a number, there isn't a "save to contacts" option or anything similar to that..
i've fiddled around a bit and the only thing remotely similar to what i need is only an option to save a note during the call, but that is absolutely ridiculous, why would i want to save a note and then go and retrieve it.. i just want to save a contact while talking...
I take it that the phone number you want to save to contacts is different to the telephone call you are currently connected to.
Why not, while on a call, press the Home button, then select the Contacts tab, then select New Contact. You can then write the number in the new contact, along with other details.
hey fred_up thanks for the reply!
actually i did thought of that right after i posted the question, but i just think it's sad that we need to perfotm so many actions in order to do such a simple task... one i used to do once without even taking the phone away from my ear... (and no - i'm not complaining about my hd2, i love it despite its little flaws).
A very handy bit of software is called AutoLoudspeaker - if you do a search, you'll find it on this site. As soon as you take the phone away from your ear (ie the screen lights up via the proximity sensors) the phone goes automatically into loudspeaker mode. That'll take one step out of the process.
No doubt some clever clogs will develop some registry edit that means a long press of the Windows button will open up a new contact page.
Yeh i'm aware of that option, and i use it sometimes when at home, doing the coocking or dishes when the GF is out or while playing pc games but it doesnt really meet my needs when i need to remember a nuber for just a second after i hang up..
fred_up said:
No doubt some clever clogs will develop some registry edit that means a long press of the Windows button will open up a new contact page.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now THAT WOULD BE GENIOUSLY AWESOME!
or maybe even a little app, that is called "numbers" for that matter, which can be located on the home tab and when opening it you'll get a numpad and a screen, and would be able to save numbers in a big font, only numbers, nothing else, the numbers will stay on the screen untill you decide to delete them.
unlike the notepad which saves the notes in a file you need to open, and which is not so finger friendly when coming to fast numbering..
food for thought
maybe i'll just forward the idea to a new app request
omricn said:
or maybe even a little app, that is called "numbers" for that matter, which can be located on the home tab and when opening it you'll get a numpad and a screen, and would be able to save numbers in a big font, only numbers, nothing else, the numbers will stay on the screen untill you decide to delete them.
unlike the notepad which saves the notes in a file you need to open, and which is not so finger friendly when coming to fast numbering..
food for thought
maybe i'll just forward the idea to a new app request
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
may be you can put in a quicklink for 'calculator' on home screen..
I have one, but for that matter - you cannot save numbers you type in the calc, they just vanish once the app is closed, and also - i don't like using things for a purpose they were not meant for, it feels a little stupid..
use panaromic calculator, pressing the x only minimises the program
I took Java in High School (10yrs ago) and don't remember any of it. However I am computer savy and am a quick learner. Here is the deal: My group has meetings several times a week and sometime several times a day. These meeting times are posted on our website. We don't like phones going off during our meetings.
Currently I use a app called "silent time lite" which I program to put my phone on silent during pre-determined times. Would it be difficult to make a simple app which pull the meeting times off our website and puts the phone on silent during these meeting times? I would imagine allowing the user to choose which days they attend the meeting and allow them to change how often they want the app to check with the website regarding meeting time changes. ?
Would it be complicated? Can someone please point me in the right direction. Any Guidance would be appreciated. Thanks a lot.
Ps(using an app which uses google calendar events to determine when to put the phone on slient, like Taker, is not what we are looking for)
I don't think it would be too complicated for an Android developer, but for a novice? Not so easy.
Also depends on how the date and time data is stored. You would have to scrape the html off the page, parse it (we're into PHP scripting here) and send the data back to the phone.
On the phone side, you have to call the php script on the server, and get your data. This app would most likely have to run as a service and sit in the background and poll a date/time every x minutes to see if it matches a meeting date/time and set phone accordingly.
To me, sounds like a lot of fun. Development, debugging, testing, implementation etc., in my opinion is 40 hours minimum. Per hour rate? I imagine that varies from $20 to $70 per hour.
Thanks for the reply.
Unfortunately I don't have the means to hire someone right now, but I have plenty of free time (not currently working) and I am a pretty quick learner. I was just hoping for some guidance in terms of what I should look into and try to study. For example, do you think this tutorial is something that would interest me?
http://www.anddev.org/getting_data_from_the_web_urlconnection_via_http-t351.html
or should I look into Http GET? or the like? I was just hoping to follow different relevant tutorials and then putting everything together.
The way the data is posted online is very simple and I was hoping that the app can handle everything instead of getting into PHP:
For example, there exists a simple txt file at: http://www.sample.com/test.txt.
Inside this file it looks like this:
"
1:30 PM
6:30 PM
7:40 PM
9:00 PM
"
I just need to make a simple app which puts the phone on silent during these times + 10 minutes (ex: from 1:30 to 1:40, 6:30 to 6:40 , etc). The app would need to recheck the txt file every 2-3 days as it is constantly changing.
Then I would suggest getting Eclipse on your computer, the Android SDK and JAVA JDK (if you don't have a Mac).
See if you can create a simple app.
From there, see if you can add a button to the app that will switch the phone to silent mode when pressed.
Then, try to get current time from the phone and see if you can do what the above button press does, but based on the current time, i.e.
if(currentTime == meetingTime) { // you can hard-code a meeting time to test
// Silence phone
}
Don't forget about setting the phone OFF silence mode when meeting is over. This should get you going on a basic concept-test. And explain why developers/programmers make $25 to $100 an hour ROFL
Thanks again for your reply. I will definetly look into those suggestions.
So far, I have installed all the software needed and went through the tutorial I posted earlier and I made a apk file which I already sent to my phone. Currently, it is just showing the text from txt file on the app.
So the next step will be to find some ways to put the phone on vibrate etc.
If anyone else has any tips or links, please let me know. Thanks again.
llamas are awesome
this is not exactly what you asked but I am confident you'll muse, "I need that!"
master4g said:
My group has meetings several times a week and sometime several times a day. These meeting times are
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the meetings are a mobile tower away from where the phone may be loud consider the app
Llama
http://kebabapps.blogspot.com/
http://www.appbrain.com/app/llama-location-profiles/com.kebab.Llama
Ps(using an app which uses google calendar events to determine when to put the phone on slient, like Taker, is not what we are looking for)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then you wouldn't use
http://tungle.me
for that.. but you might want to use it otherly
my other WS has a bookmark for 'learn android java by example' or somesuch. no, I don't sync all my profile's bookmarks. If I can find that and remember to post it here then it will appear here edits allowing
thanks for that, I currently use something similar, however it will not work for the rest of the group because of various reasons.
This may be an area where the dumbphones win, but I've only been able to find one app that is just a timer--open the app, you've got a timer--and it's way too cumbersome.
When the app opens, I need to see:
A number pad.
A Next button (for moving from hh/mm/ss).
A Start button.
ETA: Also, number pad input needs to overwrite the current field, not insert.
These features have been available on every dumbphone for over a decade. Can't they be done in Android?
This isn't exactly what you are looking for, but I use it.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.hybrid.stopwatch
It has a stopwatch, too, but remembers which mode you chose and launches in that mode.
Yeah, I tried that one and it has all the same issues as Kitchen Timer, though it's nicer to look at. Who decided an Android timer would use this cumbersome +/- interface? It's made worse by the fact that once you get a cursor in a field, it inserts rather than overwrites, and won't jump fields.
Ideally, the only actions necessary to set a timer should be open-0-0-7-3-5-start, no navigation, no clicking up and down as if we had a device with two buttons (i.e. a watch).
Yeah, I looked around for a timer too. This was the easiest to use that I found. I rarely have to change the time on it so for me I launch it and hit go. But if I was constantly changing the value, it would be annoying. Makes you want to go out and write your own!
I'm poking around in App Inventor to see what I can manage--I would be lost writing code from the ground up. I think I should at least be able to come up with something with multiple one-button presets on the starting page, and they can probably be user-programmable, but I don't think App Inventor has the commands to give focus to a numerical text-box (thereby highlighting the contents for replacement and launching the number pad) on app initialization.
If you want, take the time to send me some EXACT specifications and I'll see if I have time to whip something up; we're not talking 10 year global weather modeling here! LOL
TIA,
Roots
Rootstonian said:
If you want, take the time to send me some EXACT specifications and I'll see if I have time to whip something up; we're not talking 10 year global weather modeling here! LOL
TIA,
Roots
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm actually making progress in App Inventor, but if it comes to naught, I'll PM you.
Well, it's not finished and it's not pretty, but it's a timer
So far, I can't get the box to grab focus when the app opens, but it's still quicker for entering a new value than the others on the market. The empty red bar will bring up the number pad. Hit hours, mins, or secs to start the timer with the relevant units. Start/Pause work, and if you enter, for instance, "90 + Mins" it will convert it to 1 hour 30 mins. More than two digits in the Hours box will break the UI, but it will count them down
The preset buttons and persistent notification box don't do anything yet, and it doesn't remember the last value entered if you close the app yet, but the core functionality is there.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7299403/TimerSAUR.apk
ETA: enabled persistent notifications and shake-to-stop.
ETA2: remembers last value entered and whether Persist was checked, made some visual tweaks and added an icon.
ETA3: re-skinned the whole thing and hid the preset buttons for now. I can add features, but I'd call it a complete app, and more functional than anything on the market, for my purposes.
ETA4: I, um, even fixed those script errors that caused FCs if you tried to start a timer with all fields empty. Details.
D'oh! As far as I can tell, the App Inventor "clock" function pauses if the device is sleeping--not exactly practical for a timer :/
Maybe I'll have another run at it tomorrow.
Maybe you can save the time that it paused, then calculate how much time has passed when it wakes up and start from there. That won't help much if your time expires while it is sleeping, though. Will App Inventor let you prevent sleeping?
Talking to App Inventor community members, I think the clock provided is just not workable for something like this. Maybe if I'm willing to build a windmill to turn a doorknob, I could figure something out, but I'd probably be better advised to start learning real code if I want to pursue the matter.
Better yet, I could take Rootstonian up on his/her offer
Yeah, it shouldn't be too difficult to build. And since you already have some of the GUI worked out, you can just pass that on.
I've built one Android app but it was a while ago so I'm very rusty. But it sounds like it can be done pretty quickly.
Jason