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Chocki Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jun 16, 2004 Posts: 21
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 5:38 pm Post subject: Suggestions to improve cameralert to make it even better. |
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Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the correct section.
Here's an excellent idea to make cameralert even better.
Why not make it launch when the car dock is connected and exit when the car dock is disconnected, that way there would be no need to have to start searching through Notifications to find the app, bring it to the foreground, press Menu then Exit to close it, or start looking for it when you get into your car to start it.
Ulysse Speedometer does this and it would be excellent if Cameralert could do the same.
It would also prevent unnecessary battery drain when the app is not in use.
Also, the pop up speed indicator that shows up over other apps, would it be possible to have a user settable value for it's vertical position where it shows, as in some navigation apps it covers crucial information like your current speed, but would not be distracting if it showed up in the sky section of the 3d map view, whilst in 2d view on some apps it is better positioned towards the bottom of the screen.
Thanks
Chocki. |
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lbendlin Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: 02/11/2002 22:41:59 Posts: 11878 Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:00 pm Post subject: |
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what's a car dock? How many devices have that? _________________ Lutz
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peterc10 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Aug 21, 2005 Posts: 1761 Location: Kent, England
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:16 pm Post subject: |
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Some (only a few) phones have car dock and the software on the phone detects when it is connected to the dock (by having a particular resistance between two of the pins on the connector I think). It then launches car dock mode. AFAIK if and how this is done depends entirely upon the phone that is being used.
However what gets launched depends upon the software used by the phone and is not controlled by the App AFAIK. So the OP needs to go into the phone's settings to see if he is able to change what gets launched. It has nothing to do with the App and so CamerAlert cannot change that.
Unless he is using the iphone version, in which case he has posted in the wrong forum. _________________ Peter
HTC Sensation
Sygic GPS for Europe (No more TT "support"!)
Copilot for USA
Bury CC9060 bluetooth car kit & Brodit mount |
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Chocki Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jun 16, 2004 Posts: 21
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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Errmm, Car or Home dock is a standard feature of the Android system:
With code like this:
action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" /
category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /
category android:name="android.intent.category.CAR_DOCK" /
category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" /
here's an example:
http://www.androiddevblog.net/android/custom-car-dock-application-in-android
The app has to basically register itself as a car dock enabled app, then as you stated correctly, it can be selected from the system to launch the registered app when the car dock event is triggered, but you cannot set up any app to work like this, the app has to programatically register itself as a car dock enabled app.
The app also monitors the car dock exited event to terminate itself. |
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peterc10 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Aug 21, 2005 Posts: 1761 Location: Kent, England
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry I stand corrected. But how does it know when it is connected to the dock, as opposed to just charging on mains or sitting on a desk dock? I have an HTC Sensation and use it with a Brodit car mount and Car Dock has never started for me. _________________ Peter
HTC Sensation
Sygic GPS for Europe (No more TT "support"!)
Copilot for USA
Bury CC9060 bluetooth car kit & Brodit mount |
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AliOnHols Pocket GPS Verifier
Joined: Oct 15, 2008 Posts: 1937
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:29 pm Post subject: |
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My phone detects the polarity of a small magnet which is present in the dock. A magnet of one polarity sends it to Car Dock mode, a magnet of the opposite polarity sends it into Desk Dock mode.
Cheapskate that I am, I use a couple of "old fashioned" cassette tape boxes, opened up and folded back to create the Docks to set my phone into. My wife is missing a couple of fridge magnets (but don't tell her!) which I have SuperGlued to the boxes. _________________ Garmin Nuvi 2599
Android with CamerAlert, OsmAnd+, Waze & TT Europe.
TomTom GO 730, GO 930, GO 940 & Rider2.
SatMap Active 10 & 20. |
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Chocki Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jun 16, 2004 Posts: 21
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Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:52 am Post subject: |
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Car dock mode depends on the phone, some use pins 4 and 5 of the usb lead, some use magnets, you can try car dock mode by downloading the car dock app from the marketplace.
I guess yo could use the built in magnetic field sensors and some magnets to start car dock mode from an app!. (Might have a look at this myself). |
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lbendlin Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: 02/11/2002 22:41:59 Posts: 11878 Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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if we only need to register the intents then we can certainly look into that. It will be a little tough to test it as we don't have a car dock for the Nexus One available. It has three contacts on the bottom. Anyone care to guess how they are used?
In the meantime have a look at this
http://dockawake.com/ _________________ Lutz
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Chocki Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jun 16, 2004 Posts: 21
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lbendlin Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: 02/11/2002 22:41:59 Posts: 11878 Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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How is that application different from the default "Car Mode" application ? Wasn't the idea to sense the insertion/removal events for the actual dock? _________________ Lutz
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peterc10 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Aug 21, 2005 Posts: 1761 Location: Kent, England
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Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 2:08 am Post subject: |
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Nope, it don't work for me on my HTC Sensation. Did once, up came navigation. But now nothing. And I tried deleting and re-installing. Just press the button and nothing happens.
Only goes to show that not all Android phones are the same. _________________ Peter
HTC Sensation
Sygic GPS for Europe (No more TT "support"!)
Copilot for USA
Bury CC9060 bluetooth car kit & Brodit mount |
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Chocki Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jun 16, 2004 Posts: 21
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Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 11:30 am Post subject: |
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Thanks Ibendlin, I will try the dock awake app you mentioned and use this to launch cameralert.
I have read up some more and it's not all plain sailing.
It appears not all android phones support the car dock event and some like most motorolas do it their own way not google's way so cause incompatibilities, it also seems you need to be running Android version 2.3.3 or newer.
It may not be worth your while adding a feature for the few unless it's dead easy (Car dock End event to quit cameralert at least please - Gotta try ). |
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AliOnHols Pocket GPS Verifier
Joined: Oct 15, 2008 Posts: 1937
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Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 3:52 pm Post subject: |
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I use it the other way round! I manually start the CamerAlert app which in turn automatically starts the Car Dock (or Car Home as it's called on my Motorola), CamerAlert then runs in the background.
Are we back to square one yet?
@peterc10, there are several Car Dock apps in the Market, perhaps if you try a selection of them one shall work for your phone. _________________ Garmin Nuvi 2599
Android with CamerAlert, OsmAnd+, Waze & TT Europe.
TomTom GO 730, GO 930, GO 940 & Rider2.
SatMap Active 10 & 20. |
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lbendlin Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: 02/11/2002 22:41:59 Posts: 11878 Location: Massachusetts, USA
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 3:30 am Post subject: |
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Ok, the required code changes are minimal. The application can now be either added to the Car Mode as one of the tiles, or it can be entirely controlled by the undock/car dock events.
This feature is now in testing and will likely make it into the next release. _________________ Lutz
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Chocki Occasional Visitor
Joined: Jun 16, 2004 Posts: 21
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Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you very much.
Look forward to testing it. |
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