Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Well, that's the thing -- I don't know if I need to only look at volume spikes. :) Listening for a beat seems more like a task that requires continuous monitoring of the audio stream, rather than just kicking off a call to Lanterne any time the audio volume reaches a particular level... But yeah, let me take a look at VUmeter; I've never really used it before. (Have I mentioned that I've never played with audio streams at all before? :) )

Also, my personal goal for this app is to teach myself about the low-level details of the N900's hardware (as well as to sharpen my coding skills), so I would like to know how it's actually done.

Ah, absolutely! I used to use a little red light when I was into astronomy; makes it possible to read star charts without completely destroying your night vision. :)

I have no clue how anybody codes for these LEDs (there's practically no documentation anywhere), but I have found a V4L2 identifier for the indicator LED, so I'll try and get that into the next update.

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

I would like to mention, that when he runs at night with N900 on his wrist using a car-filled road, he probably would like to get brightest flashes possible. Considering, that torch mode is powered from lower than 4x less (on lowest flash settings), yo lower than 6x less (on highest, 19 settings), it makes a difference ;)

[OT]
impeham, could you describe or just shot photo of how you attach N900 to your wrist, for comfortable running? Tried some variants, and it every of them, I felt too concerned abut N900 safety, maybe I'm missing simple solution?[/OT]
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Thanks for the loop mode of morse code (poetical, I know) idea and implementation! Controlling red led is another awesome idea, that I'm shocked no one tried before. Holding my thumbs (and NEONs) for it!

/Estel

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Ah, well, again my response would be to then perhaps consider an inexpensive device specifically designed to produce high-powered light continuously, rather than an extremely expensive device that will produce fair-to-middling light at the risk of burning out its LEDs. ;) Honestly, the risk-reward payoff here just doesn't seem right to me...

Control over the red LED seems to be quite doable at this point. :)

By the way, I've been looking in to ways of suppressing or disabling the camera app when using Lanterne; so far, the only thing I've seen is to use "dsmetool" to kill it. Would you (or anybody out there) know if there is a better way to accomplish this?

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

I agree.

Red LED will be good.

My camera app must be suppressed already.
I use Camera Lens Launcher.
What happens that needs suppressing?

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Scary dev:( just to make clear the leds will be damaged if overvoltaged.
A led marked at 1.5 volts operates normally at 1 volt goes up to 1.3 volts
good diodes can handle twice the voltage for short periods but goes greenish after a while
try them at just 25x voltage and they blow up (really blasts) in 1 sec or go greenish to dark. At 50x voltage instantly blasts:)
checked using volameter on diffrent leds flat sphere square and the ones on strips.
Next i would be checking my 5610d dual led flash :)

if you are intrested you will get the report a day after or two as m offtown :)

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Ah, quick question -- are you using Camera-UI2, and do you have it set to disable automatic opening?

The old Camera-UI doesn't seem to have any option to suppress launch. (And, so far as I can tell, Camera-UI2 doesn't appear to have a mechanism for other apps to ask it to stop launching either...)

Let me look into Camera Lens Launcher and see what they are doing... Thanks!

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Stable CSSU and normal camera.
I can get version numbers if required.

I use Lens launcher to select either Camera, Flashlight, lanterne, mBarcode on lens open. No camera appears.

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Aha, it looks like Lens Launcher performs a check to see whether you have installed either cssu or camera-ui2 (either of which apparently means that you're using camera-ui2), and if so, sets a gconf flag to turn off its lens-cover launch. If not, it simply kills the camera-ui app. I'll see if it'd be hard to reproduce this behavior...

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

camera-ui 1.1.29.1+0m5
It does seem to kill the process before the application opens.

I also have an option to lock the device on lens closed.

It's a nice idea to add these things but...

a) is it adding extra bloat that can be done with something else.

b) will it interfere with other applications if you have the option in either position?

Re: [Announce] Lanterne - an app for experimenting with the flash LEDs
 

Well, mainly, I was thinking about them because I was playing around with using the camera button as an on/off switch. I figure if you're using Lanterne, you're probably not wanting to take a picture.

I dislike the idea of one app messing around with another app's "gconf" settings; just temporarily killing the app, and restarting it when Lanterne ends, seems cleaner somehow...

In any case, this would certainly be an optional setting in the preferences, that would not be enabled unless the user asked for it. :)

(BTW, is it possible to continue to monitor the status of the hardware buttons when the N900 backlight goes off? I was hoping to be able to enable the LEDs while the screen was still dark, but it seems that isn't possible...)