(((( Bump ))))

Found two use cases for this within last last few days... Great this thread already exists

First use case was: I was together with a group of friends and wanted to show them a photo. Opened the image viewer, handed device over to one of my friends, she passed it on... The third person unintentionally managed to leave full screen mode and bring up the task switcher. He actually did realize what had happened and wanted to tap on the correct window to maximize it again. Only he tapped in the wrong place and closed the window... In this situation, it would have been cool to lock the touch screen and keep the display on.

Second use case was somethig a friend of mine told me: He receives a link to his boarding pass as SMS. The boarding pass is nothing but a web page with a bar code that will be scanned right off the N900's display. He said he managed to load the page, lock the device, keep it in his pocket while in the queue, then unlock it again just to hand it over to the person who'll scan the thing... But he would have felt much safer if the other person could have touched the screen without triggering any action. Or if he could have left the screen on in the first place while having his "boarding passed" locked in his pocket.

Knowing that I can
echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/omap2_mcspi.1/spi1.0/disable_ts
is great. Of course, a one-tap solution that does both (keep display on, lock touch screen) and unlocks the screen again whitch the usual slider action would be perfect.

Thanks for the top about the echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/omap2_mcspi.1/spi1.0/disable_ts part. I'd love to see this made simple and easy by an application, the Simple Brightness Applet would be perfect for it ;D

mhm... how can you reactivate the touchscreen by tapping on a shortcut/widget/panel-button if the touchscreen is deactivated and doesn't recognize anything? XD

the whole point would be to re-activate the touchscreen the "normal" way: use the slider on the right side.

hey... just a simple shortcut for disabling the touchscreen

installation:
place it in /usr/share/applications/hildon. it uses the terminal-icon by default.

change icon:
if you want to change the icon, make a 48*48px image, name it for example "dts.png" and place it in /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/hildon/
then open the desktop-file and change "Icon=terminal" to (in this example) "Icon=dts".

how to add:
ehm yes... then just add it to the screen you would like to have... you can have this shortcut on multiple desktops... but you have to add a line in the desktop-file... don't remember it right now... ^^

usage:
1. open the window/app you would like to show your friends or need for checking in somewhere *G*
2. minimize it and go to your desktop with the shortcut and click it.
3. empty/black terminal pops up for about 10 seconds.
4. it closes and you'll see the navigator view with all opened windows.
5. you have got additional 5 seconds for choosing your window.
6. let the rest of the 5 seconds pass and your touchscreen is disabled.
edit: for reactivating it, swipe the slider on the side two times. *only if you're worrying about how to get back to business*

voila

btw:
- it's just a noobish solution.
- you can't change the waittime of 10 seconds with the empty/black terminal.
- but you can change your additional time to more than 5 seconds:
open the desktop file and change the value behind sleep from 15 to something higher (value - 10 = additional time)

have fun

and for all of you who want to have some feedback right after the touchscreen is disabled...

i did this mod to the file and it lets your phone vibrate for a short time right after the touchscreen is disabled

and for all of you who don't like vibrating phones and would rather have a led-notification...

replace the whole dbus-command from the file above with this:
(edit: this should be all in ONE line!)
haven't tested it but the led should stay on for 3 seconds.
(ok... it uses the CommunicationIM pattern so it will maybe fade in and out ^^)

BIG THX 2 JEBBA for his awesome work on dbus.
(http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Jebba/DBUS)

Hell yes! very good idea!

I know that the maintainers of ebook programs shold have incorporated this by default but even so sometimes I read complicated articles on the web and the screen dims/shuts down at least once on every new "page".

This should be deffinitley implemented.
Also the brightness applet toes that too but it's not in the power dropdown menu...

That would be due to the shutdown menu not allowing you to place widgets on there. It is possible to add links to programs there, however.