Undocumented feature on the T|T3

[docholliday]

Actually it is getting weird...not a peep out of anybody for almost a month. Not even an update or an "I'm busy...will code soon..." statement.

[dmitrygr]

people have lives outside of programming for you. surely if you're in such a hurry, code it up yourself. What makes you think you can even expect graham to keep YOU updated on why he has no time for this and what is going on in his PERSONAL life. I, for one, totally understand how this can be. If this was a paid app, you could argue your way, but as it is now, you're just geing inconsiderate.

[tosbsas]

hey, hey guys - don't get carried away. Normally Graham just let us know where he is at.

As you state right - all of us have other lifes (:-))

Ruben

[docholliday]

Whoa there...I'm a developer too, usually visual studio or java, mostly Oracle and SQL Server, with a bunch of x86 ASM. However, when I've been busy, I usually don't let everybody just wonder what's going on, I try to let people know I'm busy. You know, a simple "been busy...will be up with this soon...don't worry, haven't forgotten about ya'll".

I'm on 10+ projects right now, am getting ready for vacation in October, just got back from hiking, am working on my car, have over 30 rolls of film to run, just reinstalled an advanced server platform, am building another quad Xeon desktop, am finishing a new ASP website, am planning a caving trip in late October, am having a picnic on Tuesday, etc. ... and I'm on here dropping a line or two... not to mention getting ready to plan a wedding for next year.

Not saying he should be on here telling us everything in his life. Just saying that it's eerily quiet that not a word on this topic in over 3 weeks, other than people asking if there were any updates with no response.

[grahamT3]

I'm back! Wow, there certainly was a wee bit of banter there! I'm afraid that it all basically boils down to being very busy at work and spending all of my free time making the most of the last of the snowy slopes here in New Zealand!

In fact, I've only managed to have a look at the code once since my last posting and had a wee chat with Dmitry about some things relating to the library. I'm not too sure when a new release will be available, but as soon as it is you'll all be the first to know!

I've even started using my Palm for actually organising things and started hotsync'ing again and experienced the dreaded hotsync crash for myself! So I'll be sure to remedy that one in the next release.

I'll talk to you all again before too long - don't worry if it's a week or two (or three!).

...graham.

[tosbsas]

Great - good to know you are still there and that you are back on it (:-))

Thanks for the brief info

Ruben

[docholliday]

Thanks Graham! Good to see your doing well...go do a run on the slopes for me in the meantime!

Nel

[tosbsas]

Any slopes left?? (:-))

Any?? (:-))

Ruben

[minerdigs]

Just wondering on the status?

[tosbsas]

me too

Ruben

[grahamT3]

Extra, Extra, Read All About It! Mysterious Palm OS programmer grahamT3, presumed missing in action, has just been discovered clutching a brand new version of baT3!

Yup! I'm back at last after finally managing to free up a little time over the weekend to settle down and tap out a few lines of code. So what's new in this version?

- Select whether baT3 or the system has control over the green LED
- Reflect Task and Calendar Alarms
- Fixed HotSync issue (hopefully!)

Now for some quick notes on the above bits and pieces:

If you select to hand control of the green LED over to the system then baT3 will never forcibly modify its state. This effectively means that with the system in control of the green LED the amber colour cannot be displayed as baT3 needs both the green and the red LED colours to create this effect. It will also affect the 'reflection' of the Task and Calendar Alarms described below.

If you choose to reflect Task and Calendar Alarms then baT3 will turn the green LED on and flash the red LED for approximately 80 seconds before / around any alarms that are due in the above applications. I chose this pattern so that no matter what battery level the T3 is currently at baT3 will produce the same pattern to indicate an alarm. As mentioned above though, if the system has control of the green LED then the 'reflection' will simply be a flashing red LED as baT3 won't hijack the green LED.

I've tweaked here and there in the code so hopefully the HotSync issue is gone! (But you never know! ;) )

I'm afraid that I wasn't able to keep docholliday’s feature request for suppressing the green LED when the T3 is on the charger / Power-To-Go sled in the application. I implemented this feature but due to limitations on control of the green LED between the system and Dmitry's library the LED continued to flash green intermittently. So after fiddling with this and that and tweaking here and there, in the end I decided it was probably best to remove the code - sorry docholliday I tried! :)

I guess that's about all the news! Sorry for the extra long delay and lack of updates but it's just been an incredibly busy two months for me! As always if you find any bugs or glitches with baT3 just let me know and I'll see what I can do. Thanks for all your support, tips and ideas it's
really appreciated!

...graham.

( baT3 is available from the usual place: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~gfennell/Palm/baT3.prc )

[DCBAKER]

Rockin! Thanks Graham. Glad you're back.

[bilbolodz]

Hi grahamT3,

( baT3 is available from the usual place: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~gfennell/Palm/baT3.prc )
Could you please fix this link? baT3.prc is missing.

Regards

Piotr

[grahamT3]

Thanks DCBaker! Glad you liked it! :)

Sorry to Piotr and everybody else for sneakily removing the file there yesterday, but for once I managed to beat you all to it and find some bugs myself! Unfortunately this one was a nasty little critter that would completely derail baT3's control over the LED so I decided to delete the file before too many of you ran into the problem.

The good news is that it was a handy one to fix so I've uploaded a fresh build (1.2.1) that sorts everything out. If you were unlucky enough to discover the bug for yourself you'll have to follow this procedure to get back to normal:

- choose uninstall on baT3's drop-down menu
- exit the programme
- remove Dmitry's LED library from RAM
- soft reset your Palm
- re-install Dmitry's LED library
- install baT3 1.2.1 and relax!

Any bugs or other bits and pieces that you notice with this version just let me know!

...graham.

[bilbolodz]

Hi grahamT3,


I guess that's about all the news! Sorry for the extra long delay and lack of updates but it's just been an incredibly busy two months for me! As always if you find any bugs or glitches with baT3 just let me know and I'll see what I can do. Thanks for all your support, tips and ideas it's
really appreciated!


Great app thank you for your work but ......
I think it should work quite oposite way to current version of baT3 ;-)
Look:
If device is on and working on battery it's just waste of power to keep LED on!
In my opinion baT3 should work in this way (I don't know if it's possible but let's asume that it's just a dream):

1) when on baterry, device is on and battery is in good shape no LED should be on! (waste of power)
2) when on baterry, device is on and battery in in bad shape warning LED (red?) should be blinking (maybe more frequent then battery is worser but take care of power consumption)
3) when device is in cradle and it's charging LED color and frequncy of blinking should show level of power in battery (red blinking->red->amber blinking->amber->green blinking->green).
4) when device is off (or maybe also on, I don't know) and there is upcomming event/alarm LED shoud start to signal event (I don't know maybe similiar pattern like with charging or only blinking).

What do you think about it?

Best regards

Piotr

[minerdigs]

Great sounding app, but can't get it to work. When I install it on my T3.... anytime after I need to reset, it goes into a reset loop and locks up. I have to let the battery drain so it will do a hard reset. I have installed the latest baT3.prc from today and I have T3LedLib.prc installed. I also have the Garnet apps installed. Any ideas?

[DCBAKER]

It's working fine on my T3 with only ocassional resets related to removing from powersource. No reset loops. I also have some of the Garnet files installed as well. It may be some other app on your T3 that baT3 is conflicting with and not necessarily baT3 causing the problem.

[grahamT3]

Hey MinerDigs,

Sorry to hear that my application managed to send your T3 into a hard-reset situation. If you find yourself back in the infinite reset-loop scenario again try a warm reset (hold the up key while pressing the reset button on the back of the Palm) as this often will let you get back to the launcher and allow you to remove the offending application.

I haven't experienced any quirky reset trouble with baT3 on my T3 and I've been using it daily since v1.0.0 but I'll have a glance over the code again to see if anything springs to mind as to the reason for the reset-loop. It may be something to do with another application as DCBaker mentions or maybe even to do with the Garnet files - I run a pretty vanilla T3 with only some skinning and YAHM hacks running in the background. I haven't tried installing the Garnet mods, so it could be something to do with that?

Now on to Piotr's suggestions! Thanks for the feedback Piotr - much appreciated! I'll run through your points one by one:

- The LED actually consumes very little power, especially compared to the LCD display itself. I reckon that the additional drain on the battery would be fairly neglible to have the green LED on. In the current implementation you have the ability to keep the each colour off (independently) until a certain level has been reached, so the functionality is pretty much in there already.

- I guess the second point is more or less already covered in the current iteration of baT3 although the variable speed flashing could be nice. May be a little distracting though if you're trying to finish some work on your Palm before the battery dies! ;)

- I haven't looked into this idea but if memory serves me correctly then if you tap the T3 'status' button in the status bar after connecting the T3 the display will actually read 100% charged after a matter of seconds with a little 'lightning bolt' overlaid to indicate that it is still charging. I'm using the same interface to query the state of the battery at the moment so the LED colour would change in a similar time frame. :(

- This feature (while the Palm is on) was just added to the current version! :) If you tap the 'Reflect Task & Calendar Alarm' check box then baT3 will flash the LED around any system alarms due in these applications. If you set an alarm in one of these and then enable this feature you should see a Green LED with a pulsing Red LED (probably looks Amber).

Finally one wee question for DCBaker! Just wondering if the resets happen immediately after removing the cable from the connector dock? Does it happen very often? I'll see if I can spot anything ... hmmm.

...graham.

[Dennis]

Hi Graham,
My T3 also resets after I remove it from the cradle when Hotsync is finished
If I tap the home button or exit to zlauncher before removing from cradle no resets.

Dennis

[grahamT3]

Thanks for the feedback Dennis! Just two wee questions for you: Are you using the latest 1.2.1 release and do the resets only happen after a HotSync? That is, if you simply plug the T3 into the charger to charge and not to HotSync do the resets occur on removal? Thanks!

...graham.

[Dennis]

Hi Graham,

The resets only happen after a hotsync when removed from the cradle.
If just charging without hotsyncing everything is ok.
I am using the latest version 1.2.1 but I think this has been a problem on previous versions too.
Dennis

[grahamT3]

Hey Dennis,

Thanks for the extra information! I'm afraid that I've been a little bit lazy and didn't fully test out the HotSync behaviour of this release. But I'll have to bite the bullet now and install it again and sort this issue out once and for all. Thanks for all the feedback, with a bit of luck I'll be able to nail it this time!

...graham.

[DCBAKER]

A little late on this, but I think my T3 has behaved basically the same as Dennis's. I haven't really kept too close a watch on the reset behavior as it hasn't been a big deal. However, my T3 does reset if I remove it from the cradle after Hotsync if I don't first navigate away from the Hotsync screen.

I've also noticed that ocassionally baT3 will lose control of the LED sometimes. I'm not sure what the exact circumstances are as it doesn't happen a lot, but I will keep an eye out for it. Usually what happens is that i'll notice that the chrge will drop below one of the levels ID'd in baT3, but the LED doesn't light up as it should. What I've had to do is go to baT3, deactivate it, select the delete option, delete it and then reinstall from a copy I keep on my SD card. That usually fixes it. It doesn't happen often and it really isn't a big deal. If I run into this problem again, I'll try to remember the exact circumstances that cause it.

[grahamT3]

Hey DCBaker,

Thanks for confirming the funky HotSync reset behaviour and letting me know about the other occasional random reset. If you could keep an eye on that one and let me know if you see it again or manage to reproduce it that'd be great!

Thanks for all the feedback! You guys have really helped get the application into the shape it is now - thanks for taking the time to bug test it and put up with all the random resets - very much appreciated!

The good news is that I managed to track down the voodoo that was causing the HotSync problem and even noticed another potential reset waiting to happen. So I've patched both of these and everything seems to be running smoothly now.

Version 1.2.2 is available from the usual spot:

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~gfennell/Palm/baT3.prc

As always, let me know if you spot any glitches or if you encounter any (random) resets. Fingers crossed we've seen the last of the dreaded HotSync issue!

...graham.

[Dennis]

Thanks Graham,

No more HotSync resets on removal from cradle!
Dennis

[tosbsas]

hmm, strange behaviour here - after hotsynch no crash anymore, but

1. hotsynch, automatic shut down (turn off) - when I press power button - get hard reset options

2. same story but will not turn on, when reseting t3bat is not working anymore

Ruben

Think ist the handling of alarms - if I remember right, it happened always after an alarm sounded

[grahamT3]

Hey Ruben,

Sorry to hear that you're experiencing another reset loop and a particularly nasty one at that. I've tried to reproduce the above behaviour by setting various alarms with different application configurations but to no avail.

Has anyone else managed to reproduce the reset Ruben describes? Any extra info that you, or anyone else, can give me would really help with tracking down the bug. I'll keep looking but without a reproduction case it'll be tricky to nail.

...graham.

[tosbsas]

I use a alternative sound file -emerald sounds - might that be a problem?

But relax I will keep on investiganting - already three days without crash

Ruben

[shatarys]

Good day to all. I cannot download the baT3.prc file... Can somebody re-upload it? It's very interesting to test... Thanks in advance.

[dmitrygr]

Mirror of version 1.2.2: [LINK (http://www.palmpowerups.com/priv/baT3.prc)]