[phone9]

This thread is for discussions on improvements to BestFLASH, RollerFlash, Meters, and I Charge Cool.


I'll start by mentioning some issues brought up in reviews and the blog:

Meters- no help information. This will be added in a future release.

I Charge Cool- no auto-activation or clock, and no auto-lock while animonitor is running. An update will be out soon that includes a clock, optional auto-activation, and optional non-interference with the auto-lock.

RollerFlash- could have more modes. An eventual upgrade is planned.

BestFLASH- a few users would like to have it not use the LED at all, leaving the LED to flash notifications from outside the app. There will eventually be an upgrade to add this option and possibly an additional mode, but it is prioritized after many other things needed for the other apps.

BestFLASH- having the battery status continue to be shown by LED flashes when the app is not running. I like the idea, but it would continue to interfere with other notifications that are not LED-sharing-friendly, which includes the coverage indicator, new-email indicator, and at least one 3rd-party LED-notification app. These indicators do not refresh their commands to the LED, and therefore cannot share it -- they depend on nothing else using the LED.

[beamolite]

I have downloaded the new update of I Charge Cool. Is it possible for this app to automatically come on after the blackberry begins charging?

[phone9]

I have downloaded the new update of I Charge Cool. Is it possible for this app to automatically come on after the blackberry begins charging?

It does! If you plug in when the phone was dormant (display timed out), it comes on immediately. If the phone was active (display on), it will wait until the timeout period is up. Once it seems the phone isn't being actively used, it will auto-activate, and when you unplug, it disappears. If you want to use the phone while it's charging, press escape and the animonitor disappears, then reappears when the backlight times out again. (You can stop it from doing that by turning autostart off temporarily in the menu when it comes up.)

A couple of people have asked about this, and since a picture is worth more than a thousand words, there's now a video on the product description page. This forum won't allow me to post the link, but you can put this together: www youtube com watch?v=r8-0yrgZy_w

[beamolite]

Sorry, I had a long night at work. The application is awesome now.

[phone9]

Sorry, I had a long night at work. The application is awesome now.

It's things like this that show me what could be improved. You weren't the only one who saw something different from what you expected, only one other wrote in but no doubt there were more, so I'm going to add an option to the next upgrade to have it start immediately instead of waiting for the timeout. I still think the way it works now should be the default behavior.

Does the clock and % moving around annoy anyone? I like it always there, but if it annoys anyone I will add an option to make those hold still.

Also, is anyone else experiencing the phenomenon that one reviewer reported of longer charging times when this is running? That is obviously something that has to be solved or at least reduced if it's confirmed. I'd like to know what devices it's happening on more or less, getting feedback from you all will be more accurate than theorizing based on device specifications. If it's confirmed it will be addressed for sure ASAP. My charges don't seem longer.

[Azaurath]

In the help you are adding to the meters app would it be possible to include what might be in the "Other" category? I know you might not know with complete certainty, but I think even if we had a generalization it would be helpful.

I know this is a little off topic but does the Modules allocation include the OS?

[PossumPete]

I have a Storm and I like the Charge Cool a lot. I, too, would like it to start immediately when plugged in. I also think that it does take longer to charge. The first 10 - 20% takes forever then it starts flying over the last 20% (from 80 - 100). Keep improving!

[phone9]

In the help you are adding to the meters app would it be possible to include what might be in the "Other" category? I know you might not know with complete certainty, but I think even if we had a generalization it would be helpful.

I will do the best I can to help while also indicating what's based on authoritative published information I can cite, what's deduced by calculation, and what's educated conjecture.

I know this is a little off topic but does the Modules allocation include the OS?

I think it includes OS code modules (see Applications/Modules), on my Curve the total size of all app modules is about 1/3 of the allocated CMM.

[phone9]

I have a Storm and I like the Charge Cool a lot. I, too, would like it to start immediately when plugged in. I also think that it does take longer to charge. The first 10 - 20% takes forever then it starts flying over the last 20% (from 80 - 100). Keep improving!

Thanks for that information. On my Curve it charges quite quickly from 0% on up, but it's no surprise there's a difference between devices that have different batteries and power characteristics.

[PossumPete]

I discovered another reason to have it shut off automatically after being unplugged! I accidentally (stupidly) left ICC running after I unplugged it from the USB port last night after charging. Well, this morning it was still running and it showed me I had a charge of 12%. My bad and I'll never do that again probably...

[phone9]

I discovered another reason to have it shut off automatically after being unplugged! I accidentally (stupidly) left ICC running after I unplugged it from the USB port last night after charging. Well, this morning it was still running and it showed me I had a charge of 12%. My bad and I'll never do that again probably...

Actually it does already self-terminate when you unplug, if it started automatically. But if you started manually it waits for you to close it manually.

It seems obvious now but what you experienced is another thing I didn't think of... I'll add options to have it permit the backlight to time out normally after it's fully charged and go to a very low power consumption state, or go to standby, or power off, your option, and there should probably be a configurable timeout for how long the smiley (or his successor) will be up before this happens.


Due to these reports of power consumption issues I think the next update will be focused on fixing all that instead of upgrading the graphics, which would only consume yet more power and memory. We'll get to better graphics and selectable themes, but functional considerations take priority.

The goal for 1.2 will be to completely eliminate all shortcomings related to practical function and options. Once all that's finalized, and maybe a 1.3 will be required to do that, then afterward the focus can become how it looks.


Would anyone volunteer to run a data collector in the background for a week on their phone? It shouldn't have a significant effect, just collect data on charging and power consumption while you do whatever you normally do, so I can analyze that and create a charging profile for every variety of phone. I don't even have a collector written yet but once I do, it needs to be run on a Tour, Storm, Curve 8900, Flip, 8530, Bold, Pearl, World, I've got my own Curve 8330, and it would be good to profile an 87xx too. This will help make the app perform well both visually and for charging speed instead of it being such a trade-off. I can work off theory and specs but as we all know empirical data is not always what we expect despite good hypotheses.


Thanks again for the feedback... it will pay off.

[Azaurath]

I'll volunteer to run it on my Storm. But do you think it matters what OS I am running?

[phone9]

I'll volunteer to run it on my Storm. But do you think it matters what OS I am running?

Whether it's the OS or the device hardware making the difference, battery life is an area of competition and I can only imagine that the charging cycle of newer devices is different from older ones. They have different batteries too. Whether an OS upgrade makes the difference, we may learn from the data.

[phone9]

(deleted post)

[SCrid2000]

Hey LS, whatever happened with bestFlash? I was creating ota backups of all my apps and couldn't find this one.

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