[Galaxy S I9000 Android Development] toddmworth:
Media control, lockscreen.. various issues in one post.

Hi All,

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I have included lots of detail, and then I have summarized in sections marked 'TLDR' like this one, for people who want the quick version and don't care for my troubleshooting process.

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This post is about media control, and the lockscreen, in varying ways... I'm not complaining or requesting any feature changes or any of that badstuff, I'm just trying to know what I should expect to work and what I should expect to be missing, and hoping that where features are deliberately missing, someone can offer me a workaround or something; and that if I find a bug it is seen as a bug and not a feature request. I'm trying to be good. I've been a very good boy and googled and xda searched for several days now, so please be nice to me :)

Firstly, I hate the new ICS lockscreen. I loved how the CM7 ring lockscreen allowed me to move the padlock icon to *anywhere* on the screen to unlock, so that I can unlock it while moving heavily and unable to see the screen or control my fingers carefully (dancing, skateboarding, running for a train, etc). Now I have it set to octo with all 8 targets being unlock, but this doesn't serve the same flexibility because I can't set other targets like I could with the ring lock, and it still requires me to drop the icon in the correct location. The ICS lockscreen seems like a big step backwards to me in usability, and I was very surprised not to find anything in my searches where others felt the same. Perhaps I am missing some cool new feature in the ICS lock? I bought WidgetLocker years ago, and I guess that I could do something with that, but I like the CM/AOKP/Slim lockscreens because I can control my music with the volume keys, which is a *must* have for me. I can use PlayerPro (my media player of choice) to get that same functionality, but then I lose the other good ICS lockscreen features. Ultimately, I'd like to get ring lockscreen on ICS, with it's media control buttons. Yes, I did post about that elsewere and have no replies yet.

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ICS Lockscreen is not as flexible or easily used as CM7's 'ring' lockscreen. It's harder to unlock, or to launch apps from it. But I hear nobody complaining. Does it actually suck, or am I missing some new feature that makes up for these shortcomings?

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Which brings me to my next point... In the lockscreen (tried them all, same behaviour in all, but I use slide), I don't get media controls (play, pause, skip tracks, etc) like I used to in the old CM7 ring lockscreen. As far as my googling tells me, this is working in Stock ICS, CM9 and AOKP... but I cannot find anything about it (working or not) for Slim. I thought that perhaps it is not meant to work in Slim, but when I tried using Google Play Music, if the music was playing, but *not* while it's paused (seems like a bug, the controls should be there while paused and only disappear when stopped) sure enough I got album art with media controls beneath it. The album art was not properly centred on screen, and it was on top of the time/date/calendar/battery status text that normally show up, which is not very useful and I'm pretty sure is a bug, going by the ugliness of the layout (the album art was half cut off by the edge of the screen, etc).

Usually, I would be using PlayerPro, so of course I figured that this was a problem with playerpro...but lockscreen controls for that app are working in other ROMs.

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Are lockscreen media controls broken/buggy? The fact that in SlimICS it does kinda work in one player but not in another, the buggy looking layout when it does appear, and the fact that it works fine in my player on other ROMs, all come together and make me think this is a bug... but why has noone else in this thread even mentioned it?

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As for the notification widgets, I notice that there are options there for all kinds of toggles, but not for media control as I was accustomed to in CM7. I am guessing that this is a feature, not a bug, and I am not requesting it to be changed (as much as I would like it!) but would like to confirm that the removal of this feature is intended.

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No media control in notification power widgets?

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Last but not least... I use voodoo sound, as should anyone who plays music off an SGS. Voodoo has a 'Don't disturb music' option, which sets the sound to silent when you plug in the headphones, so that an SMS or email notification won't annoy you when you're into the music. In CM7, this would in fact set to VIBRATE, not silent, which is FAR more useful to me. In Slim, it actually sets it to silent, and then never changes it back again. I've missed several calls becasuse of this. So, I turned that feature off, and now I've noticed that when I am listening to music and the notification sound plays, the notification turns the music almost completely down - it's very unpleasant to listen to.

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Voodoo sound behaviour changed. Should I report this to voodoo or CM or AOKP or what? Workaround sounds awful. Notifications cause music to fade way too far down.

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*phew*

Any help appreciated!!