yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] signupstuffid:
Just wanted to say thanks for this software. I'm using it on 2 moto droid 1s. One has CM7 based GB rom, and another has CM10 JB based ROM. Both work great.

I do have one report about the PS3 mode. The PS button seems to only work in certain apps. Most of the system apps, and games respond to it, but the Netflix app doesn't at all.

If you want me to do a more exhaustive test let me know.

BTW: Your app has got me thinking if the following scenario is possible. Can this app be modified to use the part of the bluetooth stack that lets you use it as a headphone, or headset? What I'm specifically interested in seeing is if an android device could do just the AV control type stuff like adjust volume, change tracks, read the mp3 title, or ID3 tag and display on it's LCD. I'd also be interested in having the ability to have an answer call button.

Two use cases for this come to mind. One is for use in the car where the android device used as a remote can be mounted on or near the steering wheel, so one would not have to reach over to change tracks, the other would be remote control of a device without needing to see it's screen.

The climatic end of this program would be if it could emulate all and any part of the bluetooth hardware chain. It could be an audio receiver/sink, route audio in from the mic or headset to another device, or whatever else is possible via bluetooth.

Even if you could only accomplish a portion of these things, I would pay for such an app, as I'm sure others would. Most tech minded people have a few repurposeable android devices laying around these days.
[Android Apps and Games] Dri94:
Can you use this as a bluetooth headset with the ps3 ?
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
The problem is that BlueCtrl doesn't emulate a real PlayStation controller. The PS button is rather just the Windows key of a keyboard which behaves similar but not all apps support it.

The alternative that BlueCtrl actually emulates a PlayStation controller is currently no option because it is not so easy to implement and since I don't own a PS3 I couldn't even test the things that I program.

This would be quite big modification because it is a different Bluetooth profile. It was already a lot of work to program the HID profile and I don't really have the motivation to do it again for the AVRCP profile.

No. It just emulates a keyboard and mouse input device.
[Android Apps and Games] Trilyan:
This app is great! You really saved me some bread. I've been using it for long now and I have a small suggestion. Could it be possible to add some arrow keys at the sides of de screen? I need them sometimes when scrolling is way to much. Thank you for your hard work!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Personally I'm not convinced that these keys would be worth the screen space. Maybe you could describe your use-case in more detail to convince me.

Also I don't really understand what you mean with “scrolling is way to much”. Do you just want to use the arrow keys as a scroll replacement?
[Android Apps and Games] Trilyan:
I mostly use your app for controlling my PC connected to a HDTV, and ussualy find myself rather doing some surfing, or gaming. Sometimes I also use it to gain access to certain menus in games, where the Xbox controller has runned out of possible key mappings

(I game and surf way to far from the actual PC)

The problem is that, in most cases while surfing or reading some e-book, if I scroll I will jump way to much text I'm actually willing to read, and then I start fighting with the scrolling to adjust correctly to the next paragraph. I think arrow keys would solve this, as they only move one line at a time.

I was thinking you could add the arrows at the end of the invincible scrolling line (the one that appears when you swipe) that way it won't bother when using the track pad.

Maybe you could add the option to turn them on/off??

Special keys are the only thing I miss from my keyboard when sitting comfortable in my couch. It would be nice to gradually incorporate them, at least the basic ones.(cntrl, alt, win key,supr,etc) but I know that would take some time to tinker with so for now just think about the arrow keys :p thank you very much for your support! Keep it up!

Pd: I've also remembered another idea I came across this week. I have a galaxy note which has a amoled plus screen. And as I understand, when an image is purelly blackb the pixels in this kind of screen actually turn off so no battery is being drained by that actual pixel at the time. It would be a nice option to be able the change the gradiend like default background of the app with a completely black one, as it would save A LOT or juice while using it (an option to also remove the blue lines might be too much to ask but... believe me, it makes a huge difference ) thanks again!
[Android Apps and Games] mon5trum:
Hi! I have been using this app on my dell streak 7 running HC so I can use it as a keyboard with my PS3! First time I used it, it ran great paired up quick and there wasn't any lag between me typing and seeing it on the tv, but recent attempt to use it again as a keyboard it just didn't want to type anything and whenever it's paired I lose the function of my R2 button on all of my controllers. Any suggestions of what I might of done wrong! Oh and just one suggestion that big empty spot in the middle of all the PS3 buttons on my tablet could you use it to make like a mouse track pad for scrolling. Will try to post screen shots of the suggestion later!

Thank you for such a great app!

Sent from outer space with the power of ANDROID!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
That sounds more like you have trouble with the scroll sensitivity (which I could make configurable) or the fling scroll feature (which you can already turn off in the settings).

I don't think that it is my task to create a full blown keyboard just because the default Android keyboard is missing some keys. Luckily there are other keyboards like the handy Hacker's Keyboard. It also has arrow keys which you might find useful ;). I don't know if this solves your problem or if you still want extra arrow keys on the touchpad (which I still don't like because in my opinion it's a rather special use-case).

I tested it and it doesn't seem to make a big difference. The tested device was a HTC Desire which has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display (brightness was set to 25%). In the attached diagram you can see three marked areas. The first is in standby (for reference) which consumes ca. 30-110mW. The second one is BlueCtrl running without the gradient background and without the blue line at the top which consumes ca. 335mW. And the last one is the normal BlueCtrl version which consumes ca. 360mW.

So I don't think it is useful to hide the background and it is probably more useful to lower the brightness if you want to use BlueCtrl for a longer time. But it was a good point and I too thought it would make a bigger difference.

First of all I must note that I don't have a PS3 nor do I have access to one. I just blindly programmed the PS3 support and others reported that it worked. With that said I don't know if you have done something wrong but it is possible that a change in the newest version is the problem. Could you please test the previous version? Here is a download link:

https://github.com/downloads/RonsDev/BlueCtrl/BlueCtrl-2.2.apk

Actually it is already a touchpad and I'm a little bit surprised that it doesn't work (maybe because of your other problems?).
[Android Apps and Games] Trilyan:
That would help a bit I guess.

Well I must tell you that the Hacker's Keyboard did the trick for the most part ;) It would be cool if you add the feature anyway, as i don't like having to swap between keyboard every time i need the arrow keys (nor i like the idea of an app taking up precious space just for that), but you are right, it is a rather special case-use... i was using the app yesterday and i noticed that two blue arrows are actually drawn at the end of the "scroll lines" that appear, maybe you could just make them "tappable" in order to access them only while scrolling and wanting to do some precise adjustment via multitouch. That way you shouldn´t have to mess up the GUI too much. I still think it would be a nice feature :P.

On a different subject, I noticed that when using the app in landscape mode, the right and left click rectangles are gone :/ and turns out the hacker's keyboards only presents the arrow keys in that view.. is this a bug? anyone experiencing the same problem?

Well i'm definitely no expert when it comes to screens or power consumption, but let me do some assumptions here. I usually use the app between 2 and 5 hours straight, so lets say its 3 hs to round up. Using your data, there is a difference of 25mW between the PURE black background and the current one in an hour use. So for my 3 hs use, that translates to a 75mW save, roughly a %20 power save. Now you tested it with a 3.7 inch screen. My note has a 5.3 inch screen so you could guess the quantity of "active" pixels would be greater (i guess you should actually have to compare the ppi density for power comparison.. but you get the idea). For a screen that is %40 bigger, you could expect the consumption and of course the save percentage to rise a bit, say proportionally, that is like 500 mW, giving you somewhere 100mW of savings. Now this might not be as much as you would think, but 100mW extra just for changing the background? I mean it's not that it would look so bad without it.. i even think it would look kinda sleek and would match perfectly the stock android GUI experience. It would also allow me to leave the screen "on" without guilt, not to mention saving me a lot of time, as when you turn it off and the try to use it again, you have to do that "tap to reconnect thing" that kind of drives you crazy after some time. I could also bring down the heat a bit.. i mean, it is a win win situation all round.

Maybe you don't like the looks of it, but if you could make it a non default kind of option, i would be eternally grateful ;)

thanks a lot for the great support. I mean not even paid apps offer this. Changes aside, your app is great, and you should keep it up ;)
[Android Apps and Games] garciaw:
As long as RonsDev is still actively developing and trying to improve the app, I would recommend a shortcut to change the active keyboard (input method). Perhaps tap-and-hold on the keyboard icon at the top right of the screen would bring up the keyboard list.
[Android Apps and Games] xaver007:
Iwi ist 8 kacke sry aber da lest es sich nicht diskutiren.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Bad news: Incompatibility with Android 4.2

I have recently discovered that BlueCtrl is incompatible with Android 4.2. The reason for that is that the newest Android version doesn't use the BlueZ Bluetooth stack anymore (feature description of the new stack). I haven't examined the new Bluetooth stack yet but it is safe to say that supporting the new stack won't be easy (or maybe not even possible).

This is especially frustrating because after a longer time where the development almost halted, I have restarted the development of BlueCtrl (see code statistic) and also had a few bigger features for the future in mind. But now my motivation is gone and so I have decided to stop the development of BlueCtrl (at least for now).

Nevertheless, I still will release one new version with the last programmed features after I have stabilized them.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
I have decided that I won't add the arrow keys but I will likely add the setting for the scroll speed.

This is controlled by the “Touchpad buttons” setting. Just set it to “Always show”.

I don't really want to argue about this with you but you did a miscalculation. You cannot multiply a timeless value like mW with 3 hours to increase the relative consumption in percent. To make it short I would estimate that you will win 4-8 extra minutes per hour with a black screen. This is of course an improvement but you probably can achieve a bigger win if you just put the display brightness as low as you can. My point was just that the difference between a low glowing pixel and a pixel that is off isn't as big as I had expected.

About the point with the annoying “tap to reconnect” thing after the standby. I had a plan to improve this with a setting that would prevent the standby. I even planed to turn off the screen after 30 seconds or so but still keep the touchpad on so that it would immediately react on touch but won't drain much energy when it is not used. This would also be useful for non AMOLED users. But now I have dropped this feature because of the problematic described in the post above.

For an official version I don't want to make the touchpad background black nor do I want to make it configurable. I really think it looks odd if the touchpad is ready when it is black (it is no Mapple software ;)). But I can compile you a special version with a black background if I have finished the next and probably last version.

Grim sense of humor: I have just stopped the development.

That's not a bad idea but at least as you described it, not possible because Action bar items don't allow a tap-and-hold action.

PS: Don't know if you know it already but you can also change the input method if you long press the config key on the on-screen keyboard.
[Android Apps and Games] garciaw:
Wow, that really sucks... Is the bluetooth stack on 4.2 the same for all distros, like cyanogenmod, miui, etc? Could some of them have an appropriate BT stack? You had a really good thing going here, the future feature list sounded awesome.

PS: the stock keyboard has that shortcut for changing input method, but not swype beta, which is what I currently use.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
At least the current development branch of CyanogenMod is using the new stack (Git Repository).

And the features would have been:

The prevent standby setting that I had mentioned in my last post

Android 4 optimization's

Currently it is optimized for Android 2.3 because that is the only version that I could test it with. This optimization would for example place the menu in the Action bar where it belongs on Android 4 devices. The irony is that I finally got my hands on a Android 4 device so that I could make these optimization's and then have to discover that this version has a different Bluetooth stack.

Tablet optimization's

Different control views

I wanted to make special control views like a remote view (D-pad, multimedia keys), a numpad and a presentation view.

Yes, I remember that this annoyed me too when I tested the Swype keyboard.
[Android Apps and Games] Trilyan:
I feel really dumb for not seeing that.

Tottaly misunderstood your graph, sorry for the gibberish numbers :P

I feel special :o that would be.. godlike really, thanks a lot! :D
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
You might like to hear that I have implemented your idea even if it doesn't conform with the default Action bar behavior. It was possible because the Action bar in BlueCtrl is a custom one so that it works on Android 2.3 devices.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Beta testers needed

The final version of BlueCtrl is almost finished and just needs some testing. If you want to help, you can download the attached APK, test it and give some feedback.

The following things are especially interesting because I couldn't test them:

Are there any pairing problems with the PlayStation 3?

Does the touchpad work with the PlayStation 3?

Are there any problems on Mac OS X?

Do the new gestures work and are they correctly described in the tutorial?
[Android Apps and Games] garciaw:
Amazing! Everything seems to be working fine, I'm even typing this through my phone. Could not test ps3 or osx, but on windows 7 all gestures and tutorial work perfectly. Also, thanks for the keyboard quick-switch shortcut.

When I get to install JellyBean on my phone I may leave a nandroid of Gingerbread just to use this. It's so amazingly convenient not to need a client running on the PC for this to work, and also the ability to work on other phones/tablets.

EDIT: forgot to mention that the fling scrolling is a nice touch and works well. Maybe a bit too sensitive but there are settings for that.
[Android Apps and Games] mon5trum:
Sorry for taking so long for reporting back. I got good news the new version of the app works with the ps3, track pad works, buttons work, keyboard works! :D no problem connecting what so ever! :D everything works! :D GREAT WORK!!

Sent from outer space with the power of ANDROID!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Just to be sure. Have you paired the devices with the 2.4 Beta or have you paired them with the previously mentioned 2.2 version and just tested the 2.4 Beta version afterwards?

I have increased the friction value that is applied to the fling scrolling. This means that the fling scrolling is stopping faster now. This should help that it doesn't feel too sensitive.

Thanks for your feedback (both of you).
[Android Apps and Games] mon5trum:
Yes I am sure I downloaded it to my s2 because I does not have any of the previous version installed! But if you like I could install it my Dell streak 7 that has the 2.2 version on it and install the beta version to see if it all works there! :)

Sent from outer space with the power of ANDROID!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Ok, it should be fine then. It is not really important that a previous version was installed; only with which version the pairing happened.

If you want, you can give me some more feedback about the 4-finger left/right gesture which changes the browser window (the Dell Streak 7 is probably better for this because four fingers need some space). Is it working as expected or should the direction be inverted?
[Android Apps and Games] mon5trum:
Alright I will do it right when I get home tonight and check back! :thumbup:

Edit: which browser were you talking about? The PS3 browser or windows browser?

Sent from outer space with the power of ANDROID!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
The PS3 browser. As mentioned earlier I never had access to a PS3 and therefore don't know how the browser there looks or behaves. I just used this document to implement the gestures and want to be sure that they are working.
[Android Apps and Games] mon5trum:
OK I thought so I gave it a try and nothing really happened. But to be honest I feel like it's not really a needed feature because it feels complete with out it! I played with it for an hour or so and couldn't get the 4 finger gesture to work to switch between pages.

Sent from outer space with the power of ANDROID!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
If you don't think it is useful and it doesn't work anyway, then I will remove the 4-finger gesture for the PS3. Thanks for trying.
[Android Apps and Games] francas44:
device problems

Thanks for your great work ronsdev. :good:

I'm trying to connect an xperia neo v with android 4.0.4 as a remote control to a tablet samsung galaxy tab 7 gt-P1010 with android 2.3.6 using bluectrl 2.4 Beta, but always says "Connection refused".

Is it possible to connect both devices?

Is there any instruction or piece of code that I need to update the bluetooth of samsung tablet?

Sorry my bad English. :rolleyes:

Thank you.

Happy New Year.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Maybe something went wrong when you paired the devices. If you haven't done it already, you should try to completely revert the pairing and then try to pair them again. To do this, go on both devices in the Bluetooth settings and remove the devices. Then deactivate Bluetooth, wait a few seconds and activate it again. Now you can start the pairing process with BlueCtrl and hopefully it works.

Another possibility is that you have to manually allow the device to be a input device. Look for a appropriate setting on the remote device after you have paired them.

If nothing helps, you could also try to pair the devices with the PlayStation 3 pairing-mode of BlueCtrl (this will activate a special compatibility mode).
[Android Apps and Games] francas44:
Hello RonsDev. I followed your instructions and I've only been able to use the Samsung P1010 tablet as a remote control and the remote device the phone xperia neo v, but not vice versa. :(

I tried using other devices, and the result has been that you can not use a remote control device with a larger android version than the version of the remote device. :confused:

Can you think of something else, RonsDev?

In any case, thank you!
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
I cannot confirm this general assumption because I have successfully used a Android 4 device as remote control for a Android 2.3 device.

Can you describe with which devices you tested the Xperia Neo V with and with which you were able to use it as a remote control?

Another thing that comes in my mind is that maybe another Bluetooth app on the Xperia device is causing the problems. For example I would assume that most Xperia devices have the Xperia Smart Watch app preinstalled. You could look if such an app is running and try to temporarily disable it.
[Android Apps and Games] spen2:
Hi, Thanks for this app, very useful. I'm using it on my SGS2 to control my SGN 10.1.

One thing i've noticed, i have to reconnect everytime my screen goes off on my SGS2. If you are still developing this app, I'd like to suggest a 'keep screen on' option in the settings.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
To quote myself:

But I have reconsidered it and maybe I will add this feature. However if I'm implementing it, it probably will just be the “Keep screen on” setting and no turning the display off or other energy saving tricks because I want to release the final version soon and don't want to spent too much time for this feature.
[Android Apps and Games] spen2:
That sounds good to me. I'm using tasker to accomplish the screen always on effect at the moment.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Version 3.0 released

What's new

New system specific touchpad gestures

The gestures are now optimized for the chosen remote device system. Linux and Windows systems also got a new setting for the gesture mode. So, for example, if you are using Windows 8 you can configure the appropriate gesture mode to enable the special Windows 8 edge gestures.

New interactive touchpad tutorial

The interactive tutorial will explain all gestures for the current system and can be activated via the menu.

New menu item for composing text

This is especially helpful if you want to write a longer text because you can keep your eyes on the device and see what you write and it also allows you to correct the text before it is send.

Voice input can be corrected before sending

Voice input will be displayed in a edit box before it is send so that you are able to correct misinterpreted words.

New "Stay awake" setting

This setting prevents that the device is going into standby and disconnects the connection. To save some energy the screen will however be dimmed after 30 seconds of inactivity.

New "Scroll sensitivity" setting

You can long press the keyboard button to change the input method

This is probably the last version of BlueCtrl because the previously mentioned incompatibility with Android 4.2 will soon prevent me from using my own app. But I hope that this app will still be useful to others.

You can find the download link in the first post.
[Android Apps and Games] RonsDev:
Attached is a special version of BlueCtrl with a completely dark touchpad background as requested from the user Trilyan. This can be useful for a device with a AMOLED screen but most users are probably fine with the normal version that you can find in the first post.
[Android Apps and Games] mon5trum:
Ah man that sucks 4.2 is the latest and I am pretty sure that people are going to want this app to work with them too! But I guess that it's a long process to make such a great app! Cheers to you for giving us such a great and useful app! :thumbup::D

Sent from outer space with the power of ANDROID! ^_^
[Android Apps and Games] Trilyan:
You are the best man. Owe you some beers.