yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Apps and Games] sunsero:
Hi velis, I've noticed that VAB doesn't release the camera when turning auto brightness off from the notification bar. It would be great if one had a chance to deactivate camera readings quickly by turning auto brightness off, because just putting the camera app on the list of excluded apps geworben doesn't trigger fast enough and you just get an error when you want to use the camera app to take photos. Should I post this to the bugs section on the xda web site?
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
The camera is released continuously after each pic is taken. However, VAB may be in the middle of pic taking process when you start camera app which will naturally result in camera being taken. In this case you will have to try again. I'm afraid I currently don't know how to fix this since this process isn't really under my control. There's no API to cancel a pic taking operation in progress.
[Android Apps and Games] sunsero:
Ok, but what if I turn off the auto brightness feature of VAB? In this case it shouldn't be necessary for it to take any pictures but it seems VAB still reads from the camera - at least the camera seems to be frequently occupied by it. Wouldn't it be possible to change this?
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Yes, you are correct in this. I have also observed this behaviour. Will try to fix ASAP.
[Android Apps and Games] djlucask:
Actually i meant with an app livke\system\app mover, after i did this, Velis does not shut down itself, no notification, and full brightness control! xD

I don't know if it has something related, but once i heard that system apps were more difficulty to being shut down by the system...
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
I am not aware of any such privileged status though I have not researched this. Thanks for letting us know.
[Android Apps and Games] spupuz:
[MENTION=2424510]velis74[/MENTION] this application is very cool in the way it works but can i suggest you to rework the GUI tha is a little bit awful?
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
please provide me with an example of not-so-awful GUI. Current design is as good as I can think of.
[Android Apps and Games] spupuz:
for example putting a lateral sliding menu where access all the information (like play store) and remove all the icons actually are in the main screen of the application.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Eh. Sorry, I can't process this sentence. I'm not a native english speaker, btw. This is what I understand from above:

The menu should be such as ha.meier suggested 2 pages back: it should respond to finger drag and overlap the content screen until something was selected. At that point it would disappear.

Remove all the icons from the menu and just keep the text.

I don't know what the part "all the icons actually are in the main screen of the application" is supposed to mean.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Hey guys, I have an interesting observation.

While I'm playing around with new smoothing routines, I also fooled around with interpolators and stumbled into an interesting scenario.

The attached pics show how the function behaves with linear and acceleration / deceleration interpolators.

Graph explanation:

green - current sensor value

blue - old smoothing function

cyan - new smoothing function

There's a very interesting result occurring with the latter: if light changes are very frequent, it will pretty much all but ignore them and only move to current reading value when readings normalise. This seems like a very useful thing to be doing when the sensor is "hunting" for readings like SGS3 sensor likes to do.

What do you think? Should I implement accelerate / decelerate interpolator or just have the linear one?
[Android Apps and Games] RovG:
How about having both and letting the user choose through an option in settings?
[Android Apps and Games] sonwon:
Agreed, choice is good.
[Android Apps and Games] kidstronger:
works fine :fingers-crossed:
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Thanks guys for the suggestions. And sorry for the pathetic speed lately. I do have a good reason for it, but I can't yet disclose it.

Anyway, testing the interpolators on actual devices with actual sensor readings showed that the accelerating interpolator was next to useless when changes were frequent. The brightness just stayed where it was. Good for hunting, bad for genuine changes.

So I decided there will be no option. Hopefully a benevolent dictator's decision :angel::angel::angel:

There will be a new version release shortly however to try to make up for the trooubles I have caused by posting the question. ;)
[Android Apps and Games] aeroseek:
Flickering issue in full sun

On the way into work today I had the sun behind me shining directly onto my dash where my phone is mounted. I noticed that the screen would alternate full bright/full dim constantly.

My settings are:

Brightness sensitivity: 10%

Smoothing time: 3000

Smoothing downwards: 30000

Smoothing override: 100%

No superdimming

No prox sensor

Any ideas?

Thank you
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
This is a known (but unfortunately forgotten) bug for such a scenario.

Added to to-do.
[Android Apps and Games] aeroseek:
Thanks. Much appreciated.
[Android Apps and Games] tangcla:
I noticed the full sun issue just now too. In the app it would give me alternating 0 lux sensor readings.
[Android Apps and Games] Zorokydopy:
Not work on my xperia z1 :banghead:
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
It should. Can you be more specific about what's not working?
[Android Apps and Games] tangcla:
No, it's XDA ;)
[Android Apps and Games] xaverg:
Very nice app!! Keep up the good work!!

Pls. let me ask:

1) How can I completely switch off VAB and have Android's own auto brightness take over again.

If I use the on/off button in VAB's interactive notification 'nothing happens'?! My Android system brightness slider remains inactive, i.e. I cannot change brightness with it and Android's own autobrightness feature does not work.

Currently, the only way I can truly switch off VAB is to kill it via Android's own app manager. Is this really the proper way?

2) Exactly what 'things' does VAB do to the system in order to survive a full power off of the device.

Moreover, would these 'things' be fully unwound if I simply kill VAB via Android's own app manager, or would 'something' remain in the system and induce problems ?

3) When - very excited :) - I checked my systems battery percentage, to see how much power VAB was saving me regarding the screen, I realized that VAB by itself is not too low on the list, i.e. 2-3%. Surely this is not a huge number, but still I was wondering if this is what I should expect, or if I can tweak VAB's settings to get this lower?

4) I'm a little worried about the 'excluded app' list. Is there any knowledge base about which apps one should exclude, or is this at one's own trial and error?

Moreover when you write in the manual, that Android's APK installer is one of such apps which fails to work properly, does that also include installing or (automatic) updating apps through Google's play store?

Any answers would be most appreciated.
[Android Apps and Games] waallen:
I just installed vab on my 4.4.2 nexus 5. If I uncheck the show notifications checkbox in its app info panel, does vab still work properly?
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
1. Turning off the service will turn off VAB. However, that will not turn on system auto brightness. You will have to do that manually. Judging from what you wrote that doesn't seem to be the case?

2. The app requests permission to be notified of system startup. That's when it is loaded back into memory. If you kill the app in app manager, it will come back in a few seconds (unless turned off) because it requests a (re)start in (frequent) case of Android system shutting it down.

3. On my GNex, GSam showed VAB as taking < 0.1% battery. I just bought a HTC one and noticed that the figure is much higher (8%). Settings battery stats doesn't even register VAB though. I will verify as to why this is so though it doesn't seem to be impacting battery life. In fact, I see much better battery life with one than I ever did with gnex. It could just be the device as such.

4. Except for the apk installer (manually from SD), this list is a matter of personal preference. Some apps manage their own screen brightness, some people want to view photos at constant lighting, etc. Play store is not affected.

Please see the FAQ about this issue. There it is explained in detail and also how to eliminate the notification (experimental feature currently).
[Android Apps and Games] xaverg:
I'm sorry, but I guess I mean something different. It's not just about the device's automatic brightness. To my humble understanding, there are 3 places where I can "switch on/off" services related to VBA, i.e. in VBA's settings:

(i) Automatic brightness,

(ii) Disable system handler,

and in the notification area:

(iii) interactive notification

However, once I have VBA running as an application, I can switch off whatever any combination of those three: all, or only part of them. In no case the device's own brightness systems is working again, and I don't mean only the devices automatic brightness systems. Actually even the system's bare own brightness slider remains non-functional.

This implies, that if I switch to "off" in the notification area, I have a device with a completely frozen brightness.

The only way to make my device's brightness behave again like VBA is "off", including brightness slider and automatic brightness, is to really kill VBA from the task manager.

My 1st question was if this is the proper way, or if I am misunderstanding something?

What exactly do you mean by 'turned off'. As I tried to explain above, I can get no state of my device in which VBA is "off" and the systems own brightness is "on". (and moreover remains like that during system shut down and reboot)
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
I hear what you are saying. I will try to reproduce the problem. This is not intended behaviour.
[Android Apps and Games] xaverg:
Maybe I should leave some more details - if that is of any help.

The device is a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 LTE 2014 Edition.

With Android version 4.3 Jelly Bean and rooted 'de la Vega'.
[Android Apps and Games] wim69:
Thanks for this magnificent app! I am using it since a few days on my new Nexus 5. Works like a charm.

There was one thing interfering: the auto brightness in Gravity box! I used that before your app and forgot to turn it off.

Everything is OK now!
[Android Apps and Games] 530farm:
Negative Lux values?

Hi,

Been using this app for a couple weeks and been messing with settings constantly. I've been struggling as I feel like there isn't a broad enough range for the low light levels. According to the graph and reading, its showing "0 Lux" for a variety of low light settings, from low lit room to pitch black. Due to this the screen is either too dim in low lit rooms, or too bright in dark rooms. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks
[Android Apps and Games] Pkt_Lnt:
Experiment with creating profiles and then fine tune with the superdim settings. What we need is the ability to use decimal settings in superdim, i.e. 5.7 setting.
[Android Apps and Games] dclarkg:
+1, we need decimals or a better may to play with the graph since the autoresize feature conflicts and activates itself when sliding the red X/Y axis lines, it should be on a separate window so we can use full landscape orientation, including an option to manipulate how modifying a specific point in the graph affect the other points... I'm not a dev so I don't know if this can be done or if it will increase the program footprint or size

Other than that this app is just great! Simple, small system footprint and gets the job done! Love the way you can customize the delays and scaling percentages.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Yes, I need to fix that sidemenu. Sorry about that, I'm too busy lately and the feature I'm trying to implement isn't exactly easy. That's why it's taking so much time. I should have released that smoothing fix before I went ahead with the new feature. Now my code is a mess and I need to finish this :)

Otherwise I hear you. The decimals are in TODO they just won't bee too easy to implement because I deliberately went with integers. Lots of places to fix the code if I want to make it work.

Code size isn't a matter: the apk is 85% graphics resources...
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
I'm using simple cosine with (currently fixed) range of effect (30% each direction currently).

Did you have only the range in mind or also the function?
[Android Apps and Games] dclarkg:
Well I can see that there is an option in which u can modify how changing a point affect others but if i modify a point in the graph it will increase/decrease the points in the graph within the range of the selected option, the problem is that if I set point 1 at certain value and then i want to set, let's say point 5, it will move point 1 but the function won't have the adjustments. I don't know if I'm explaining myself right hehe.

Also another thing I realized is that if you play with the graph for a while and you start modifying points in the graph not specified on the txt then those values are created on the txt, this causes that a specific modification on one point on the graph affects the points created automatically by not changing points already specified, sometimes after I change things in the graph and then I go to the txt there are six of seven entries with equal value (ex: sevetal Pt: 0 20, or Pt: 4 35)
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Yes, this is the intended behaviour currently. For precise setting you should use the manual graph edit.

This was supposed to have been fixed. I have extra logic in there that should remove any duplicate points. Will try to duplicate the problem.
[Android Apps and Games] dclarkg:
Those are only minor things I founded, I downloaded the app a couple days ago so I'm still getting use to it and maybe I just need a little more practice.

The app is awesome! small system foot print, simple and gets the job done. I like all the variables u can change and the superdim feature is just great. Best screen time I had was 4h 40m and today I had 5h 30 with heavy use.

Nice app buddy
[Android Apps and Games] tangcla:
So I was thinking, a simple drop-down menu that hides away after selection would probably be the cleanest for the interface, what do you think?

Otherwise just a flat menu (I've switched back to Lux for the moment, the interface of that is quite simple but pleasant)
[Android Apps and Games] Pkt_Lnt:
The original menu worked fine for me, and left more screen real estate for tweaking the graph to find tune, Loosing almost half my graph is tough.
[Android Apps and Games] aeroseek:
Swipe left on the screen twice and you'll get full screen graph.
[Android Apps and Games] armando_rod:
I'am having an issue, the app apparently gets disabled on lockscreen and the System brightness kicks in, I have 2 apps on the excluded list Quickpic and MXPlayer.

Nexus 5 4.4.2 stock + Xposed GB
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
This must be a specific ROM feature or something. I have specifically observed VAB being active during lock screen. In fact, somewhere in the first third of this thread the screen-on brightness override was being discussed and implemented specifically for the lock screen.

Are you sure it doesn't just take time to activate? It shouldn't, but still, getting disabled would mean that your lockscreen overrides VAB with a service of its own.
[Android Apps and Games] brian.williams:
galaxy note 2 brightness keeps jumping

I have a note 2 that seemed to have good automatic brightness settings, but I have now loaded a ported note 3 based ROM. The auto brightness is now normally too bright, so I am now looking for a means to control it better.

I have read a number of the pages in this thread but not been through it all, so apologies if this is already known.

I have seen a couple of times where my screen keeps jumping up/down in brightness - mainly in medium to low light levels where there is some change happening. I have disabled the system handler, set the smoothing overrider to very large value to stop instant changes, but left the up/down smoothing time the same. The brightness still appears to jump instead of fading as I would have expected, and it does it more often than expected.

In such cases I see the current brightness reading jumping around a lot (down to zero and then up again - the readings seem to be changing more than the actual light level is varying, so perhaps I need some different setting for which sensor to use to determine the input light level). So I want to know how velis determines the current light level

- does it do a one off measurement and act on that

- does it select a value based on some number of previous values? If so, how many values, and what are the algorithms? Could be a simple average over say 10 readings, or it could be weighted with the most recent readings given more weight. Such algorithms would smooth the input readings over time. The information in the descriptions for the smoothness seem to indicate it is only smoothing the brightness output, but on my device it seems I may also need some smoothing of the input.

If it uses an algorithm for the input it would be good to have an option to change the number of samples in the input, selecting between different algorithms, and possibly even the weighting for the samples.

Any suggestions for which sensor to use, and how velis determines the light level is appreciated.

Thanks.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
I have heard a lot of complaints from note 2 users. It seems the sensor produces some mixed readings.

Coupled with bugs in smoothing algorithm, I suspect it's no miracle that you're experiencing these issues.

I have already fixed the smoothing algorithm and am now working on a feature specifically aimed at note 2. Will upload both when the new feature is complete.

If you have the patience, I'd greatly appreciate feedback on both, but the new feature isn't complete yet. I took a few days off just to complete it so it should be done by the end of the week.

Additionally, I have discovered the NavigationDrawer widget, so fixing the menu is right next on my list.
[Android Apps and Games] brian.williams:
I would be happy to help provide feedback on the update for a note 2, and will be looking forward to it being available.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Update on the supersmooth feature:

My particular Nexus 10 seems to have steppy backlight changes only in the lower 5% - 30% of display brightness. There there's approximately one step per % of brightness change, but they are not uniform.

This will make identifying steps really hard and practically push things into "prepared data" territory since the actual detection process would have to take a REALLY long time in order to correctly identify the steps.

And then comes the smoothing of those steps... Who knows how much they differ in intensity.

I'm not sure this new supersmoothing feature is at all viable, except for the extra die-hard fans, epecially because there are already two existing solutions for the steppiness problem:

1. Superdimming set to 100% works, there isn't any steppiness when it is used

2. Decreasing VAB sensitivity should also be OK in reducing this

Edit: this feature seems to be more trouble than it is worth. I'm stopping development for now and focusing back on the more "down to earth" problems / features.
[Android Apps and Games] sunsero:
Hi, just bought Locale support for VAB to be able to change the profile to a brighter one when leaving home. Unfortunately it does not work as intended: When changing the profile via Llama the graph displayed is changed to the profile's one, however the brightness level of the screen is not adjusted to become brighter.

Any ideas?

---------- Post added at 07:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

Seems it requires some bright light reading to adjust the brightness once. After that it stays at the brighter level of the selected profile even when there's no light measured.

Can you please change this because otherwise the brightness won't be adjusted when leaving home in the evening making it hard to see the map of the navigation software in the car.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
It's been a while since i looked at locale functionality. Will check tomorrow.
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
3.55.158 (7.2.2014)

Completely redesigned reading interpolator. Less battery usage, fixes a ton of smoothing-related bugs

FIX: If service is turned off, cameras will now stop reading

FIX: Stopping VAB now completely removes the overlay. Should reduce issues on some devices when VAB was on and still held the brightness

Uploaded to OP and Play Store Beta.

[MENTION=5221171]sunsero[/MENTION]: I debugged like there's no tomorrow, but on my phone it works well. I did remove a receiver warning though, maybe it will help. If it still doesn't work, would you be so kind as to send me a logcat of log level 9? Thanks.
[Android Apps and Games] lou2s:
The apk is yet to appear in OP :eek:

Sent from my Boeffla I9300
[Android Apps and Games] sunsero:
Well - no root, no logcat - I guess :-/

What I've noticed:

The new VAB version does not always seem to adjust the brightness to the new profile,

i.e. when setting a new profile via a Locale plugin in Llama the red cross does not move vertically

to match the blue graph which has been set from the new profile. Hope this helps to narrow the issue down.

Still using VAB with camera as only sensor and superdimming btw.

Also I hope some day the Locale interface will be reworked and extended for camera support (read camera now, set read interval, etc.). But let's talk about this in detail another time. :)
[Android Apps and Games] velis74:
Sorry, I forgot, you have SGS3 mini?

I could add set read interval to locale settings, but not read camera now as that's not really an option: the camera is currently just read as often as it can be. Even with prolonged interval, it's hard to tell when the camera is grabbing, but I could attempt making it work.

BTW: is llama a locale clone, like tasker?

Implementing new settings to locale plugin is on my top to-do. Any suggestions for which settings I should implement first?
[Android Apps and Games] sunsero:
Yes, it's the S3 mini I'm talking about.

Can you reproduce/fix the brightness level not being adjusted immediately to the graph after changing the brightness profile via Llama?

I've never played around with Tasker and Locale but Llama is a similar tool supporting Locale plugins, at least actions.

Any reason why the read camera interval setting is not respected?

Imho it would be nice to have an option to only or additionally read camera via Locale plugin manually e.g. when the screen turns on or the device gets unlocked. This could save lots of battery I guess, just like a working read interval of e.g. 10 seconds.

Regarding Locale support in general I think the interface should get overhauled. There are way too many plugin entries for VAB and it's not recognizable that they are from VAB. Either VAB's plugin entries should get a prefix like 'VAB:'or multiple actions should be offered under a single entry called 'Velis Auto Brightness' or something.

Btw would be nice to be able to see which profile is selected in the UI.