[Galaxy Note 3 Android Development] costasparisis:
BRIGHTNESS ISSUE in Note 5 NEW UX & more

HELLO DEV & friends ! : ) :) :)

good to see you here again home friend [MENTION=733633]jimpsar[/MENTION] ! :) :)

Initially many many thanks to all the DEVs for this brilliant ROM that's keeping us all -through our beloved Note 3- TRUELY on the cutting edge of Android Development ! !

Been running ROM as (quite busy) DAILY DRIVER for more than three days with "whose link should never be mentioned in this thread" (-hihihi ) v2 kernel so I'm in a position to confirm

ROM running extremely smoothly with not a single FC or random reboot, with excellent battery life and NO HEATING WHATSOEVER !

I think this is a FANTASTIC ROM -AS IS, at early - beta, thus there's HUGE POTENTIAL FOR IMPROVEMENT if people who recognise this and care, give proper thorough, detailed, POLITE and RESPECTFUL feedback to DEVs

Only bugz I personally have come across so far were:

- (of course) vibration

- (the infamous now -hehe) "brightness issue" (how else to call it)

- the (already mentioned by another friend) "TORCH-stubbornly-staying-on-once-lit-and-requiring-a-reboot-to-get-rid-of" issue

- AOD not working (of course - and not expected to) at all (even when phone charging, blah-blah, etc, etc, etc ...)

as well as some other minor annoyances which the DEVs are most likely well aware of but I thought I'd mention just in case, since I couldn't find any of them anywhere in the thread (maybe I didn't search efficiently enough -so do excuse me if I'm repeating), like:

- auto date and time (system) gets updated only after any (GSM or WiFi) connection is achieved but doesn't seem to register so it doesn't survive a reboot

- (thus) file timestamp in filesystem and apps isn't correct (ie if you "sort by date" in Total Commander explorer files are not displayed in the correct order

- Also recovery (TWRP in my case) time, which is normally correct after dropping from a functioning ROM (system) to Recovery, never gets updated and is wrong and so are all the installation dates / times of ROM builtin apps (ie in Titanium Backup, apps seem installed on 06/03/1970 ?? ! ! as if they were installed by ALIENS who invented Android in late 1969 and came down to earth to communicate it to us but we either weren't listening or we locked them in the loonie bin ?? hihihi)

- same applies to mobile data on - off state which doesn't "stick" in -off and has to be deactivated through a prompt which appears after each and every system reboot

- Direct Pen Input doesn't work - the little blue dot actually DOES appear but when you click on it it just brings the keyboard up

Another (not so minor IMHO) issue (actually two interrelated issues) I would like to bring the DEVs' attention to is not related directly to the core of the ROM but rather to

3minit clock and rom control

Especially now with NEW UX where MANY system apps have WHITE backgrounds and system UI turns all Taskbar fonts' and icons' colour to black, the 3minit clock (and DATE) fonts stay white and are illegible - appear as blank space on the taskbar, probably because system UI doesn't recognise them as native to apply the colour change to them

One could argue that we could change (with rom control) their colour to black for legibility on white backgrounds. In this case they wouldn't be visible / legible on apps with dark backgrounds and vice-versa.

The other problem with 3minit clock and rom control (I mention them together because they usually go together and UNFORTUNATELY BUILT-IN in many ROMs ) is that by using RIGHT clock position and large size font (even condensed) for Day + date + Month + clock (and even more so when battery icon is activated) the date - time sequence gets truncated on the right side causing

ALL Time and HALF OF Date to disappear.

One could argue that the workaround (for the truncation / disappearance issue - not the colour issue) is putting 3minit clock & date in CENTER or LEFT in taskbar but unfortunately this results in many system & app notifications to be hidden from taskbar (now divided in three sections) although there is free taskbar space available in the other two taskbar "divisions".

My workaround for all this, so far, has been the use of XUI mod xposed module which allows for custom clock format (ie Day + Date + Month + Clock) that neither gets truncated in the right nor stays white in light background apps. Unfortunately XUI mod only works in "clean" ROMs (like all Darklord's ones so far) and doesn't work in ROMs that come preinstalled with either 3minit clock or/and rom control and even stops working after one flashes 3minit clock to a clean ROM.

Luckily Darklord ROMs traditionally come "clean" giving you a choice over the use of such extras like 3minit clock and rom control etc either in Aroma installation or by providing them for flashing as separate zips and I most certainly wish things will stay this way. After all let us not forget that soon after the NEW UX there's Note 7 and Android Nougat coming for darkera13 and Ufo71 and nguyentankiet and all the other guys and gails to play with and we're all keeping an eye on these - not to say some of us (pathetic, sad, flashacholics -hehe) might be even holding our breaths !

Now a ROM / Kernel request of mine to DEVs: Could you please try to PORT MTP USB3 to this ROM like you did in 5.1.1 DARKLORD N5 Note 3 port. I think it's a shame to have the hardware available and leave it unexploited if there is a way to take advantage of it - I always wonder why people don't ever ask the DEVs for this

Finally my workarounds on the two "issues" brought up by our friends as quoted in the beginning of this post:

1) Low brightness IS a problem

(especially for us old f@rds -hihi)

Unfortunately the outdoor mode only sticks for 15 minutes or until screen turns off (whichever comes LAST)

adjbrightness.apk -at least in my hands- seems to deactivate itself at random, ie after there is a phone call or screen turns off and definitely does NOT survive a reboot and this with full SU privileges and ticked to not be optimised in autostart (in RAM section of Smart Manager)

While searching I stumbled on another .apk called "CZ Sunlight Brightness" by good lad Eddie Walton who created it for himself in late 2014 and was kind and thoughtful enough to publish it in youtube under the title: "Hacking max brightness into AOSP for Samsung Galaxy Note 3" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlTGeAL_It8)

This seems -at least in my hands- to do the job much better than adjbrightness. All you have to do is install it and then run it by clicking on the shortcut in home screen, and the effect is similar to this of "outdoor mode". Just make sure you have Auto Brightness DEACTIVATED (little square on the drop screen next to the manual brightness adjustment bevel unticked).

In order to return to previous lower brightness I found that all you have to do is REACTIVATE Auto Brightness by ticking the small square

The author claims that the app brings back the extra brightness (above full in manual setting) that NON TOUCHWIZ ROMs lack (outdoor mode function not available in AOSP ROMs) -but this I couldn't test myself

You can even make it survive reboots by installing "Auto Starter.apk" and activating "CZ Sunlight Brightness" in its setting (Auto Starter is free for up to 3 apps activated). Just make sure that Auto Starter is ticked to not be optimised in autostart (in RAM section of Smart Manager) and that you allow for some (something like 60 secs or more !) time after boot for CZ Sunlight Brightness to kick in

Hope this workaround could make life easier for some of us until the brilliant DEVs come up with a proper fix / update

2)

Now, with regards to my home friend's [MENTION=733633]jimpsar[/MENTION] and my friend's [MENTION=3594466]sebastjanp[/MENTION]

request for home button assignment:

I found that "Physical Button Music Control (PBMC) 4.0 stable

beta

6" xposed module (don't be fooled by the title - it does a LOT MORE than MUSIC control) gives UNLIMITED FUNCTIONALITY to ALL BUTTONS ASSIGNMENT.

It seems quite complicated at the beginning and there's a learning curve mainly with trial & error (I found the secret lies in TIMING each (previous) assignment's detection time period to be smaller than this of the following assignment's for the same button -and then everything works as intended) but don't get intimidated (I'm sure ONLY VERY INTELLIGENT PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN THIS THREAD ! ! hehe) -just make sure you DON'T SAVE any assignments to the BACK and/or HOME buttons having ticked

"Cancel original key functions"

at the very bottom unless you're absolutely sure of what you're doing cause you might end up looking for "priv.app" and the apk's folder to delete in Recovery Mode's file manager, or even worse, have to: - reboot recovery - flash the xposed uninstaller - reboot system - uninstall Physical Button Music Control module - reboot recovery - reinstall exposed framework - reboot system - wait for cache to be rebuilt - reinstall Physical Button Music Control module - reboot system - correct previously made mistake - become a pensioner - go to barber to have your white hair cut - go to bank to get your pension - etc, etc ... hehe

Alternatively you could try "xposed.additions" module, which is much simpler (thus quite limited in options) but, unlike Physical Button Music Control, I haven't tried it in this ROM and I remember getting stuck in a bootloop after activating it in some other ROM, some time in the past, so beware ; )

Hope all this is helpful to all of us

Cheers everybody and All The Best (we need it and -maybe, even- deserve it) :)