[Droid Eris Android Development] scary alien:
Amon_RA 1.6.2 Custom Recovery: trackball not required!

All right...I finally, with a lot of trial and error, and vital guidance from Amon_RA himself, was able to modify

Amon_RA's 1.6.2 custom recovery for the Eris to

support an alternate set of keys for menu navigation

.

Here are the new keys and their functions:

volume-UP toggle: scroll-up in the menu

green Call button: scroll-down in the menu

red End/Pwr button: select menu item or confirm prompt

The volume-DOWN key still works as it always did, taking you back to the prior recovery menu.

Please note: for those of you with working trackballs, they will still work in this custom recovery.

Here is a screenshot of the new version's main menu:

Notice the [trackball not required] text at the bottom of the screen under the Build : RA-eris-v1.6.2 line that lets you know you are using the new, alternate version.

This additional text and the behavior of the new menu navigation keys should be the only differences in this custom recovery from Amon_RA's original.

Please reference the Note / Edit section at the bottom of this post for important information regarding version(s) available for download.

I hope this is helpful and useful. Cheers!

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Special thanks to:

Amon_RA: for creating this custom recovery and providing much needed guidance to allow me to tweak his code

Packetlss: for hosting the github and guiding me to Amon_RA

bftb0: for his continued guidance, knowledge, and contributions to the Android community (especially the Eris folks)

References:

- sister thread to this post over at Android Forums -

HOWTO: Unpack, Edit, and Re-Pack Boot Images

======================= Note / Edit (23-November-2010) =========================

This past weekend, I became aware that the menu options for partitioning the /sdcard were "missing" from my initial version of this custom recovery (I didn't notice it because I don't use apps2sd). It was pointed-out by some AF members that there were menu options missing for the Partition sdcard function. I double-checked the "1.6.2" source that I used and those menu item references indeed were not present. They are/were, however present in the "mahimahi" (Nexus One) branch of source for this recovery, many of whose files are listed with a version number of 1.7.1.

The reason for this was that the Amon_RA custom recovery source I used was pulled from the "desirec" (HTC Eris) branch of the amonra_bootable_recovery github (kindly managed by packetlss). All of the files in this branch are labeled as "1.6.2" (including the only file that I modified, recovery.c).

So, I tried seeing if the mahimahi source branch would compile in lieu of the desirec branch I was using--and indeed it did. So, I re-made my tweaks to support the alternative trackball navigation keys in the 1.7.1 version of recovery.c. I've compiled and flashed this new version, testing the trackball, alternate keys, Nandroid backup, Nandroid restore, and saw (but did not test) that the "missing" menu items for the Partition sdcard function were again present. An AF member who reported the missing menu items has subsequently tested this new version and the missing menu items are back and appear to work as before.

What does this mean? Here's the scoop:

1. I don't exactly know which version of the recovery.c source (or branch) was used by Amon_RA to compile the "1.6.2" recovery that virtually everyone has is and is using (other than those using the tweaked, trackball-optional version that I made a few weeks ago). The build number listed at the bottom of the screen still reads "1.6.2" since this value is gleaned from the default.prop (property) file that is not directly associated with the source (i.e., not involved in the compilation process). I would guess that the build version was not changed in the property file when a version newer than the 1.6.2 source was used to create the recovery images in wide-use today.

I don't believe that the version that most people have is actually the same version that I just built since I have identified at least one slight difference in behavior: Nandroid backups will now backup the /cache filesystem, resulting in Nandroid backup directory names being prefixed with "BCDS-" instead of "BDS-" like were all used to seeing [this threw me for a loop for a while until I figured-out that each letter of the prefix indicates what is actually being backed-up by the nandroid-mobile.sh script: B=boot, C=cache, D=data, S=system].

2. I don't think this is too big of a mystery or issue since my hope is that there will be very few of you that will have trackball problems and need either of these tweaked recoveries (although if you are reading this you might be one of those folks). Anyway, the old version should suffice for those that don't want or need to partition their /sdcard and hopefully the new version will behave properly for those that do need to (i.e., for a2sd).

Disclaimer: Again, your mileage may vary, etc., etc. Use these custom recoveries at your own risk. I am not responsible for any bad things that might occur to your phone should you use these.

Download Links

Both the old ("1.6.2") and new ("1.7.1") versions of the trackball-alternative custom recoveries are available:

New ("1.7.1") version:

1. Name: recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

2. Download link: https://sites.google.com/site/scaryalienware/downloads/recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-optional.img

3. File size: 3,926,016 bytes

4. MD5 checksum: 3217768b831a3841180699942204762d

5. Shows [trackball optional] at bottom of recovery screen

6. Now includes the "missing" Partition sdcard menu items

7. Based on 1.7.1 version of recovery.c

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Old (original, "1.6.2") version:

1. Name: recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-not-required.img

2. Download link: https://sites.google.com/site/scaryalienware/downloads/recovery-RA-eris-v1.6.2-trackball-not-required.img

3. File size: 3,923,968 bytes

4. MD5 checksum: 9ec2510f53a25658ca5d52b34b6c1524

5. Shows [trackball not required] at bottom of recovery screen

6. Is "missing" the Partition sdcard menu items

7. Is based on 1.6.2 version of recovery.c

As always (please!), verify the checksums of your files after you download and place it on your phone.

Installation instructions (if you need them) are located in this sister-thread over on AF.

Note: the trackball-optional custom recoveries are also available below. The MD5 sums an file sizes listed above apply to the .img files contained in the .zips--not the .zip files themselves. Cheers!