[APP] BLN control - the official BLN settings app by neldar

This app does only work, if you have a kernel with BacklightNotification (bln) mod on your phone installed.

Go and get BLN for Samsung i9000 Eclair, Froyo or Gingerbread or any other kernel/rom with BacklightNotification support.
Or visit this page to view a list with supported phones by BLN.


What is the BLN mod?
The BLN mod turns the touchkey backlights into a notification led.
It enables the notification led api for any android application that supports notifications by led.
If you dont have the BLN mod installed, the app provides you instructions how to install the BLN mod.

What does this app?
This application gives you control over the BacklightNotification (bln) mod settings on your phone.

What features does the Free version have?

• enable/disable BacklightNotification function (without uninstalling bln)
• test BacklightNotification
• update notification (notifies you about new BLN app, liblights or kernel releases)

Additional features in the Pro version:

• widget
• scheduler (disable BLN at night, ...)
• locale plug-in(s) for: bln status, blinking, scheduler, static led, notification led
• adjustable timeout of static led notification
• blinking**:
  • adjustable on/off led period
  • adjustable overall blinking duration (5-60 minutes or unlimited)
  • select led status after blinking ends(on/off)
  • stop blinking if battery is below a selectable % level
• adds led notifications for:
  • missed calls

** Please notice that blinking consumes more energy than static backlight!

Download the app from market:
Free | Pro


The price for the Pro version is 0.99€ (~ 1.99 US$).
The Pro version is available at the android market (creditcard) and at androidpit (paypal, clickandbuy).

If you find an issue, please report it here in the thread.


Which features will be added to future Pro versions?

• suggest me a feature

What permissions are used for which features?

• RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED: to activate BLN at boot and start the services
• INTERNET: for update notification (new BLN app, liblights or kernel releases - you can disable the notification in the update settings) and for the compatibility check (the app receive instructions for you, if the app detects that something is wrong with the BLN setup)
• READ_PHONE_STATE: to detect if an incoming call could become a missed call
• WAKE_LOCK: services & schedule (reactivating interrupted led notifications, froyo only)

Translations already done:

• Dutch
• French
• German
• Japanese
• Korean
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish

The initial translations into Dutch, French, Russian and Spanish have been realized at crowdin.net with the help of adequacy, andifds, elroy911, HERVEG, HTCDevil, Jaax, jbnitro, ravexx, Rebel2k and Shaymelmed. Thank you.
The translations into Japanese, Korean and Swedish have been realized at icanlocalize.com.

Translations pending:

• Chinese (Simplified) - suspended, no sufficient Chinese market service
• Chinese (Traditional) - see above
• Czech
• Italian
• Polish

Kernel-devs / rom cookers: Please do only integrate the FREE version of this app into your releases.

forst said:

BLN pro will work for JVP version (gingerbread 2.3.4 ) ?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

For all having trouble with JVP, i compiled a patched services.jar. It contains both liblights and services.jar, to have BLN working with any kernel supporting it on JVP. To be installed from CWM recovery.

Tried on Juwe's 5.0 working with stock sms, calls, mail, etc.

Hope it helps!

Thanks to neldar for his great job.
Thanks to Virnik for his update package & script.

FAQ:

How do i enable led notification for ...?

• touchwiz sms: notification is only possible if you use another sms app (e.g. Go SMS) or if you use a patched sms app or a patched services.jar
• touchwiz email: notification by default
• gmail: notification by default
• Google talk: notification by default
• calendar: download "Calendar notifier" app from market (alternative)
• call: BLN control - Pro from market
• any other apps:
  ask the author of the app for notification led support

The led notification is enabled in app xyz, but it still dont work, why?
This only a problem of Android >= 2.3. Led notifications in Android >= 2.3 do only work if the screen is powered off. You can not trigger a led notification while the screen is powered on and any led notification is automatically dismissed if the screen becomes powered on. This is a general "problem" of all gingerbread phones. This behavior is a design decision of the asop team and they think this is not important enough to be mentioned in the Android SDK documentation. The BLN control app has a workaround implemented for the internal call, locale/tasker plug-in & test notification. Any other apps may have also a option to disable the screen before these apps try to trigger led notifications (e.g. Go SMS).

How much does this modification affect battery life?
With backlight notification permanently powered on, the battery lasts around 82 hours (around 3,5 days, 1,22% per hour). This means, that activated backlights will increase battery usage by about 0,18% per hour. If there is no backlight notification ongoing, battery life is normal (around 96 hours, 1,04% per hour). Measurements were made on a i9000 (eclair) with enabled flight mode.

The sgs2 does currently (6th august 2011) rely on a kernel wakelock, that does affect the battery more than on other phones.
This is an exception from the general bln behavior and may hopefully change in future.

How do you test the battery consumption? This is a common and reliable method.

Could you add a fade feature?
That is only possible on some phones, most hardware is limited (by controller firmware) to simple on/off. Maybe I add these capability in the future.

The blinking or the missed call notification of the pro app are not reliably working, what is wrong?
The lowmemorykiller of your phone is configured with too aggressive settings, thereby the app services are killed and not restarted.
Either you use less aggressive settings or you have to live with the fact that your settings make things unreliable.
Btw, it is better to have less free ram in android. A lot of free ram on a android device indicates that it is inefficiently working.

bringonblink said:

Just wonderign, is there going to be support for normal notifcations, like third party apps etc

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

No, if you are wondering about the reason, then you might want to understand the functional principle of bln by looking at the following "art":

|android application| --> |notification service| --> |bln liblights| --> |bln driver| --> |touchkey leds|

legend:
--> : x calls y (unidirectional)
android application: any android application
notification service: public api, part of the Android SDK
liblights: conjunction between the android OS and the Linux kernel
bln driver: provides interface to control the touchkey led hardware
touchkey leds: light emitting diodes behind the touchkeys...

The bln mod (blue parts) just adds the (modified) liblights and the bln driver in that chain, these components are missing in the original stock ROM from Samsung.
Any android application that should trigger the leds just have to implement the call (the red arrow) of the functions of the notification service .

And the gentle reader may now notice that the control app is missing in that flowchart. Well, the control app consists of 2 parts, one part actually accesses the bln driver to adjust some settings. The second part detects missed calls and acts like any other android application to issue a (hidden) notification with the led flag.


PS: The flowchart includes only the necessary components and conjunctions between the application and the leds. There are a few more components involved, but you don't need to know them all.

jsmith8858 said:

On the AT&T GS2, I am getting constant wakelocks for wlProximityEvents, and I do not even have the new Proximity feature enabled.

I just unplugged the charger 5 minutes ago, I have no notifications, and it's been in constant wakelock since then. (See the screen shot).

Since the last update, my battery life has been very bad and deep sleep has gone down significantly.

UPDATE: Attached is my wakelocks.txt file.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Thank you for the informations about the wakelock, these infos helped me to resolve the problem.
An update is now available at the market. I want to apologize to those who may have had problems because of this issue.