Taskfacade 4

iTouch24 · Feb 17, 2009

server is back up .. i am trying out application and i always see shell32 as a running application on my device.. if i click and hold to highlight ,, then click on process/hide.. it goes away...

but now when i try to bring up task facade.. it never comes up anymore..... i see taskfacade ontop and process for left softkey and menu for rightsoft key but no windowing of running apps..........?

any thoughts..?

the cab says rc3 but when i go to about screen it says rc1... everyone elses like that?

i added shell32.exe to exclusions... and it still shows up.....

is this application supported on this forum...?

sprint htc touch pro

aussiebum · Feb 18, 2009

Hi, been using RC3 for about two weeks now, here are some suggestions / issues / bugs:

issues:
* Memory consumption still gets a bit high if Task Facade is on and the phone isn't soft reset. Closing Task Facade (with no other apps running) freed up 6% of memory on my X1!

bugs:
* Whenever there's a popup dialog box and I poweroff my screen, Task Facade crashes with a nasty exception msg

suggestions:
* To reduce memory usage, how about storaging screenshots of active apps on Storage Card / Main Mem / Ramdisk (give us the choice)?
* A figure to show the % of memory used / free would be handy
* Rather than having to long-tap a app to close it, how about introducing a "X" button overlay on the left corner or something?

Otherwise, great app!

dody · Feb 18, 2009

I Dont Know if someone report that it is too slow responded comparing to candidate 1 and even Alphas - i cant read all comments i just wanted to report that , and sometimes also it cant show the screen shots well it shows the icons of the programs instead of and sometime not , for example instead of the UI program it shows Shell, activesync it shows the icons too ,etc ...

and the resolution of the screen shots is not good too , i am using it on WM5

gps-lover · Feb 18, 2009

2008-02-19: TaskFacade 4.0 Release Candidate 4

2008-02-19: TaskFacade 4.0 Release Candidate 4

+ New standard theme: Gloss (thanks htctoucher!)
# bugfix: exception when hiding the last process
- AppToDate support removed

No more changes are planned until 4.0 release. This version will become 4.0 release on 23.02.2009 if no problems appear.

gps-lover · Feb 18, 2009

aussiebum said:
Hi, been using RC3 for about two weeks now, here are some suggestions / issues / bugs:

issues:
* Memory consumption still gets a bit high if Task Facade is on and the phone isn't soft reset. Closing Task Facade (with no other apps running) freed up 6% of memory on my X1!

"a bit high" is a strange phrase.
TF is of course an app that consumes some memory.

aussiebum said:
bugs:
* Whenever there's a popup dialog box and I poweroff my screen, Task Facade crashes with a nasty exception msg

please post the message

aussiebum said:
suggestions:
* To reduce memory usage, how about storaging screenshots of active apps on Storage Card / Main Mem / Ramdisk (give us the choice)?
* A figure to show the % of memory used / free would be handy
* Rather than having to long-tap a app to close it, how about introducing a "X" button overlay on the left corner or something?

#1 and 3 - don't think it's effective.
#2 - maybe someday...

gps-lover · Feb 18, 2009

JNGold said:
Great job! RC3 has been rock solid on my Diamond so far.

Request: Would it be possible/feasible to have a single line of text either on the top or bottom of the screen to show Program memory information (Total/used/available)? It would save a trip to the memory control panel!

hi.
maybe someday i introduce it. but definitely not in the nearest future.
thanks for your kind words.

gps-lover · Feb 18, 2009

Hi Mandragore,
thanks for your enthusiasm!

Mandragore said:
Hi gps-lover,
...
It takes only about more than a second to show four running applications and a second more to show the application I switched to. Quite impressive, when you think about it. Nevertheless it seems to take forever, compared to how fast my optimized Diamond responds under other circumstances

on my diamond it takes about 1/3 of a second to call TaskFacade.
i think you measure timeout of your button handling program.

Mandragore said:
At first I was confused by it's behaviour after waking up the device. Most of the time TaskFacade wasn't running anymore. Sometimes it still was, but wouldn't show on wake up, even though I checked that option. And only a few times it would show on wake up.

After some research I think it has nothing to do with TaskFacade. It seems I'm just running too many processes. Sometimes I reach the 32 limit and TaskFacade is out of luck.. I'll have to take care of that myself by screening what I really need to run.

32 is definitely too much. wait a couple of years for devices with 1 giga of memory.

Mandragore said:
Something else. I have cprog.exe, repllog.exe, shell32.exe and manila.exe excluded in TaskFacade. So far so good. When I have two or more non-excluded applications running, it shows them just fine.

With just one non-excluded application running, TaskFacade tries to do something, but no visuals. I guess that's normal, no need to show one application. But I'm wondering why it uses the cpu for up to more than 50% before gradually returning to 0% in about 8 or 9 seconds, to figure that out.

every task manager has a time interval for measuring cpu usage/ memory consumption. and some of them try to interpolate these data. don't take it too seriously.

Mandragore said:
By the way, it looks like choosing anything from the TaskFacade menu's copies another TaskFacade instance, doubling the amount of memory it uses and taking up another process slot.

no, it does not.

Mandragore said:
Even so, would you consider removing the options code from the screen shot and visual task switching code, and offer a seperate configuration application, like a lot of other developers do?

no, they do not cost too much.

Mandragore said:
Finally, sorry if you are already aware of this next problem, but I can reproduce a crash. When I have no non-excluded applications running and there is nothing for TaskFacade to show, I get the following error when I activate TaskFacade anyway. Let me know if you want more information and keep up the good work!

TaskFacade.exe
DivideByZeroException

fixed in RC4.

iTouch24 · Feb 18, 2009

i installed latest version:

i added shell32.exe to exclusions... and it still shows up.....

i see active sync there as well... i know that comes up allot by itself.. i held icon and a red x came over it ...

then i hit the x on the top right hand cornor...

tries to open task facade again and:
when i try to bring up task facade.. it never comes up anymore..... i see taskfacade ontop and process for left softkey and menu for rightsoft key but no windowing of running apps.. just my current screen....?

djkasmic · Feb 18, 2009

why did you remove apptodate support??

Mandragore · Feb 19, 2009

gps-lover said:
thanks for your enthusiasm! on my diamond it takes about 1/3 of a second to call TaskFacade. i think you measure timeout of your button handling program.

32 is definitely too much. wait a couple of years for devices with 1 giga of memory.

every task manager has a time interval for measuring cpu usage/ memory consumption. and some of them try to interpolate these data. don't take it too seriously.

no, it does not. no, they do not cost too much. fixed in RC4.

Thanks for your quick, helpful reply and fixing the bug, I'll check out RC4!

Yep, I've got quite a few applications running, like: TF3D, AEButtonPlus, QuickMenu, WkTASK, ChangeScreen, PocketShield, POutlook, Lumos and TaskFacade of course! All nice and useful, but they all take up precious resources, when there is still even more left for me to run.. What to do, what to do..

Sure, it takes time for the button handling to start/activate TaskFacade in the first place. I've currently mapped it to double press Volume Up and double press Up Arrow. Any suggestion or tips on how I can speed that process up, if possible? What do you use to start/activate TaskFacade? I have TaskFacade installed on Internal Storage. Will it make a difference if I install it on the device?

And what about the actual switching to the selected application? With both WkTASK and TaskFacade running, switching by tapping a taskbar icon refreshes the screen instantly. Even with just 1 animation frame it takes TaskFacade nearly a second longer to start the refresh.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really impressed and very happy with what you've accomplished!

I can live with the slight delay, ditch WkTASK and replace most of it's functionality with QuickMenu's and TaskFacade's. Although I'll miss the direct view of, and access to the taskbar icons of all non-excluded applications running.. Maybe something to consider researching as an option for a future TaskFacade release

Ah, HTC Task Manager fooled me by showing two TaskFacade application instances when I enter TaskFacade's menu. When I check it with SKTools Processes, I see you are right, sorry! And SKTools CPU Usage with 0.5 sec. interval also showed me the spike isn't smaller, but it is much shorter, < 3 sec. Indeed, nothing to take too seriously

gps-lover · Feb 19, 2009

djkasmic said:
why did you remove apptodate support??

basically, i just want to see number of downloads.

i do this by putting a new version of TaskFacade to taskfacade.mybb3.org forum. There is an automatic counter of downloads there.

but there is no way there to make a direct link to .cab file. The link you get is, e.g.:
http://taskfacade.mybb3.org/download/file.php?id=31

and AppToDate does not understand this type of link, it needs an .cab file link.

If you know another way for me to see overall number of downloads along with providing AppToDate support, please let me know. I am really a layman in this area.

motisu · Feb 19, 2009

Found a possible bug. I am running FEWidgetslite. When it is in fullscreen mode (no title bar and no softkeys) and I try to bring up TF, TF crashes. If I run FEW in regular mode, TF works OK.

JNGold · Feb 19, 2009

Nice update. I really like the new theme. However, there is one problem with it. The app names are very difficult to read when not selected. Sometimes a given process or app has a dark preview area so it is important to be able to see the app name on the title bar. Can the theme be modified so that unselected text is readable against the background?

TIA!

gps-lover · Feb 20, 2009

JNGold said:
Nice update. I really like the new theme. However, there is one problem with it. The app names are very difficult to read when not selected. Sometimes a given process or app has a dark preview area so it is important to be able to see the app name on the title bar. Can the theme be modified so that unselected text is readable against the background?

TIA!

i agree with you.
also, i would prefer more distinct difference between selected and usual slots. maybe bold text or maybe more light for a selected one.

htctoucher · Feb 20, 2009

well i did that on purpose, since you can use the dpad to move through and see what the apps are if you cant tell what they are by the preview (you should be able to)
but this is easy to change simply by editing the xml (is it possible in settings? not sure id have to check that)

i was thinking of doing one change though.. and that is instead of having the glossy half tone overlay on preview, just have a solid dark color transparency over the unselected/solid light color transparency over selected previews.. what do you think?

gps-lover · Feb 20, 2009

htctoucher said:
i was thinking of doing one change though.. and that is instead of having the glossy half tone overlay on preview, just have a solid dark color transparency over the unselected/solid light color transparency over selected previews.. what do you think?

i think that will be another theme

i was trying to do something like this, but the problem is that a darkened white screen is very similar to a whitened dark screen.

but first please check if you have a possibility to upgrade your theme to make selected/usual frame distinguishing easier + more distinguishable usual title.
if not - still not a problem. your current theme goes default anyway.

thanks.

gps-lover · Feb 20, 2009

By the way.

Can anyone (the first suspect is of course htctoucher

) make a theme similar to this:

in principle, it's pretty easy, even frame shading.

that would be great!

gps-lover · Feb 20, 2009

motisu said:
Found a possible bug. I am running FEWidgetslite. When it is in fullscreen mode (no title bar and no softkeys) and I try to bring up TF, TF crashes. If I run FEW in regular mode, TF works OK.

please post a crash report.

i am using several programs running in full screen mode, and they are ok with TF.
as i know, the program you are writing about is in alpha phase, so possibly it is a problem of this program. i cannot imagine how can they interfere though.

aussiebum · Feb 20, 2009

Just downloaded TaskFacade RC4, so far so good. One small thing though - the icon seems to be missing? Look at screenshot attached.

gps-lover · Feb 20, 2009

aussiebum said:
Just downloaded TaskFacade RC4, so far so good. One small thing though - the icon seems to be missing? Look at screenshot attached.

thanks. will be fixed in the release

Taskfacade 4

On which WM do you run Facade?

WM 6.x

WM 5

WM 2003

Other

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