Catch the idle shutdown

[Multiplex]

I can't think of a better term but what I'm thinking about is like the Windows XP screen saver option where if you jiggle the mouse withing the first few seconds of the SS kicking in you can abort it without having to enter the password.

For the umpteenth time this week I've been working away with background music provided by Rockbox on my trusty H320, and someone comes to my desk so I pause playback and revmove the headphones. During the discussion I see out of the corner of my eye my iRiver waking up the screen to tell me it is shutting down... if it just gave a count down (from say 15 seconds) and I could press a button to prevent the shutdown (rather then have to restart it) that would be great.

I've made no attempt to look at the code to see if this is practical but thought I'd mention it to see if anyone else feels the same...

[bascule]

Why not just increase the idle shutdown setting...?

http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-h300/rockbox-buildch8.html#x11-1360008.5.5

On the hard drive players especially, the battery usage for saving settings and then restarting probably outweighs quite significantly additional drain from leaving the player in a paused state for an extended period.

[Llorean]

In fact, being paused for a minute longer probably uses less power than having the backlight on for 15 seconds.

[nls]

I like the idea of a general shutdown delay for non user triggered shutdowns. It would address this issue and the issue a user brought up in the mailing list which was basically the same but with the sleep timer.

Simply splashing "Shutting down in x seconds, press any button to cancel" would do it i think with a settable timeout of course.

[MajiKool Dragonâ„¢]

could it during the timeout period sleep as much unused hardware as possible in prep for shutdown and then re-awake that hardware if the shutdown is canceled.
 

[AlexP]

could it during the timeout period sleep as much unused hardware as possible in prep for shutdown and then re-awake that hardware if the shutdown is canceled.

What would be the point?  If it shutdown anyway you would gain nothing, and if the user interrupted the shutdown then everything would have to be powered up again.

[Zardoz]

I like the idea of a general shutdown delay for non user triggered shutdowns.

I like this idea too - as in I would find, and have found situations where this could be helpful. The more configurable the better huh? Unless it would cost a whole bunch in code and fiddliness and cause problems elsewhere

[soap]

I like the idea of a general shutdown delay for non user triggered shutdowns.

I like this idea too - as in I would find, and have found situations where this could be helpful. The more configurable the better huh? Unless it would cost a whole bunch in code and fiddliness and cause problems elsewhere

What is the justification for making it configurable?

[Zardoz]

Justification; in this case - none I guess. I just meant that as a general precept. Although now that you mention, it would be cool if one could set an 'interrupt' window in seconds or some such. To answer your question: No justification. Just a notion.

[soap]

I'm not against it - but I, personally, can not think of a reason to make the window configurable.  I'm not sure what usability such an option adds to the window.

[Zardoz]

Not a whole lot. Admittedly it's a gimmick. But it might be a useful one. What about the screen flashes 'on-off' every 5 or so seconds for a set time between 10 and 90 seconds before shutdown? (here the configurable option.) That's probably a silly idea

[Multiplex]

Why not just increase the idle shutdown setting...?

http://download.rockbox.org/manual/rockbox-h300/rockbox-buildch8.html#x11-1360008.5.5

On the hard drive players especially, the battery usage for saving settings and then restarting probably outweighs quite significantly additional drain from leaving the player in a paused state for an extended period.

Yeah, actually I think I have but how far to go?

Llorean's point feels about right, but I have not investigated the actual figures (for any player) - certainly I think that shutdown and restart will use more power then many minutes of paused and backlight off.

Just like the screensaver analogy I'd appreciate the opportunity to catch it and re-start the timeout, on the expectation that I'll be wanting to use it again very soon.

I'll take a look next weekend and see if I can do anything (particularly as someone beat me to the Sudoku candidates display)

[LinusN]

I think this sounds like a pretty good thing. Maybe a "Shutting down in X seconds" countdown?

[JdGordon]

ok, fine, probably easy to implement, but then you have the same complaint where its not displaying for long enough... "oh i just got back to my desk and it turned off just as i pressed a button.. can you increase it to 30s?" ... 60s? 90s?

edit: might not be so easy to implement...

[Llorean]

Well, you still use the same idle shutdown time the user set (as in, don't increase it any), but have a "yes/no" option for "Warn before shutdown" which turns the backlight on 5 seconds before shutdown with a brief countdown.

5 seconds doesn't seem like long, but they've already set the idle shutdown time, and they can press a button at any time *before* those 5 seconds to cancel the idle shutdown anyway, it's just a very last-second warning before it shuts down.

I don't think we need to be concerned about people wanting "just a little more time" since the user still gets to set the idle time, and they can press a button during any portion of the idle time, we really just need to give them a brief warning right before the idle time runs out.