Instead of static usb picture, a bigger charge status indicator

[seamoon]

The important point is better charge status indicator, it would be shown only in charge mode, like lots of mobile phones and mp3 players already do. I don't think I suggest a futuristic or rare feature.

[Chronon]

You're imagining this on the WPS or where?

[torne]

When you say "charge mode" you mean the opposite of what we generally mean, is why there is a lot of confusion. The mode where the large USB picture is displayed is the actual USB connection mode, where the device acts like a USB storage device. It also charges while in this mode, and your suggestion of having a larger indication of the charging status instead of just the USB icon is sensible. The potential problem with this is that while it's in USB storage mode, it can't access its drive to load any data, so any images used for displaying the charge status would have to be built into the main Rockbox binary, increasing its size and memory usage. As long as that limitation is kept in mind then it wouldn't be too difficult to implement, someone just has to decide to do it.

What several people in the thread are talking about is allowing themes to control this screen as well, which would be more effort..

Generally when we refer to "charging mode" we mean the mode where it *only* charges and does not actually appear as a USB storage device; you enter this mode by holding some player-specific button while inserting the USB cable, and it doesn't display any fullscreen indication at all since the intention is that you can keep using the player, the normal menus remain. Having a better charge status indicator while in *this* mode is already possible, since the normal menu status bar can be themed.

Does that clear things up a bit?

[[Saint]]

You could just use conditional UI viewports and a few conditions to make a charging animation and a clock/date dominate the main screen when the player is in USB mode quite simply using an .sbs I believe.

If I get time, I shall experiment with a simple theme that does so.


[St.]

EDIT: Awwww...dammit! I forgot that USB mode uses crappy sysfont now :/
The charge anim would still be easy to do though, and you could make a clock/date using nothing but bitmaps...but it's a little more effort.

[seamoon]

Thanks torne, it makes the status more clear. What I mean charging+transferring state then.

Also writing icon is too small, bigger animation would protect us against unplugging the device while writing.

Btw I don't know anything about programming side.

[bluebrother]

Also writing icon is too small, bigger animation would protect us against unplugging the device while writing.

I have two problems with this:

1. "Too small" is not really saying much since the "size" heavily depends on the player. On my Ipod Mini for example I find the icon big enough, while on the Gigabeat S (which has a much larger screen) it's quite small.

2. You should *always* safely remove the player from the PC. Just waiting that it doesn't show any "writing data" icon isn't enough since the OS can (and likely will) cache stuff on the disk (most likely the FAT), and when writing data, then unplugging when it's "written" might loose cached data that not necessarily had been written back at that time (the icon only shows if there is currently disk activity, it cannot know if there is cached data on the PC that needs to be written back). This is an issue with the PC and is also true for other removeable drives like USB Pen drives, external hard disks etc and nothing Rockbox can do anything about.

[seamoon]

"Too small" is not really saying much since the "size" heavily depends on the player.

Big enough like in the example picture would fits everybody's standards.

and nothing Rockbox can do anything about.

A big "writing" icon is exactly for this.

[Llorean]

and nothing Rockbox can do anything about.

A big "writing" icon is exactly for this.

You seem to have misunderstood. A larger icon won't help - even if it's not writing, and you can tell because of the icon, that does NOT mean it's safe to remove. Instead, properly eject. Then the icon doesn't matter, and you won't get it wrong.

[bluebrother]

and nothing Rockbox can do anything about.

A big "writing" icon is exactly for this.

No.

Well, there is something Rockbox might be able to do about the disconnecting issue: drop the USB icon and replace it with a huge "do not disconnect" icon like the Apple firmware does, and show that until the device is properly ejected. However, even for the Apple firmware that doesn't work in all cases (it works fine for their setup -- that is when using Itunes on the PC / Mac), so I don't think there is a standard way to tell the player that the host has done a safe disconnect. So that is kinda pointless again, and means back to square one: nothing Rockbox can do anything about.

If you chose to ignore how the hardware works and how you have to handle it feel free to do so, but expect bad things to happen some time.

[torne]

There are a variety of standard ways for the host to tell the device it's done a safe disconnect

[Llorean]

But "not writing to it any more, so the write indicator isn't currently flashing" isn't one of them.

[bluebrother]

There are a variety of standard ways for the host to tell the device it's done a safe disconnect

Nice to know, but is it possible to do this in a way that it works in all cases? I would like to see the player automatically leaving USB mode when safely ejected from the OS. Could be quite useful if you connect the player to the PC for charging but forgot to hold the correct button to suppress USB mode

But "not writing to it any more, so the write indicator isn't currently flashing" isn't one of them.