User interface - backlight modification

[creno]

One thing I miss from the original gigabeat firmware. (about the only thing I miss!)

While sitting idle in list view or WPS view the backlight would not go completely dark, but cut out to about 5% light. So while something was playing you didn't have to hit a button to see what song it was. I think that would be a useful addition to the rockbox user options.

[markun]

I've been planning to add that, just be patient

[Mikerman]

That sounds great, but I wonder (having an iRiver iHP-1xx) what sort of hit that would make on the battery; and also whether having 5% light is effective to see anything.

(But, perhaps this wouldn't work for my player anyway ...)

[bluebrother]

The h100 series need to boost the cpu to dim the backlight. So while it would be technically possible to have a constantly dimmed backlight this will eat up lots of battery, and thus such a feature won't get implemented. It might be possible on other targets that don't need the cpu to be boosted for dimming (if the dimming can't be done with hardware PWM).

[JdGordon]

I like this idea, but what it needs is that if the hold switch is on then the backlight goes off completly.

as for the h100, does it need the cpu boosted only to change dim level or to keep it dimmed at the level?

[markun]

I think it also needs boosting when keeping it at a steady level.

The problem is that boosting or unboosting interferes with the timer used to generate the pulses for the dimming, so we just always boost.

[nick_karstedt]

I would love this, and backlight brightness on the ipod 5.5g

[Mad Cow]

Remember that the Gigabeat doesn't support boosting right now, it stay constantly boosted, so the CPU isn't a problem.