ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

Several features and improvements have landed in powerd in the past week
or so that we thought you might like to know about. Everything listed
here should be available in the saucy daily build within the next couple
of days.

 1. By popular request, the default inactivity timeout for turning off
    the screen has been increased to 60 seconds. However, for existing
    installs the timeout must be changed manually. This can be done with
    the following on the command line (you must have libglib2.0-bin
    installed):

      sudo dbus-launch gsettings set com.canonical.powerd activity-timeout <time-in-seconds>

 2. Auto screen dimming - powerd will now dim the screen after a period
    of activity before turning it off. There is a setting named
    dim-timeout for the period of inactivity before dimming the screen.
    To adjust the timeout:

      sudo dbus-launch gsettings set com.canonical.powerd dim-timeout <time-in-seconds>

    The default is 45 seconds. Note that if activity-timeout is greater
    than or equal to dim-timeout you will get no dimming before the
    screen turns of. Auto dimming can also be disabled by setting
    dim-timeout to 0.

 3. Display requests - powerd now supports requests regarding the state
    of the display. This includes keeping the screen on, requesting
    bright or dim brightness, and use of the proximity sensor to turn
    the screen off when an object is near the screen. Display requests
    are now being used internally by powerd for inactivity timeouts and
    during phone calls, and a dbus API is supported for system services
    which need to control the display state.

    For testing purposes, display requests can also be registered using
    powerd-cli, using the following syntax (where dc = "don't care"):

      powerd-cli display <on|dc> <dc|dim|bright> [proximity] [disableab]

    For example, to keep the screen on at full brightness:

      powerd-cli display on bright

    Or to play with the proximity sensor:

      powerd-cli display on dc proximity

    To clear a request:

      powerd-cli clear-disp <cookie>

    Run powerd-cli with no arguments to see the full list of commands
    and options.

 4. Proximity sensor improvements - For a while now we've started using
    the proximity sensor as soon as the phone starts ringing for an
    incoming call, meaning that the screen might turn off when your hand
    moves near the screen to press the answer button. Now powerd will
    wait until you've actually answered the call to enable the proximity
    sensor.

Thanks,
Seth