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Help turning off light from 4 lower buttons

woop said:
No one accused you of that however I did say you make it very clear you were satisfied with how Apple apps are, which lead me to say you can use their products if they please you.
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I'm sorry for the misunderstanding about my comments. I have never owned an Apple product in my life. I only mentioned the iPhone because it does not have a hardware menu button, so the apps cannot easily bury more actions in menus, a problem that exists in some Android apps. That is all I was referring to.


Back on topic, the only trick I have had success with when trying to watch a movie, is to turn off the screen, then turn it back on while holding the sensor up to a bright light. This should trick the buttons in to staying off. However, sometimes they like to turn back on. I use Act1 Video Player Pro.

I have also used Gentle Alarm, and forgot that the buttons do turn off in Night Mode. So it can be done somehow in an app, just not currently by the user as a global setting. A widget that controlled this would be nice, in place of app support. Sorry for offending anyone for requesting this feature and not building this software myself. ;)
 
umm.. dude.. the gmail shortcut on your homescreen.. ONLY OPENS THE GMAIL APP! it DOES NOT open your gmail account. so it doesn't 'randomly' open an account. it just opens the last account you were in. it's a shortcut to a program. not two separate accounts....
and no the iphone is NOT better, as it's THE SAME EXACT WAY! the mail app icon is a shortcut to the.. mail app. not an account in the mail app. u still have to manually go back like 20 screens to go to a different account... i HATED the mail app on the iphone/ipod touch.. cause it took 10 minutes to switch accounts.. back...back..back...back some more... oh still gotta go back another screen. FFS GIMME A DAMN MENU BUTTON. there was no menu button that let me go to accounts.. it was horrible. obviously you've never used an iPhone/iPod touch... so how can you possibly say it's better?
 
nyngbld said:
is there anyway to turn them on more??? i find in low light conditions, not dark, that is hard to pick some thing ups.
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I know this thread did start out with the opposite concern, but I too have this same problem. There are plenty of times when the sensor should make the buttons light up since they are unreadable due to low light and they do not. The seem to light up in some instances when the light is a little brighter as well. Could this be a defect in my phone?
 
playafiddle said:
I know this thread did start out with the opposite concern, but I too have this same problem. There are plenty of times when the sensor should make the buttons light up since they are unreadable due to low light and they do not. The seem to light up in some instances when the light is a little brighter as well. Could this be a defect in my phone?
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mine seem to work fine when its quite dark. if its dim or poor lighting, they are typically off. i see them illuminate when i am in very bright conditions also. its seems rather inconsistent...
 
During the day they are off, at night when its dark and I have the brightness turned down, those suckers are still beaming away.

I think this will be the only reason I root my phone. Just to turn them off all the time. Unless I can-do it now somehow?

I would like to see stock Android 2.1 but only cos this is my first Android phone, like to know the differences

Just wanted to get that out there.:)
 
Yeah , Gentle Alarm has a great clock app that is really not bright at all and looks fantastic as a Nightstand Clock but the button lights are too bright so you can't really use it. Will be a thing I will change once I root
 
Thought I'd follow up on this post regarding the ultra-bright buttons on the Incredible. I just found an app called "Screen Filter" that allows you to adjust the screen brightness AND optionally turn off the button backlights. Now I can watch video and read e-books in bed without being blinded by the soft-buttons!

Screen Filter - Android app on AppBrain
 
Just downloaded and tried this but can't get the buttons to stay turned off when I go into Aldiko to read a book. It always adjusts the brightness, which resets everything.
 
Yes, this is a nice app but it has a ways to go. Kayst, you'll have to root and use LEDs hack for now since, as you pointed out, any app that adjusts brightness itself will override Screen Filter.
 
Found this widget that does not require root (although I am rooted)

SimpleLEDTogglePlus

SimpleLedTogglePlus - Android app on AppBrain

The widget has three settings:

1. Normal
2. All LEDs off.
3. Camera LED ON (flashlight)

I keep it at 1. during normal use. When I want to read an ebook with Aldiko, I turn it to 2. The buttons light up but will eventually turn off. If they don't, manually turn the screen off and on with power button.

Once I'm done I turn it back to 1.

I also use this for movies, videos, etc.
 
jgscott987 said:
Thought I'd follow up on this post regarding the ultra-bright buttons on the Incredible. I just found an app called "Screen Filter" that allows you to adjust the screen brightness AND optionally turn off the button backlights. Now I can watch video and read e-books in bed without being blinded by the soft-buttons!

Screen Filter - Android app on AppBrain
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I had this exact problem and it was very frustrating, but then I followed jgscott987's advice and installed the free app called Screen Filter (see link above) and it works perfectly now! Thank you very much!

dibs ODDJOB said:
Found this widget that does not require root (although I am rooted)

SimpleLEDTogglePlus

SimpleLedTogglePlus - Android app on AppBrain

The widget has three settings:

1. Normal
2. All LEDs off.
3. Camera LED ON (flashlight)

I keep it at 1. during normal use. When I want to read an ebook with Aldiko, I turn it to 2. The buttons light up but will eventually turn off. If they don't, manually turn the screen off and on with power button.

Once I'm done I turn it back to 1.

I also use this for movies, videos, etc.
Click to expand...

I tried using SimpleLEDTogglePlus and it did NOT solve the problem.

I repeat: the app Screen Filter solved the problem. The app SimpleLEDTogglePlus did NOT solve the problem.

Thanks everyone for you help! :)
 
On a phone with so much overhead on the battery, I feel that those buttons are never anything other than a waste of juice. Unless it's your first smartphone (and in that case there's still no cause not to offer a disable option for this), you can, with a little bit of concentration (hey, blind people have to deal with greater challenges), train yourself to live without them, and save lots of battery juice.

But until Android comes around on this, there are apps which will kill your control backlights, but you need to be rooted. I use AdjBrightness, which Tasker starts when I boot up my phone. Adjbrightness stores my settings (the option which I selected is "Toggle the Lights -> Buttons". I went through this once, and now all I need do is press the exit button to go back to my home screen after a reboot. Never had a problem with this app.

Killing those piercing button lights is probably one of the most sanity-saving tweaks which I ever put on my phone. At night, I drive with my phone in my car dock, with the brightness dimmed down appropriately for the darkness so as not to induce a headache, without the glare of the button lights to defeat my purpose. At night, I sleep with Big Digital Clock on my nightstand, which displays only the colored digits against a black background, as anything brighter would keep me awake. Plus it saves juice when not connected to a power source. It would have been well worth the trouble of rooting just for that, IMHO.
 
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