pyamsoft blog: July 2014

Monday, July 28, 2014

SoftGlow Updates! oh. And other things too.

SoftGlow received a visual update as well as a tiny functionality change today. The visual update has improved the layout of the application, and it splits the functionality from one simple list to various pages which are dedicated to different types of options or customization. SoftGlow is performing smoother as a result of this, and the ability to hide the notification has also been added.

A new project, with no real working name has been added into the list of potential workings. I look to have it being a persistent launcher which does not get in the way of the user, and allows any application to be launcher from anywhere using the same kind of mechanism which runs Power Manager's overlay. this will allow more useability to switch between open applications, or even launch new instances of applications, even from inside full screen games or high priority applications. A debugging build has already been created as a proof of concept using the same underlying engine as Power Manager, and I will say that the idea is working very smoothly. I look forward to working more on this idea over the coming weeks, however personal vacation and other issues may slow the potential development for a couple of days.

Keep following pyamsoft for updates and announcements about the newest applications!

==

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Or find me online at: http://pyamsoft-official.blogspot.com/

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Video?

Lots of progress has been made on Power Manager and I'm thinking of posting a small video to show the new features. Is that cool? Awesome. See you in a couple of days.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Oh Android

You would think that because developers make applications for Android, that the ecosystem would be standardized enough so that if I cast a seqeunce of Characters into a String, and it doesn't throw an error in plain Java that Android will be fine too. And it is. Except when you're device implementation of casting from CharSequences to Strings sometimes crosses through an Android SpannableString interface. In which case you can't cast that to a String. So you get bugs, and crashes. And one poor soul on a Galaxy S3 build who has this problem who just can't for the life of hi/her open the Radio interface to set settings. Because Android bugs out in an area that it works fine for almost everyone else. Why Android.

Hopefully the bug has been fixed up so that the interface I've designed can be used by the people suffering from a casting error on my part. Hopefully Android will slowly but surely become more standardized so that a SDK distributed to all developers will be expected to work on one, and work on all devices. Also a null ointer has been addressed in the overlay which should hopefully fix the problems for those people encountering bugs in there.

Hope. Just a fool's hope.

Keep following pyamsoft for updates and announcements about the newest applications!

==

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Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: http://pyamsoft-official.blogspot.com/

Friday, July 25, 2014

Here's whats up.

Well the temperature where I live.

Also a couple of stocks are doing okay.

But mainly, whenever the device boots up, the performance of the overlay for the first couple seconds is ABYSMAL. Now unfortunately, I can't do all that much about this. The device is booting so naturally priority is placed on getting processes started, not necessarily performance. However, I did make some changes in offloading the heavy logic process for where the current touch is, and what button (if any) it is touching, to a background async task and I will say, the performance has improved over all. Visually it may still feel the same, but the over all response of the overlay is now smoother. I've also pushed the actual Power Manager functionality to a background thread which in theory should reduce the time needed to resume the device from sleep, which is a problem that commonly has plagued the application.

I've also worked on improving the response time for SoftGlow and its startup, as well as the performance of the overlay once you call it online. This is because instead of process all of the heavy loading on the UI thread, I've pushed it to the background so that the only result you see, is the result you care about: your device becoming tinted with a nice mellow glow.

Also, game loops. They're being programmed too. Maybe. Can't say. Shouldn't say. Just said.

Keep following pyamsoft for updates and announcements about the newest applications!

==

Like what I do?

Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: http://pyamsoft-official.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Really big battery

Users using the newest Power Manager update may notice that there is a gigantic battery in the overlay which stops them from using the overlay features. This is because I am bad and forget to test against small screen devices. For now, please disable the battery percentage display if you encounter this issue. Many apologies in advance, the bug has already been fixed upstream and I look forward to releasing the fix along with the other related performance updates.

Performance Updates

Doing a performance update for Power Manager and SoftGlow. They should perform about 50% better and consume less memory over all. Hopefully this refactoring doesn't take too long, as there are visual theme updates I'd like to begin tackling as well. But all in good time.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Non-Kernel related Oops.

Woopsie, published the wrong Power Manager version.

Yeah stuff happens. What you are receiving if you download the current 3.2.6 version is a Debug build, which wasn't meant for the average user. A 3.3.1 version proper has been uploaded, please download and enjoy that one instead. I apologize for the mixup.

Keep following pyamsoft for updates and announcements about the newest applications!

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Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
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I Got that

Power Manager.

Power Manager updates.

I've got it, and soon you will too, woohoo!

Changes include:
- Lots of code refactoring for improved performance
- Disabled the widget for a bit as it was unstable and not very helpful as a result
- Added additional settings to the overlay like the ability to control the size of the activator, as well as display a battery icon and a quick shortcut to the Power Manager application (All optional of course)
- Added the ability to hide the notification from the notification bar! Wow!

Power Manager along with all of the other applications will be undergoing a visual upgrade in the coming months. Stay tuned for Android L !

Keep following pyamsoft for updates and announcements about the newest applications!

==

Like what I do?

Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: http://pyamsoft-official.blogspot.com/

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Uh

Uh.

Hopefully going to drop Power Manager updates in the next couple of days.

Maybe Friday.

After that its graphical overhauls to make the applications compatable with the new Android themes that will be unveiled.

Woohoo!

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Omigad

So Android L.
Big changes are coming to the Android OS, and P.Yam Software is going to be there to see them through. Important things related to Power Manager include the new job scheduler and improved built in power management. The screen plans based on time of day may also mean some changes for SoftGlow as well. Home Button should remain largely unchanged.

More announcements when L is released.

Friday, July 11, 2014

Hi Atoos

Back from a long, 2 weeks away from the internet, and essentially the modern world.

So yes, I went on a cruise. Where the internet is expensive, slow, and pay per minute.

But hey guess what! I worked long and hard hours updating and fixing bugs in Power Manager, SoftGlow, Home Button, and an undisclosed application which I haven't yet decided on a name for! Woohoo!

Power Manager is seeing usability and visual fixes, as well as additional options added in certain areas. For one thing, the dynamic overlay which provides easy access to radio toggles has been updated to run smoother and also received its own configuration page separated from the general settings. The Power Manager widget has been temporarily disabled as I work through fixing the bugs present in older versions of Android that occur when closing the main application.

Home Button received a small memory upgrade in an attempt to shrink the footprint of the application.

SoftGlow is receiving preliminary profile support, as well as more robust options for setting manual overrides at certain times of day.

Also a notification problem present in all three applications which forces them to run in memory foreground has been located, an I am currently working on a proper fix even as I type this. Hopefully that will be finished in the next couple of weeks. The updates will take longer this time around, since I'm hoping to drop off all three of the updated applications on the store at one time, but seeing as Power Manager is the one which requires to most work, you may see a couple early updates drop in the store a couple of weeks earlier than others.

Overall, the past two weeks of almost no activity on this blog have actually been rather productive for me. Hopefully I can keep you all in the loop much better as things go on, but for now, we must deal with what we have.

Keep following P.Yam software for updates and announcements about the newest applications!

P.Yam Software

==

Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: http://pyamsoft-official.blogspot.com/

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