Saturday, March 20, 2010

Tips for using Shaker app

I thought I would share some tips for different ways you might like to use the Shaker app. When holding the phone in your right hand, it is much easier to shake the phone to the left, and vice versa for your left hand. Therefore, it might be useful to set up a couple of shakers for a single function so that you can easily shake it to invoke that function no matter which hand you are holding the phone with. I found this worked well for waking up the phone.

You can also modify the priority of each shaker. When you shake the phone in a particular direction, there might be multiple functions that can be invoked. The app will only invoke the function with the highest set priority. You can change the priority of a shaker by pressing on it in the shaker list, then clicking the Change Priority button, and then long pressing on the shaker to either increase or decrease the priority.

If you notice any other useful tips, post them in the comments.
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16 comments:

  1. I downloaded Shaker on my Droid and have searched the world over and there is no way to Set Up this program. The Menu doesn't bring up anything like Help. How come no one has shown the way to get Shaker to work? It's not enough to say, You can set it up to answer a call, if you don't say "HOW" to do that. Is there no Help section

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  2. Hi Jane - there is a button on the bottom of the screen that says "Add New Shaker". Let me know if you don't see it, or if anything else is unclear. I just realized that the text when you first open the application is misleading. I will update this and post an update with some other fixes soon. I am also planning on posting a demonstrative video on YouTube, but have not done that quite yet. Perhaps, I should also add a menu button to add a new shaker in addition to the button on the bottom of the screen... let me know how it goes.

    By the way, what phone are you using?

    Thanks for your feedback!!

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  3. I'm using a Moto Droid. It froze when I was doing the settings. I'll try it again tomorrow. Thanks for responding. Yea, I'd like a YouTube video! I need something to make the phone wake up without having to push the tiny button at the top. Does this do that?
    Thanks for responding.

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  4. Yes, this app will do that :)

    Please let me know if you encounter any issues - I want to make sure it works at least for everyone with a Droid.

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  5. I need something to make the phone wake up without having to push the tiny button at the top. Can you tell me how to make it do that? Thanks.

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  6. Sure... when you open the shaker app, press the button at the bottom of the screen to add a new shaker. In the first select box, make sure it says "Turn Screen On". In the second box, it should say "Screen is Off". Then in the third box, select the direction you want to shake it to cause the screen to turn on. You can adjust the shake intensity required to activate this particular shaker according to your preference. I, personally, like to set it at 3 for this type of shaker. Press the save button.

    Now, whenever the screen is off and you shake the phone in the direction you specified, the screen will turn on without you pressing the button on the top of the phone. As I suggested in my post, I like to set it so that this same shaker is set up for both a right shake and a left shake. You can do that by following the same procedure as I just described, but just setting the opposite direction this time. You can always edit the settings later by touching the item in the list in the main app screen.

    I am hoping to release an update this weekend or soon after that will include a video demonstration as well. Hope this helps... let me know if I can help any further.

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  7. Absolutely love this program for my Droid but I do experience bad battery drain. I've had to uninstall it for now but will be watching all the time for the latest updates. This is a must app. Thanks very much for designing this.

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  8. Thanks a lot for your feedback, Russ. I have been hard at work on the battery issues. That has trumped all the other enhancements I have been working on for the moment. I will post something up here in a few minutes with some more details. If you wouldn't mind sending me some more info, it would be very helpful... for example, are you running Android 2.1 now? Are you using Wifi? Live Wallpapers?

    I'm hoping to get an update out before the weekend that should hopefully help with some of the battery issues and will also send back usage data (with user consent) to help me analyze how to improve the battery.

    Thanks again!

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  9. Jonathan,
    I can tell you that I've installed the app on two separate occasions. Each time I went to bed with the phone having at least 70% battery life left. When I wake up the next morning the phone is dead and doesn't power on. Normally the phone would still have at least 60% by morning.
    My phone is rooted and I'm running Blackdroid's 9.0 custom rom which is Android 2.1. I do use live wallpapers. Wifi is off unless I'm using it. GPS however is always on. I use advanced task manager to kill apps. I do notice that when I check advanced task manager that Shaker seems to be running two programs. Not sure if it's supposed to be.

    Hope that helps. If I can be of further service please feel free to ask.

    Thanks
    Russ

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  10. Hello I use the Droid please add ShakeLock, shake the phone to lock the screen.
    Thanks

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  11. Is there a test shake? I think it would be very useful for a test to see 1) what the sensor thinks, eg. left shake vs back 2) shake intensity.
    As you add Actions to the app, knowing what the sensor thinks would allow a lot more versatility if I had feedback to my 'shakes'
    [Start Shake Test] I try a back medium intensity shake, response: [ Back 4 ]
    [Try test Again] = [back 2]

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  12. Thanks for the suggestions. I was trying to add functionality to turn off the screen by shaking, but Android blocks this, which is understandable. I like the idea about the test shake... I've got some other things I am working on at the moment, but I will try to add that in. Also, I might look to add a custom shake, so rather than selecting up, down, left, right, etc. you would essentially do a test shake and tell the app to use that shake for a specific action.

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  13. There seems to be a battery drain after every usage.
    I only set the app to answer the phone when ringing.
    It was fine standing by in the background. but whenever i have used shaker to answer a call. the drainage will starts. P
    Pls help look into it. i'm on v2.1 on Moto Milestone. Thks !

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  14. I am looking into it... thanks for reporting.

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  15. I believe I have found the problem. I should have a fix out by this coming weekend. Thanks again for reporting this!

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  16. OK - I just published the fix for this... let me know if you continue to experience any issues. Thanks!

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