Screen Off Utils
Prevents screen from turning on when power is connected or disconnected. Well, actually, it FORCES the screen OFF under those conditions. Not 100% perfect, but good enough.

While it doesn't necessarily bother me, I can definitely see how it would bother someone else, and I'm surprised there isn't an option for it either.

But this reminded me of an app to recommend to you, Mark. And I can't believe I neglected to bring this up earlier!

Tasker
Mark, this one might be your kind of thing. Tasker is incredibly powerful, and can automate pretty much anything on the phone. Weirdly enough, it can't seem to do what you're wanting, but for many other things, Tasker takes the place of a lot of utilities.

Wow.. that one seems to have been around longer.
So I tried to install it, but it refused to run -- insists I download/install a "codec package" first. So I did that, installing the exact package it wanted, but it still refused to run, insisting I install a "codec package" first, ... and so on .. NUKED.

-ml

Mmm.. perhaps, perhaps.

I was thinking about finding a GUI scripter that could automate the door-knock sequence required prior to VPN'ing through the firewall here. I wonder if this is up to the task? Hard to know, as there's no demo version, and the price (only $6) is the most expensive of any apps I've installed thus far.

Perhaps, perhaps..

There's also BS Player, and VLC is in beta.

Yeesh! My apologies! That is not a good experience. I'm still hoping for VLC to get better, since that's always been my go-to for video on Windows. No worrying about stupid codecs there...


Yeah, I'm a little surprised there's no demo of Tasker. And unfortunately I'm not sure how to check on that ability for you.

I think my least favorite change that Google made with Android was to reduce the 24-hour return window on the App Market to 15 minutes. That was the most bone-headed move they've made so far, and I'm disappointed that it stuck. 15 minutes is simply NOT long enough to tell if you'll like an app. It's barely long enough to tell if your app will even work on your device, which I guess is the only reason they have a window at all anymore. I would have been fine with a 12 hour window, 9 hours, 6 hours, even 3 hours. But 15 minutes? Bad move.

Anyway, that said, I still think Tasker is pretty awesome

I believe the Google Play store actually has a 48-hour return window. But beyond the first 15 minutes it requires more than just a click. You have to go to the site and fill out a webform.

There was an article on how to do this just recently somewhere.

Edit: oh, wait.. they seem to reserve the right to refuse it after the first 15 minutes.

Cheers

Yeah, I don't count that For the first 2-3 years, you could install an app and uninstall it at any time in the next day with zero penalty. It was fantastic, and I really think it made me buy more apps than I would have otherwise. Now I'm afraid to try out paid apps.

My bet is that developers complained because some of them were having a lot of uninstalls and refunds. My response would be: make better apps. I know that's easy for me to say, but there's a lot of crap out there, and not all of it is free.

What I'll say in Google's defense is this: their phone support for the Play Store is excellent. A few months ago I bought a Slingbox, and along with it I purchased both of their $30 apps for the phone and the tablet. It wasn't until using it for a week that I realized how bad the apps were, and that's where I most wanted to use the service. I returned the device, but was worried I'd be out $60 for the two apps. A 10 minute call to the support line for the Google Play Store resulted in a full refund. I was very impressed.

Paper Camera
The most fun I've had with a camera in ages, all for a mere $2!

PrintBot
The only full CUPS printing software I've found thus far. Auto-detected my printers and profiles (over wifi), includes all of the needed drivers (2800+ printers), and just plain works easily. The free version is limited to a single printer (at a time), and no more than 3 photos/PDFs monthly; the paid version has no such limits.

Bluetooth Smart Printing
Wow.. this app installs itself as a file-sharing destination in Gallery and other apps. When selected, it pops up a menu of Bluetooth devices, including my BT-enabled HP printer, and simply works without any configuration whatsoever. C00L!

Swiftkey 3 (30-day free trial)
I had been resisting this one while getting familiar with the built-in Android keyboard. No more. Swiftkey reads my mind and just Works Better.

Ultimate Rotation Control
Allows the Home Screen to rotate to landscape mode, gives per-app control over screen rotation, etc..

StickMount
Automounts USB Storage devices connected to the OTG USB port.

I want a widget (or a 1-click app) that simply launches a script, and then quits automatically when the script completes.

I'll supply the (shell) script.

Anyone know of something that does exactly that?
Most of the apps I've found open menus, browse filesystems, etc.. to launch a simple script.

Others open terminal windows (not optimal, though acceptable) but then don't auto-close them when the script exits.

I just want a very simple widget (or 1-click app).
I will write an app to do this if necessary, but surely someone already has one out there??

Thanks

Tasker? It supports scripting. I've never tried it though. What sort of script do you want to run?

Not free but I own it and I'm happy to try something if you like.

Yeah, tasker might work. I just want a simple button on the desktop that I can press, and it runs the script and returns to the desktop. Single click.

Any script. One that does i=1 would be fine.

This is for my doorknocker.
Here's a simplified version of what I need the script to do:

Code:

#!/system/bin/sh
ipaddr=$(ping -c1 google.com 2>/dev/null | sed -n -e 's/^PING google.com (\([0-9.]*\).*/\1/p')
telnet $ipaddr 1234 &
sleep 1
kill $!
exit

The ping command is the only thing I've found thus far on Android for resolving a hostname to an IP address. The telnet command I have here demands IP, not hostname.

The script I have works, as does the sample script above.
And I've managed to tie it to a widget (desktop button), but clicking it opens a terminal window that must then be closed manually.

Have you checked if there's a config setting for the terminal that controls whether the window stays open when the last command exits? IIRC, OS X's terminal behaves in this same manner. I think so you can see if there's any errors before the window goes away.

It's an internal terminal gizmo that's part of the app I was trying out. No auto-close that I've found so far.

What about having the script kill its parent?

I'm slightly struggling with the script bit actually. I managed to get a command prompt and can change folders, ls etc but that's about it. I can't change permissions on the file. Running it manually (i.e. "sh file") and most things in your example don't work.

Tasker seems to expect to SL4A to be installed too. SL4A seems to have some issues with my phone.

Sorry don't have a lot of time right now. Thought this would be a bit easier to test.

I found that my script cannot be on the /sdcard if I want it to be marked as "executable".

So I stuck it into /sbin instead:
su
mount -oremount,rw /
cp my.script /sbin/
chmod 0755 /sbin/my.script
mount -oremount,ro /
exit

My sample script may well be using things that don't exist on a stock phone -- I've installed the BusyBox utilities on mine, so it has a lot of extra commands.

Just use this for a script:

#!/system/bin/sh
i=0

If tasker can't do it, then I'll just have to write my own app or something. It doesn't look particularly difficult, though I know next to nothing about java.

Cheers

Mark, Bitt made an Android app in the past (which was awesome), so maybe he can help?

I'd like to hear more about that, if Bitt is willing.

Call Confirm
Triggers a confirmation pop-up whenever the phone dialer wants to dial a call. This functionality should be built-in, but isn't.

I don't have a lot of spare time these days (new job), but developing for Android isn't too bad. Just go over to http://developer.android.com/ and follow the instructions for installing their stuff into Eclipse, and then run through some basic tutorials. I can't imagine you'll have much of a problem.

Script Manager-SManager(NoAds) does exactly what I want (and more).
The free version does not, however, just the "(NoAds)" version. $2.10, worth it.

The SMWidgets add-on is the part I actually want/use now, not the main app.

Quick note because I didn't know where to put this:

I rooted my Galaxy Tab because Jelly Bean is just too good and Honeycomb is not. Also, I was friggin' fed up with Samsung's horrendous crap they put on top of Android.

I recently got the official Samsung ICS update for the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Well what do you know, this one was even worse! Yikes! It was horrendous!

So I waded through the horrible guides out there and pieced together the steps to get Jelly Bean onto my Tab, and now I'm thrilled.

Seriously, this tablet runs at least 50% faster now that all that Samsung crap is off there. Granted, part of it could be because it was just wiped and hasn't gotten bogged down by data and apps yet, but it's clear that this thing is going to sing now that the real thing is on there.

Incidentally there's a fix available now for Swiftkey so that it works correctly with chrome on the Nexus 7, I assume there's also an update for the non-tablet version.

I bought, installed and then refunded within about 2 minutes. The keyboard looks like it was designed by a 2 year old, with crayons.

I dislike where the backspace was, I've never used a keyboard where the backspace key is at the bottom!

The stock Nexus 7 (jellybean?) keyboard looks nice and clean.

If the swiftkey keyboard had the same look and feel then I'd have kept it.

Maybe I missed something?

Adrian

I use the non-tablet version of swiftkey on both devices. I like the look better than the "tablet" edition of it.

Edit: there's a no-pay free-trial version of the non-tablet one -- makes it easier to try out.