[PATCH 0/5] Power supply and resume ordering meddling

[Mike (mwester)]

Andy Green wrote:
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> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> | Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> |
> | | From a user perspective, I still think the aux key makes more sense.
> | | It is the largest and brightest led, we need an obvious indication
> | | that 'something is going on'. If the aux leds are used for any other
> | | indications, we should synchronize this, as in, 'aux leds are for
> | | indications' whether that be charging, new message, missed calls,
> | | etc. That's the idea.
> |
> | OK, but presumably we want the other indications to still work if we are
> | charging (and the LED is then fixed on).
> |
> | I think we can make everyone happy by folding this into the /sys thing,
> | so you echo a bitfield in to get the various indications, but we need to
> | straighten out what "indications" are and how they behave if we are
> | charging or not, or if there are more than one active (ie, missed a call
> | but there is a new message also).  Can you define this for us?
> 
> Here's one way... the LED cycles through 6 x 1-second "slots".  The
> following patterns can appear in a slot:
> 
> ~  ------------  (no indication, when on battery)
> ~  ++++++++++++  (no indication, when charging)
> ~  ++++++------  (eg, SMS came)
> ~  -++--++--++-  (eg, missed calls)
> ~  +-+-+-+-+-+-  (whatever userspace says it means)
> ~  -----++-----  (whatever userspace says it means)

Wouldn't it be just as easy to have the user learn a few Morse Code letters? 
Then they'd at least be part-ways to their Ham Radio license, too!  ;)

Ok, just kidding -- but I think that there's really only four states that the 
typical user can distinguish: off, on, slow blink, fast blink.

For additional background, the SlugOS project tried to use multiple blink 
patterns with a multicolor LED to mark states during the boot process for that 
console-less device.  It has turned out that nobody remembers the patterns, they 
are difficult to describe, and few can differentiate between the "short blink 
with long pause" and other blinks.

Mike (mwester)