Use trackball to record audio

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It would be useful to trigger an audio recording by pressing the trackball - 
even in the track view. E.g. if you map on a bicycle it's too difficult to use 
the touchscreen while driving.

Also, it would be be nice if the audio is recorded as long as the trackball is 
pressed. The global "x seconds" setting is sometimes too short, sometimes too 
long.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by misc2...@danielnaber.de on 29 Aug 2010 at 7:25

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Nice idea ! However I don't know how the "keep trackball pressed" could be 
achieved reliably (Recording audio seems a bit dodgy, at least on the Android 
emulator...).

Original comment by nguillau...@gmail.com on 30 Aug 2010 at 9:26

• Added labels: Type-Enhancement
• Removed labels: Type-Defect

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Many devices (all ?) have a button on the "headset", often near to the 
microphone. This button would be very useful for voice recording, because you 
can store the device in your pocket and have the micropone and the according 
button close. I do not know if it is possible toio access the button vie tha 
API, but e.g. the media player makes use of it (pause/play) 

Original comment by tammo.bl...@gmail.com on 1 Sep 2010 at 3:01

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Yeah, might be possible: 
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/KeyEvent.html#KEYCODE_HEADSE
THOOK

Original comment by nguillau...@gmail.com on 2 Sep 2010 at 7:57

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This would indeed be very, very useful.

Original comment by thomas.p...@gmail.com on 7 Sep 2010 at 3:21

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I'd really like to see this fixed.
What can I do?
I'm not an android developer

Original comment by pe...@haas-en-berg.nl on 17 Nov 2010 at 6:30

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Recording audio as soon as dpad/trackball is pressed seems to be hard to 
implement because it will make it hard to use the dpad/trackball for navigating 
trough the screens.

IMHO the following could be a good soultion:
- a long press (2 sec) of dpad/trackball will start record audio dialog box
- now audio is being recorded
- next press will stop recording

perhaps this could also be implemented for the headset button.

best regards
Matthias

Original comment by matthias...@gmail.com on 27 Nov 2010 at 5:24

• Added labels: Usability

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Original comment by matthias...@gmail.com on 13 Feb 2011 at 12:52

• Changed state: Started

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Voice recordings can now be started by pressing the button at the headset or by 
pressing the dpad center for 1 second. (this should also work for the trackball 
but I do not have a device to test this)

During the voice recording one can stop recording by pressing dpad center or 
headset button again.

You can now set the voice recording time up to 30 seconds.

For details see r291. This will be available with the next market release.

best regards
Matthias

Original comment by matthias...@gmail.com on 13 Feb 2011 at 7:14

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It is not working well.. headset button doesn't works when screen is off.

Original comment by Dmitry.O...@gmail.com on 29 Apr 2011 at 6:04

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Forgot to mention.. The correct way to intercept headset "media button" 
described here  http://android.amberfog.com/?p=415

Original comment by Dmitry.O...@gmail.com on 4 May 2011 at 3:04

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Hi,

thanks for the link.
I'll try to implement this.

best regards
Matthias

Original comment by matthias...@gmail.com on 4 May 2011 at 8:31

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Trackball recording is a fantastic idea!
Hopefully it also works in the background so I can record while I have a 
navigation app running.

Original comment by miji2b...@googlemail.com on 6 May 2011 at 6:59

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Hi,

trackball recording while the app is in background is impossible to implement, 
I think. The user won't be able to navigate through the system anymore and i 
didn't find any possibility to handle the trackball's keyEvent when the app is 
in background. 

I'm currently trying to implement the background recording for the headset 
button.
This seems to work well but have some strange behavior with the "audio hints".
The short "beep" at the end of a recording is only played on every second 
recording.
Attached is a nearly complete working patch against rev296.
Could someone please check if this problem exists on other mobiles? (I'm 
testing on a Motorola Milestone with Android 2.2 installed)

best regards
Matthias

Original comment by matthias...@gmail.com on 17 May 2011 at 10:44

Attachments:

• AudioRecordingInBackground_rev296.patch

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Is the emulator supposed to be able to play sound ? It doesn't work with me :)

Anyway I made a couple of changes, because:
* Apparently MediaPlayer.create() can sometimes fail, resulting in a NPE when 
we try to set the looping mode
* I always got a "stop failed" message in LogCat, even if everything seemed to 
work fine.

I think it's related to where things are done, between the constructor of the 
dialog (called once), and onStart() (Called every time the dialog is shown). So 
I moved all the media player/recorder init code in onStart(), and ensured that 
we release() both the media record, and the two media players used for beeps.

As I wanted to release() the player used to play the 'beepbeep' end 
notification, I had to start() it earlier than on the Dialog.onClose(), to be 
sure that the sound had time to play.
I done it in the MediaRecorder handler, meaning that the double beep will only 
be played if the recording stops automatically, but not played if the user 
press "Stop".
That sounds reasonnable to me but let me know if it's not.

I'll try to test it on real hardware...

Original comment by nicolas@guillaumin.me on 22 Jun 2011 at 1:07

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By the way I'm not sure it's best that we release() and re-init the media 
player/recorder for each dialog shown, maybe we should do it once when the 
track logging start instead ? I suspect the setup / teardown cost is quite 
high...

Original comment by nicolas@guillaumin.me on 22 Jun 2011 at 1:09

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The DPAD thing doesn't work on my device which has a trackball :( (It's working 
fine on the emulator).

I'm not sure why since I can't debug it, I don't know why but the debugger is 
now unable to start the app. on my device...

Original comment by nicolas@guillaumin.me on 23 Jun 2011 at 12:48

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Version released with the changes, thanks.

I let this one open for now due to the trackball issue.

Original comment by nicolas@guillaumin.me on 25 Jun 2011 at 3:19

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Original comment by nicolas@guillaumin.me on 29 Jul 2012 at 8:47

• Changed state: Fixed

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Issue 194 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by nicolas@guillaumin.me on 18 Aug 2012 at 5:12