BAF GPS Toggle, v1.9 [Updated 7/23]

[Baffles]

UPDATE 7/23/08: GPS Toggle v1.9 has been released! This new version makes minor tweaks, as well as updating the graphical interface again to indicate lock status, number of satellites, and GPS signal strength. As always, for more information and to update, click here!

UPDATE 7/16/08: The (long awaited?) update is now out! GPS Toggle v0.9b1 has been released. The new version boasts an updated graphical interface (thanks to diiishe for the icons) as well as a temporary workaround for the driver crash related to power management (the problem is not fully fixed, however the crash should be). For more information, please click here.

UPDATE 4/23/08: I am currently in the middle of moving to a new house, so I expect to have everything setup and a new version released sometime in May or early June.

BAF GPS Toggle is a today screen plugin for Windows Mobile. It has been designed specifically for the HTC Titan, but should work on most other Windows Mobile phones that have a need for this type of application.

BAF GPS Toggle is written in native code (not .NET), and uses very little memory. It sits on your Today Screen, allowing you to click on it to toggle GPS on and off for your applications. While GPS is toggled on, it also displays lock status as well as the number of satellites and GPS signal strength from each satellite. Simple as that. It is similar to the GPSToday plugin, but simply toggles GPS on and off as opposed to checking for nearby contacts in your address book and doing tons of things (which helps conserve memory and battery life).

Permalink to Latest Installer [works OTA now]: http://code.baf.cc/gpstoggle/GPSToggle.cab
Permalink to Latest OEM (thanks to justpctech, also included with ppckitchen): http://code.baf.cc/gpstoggle/GPSToggle.oem.zip

Screenshot:


Stay tuned for further updates. Other thread: http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=21248

[InvincibleLiving]

I'll be keeping my eye on this dude... very promising work!!

[jamesus]

Nice...will try this out on my drive home...

[mogulust]

I like this a lot! Thanks for making it!

I'm wondering though, if there's a way to have it show up in the system tray rather than the today items, or basically just some way to have it at the bottom of the today screen (for those of us with "clean" desktops. Also an idea I had was to make it a simple checkbox in the lower right corner so it's as unobtrusive as possible.

Just some ideas I had.
Thanks again, I will use this all the time.

[Baffles]

Yeah, once I get the power issue with the gps driver worked out, I can make an option to have it sit in the system tray.

[krohnjw]

Originally Posted by Baffles

Yeah, once I get the power issue with the gps driver worked out, I can make an option to have it sit in the system tray.

This would be excellent as the having the GPS Stay enabled has killed my battery several times (App using GPS was closed but the device was clearly active as it drained my battery completely in a matter of a few hours).

[schettj]

uh... weird. As an experiment, I have STOPPED the gps service. Not sure what that's supposed to do, but GPS works fine (perhaps even better?) without it. I had also done the regedit to put it the GPS in stand-alone mode.

Since then, my GPS has not "lost its mind" and usually syncs up within seconds, and everything I normally use (WLS, Google, GPS Today, and my own mortscripts) seem to work fine.

Not sure if I've done a good thing or a bad thing.... will keep y'all posted.

[Baffles]

The bug with turning the phone off with GPS on this is that it crashes the GPS service. As far as I can tell, the GPS service is responsible for turning off GPS to save power, without the service you may have bad battery life (can you confirm or disprove this, schettj?).

[kcmoney13]

Baffle have you had any more luck on the GPS you have created. I installed your can hoping it would help me out but no luck yet. I am still experiencing the problem where it works off the bad on a fresh soft boot. When I exit out of google maps and then get back in it is still giving me the initializing GPS message. any ideas?

[schettj]

Originally Posted by Baffles

The bug with turning the phone off with GPS on this is that it crashes the GPS service. As far as I can tell, the GPS service is responsible for turning off GPS to save power, without the service you may have bad battery life (can you confirm or disprove this, schettj?).

Welll, no, I can't. I turned off the service friday. Battery life is nearly identical, hard to say for sure since I keep fiddling with GPS all the time - but for sure, it's in the ballpark of the same (ie, using about 30-40% of my battery in a typical day)

I'll keep an eye on it, but near as I can tell, if you've put your GPS in stand-alone mode, the service is a BAD THING, not a good thing.