October 23, 1993



Sam's Sensable Sleeper V1.00



Brought to you by:



Sam's Software Shoppe



This package is shareware, if you use it

you are requested to send $5 to 



Sam's Software Shoppe

220 W. Bell Rd., #2057

Phoenix, AZ  85023



comments to:  riedesel@inference.com



What is it?

----------

Sam's Sensable Sleeper, when turned on, detects whether you are operating

by plug or by battery.  You may then set the sleep time on your Newton based

on whether you are using the plug or the battery.  Thus, if most of the time

you use the plug (at your office where your plug is, perhaps), you can set sleep

to never.  When you then carry it around off the plug, you can have the sleep be,

say, 1 minute.  This way, you don't have to always dive through a zillion menus

just to reset the sleep.  You do it once with this package and the package will

do it for you from then on (if you turn it on).



How does it work?

-----------------

Ugh.  Via a couple of hacks.

By setting trace to 'functions, I was able to find the function "BatteryLevel(0)"

which returns an integer between 0 and 100.  So, if the value ever goes below

100, then I assume we don't have a plug (probably a safe assumption).

Unfortunately, while the battery is fresh, I don't know if you have a plug or

a battery.  Anyone know a better way to detect if the Newton is plugged in?



The second thing is a viewIdleScript.  This seems to require that the view remain

open in order to keep the idle script going.  Therefore, I hide the view instead

of closing it when the close box is tapped.  Well, then I only want to show it when

the icon for the package is tapped.  Easier said than done.  Ever try to change the 

buttonClickScript on those views in the ExtrasDrawer?  Everytime the drawer

is closed those views are gone.  Now what?  So my viewIdleScript also tries to

keep the buttonClickScript up to date.



The upshot of this is that I have the viewIdleScript running every second.  This is

so that the buttonClickScript is set appropriately before the user really has

a chance to get to it.  



One shouldn't have to go through these contortions to do something simple like

this?  If anyone can recommend how to do what I'm really trying to do, please,

tell me.

It bugs me that the code is really quite simple; but to get it to work the way I

think it should be able to on the Newton is less than trivial (understatement).



Recommendations

----------------

Sam's Software Shoppe recommends that you install this package

in your internal memory rather than on a card or other storage device.

The package is simple in concept, but difficult to implement and thus

won't allow you to remove external storage if you install it on external

storage.



Caveats

-------

Sam's Software Shoppe makes no guarantees regarding this product.

Sam's Software Shoppe is not responsible for any loss resulting from the

use of this product.