[maemo-developers] How to block the camera app from starting on lens cover open

[From: Faheem Pervez]

Hello Martin,

On 23/07/2010, Martin Storsjö <martin at martin.st> wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jul 2010, Faheem Pervez wrote:
>
>> http://maemo.org/community/maemo-developers/intercept_camera_slider_open_event_to_default_camera_app--n900/
>> suggests to do what BlessN900 currently does.
>
> Thanks for this link - doing "dsmetool -k /usr/bin/camera-ui" actually
> seems to work, even as non-root. However, for the Ovi Store QA process, I
> don't think this is acceptable. I already got one failure issue regarding
> that my application keeps the camera object reserved if the user presses
> the camera button, which launches the camera app. While the camera-ui
> process is disabled this way, neither camera lens cover open nor the
> camera button starts the camera application.
>

I know it's not the cleanest in terms of solutions, but the way I see
it is if Nokia really wished for developers to have a proper solution,
they'd've introduced one in PR 1.1/1.1.1/1.2. Since they didn't appear
to care, I can only conclude that hacks are the way to go. :)

BlessN900 will start camera-ui again after it's closed by running
"dsmetool -t" IIRC; and, TBH, this behaviour (stopping camera-ui on
start and loading it up again on exit) makes sense because you
wouldn't be able to run the Camera app anyway whilst your program  is
running. Of course, once camera-ui is running again, opening the lens
cover/pressing the camera button proceed to perform their default
functions.

> I guess I'll have to discuss it with Ovi Publisher Support then, if this
> is acceptable (disabling both the lens cover open action and the camera
> button), or if it is better to spuriously launch the camera app when the
> lens cover is opened.
>

My thoughts on the former are above (I'd find it rather dodgy if they
were to refuse your app due to it stopping camera-ui) and the latter
just really seems like an inconvienence to your users. :\ Qik took
another approach: it'd tell the user to open the cover and wait. When
the camera application popped up onto the screen, Qik'd close the
window and proceed to carrying on as normal.

Anyway, best of luck getting your application into the Ovi Store!

Best regards,
Faheem