Changes in release 2010/03/20

I'm gonna publish the next release of OpenAlarm. It's in code-freezed and testing phase. There are many changes in this release. Let's talk about them.

Big UI changes in this release. As you know, the number of actions OpenAlarm can handle is increasing. If I still use the same bottom sliding bar to contain all actions, users might need to fling it very hard to get what they want. So, I am embarrassed to tell you that I roll back OpenAlarm to what it looked some versions before. Nevertheless, it looks much simpler and harmonic in UI design (still a touch thing for me).

Here are changes I made in this version

• Fixed forced close when Phone call action is triggering.
• New password mode added for deep sleeper. You need to re-select math mode or password mode from Alarm's settings and set password over there. In password mode, OpenAlarm asks you to enter the password and if you provide wrong password, OpenAlarm will keep ringing (bothering you) 1 minute and this alarm goes snoozed automatically.
• Fixed problem that may happen when Alarm and Phone call are set to be trigger at the same time. The behavior really depends which one is executed first by Android.
• If Phone call is executed first, Alarm will be executed over call screen and plays a beep sound that doesn't interfere the talk.
• If Alarm is executed first, Phone call will snooze Alarm automatically.
• Notifications redesigned.
• If there are enabled alarms, an alarm icon is put on the RIGHT side of status bar, instead of left side.
• WARNING: 
• If OpenAlarm is reinstalled or killed by task killer app, you MUST re-execute OpenAlarm to activate enabled alarms.
• The alarm icon on the status bar may be removed by system AlarmClock. You can run OpenAlarm again to bring it back (It is removed but this doesn't mean scheduled alarms are canceled).
• Two new buttons on title bar. One for filtering alarms and the other is for going back to previous state. I think they are pretty self-explained.
• Red vertical bar is shown for any invalid alarm record.

These are things I haven't had ideas on how to implement,

• Alarms don't go off if airplane mode is on. People report that this exists in every alarm apps he can find and even built-in AlarmClock.
• One time events.
• Week begins on Monday option.
• Use alarm volume instead media volume.
• Explicit on/off option for Toggle switch of airplane mode.

You might already know that OpenAlarm is open sourced, if you are interested in making it the best alarm app (of course, free) in the market, please let me know.