SystemPanel: a task killer for people who hate task killers.

[Roze]

whats that?

Bar Control v1.1.0 Application for Android | Tools

It allows you to create a shortcut of an app in the notification bar for ease of access.

 

[NeoteriX]

I'm a happily paid customer -- I had a few questions for the developer:

-- Why do you have the option for logarithmic plotting of device use and CPU activity? Is it because battery/energy consumption rises logarithmically with CPU activity? What am I missing that makes logarithmic plotting better than linear?

-- I like to have my SystemPanel constantly monitoring and plotting my battery consumption, but I'm already running out of space in my notification bar/system tray. Is it possible to add an option that removes the system tray icon while it still runs in the background monitoring?

-- Someone mentioned including the charge rate when the phone is charging; I think that's an excellent suggestion.

-- One can take screenshots (as I have when I want to record and demonstrate power consumption patterns), but it would be great to have some kind of data or graph image export feature.

Thanks for the great app!

 

[jasonb1985]

i think it would be a cool little feature to be able to scroll side to side in the monitoring history screen. i like the 2hr and 8hr plots for the higher resolution but i think it would be a neat addition to be able to scroll side to side through this.

anyway, i bought the full app the day the paid version was released and love it. keep it up!

 

[IOWA]

Here's my suggestions.

-add a file explorer like root explorer,(can see hidden & system files), but with an astro-like ui.

-add an auto task killing function.

Those two add ons right there, would make it a $10 app IMO, and if you priced it lower, it would be the best selling android app hands down.

Tapatalk. Samsung Moment. Yep.

 

[tliebeck]

i think it would be a cool little feature to be able to scroll side to side in the monitoring history screen. i like the 2hr and 8hr plots for the higher resolution but i think it would be a neat addition to be able to scroll side to side through this.

anyway, i bought the full app the day the paid version was released and love it. keep it up!

Thanks!

Have seen a good number of requests for side scrolling of the plots. There are a few things that need to go in beforehand, but its something I'll be looking into.

 

[tliebeck]

Here's my suggestions.

-add a file explorer like root explorer,(can see hidden & system files), but with an astro-like ui.

-add an auto task killing function.

Those two add ons right there, would make it a $10 app IMO, and if you priced it lower, it would be the best selling android app hands down.

Tapatalk. Samsung Moment. Yep.

Don't want to add auto task killing. I still can't find any evidence of it working beyond anecdotal reports of "I installed brand X auto task killer and now my battery makes it all the way to lunch." My understanding of the Android architecture suggests it's a bad idea.

I do want to add more features geared toward finding bad apps, e.g., excluding times when the device was powered from the "top apps" list and tracking network consumption as well.

I can't speculate on a file manager at this point. Likely would be a separate product and it'd need some killer feature(s) to make it somehow unique/a step forward.

 

[tliebeck]

I'm a happily paid customer -- I had a few questions for the developer:

-- Why do you have the option for logarithmic plotting of device use and CPU activity? Is it because battery/energy consumption rises logarithmically with CPU activity? What am I missing that makes logarithmic plotting better than linear?

-- I like to have my SystemPanel constantly monitoring and plotting my battery consumption, but I'm already running out of space in my notification bar/system tray. Is it possible to add an option that removes the system tray icon while it still runs in the background monitoring?

-- Someone mentioned including the charge rate when the phone is charging; I think that's an excellent suggestion.

-- One can take screenshots (as I have when I want to record and demonstrate power consumption patterns), but it would be great to have some kind of data or graph image export feature.

Thanks for the great app!

Thanks!

Removing the notification icon is currently the #1 requested feature. The reason this is not optional is because Android requires us to provide a notification icon when running a "foreground service" (as of Android 2.0). A "foreground" service is one which will not be arbitrarily killed when more memory is needed by other apps. A foreground service will still be killed when memory is critically low, but it won't be killed as a result of "everyday" memory-intensive activities such as recording a video (which is a case where a non-foreground service might get shut off). All that said, there may be a practical solution to this problem (without doing any cheating/hacking/evil). I'm looking into it. Worst case I'll make it more customizable for future versions.

Logarithmic plots make it easy to detect small quantities. For example, if some process is running at 2% CPU all day long, it might be difficult to see its usage pattern on a linear plot. Such a process might have a very negative effect on the battery, due to the device not being able to fully sleep while it was running.

As of 1.0.1, the default scale for "device usage" is linear. Making this logarithmic by default was an oversight. Defaults are saved only the first time you visit the preferences, so you'll need to manually set it.

Export to Excel/OpenDocument would be quite neat, but might be a whole heck of a lot of work. Generating a downloadable web page might be a bit easier, but still would be a fair amount of effort to create. Might be something for 2.0 though.

 

[NeoteriX]

Thanks!

Removing the notification icon is currently the #1 requested feature. The reason this is not optional is because Android requires us to provide a notification icon when running a "foreground service" (as of Android 2.0). A "foreground" service is one which will not be arbitrarily killed when more memory is needed by other apps. A foreground service will still be killed when memory is critically low, but it won't be killed as a result of "everyday" memory-intensive activities such as recording a video (which is a case where a non-foreground service might get shut off). All that said, there may be a practical solution to this problem (without doing any cheating/hacking/evil). I'm looking into it. Worst case I'll make it more customizable for future versions.

Logarithmic plots make it easy to detect small quantities. For example, if some process is running at 2% CPU all day long, it might be difficult to see its usage pattern on a linear plot. Such a process might have a very negative effect on the battery, due to the device not being able to fully sleep while it was running.

As of 1.0.1, the default scale for "device usage" is linear. Making this logarithmic by default was an oversight. Defaults are saved only the first time you visit the preferences, so you'll need to manually set it.

Export to Excel/OpenDocument would be quite neat, but might be a whole heck of a lot of work. Generating a downloadable web page might be a bit easier, but still would be a fair amount of effort to create. Might be something for 2.0 though.

I appreciate the reply! I'd also like to second the scrolling graphs. Thanks again for your work and responsiveness, dev.

 

[RickJ]

Pardon the noob question, Ive used the light version for a while now and just purchased the paid version.

The only complaint about this phone was battery consumption AFTER up and awake time are equal. After my last FDR a few days ago all was well, reinstalled ONLY Google Earth and did an update for facebook (though i dont use it) and google maps. Afterwards, though not immediate, I noticed my awake time was at 100% again after only a couple of days.

With the paid version I understand I can archive installed apps to the sd card. If I archive navigator and facebook to the SD (still not sure how at this point as only G earth and Sys panel show up), do an update for both and end up with the same problem, can i revert to the original installed app through the archive?

 

[SingJsong]

Ever thought of doing a monitoring widget ala the flavor of this? eRay - Android app on AppBrain

I personally think that would be kickass for this program as I love informative widgets. I'm sure keeping down the memory would be a challenge though.

 

[tliebeck]

Pardon the noob question, Ive used the light version for a while now and just purchased the paid version.

The only complaint about this phone was battery consumption AFTER up and awake time are equal. After my last FDR a few days ago all was well, reinstalled ONLY Google Earth and did an update for facebook (though i dont use it) and google maps. Afterwards, though not immediate, I noticed my awake time was at 100% again after only a couple of days.

With the paid version I understand I can archive installed apps to the sd card. If I archive navigator and facebook to the SD (still not sure how at this point as only G earth and Sys panel show up), do an update for both and end up with the same problem, can i revert to the original installed app through the archive?

Yes, you can absolutely revert to previous versions using the archive, provided the apps are not copy protected and you're allowed to install apps on your phone (i.e., you're not on AT&T). I recommend opening the Installer and pressing the menu key, then selecting "Archive All" before any app update. Then if you wind up disliking the new version for any reason (e.g., the updated app starts misbehaving/constantly force-closing) you can always revert to the previous working version.

 

[tliebeck]

Ever thought of doing a monitoring widget ala the flavor of this? eRay - Android app on AppBrain

I personally think that would be kickass for this program as I love informative widgets. I'm sure keeping down the memory would be a challenge though.

A similar feature was in the original plan for SystemPanel but was pushed back due to the fact that the Android API makes this a bit more difficult than should be necessary. Implementing the feature itself isn't all that difficult, but making sure it doesn't obliterate battery life will be a challenge. This is due to Android not providing a way to inform a (rapidly updating) widget as to whether or not it is currently on the screen. Working around this problem can get a bit "kludgey", so I figured it would be better to spend more time on it rather than delivering it with 1.0.

 

[ricktdotorg]

I think the suggestions of a file manager component to System Panel are a bit "off", why on earth not just a specialized file manager app instead?

@tliebeck: is there any chance you could add an option to "Hide" excluded apps from the running list? I really don't need to see that the HTC Message Uploader service is running all the time.

Aside from that point, System Panel is the best-behaving and most useful app on my Android. As a 15-year hardcore UNIX admin, I can't tell you how much I appreciate this app and how well it's coded. Adding things like file management and auto-killing would add far too much "bloat" and as @tliebeck says, the UNIX kernel does a far far better job of memory management than he ever could.

Thank you for a great, great app. I'm a paid user and LOVE IT.

RMT.

Don't want to add auto task killing. I still can't find any evidence of it working beyond anecdotal reports of "I installed brand X auto task killer and now my battery makes it all the way to lunch." My understanding of the Android architecture suggests it's a bad idea.

I do want to add more features geared toward finding bad apps, e.g., excluding times when the device was powered from the "top apps" list and tracking network consumption as well.

I can't speculate on a file manager at this point. Likely would be a separate product and it'd need some killer feature(s) to make it somehow unique/a step forward.

 

[RogerPodacter]

So now that the official froyo is released, it seems that cached apps still do not exist. So what exactly did Google change and why and how does this effect the OS running apps? It seems like a pretty significant change to not be mentioned by Google or anyone else. Any insights?

 

[lolbug]

i think it would be a cool little feature to be able to scroll side to side in the monitoring history screen. i like the 2hr and 8hr plots for the higher resolution but i think it would be a neat addition to be able to scroll side to side through this.
!

Yes, being able to scroll perhaps a larger battery history window would be great. It's the only reason why I use JuicePlotter, so it would be nice if SystemPanel could replace that function.

 

[tliebeck]

Hello all,

SystemPanel 1.0.2 is now available. This release adds the oft-requested capability to hide the notification icon. Please bear in mind that Android requires a notification icon to be present in order to run a service "in the foreground", which substantially decreases its chances of being killed in low-memory situations. This may be a problem for low end devices that do not have much in the way of memory, especially if you have many background services running.

@ricktdotorg, thanks! Interesting idea, but might take some work to implement cleanly. We'd have to still at least provide one "summary item", call it "Excluded Applications" such that you could see which excluded apps were running.

 

[Cudda]

Tlie, just wanted to say great app here. I used the free app for about 3 days before I went ahead and bought the paid version. Also looking into buying the Websharing app you have. I know that I can always trust your apps to be coded correctly and not drain a crazy amount of battery like some of the other apps on the market.

Cheers!

 

[NeoteriX]

Thanks for the update!

 

[UrbanMuppet]

No longer a contributing member. Account pending for deletion.

 

[Ovreagr]

I noticed a little bar on the left of the applications list, which I'm assuming shows the activity of each app. Scroll down to the System App and you can see the bar go up, then back down. I would think that inactive apps would show no activity, but Spare Parts and Toggle Settings were listed as inactive apps and both showed activity. Is that an indication that they should be killed?

When looking for a "bad" app, one that won't let the phone sleep, what should I be looking for? Being in the active list after exiting doesn't seem to a problem. Should I check for CPU usage? Should I turn monitoring on for a couple of hours and then compare it to ..... what? I'm not sure what to look for.

Oh, and I still have the inactive list of apps, but I don't have system processes at the end - at least there's not another heading that says system processes.

I am relatively new to SystemPanel (still using Lite version, for now) and was also wondering about the little bar to the left of each listed application. Specifically why applications in the "Inactive (Cached) Applications" list are still showing activity in the little bar.

Thanks!

 

[Thomas_AR]

Just checking out the app.
A quick view on the listed apps -> i can't see some like Launcher Pro which is running on my Milestone Android 2.1. Have also installed Advanced task manager which recognizes LauncherPro.
Anyone can confirm this?

Later I will have a closer look on apps which are not recognized by your great app.

 

[Inno]

So I don't need a task killer then? I've been running one and can't say I've ever needed to KILL EVERYTHING to keep going? I have this installed and looks pretty nice so far.

 

[SoFLO]

I was referred to this app and I must say, it's very impressive! I'm going to uninstall my old task manager. Keep up the good work!

Also the thread title describes me in a nutshell lol.

 

[bassjason]

I do hate task killers but love this one! Good work!

 

[TheBiles]

Oh, wow! I had no idea the dev posted here! Could you please give us the option to hide the "monitoring in progress" ongoing notification?

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