Billboard

One of the great things about the Nokia N9 is the AMOLED screen with its low power mode. Unfortunately, it only shows the current time, and not the current date. Billboard is here to fix this - and add some more goodies along the way!

If you have problems with the Billboard display, please uninstall Billboard and re-install it and after that, the problem will be fixed. Alternatively (if you are comfortable with the command line) you can follow the manual instructions.

Community Translations

If you want to help translate Billboard into your own language, please see the following Git repository where you will find a Qt Linguist file. Translate that file, submit it to the repository, and it will be included in the next Billboard release. Thanks :)

github.com/harmattan/billboard-i18n

New in version 1.0.9 (2013-05-06)

Fixed MeeCast icon (use <<{meecast-icon-src}>>)
New formatter that supports nested {} expressions
LPM-optimized image dithering for better display quality
Limit size of embedded images to avoid dithering lock-up
Image dithering using <</path/to/image.png#>> (# at end of path)

New in version 1.0.8 (2013-03-20)

MeeCast icon display support ({meecast-icon})
Wazapp online status now accessible from GUI
USSD Balance now accessible from GUI
Signal info ({cell-signal-bars} and {cell-signal-strength})
Alarm present info ({alarm-present})
Support for mixing images and text in the same line
Center embedded images vertically (and don't scale them)
Conflits: and Replaces: billboardlite (Demo Version)

New in version 1.0.7 (2012-12-13)

New rendering engine
Inline color changing ({{red}}, etc...)
Added week number field ({week})
Battery charge support (as graphical bar)
Colored battery bar ({color-battery-bar}, colored when low)
Add support for wazapp online status ({wazapp-status})
Add support for GConf Key Monitoring and USSD Balance
Add support for showing a battery icon ({battery-icon})
Script output is now interpreted as UTF-8 encoded string
Allow up to 20 lines of text (up from 7 previously)

Known limitations:

The battery icon can only be on a separate line for now
{wazapp-status} must be typed in manually (no item in GUI)
{ussd-balance} must be typed in manually (no item in GUI)

New in version 1.0.6 (2012-09-20)

Deep MeeCast integration (weather data in Billboard text)
Added new filed: Month number only

New in version 1.0.5 (2012-08-01)

Show IP address(es) of the device using {ip}

New in version 1.0.4 (2012-07-23)

Customizable text size
Customizable font family

New in version 1.0.3 (2012-07-09)

Fix problems for users who already upgraded to PR1.3

New in version 1.0.1 (2012-06-05)

Override other operator logos (and restore them on quit)
Draw other operator logo onto the billboard (optional)
Better layout (minimum required size)
Elide text that is too wide for the screen
Limit other operator logo size to 120x120px
Option to disable billboard through the UI
New, improved settings application
New text alignment options (left, right or center)
More robust replacement of sysuid's .css file (reboot once)

Version 1.0.0 (2012-05-23)

Initial release
Display the current date on the standby screen
Support for battery level, current song, IM presence
Display currenly active network connections, IP addresses
Add your custom text with the integrated editor
For geeks: Run shell scripts and display their output

Screenshots

In Action

[Black N9] [Blue N9]

Get Billboard from Nokia Store

Current released version: 1.0.9 (2013-05-10)

Click on the Nokia Store icon to go to the Nokia Store page for Billboard. This application is only available for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan. As this application makes use of the low-power mode standby screen of the N9's AMOLED display, this application does not do anything useful on the N950 (which does not have an AMOLED screen).

How do I...

Change the displayed text from the command line?

If you want Billboard to automatically call a script, use the {script:/path/to/script} feature. If you want to control the updates yourself and not have Billboard call your script, you can do so by using gconftool:

gconftool -s -t string /apps/billboard/text 'Hello Billboard'

Troubleshooting

Remove other logo from configuration

If an old application has placed a logo on your standby screen, and you want to avoid Billboard re-using that when it is disabled, you can remove the other logo using this command:

gconftool -s -t string /apps/billboard/other_logo ''

Green text color not displaying

This is a known problem of the low power mode. To fix it:

Open the Settings app
Choose Device
Choose Display
Tap on Color profile
Pick Vivid

Disappearing text (fixed in version 1.0.1 - please upgrade)

Do you have other appliations (e.g. other low power mode customizers or MeeCast) installed that change the operator logo? If so, please send an e-mail and report which application you are having problems with. Also, try uninstalling the other application and see if this helps. If changing the text in the configuration application does make the text re-appear, it's very likely that disappearing text is caused by some other application trying to change the text.

To find out what the system thinks the operator logo should be, try running

gconftool -g /desktop/meego/screen_lock/low_power_mode/operator_logo

in a Terminal once the logo disappears - the path should give you a clue which application tries to set the operator logo.

Update 2012-06-05: The fix has now been released as update version 1.0.1 - update from Nokia Store or wait for the automatic update notification.

Update 2012-05-24: I've now tested MeeCast's low power mode feature and was able to reproduce the issue. A fix has been implemented and will be available after some more testing in the next update. See here for a preview of what the integration looks right now (this might still be improved a bit more for the final update release).

Squeezed / cropped text / too small area (fixed in 1.0.1 - please upgrade)

If the text isn't displayed properly, it could be that you either modified the sysuid CSS file yourself or that some application that you installed has changed it. The file that is important here is

/usr/share/themes/base/meegotouch/libsysuid-screenlock-nokia/style/libsysuid-screenlock-nokia.css

Make sure that the section called

LockScreen MImageWidgetStyle#LockScreenLowPowerModeOperatorLogo

does NOT have a maximum-size set (i.e. comment it out or remove any maximum-size definitions there).

Instructions on how to restore your original CSS file in case you changed it can be found here (including a download of the stock file): restoring libsysuid-screenlock-nokia.css

After restoring the file with the above instructions, you can then go ahead and uninstall/reinstall Billboard (or comment out the maximum-size line as described above) and then restart your device in order for sysuid to load the new style.

Wrong language for date format

If the language for the date seems to be wrong for your currently-set language, be aware that the date is formatted according to the set up "regional format" set in the settings. Make sure that the regional format that you want to use is set up correctly in Settings, Time and Language, Regional Format.

Additional scripts

A collection of useful scripts that can be used with the Billboard {script:} feature can be found in billboard-scripts

Support

You can get support for this application by sending an e-mail to oviapps@thp.io (use "Billboard" in the subject line).

There is also a support thread on talk.maemo.org that you can use if you prefer that route.

The initial idea for something like this was born during experiments with the ipaddr-widget. I never got around to implement it, but found out about ejasmudar's USbS through an article on mwkn.net, and decided to write my own version from scratch. Before USbS, there was admiral0's lpsmagic. Billboard aims to "just work" and be user- and battery-friendly, while still allowing for customization.