A suggestion. Pure Messenger Widget incorporates FB, Exchange, a proprietary K9, Gmail, and lots of others. I would think it would be worth taking a look at the source code for it. It's very solid, and Francois Deslandes is a great guy.
I was hoping for K9 integration. I'm thinking support for the native email app might be a good idea, too.
I frequently miss the first notification I get for a text message. I definitely need more than one. Handcent provides these, along with per-contact ringtone assignment, so I am still using Handcent for SMS notifications, and have WhoIsIt SMS default set as "silent."
I'd love a couple of things:
1. A way for WhoIsIt *not* to handle a given notification source (with a variety of email handlers, if you plan to support them, disabling parts of the app would seem logical, to me. It could cut down on resource usage. It would also leave room for users to go back to OEM, or whatever, in case something went haywire in just one of the handling of the sources, or the sources themselves.)
2. Repeated notifications (probably just sound & vibrate), hopefully customizeable intervals, which looks pretty standard when doing it from what I've seen.
WhoIsIt and Ringleader look to me like they've got promising futures. Don't lose your focus!
This is the only app that I know of that handles notifications from multiple sources and incorporates announcing for all of them. There are other schedulers out there (you're already in with Tasker) and other ways to change connection switches and stuff. Andy, do what you do that's unique. Stick with contact handling and the notification end of things, let other apps do what they do, and let your app (like profiles) be available to them. If you start to overlap, people won't like the bloat, and you'll have to many modules to monitor. If people make feature requests, it's perfectly acceptable to say, "you can get that here(link)."
OK, I know that was obnoxious, since you don't know me from Clark Griswold. I love the app and where it's going, but I can see it being so good it could get way out of hand... especially with Facebook. I'm excited about the app, and am really looking forward to seeing it take off big.
1) Vibrate THEN ring for both calls and other notifications. For instance, a pattern of 10 short vibrates, then the ringtone starts. This is great for VIP contacts so that you don't annoy colleagues/superiors with your VIP calls if the phone is in your pocket - you can silence it before it starts to ring. But, if the phone is not in your pocket, you'll know soon enough.
In fact, I used this on my blackberry for all calls - 10 short vibrates before it starts ringing is long enough to hit the silence button, and short enough to still ring for plenty of time.
2) Speaking of silencing, I'd love to have keyboard slide-out on the moto droid silence all sounds. This would be a great way to silence the phone in my pocket without fumbling for the camera button.
3) 3rd party app integration. I use trillian for IM, google voice for SMS, and sipdroid for calls via wifi/3g.
4) Calendar scheduling. IE, set a profile based on calendar appointments.
Thanks for the post! I like the idea of implementing a feature where your phone will vibrate for a specified number of seconds before ringing... I'll look into adding this. I'm not sure about the slide-out keyboard silencing your ringtones - not sure if I have access to this. I would love to be able to make WhoIsIt work with Google Talk and Google Voice, but these apps currently do not provide an easy way to interact with them.
The calendar scheduling idea is a good one, but I want to be sure not to add too much "bloat" to WhoIsIt... Maybe something as an add-on in the future?
Also, I think you posted a comment in your rating that you cannot use custom ringtones with WhoIsIt. That is not true at all. If you want to use custom ringtones then you can use WhoIsIt in conjuction with Ringdroid or Rings Extended (both free). WhoIsIt pretty much works like any other app as far as assigning ringtones.
-Andy
Oops. I updated my comment about ringtones. Excuse my Android newbieness. It's my first week!
The keyboard opening event might require a service to run, as I use the Screen Tools app to automatically unlock when the keyboard is opened/relock when closed. This app requires a service to be installed, so perhaps this feature is better requested there if Screen Tools can send along the event to WhoIsIt.
If WhoIsIt had a simple API that applications could use to add notification types and send notifications, that would be awesome. I'm sure I could get Trillian on board (Their blackberry app already sends this information to blackberry's custom profiles), and an existing API might convince others to add it as well, without you having to add every app.
Coming from blackberry, I'm actually really surprised there isn't a better notification system in Android. It seems it hasn't changed much from the G1. It's a shame that to do what I want seems to require a complete replacement of the built-in notification system. Of course, I think this might be better handled by expanding the native notification system of Android, and there's a discussion about adding better notification granularity to Android itself, but the feature request has been open since 2008 without any indication it's a priority.
Finally, calendaring isn't something I really need, as vibrate before ring, and some easy way to silence the phone in my pocket work great for me. Again, perhaps a simple API to allow other apps to change the active profile for a specified amount of time - if someone really wants advanced profile management, they could then make a Locale add-in to tie into WhoIsIt.
Oh, and I have another feature request! A widget for quickly changing profiles would be great. Right now it's slide open keyboard, tap WhoIsIt, tap Profiles, tap-and-hold profile name, tap activate.
Oh, and the most recent update seems to have fixed the crashing on my droid 2 global. Horray!
Any chance that it would be possible to link up the profile switching to the GPS. As an example, I go into WhoIsIt when I'm at work, click a switch in it and it "records" my GPS location. Then I link up that GPS location with one of my profiles so that when I am at that GPS location, that profile automatically is chosen.
Would it be possible to configure notifications by groups?
What I really want to do is distinguish between work and personal contacts. I already do that by grouping them and it would be much easier to manage everything via groups without having to go and configure every single contact individually.
Just bought the app, so maybe I am missing something. I do look forward to using it!