New HotKey: "Watch Face" (Hold BACK)

I notice on my Fenix 7 that there's a new HotKey function called "Watch Face", set by default under the "Hold BACK" key, and that when my watchApp is running, that function displays the watch face with my app still running "in the background", but, obviously, not displaying the app's view nor responding to user input.

On an F5, this "Watch Face '' option is not offered as a function for a HotKey.

This Watch Face feature provides the opportunity for the user to activate the access glances with the UP/DOWN keys with the app still running.

But interestingly, that HotKey doesn't "fire" from some of my views, which leads me to suspect that there's something in the View's Input Delegate that can influence the HotKey's operation.

Is there any documentation about this? I have read the Glances section in "Connect IQ Basics", but it doesn't cover the interaction with a CIQ app.

I guess it's a CIQ 3.1.8 (F5) vs 4.0.6 (F7) thing.

0 jim_m_58 over 3 years ago

The same thing is there on devices like the fenix5, fenix5+,.fenix6 (and maybe the fenix3 - I forget), but it's called "widgets" instead of "watch face", as there are no "widgets" on 4.x devices, but instead a glance loop, but it works the same. It's also there on the fr935 and fr 945.

0 jim_m_58 over 3 years ago

As far as making it available in ciq device apps, I had this working long ago, and if I recall is it was a change in onKey to return false for unhandled keys. Specifically KEY_ESC

0 Alan.raceQs over 3 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Ah, OK, didn't see that.

But, to save me the hassle of comparing the Delegates, do you have any idea why some of my views disable that HotKey?

0 jim_m_58 over 3 years ago in reply to Alan.raceQs

Are you using onKey in those delegates and are you returning false for KEY_ESC in them?

0 Alan.raceQs over 3 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

Hmm, that's the analysis I was hoping to avoid.

0 Alan.raceQs over 3 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

I can't find any doco on the effect of the return values from the functions.

0 jim_m_58 over 3 years ago in reply to Alan.raceQs

you can still use onBack() if you return false for KEY_ESC in onKey().

0 Alan.raceQs over 3 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

But which configuration disables the HotKey?

0 jim_m_58 over 3 years ago in reply to Alan.raceQs

There's no way to disable them entirely. Even for "watch face", that can be assigned to start+up for example.

It's kind of the whole idea of hot keys where they can be used at any time, and that include things like touch on/off. screen shots, the flashlight, etc. There are 20-30 things that can be assigned to a hot key.

This is why a dev doesn't want to do their own "long press of something" function, as it gets to be a mess on devices with hot keys that may already be assigned for something else by the user.

0 Alan.raceQs over 3 years ago in reply to jim_m_58

jim_m_58 said:
This is why a dev doesn't want to do their own "long press of something" function, as it gets to be a mess on devices with hot keys that may already be assigned for something else by the user.

Very sound advice that should be WRITTEN IN BOLD for devs migrating from different platforms who are not aware of the HotKeys!