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Hello,
I recently upgraded my Bangle1 to 2v20 and discovered that the writeJSON optimization that skips quotes on alphanumeric field names broke my apps. My use case is probably uncommon but I thought I'd mention the workaround I came up with just in case it ever helps anybody else.
Basically, I gather data on my Bangle and save it to JSON formatted files. Using the IDE I export the files to my computer, then import them back into the Bangle emulator. I then run different Bangle apps in the emulator to graph the data (and take screenshots of the graphs).
Anyway, starting with 2v20, writeJSON skips the quotes on alphanumeric field names and because of this, when I used readJSON in the emulator to load the files imported from my Bangle I got a syntax error complaining about the missing quotes. I guess it would be nice for there to be an option added to writeJSON to still include the quotes but until then a simple workaround is just to use write("filename", JSON.stringify("json value")) in lieu of writeJSON("filename", "json value").
I've uploaded a sample script to replicate the problem with my workaround commented out.
As always, many thanks to Gordon and the Espruino team for all their amazing and wonderful work!
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Great, thank you very much for the clarification! At the risk of complicating the first "Bangle.js Development" tutorial too much, it would have been helpful if "'edge' : 'falling'" were included in the setWatch() example.
Indeed, it must have been the case that my Bangle locked just before I pressed the button. I guess it might be helpful to display a 'locked' indicator in the widget area on the Bangle 1 as on the Bangle 2. I had assumed that on the Bangle 1, the screen was unlocked whenever the display was on.
Finally, on my Bangle 1 I am able to observe the same behavior seen in the Emulator with the above code if I press, briefly hold, then release the button on the 'data' screen. But if I press and release the button quickly on my Bangle 1, showMenu evidently doesn't get the button 'up' event as the menu remains active, waiting for a selection.
Thank you very much for looking into this, hopefully the info in this post will turn out to be useful to other Bangle developers as well.
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Sorry, I should have provided a complete test case to reproduce the behavior but didn't think it was that big of a deal since I found an easy workaround. But since you kindly already went ahead and investigated it, here is code to demonstrate the issue in the Emulator.
After the menu appears, please click on BTN2 to show the 'data' screen. On the 'data' screen, clicking on BTN2 used to return to the menu, but as you'll see, the menu appears on the mouse button down, and when the mouse button is released, the 'data' screen appears again.
Hmm... I had naively assumed this was because the watch function was being called on the mouse up and mouse down events, but as you've verified and I see now, there's actually something more going on. Could it be that showMenu is responding to the mouse up event?
function showMainMenu() { E.showMenu(); let menu = { '' : { 'title' : '-- Menu --', }, 'Show Data' : function() { showDataScreen(); }, '< Back' : function() { // '<Back' : function() { // hide red back button }, }; E.showMenu(menu); } function showDataScreen() { E.showMenu(); setWatch(() => { g.clear(); showMainMenu(); }, BTN2); // }, BTN2, {edge:'falling'}); displayData(); } function displayData() { g.clear(); g.setFont("Vector", 30); let title = 'Data'; g.drawString(title, 120 - (g.stringWidth(title) / 2), 40); } showMainMenu();Oh, I just noticed and remembered something that may be related! With 2v15 on my Bangle 1, there have been times when a BTN2 press on a showMenu doesn't select a menu item. Pressing BTN2 again works as expected so I figured it was a minor hardware issue (though I've never experienced this behavior before 2v15). But the ignored BTN2 press just happened again when I ran the above code on my Bangle 1 and resulted in the same behavior happening in the Emulator. And strangely, I uploaded and ran the code again on my Bangle 1, and this time showMenu responded to the first BTN2 press and the code worked as intended (i.e., pressing BTN2 while on the 'data' screen didn't briefly show the menu and unexpectedly return to the 'data' screen).
Well suddenly this got a lot more interesting! Thank you in advance for looking into this and I hope you'll be able to reproduce and resolve the inconsistent behavior on the Bangle 1.
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I just noticed that there's a difference in the way BTN clicks/presses behave in the Emulator/Bangle.js 1 for the same code. In my app, I have a watch similar to the following when BTN2 is 'pressed':
setWatch(() => { doSomething(); }, BTN2);My app used to function identically in both the Emulator and on my Bangle.js 1. But now, my watch function gets called twice when I click on BTN2 in the Emulator--once on mouse button up and once on mouse button down. The double call changes the behavior of my app in the Emulator but surprisingly the same code works as it always has on my Bangle.js 1 (2v15), suggesting the function is only being invoked once on my Bangle.js 1.
To make my app work the same in the Emulator and on my Bangle (an 'xdotool' script I made to capture app screenshots using the Emulator broke because of this change) I changed the code to the following:
setWatch(() => { doSomething(); }, BTN2, { edge: 'falling' });So it's not really a problem at all but I thought I'd mention it in case anybody else gets puzzled by this as well. I suspect this change may have occurred in 2v13 ("Bangle.js1: setUI button handlers now work on falling edge") and I just didn't notice it until now.
Happy Bangle-ing/Developing Everyone!
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Just wanted to say that I love both my Bangle 1 and Bangle 2 and use them for different activities that each is more suitable for. FWIW, here are features I wish could be added or improved in a Bangle 3:
- gyroscope (would be useful for improving accuracy of apps that analyze movement, such as gesture or step tracking)
- better GPS (Bangle 1 is acceptable, Bangle 2 disappointing though temporarily resolvable via A-GPS)
- brighter screen (I use the Bangle 1 for certain activities because the Bangle 2 screen is just too dim to use under low-light conditions)
- 3 physical buttons (I designed an app to make use of the left/right touchscreen of the Bangle 1, but never imagined that sweat on my fingertips would make using a touch-based UI impractical--thank goodness for Bangle 1's 3 buttons! Also, being able to "double-click" Bangle 1's buttons for input has been quite useful, so having high-quality buttons is a must)
Keeping my fingers crossed for a Bangle 3 someday--many thanks to Gordon for making Bangle 1 and Bangle 2 such amazingly useful and capable devices!
- gyroscope (would be useful for improving accuracy of apps that analyze movement, such as gesture or step tracking)
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Well, FWIW here's the type of replacement band I got that I'm very pleased with:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/293495192890
I guess some people wouldn't be pleased if you didn't include a band but I would be fine with that.
Oh--I hadn't noticed that the emulator was out of date, thank you @Gordon for updating it and resolving my issue! And thank you @user140377 for advising me about Util.readStorageJSON().