[App][Nov 7 2010] Mute4 V3 - Mute/Vibrate your phone and restore volume automatically

This application is no longer being developed or supported. The source code is available on CodePlex, however. Enjoy!

Description
Mute4 is a very simple application. When run, it allows you to set your phone to the vibrate or silent profile and also set a timeout for when you want it to restore the normal volume profile.

Going to a movie? Set Mute4 for three hours. Going to a meeting? Set Mute4 to one hour. Just need a short coffee break without the phone ringing? Set Mute4 to 15 minutes.

CodePlex
The project download and source code is hosted at CodePlex. http://mute4.codeplex.com/

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License
This app is released under the Ms-RL.

Requirements
WM5/6/6.5

How to use
Run Mute4, then click on the Metro-style buttons to cycle through the options. The profiles available are Vibrate and Silent. The default timeouts are 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, two hours, and three hours.

The "Metro style" UI was chosen for the same reason Microsoft did: it takes no time to make something look so 'basic' and I'm lazy. ;-)

How to create custom timeouts
Go to the application installation folder (\Program Files\Mute4 usually) and edit settings.ini. Under the Timeouts section, there are items called T1 through T5. The values are in minutes. You can edit those, add new lines, remove existing ones. Just remember that you can't have more than one variable name that are the same (as in, you can't have multiple "T1"). The INI reader doesn't like this. So make sure you make each variable name unique. But it doesn't really matter what you call it. The only other requiment is that the times be in increasing order. If they aren't, some values might be ignored. So if you do 15, 30, 20, the cycling will stop at 30 and cycle back to 15 in the UI.

Notes
Mute4 does not leave an app (or service) running to accomplish its task, so there is no performance degradation or battery life lost with its use. It sets a system timer to wake the phone up and run Mute4's "restore" app at the time you specified by the restore timer -- it's that simple. So have no fears about its use. In fact, you can even soft reset between running Mute4 and when the timer would normally fire and it will still fire right on time.

Download
http://mute4.codeplex.com/releases

Changelog

Version 3
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- Modified the screen layout slightly to support square screens better.
- Fixed some bugs in the INI file parser (should not affect version 2.1 and older; this was related to saving INIs).
- Added the ability to modify the timeout settings within the application. Look under Menu (new right soft key) and Settings.
- The application actively checks before saving to see if Settings.ini is set to read-only and unsets the flag automatically.
- You can now select advanced mode, which lets you set the exact time the normal profile will be restored or a custom number of minutes from the current time.
- When a Mute4 timeout is set greater than 24 hours into the future, the cancel dialog will tell which day the phone is set to return to the normal profile.
- Minimizing Mute4 no longer exits the application.
- Cancel Mute4 timer button no longer flickers when pressed.

Version 2.1
-----------
- Fixed a bug in the V2 installer that set the settings.ini to read-only which could cause Mute4 to crash.
- The rare bug that was fixed in Version 2 apparently has siblings. Found another spot where enumerating the notification queue can cause a crash. Fixed.

Version 2
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- Fixed a bug where certain rare conditions would cause Mute4 to crash when you try to cancel an existing timer. Now Mute4 will try again and inform you if it is unable to clear the timer.
- Improved performance of some controls.
- Buttons gray out when inactive.
- Fixed a bug where certain timeout values would display incorrectly (for example, 45 minutes would display as 1 hour 45 minutes) due to incorrect math function.
- Fixed a bug (hopefully) where when on a phone call, the profile will not revert back to normal. The work around is to keep trying every five seconds until it works.

Version 1
---------
- Initial release

thebrenda said:

HTC TP2 - I want my phone volumne muted, but still want to listen to my music with my headphones. I have been told that stock WM have two seperate volumne settings, one for phone and one for device but that HTC's interface put them together.

Any idea if this mute profile is for the phone (ringer) or for the device? Would love to even take it a step further if possible to mute the phone, mute the external speaker, and keep the volumne for my music via a head set.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

It affects both volumes. It uses the three built-in WM profiles (normal, vibrate, and silent) to switch, so the actual volume levels are not affected (in other words, when you switch back to normal, the volume is where you left it).

For more fine-grained volume control with a timer to reset, I recommend checking out a product called VolumeX. It should fit your needs nicely.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that if you are using Sense UI, it by default controls both volumes with one slider. If you go to settings, there's a checkbox to operate the volumes separately. That might be all you need. On the other hand, if you need a timed mute, Mute4 is for you. And if you need to manipulate volume levels on a timer, VolumeX is really great.

Sentinel196 said:

Every so often an app comes along that quite simply kicks arse. This is one of those applications.

THANKYOU!!

Just a small bug. On my HD2, the taskbar icon doesn't change until you go in to the volume menu and then come back out of it. So it looks like the speaker is still on, even though it isn't. The same thing happens when you come back out of silent mode.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

That's interesting. The icon is definitely changing on my TP2. It should change as soon as the profile is changed. Can you check to see if the same happens with other profile changing apps? For example, if you vibrate/silent using the system volume control?

raja'i said:

THANKS ALOT man
this program is great

may i suggest making the timeouts like a clock, its really better and more handy

another thing, and i think its a bug

when set the profile to get back at anytime you want, and u are having a call then, or some body is calling you, the program doesnt change the profile, and stop trying to change it, even after the call has finished
i think making the program tries more than one time to restore the profile would solve that

Thanx again

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Re: clock - Cool idea, but I won't be adding that. The source is available if anybody wants to do that.

Re: on call profile switching - Interesting find! I'll modify the profile changer to do exactly what you said... If it doesn't work, it will try again like a minute later until it 'takes.' That should solve the problem fairly well. it won't be perfect (as in there will be a lag between each retry) but it will get the job done.