Problems with the volume of TTS voices in Navi Apps

[PCB-Tech]

(12-21-2019, 03:15 PM)hvdwolf Wrote:  Android knows different "channels" for audio. On Android, "media" apps use the media channel. The radio is not an Android app. It is a piece of hardware in combination with an analog or digital amplifier, normally unknown to phones. Joying (and all other brands) use a custom made audio switching on their head units to make the radio heard.
If you use media apps together with your navigation app, both use (in 90% of the cases), the same media audio channel. In this case the media player outputting constant (!) audio gets the focus, whereas the navigation app, sometimes outputting audio, has its volume level lowered. Actually the exact other way round as you want it.

If you use the radio, the media channel is "free" for your navigation app.
I have been using Mapfactor Navigator as well. As far as I can remember I set the output to one of the Bluetooth "phone call" options, as if it was an app on a remote BT-connected phone.
On all of these Chinese head units (on any head unit for that matter), BT "phone calls" always get preference over any other channel. Then it might work.
Note though that reall phone calls wait till the phone is picked up. Not all navigation apps are so sophisitcated that they wait 100~300 milliseconds (or so), before starting their output. Sometimes the first part of a navigation instruction might be cut off otherwise. Building up a BT phone call channel (which is 2-ways) simply takes some time.

But it remains a struggle. I only know and use navigation apps that use OSM data. It is always a trial and error in the navi app itself to check which output is best.

But why are the navigation systems so extremely quiet when no audio app is active, let alone music is playing? And why are the navigation systems completely muted when the GPS monitor is deactivated?

Two different music players can run parallel and play music at the same time. But not even one navigation system alone can play sound.

I find that somehow strange. And in the navigation systems, where I can select the channel, I either have no sound at all, or too quiet.

Only Navigon does something different here. Because there TTS works. It also somehow overrides this "China mute". There music and navigation runs parallel.

Whereby on the mobile Navigon made sure that the music was turned down for a short time. This does not work on the China thing.

A strange behaviour. I would use Navigon, but it has been discontinued some time ago and is no longer updated.

[hvdwolf]

(12-22-2019, 08:45 AM)AR105 Wrote:  just to understand it correctly:
on the phone, apps and their settings are retained during deep sleep, the apps are closed on cold start, but the settings remain unaffected?
And on the car radio, all apps are closed and the settings reset, both when cold starting and when deep sleep?
And this behavior is changed by your "Nokill-mod" in such a way that the apps are not closed during deep sleep and the settings are retained, but after a cold start the settings would have to be reset manually - right?
If so: does the "nokill-mod" also maintain the volume setting of google-tts? And can the setting of the right settings be automated - apps like Tasker or Macrodroid can only do useful things if they have the appropriate permissions, so they are not useful for this. Or am I missing something ??

Joying has a new firmware in the blog since November 28th, 2019. Can I use it in connection with your Nokill-mod from the xda forum? or is there a newer version and I should wait better?

Some apps store their in-memory, currently used (volume) settings after a user change immediately in their app database, so they even know it after a cold boot.
When doing a reboot every app gets the shutdown signal and will "nicely" close everything.
On the Joyings (and many other brands) a number of seetings are set back to default after a cold boot.

The apps on the Joying (and on many other brands) are not so nicely written and do not write the settings to their database.
The "KillAllAppsButSome" function simply kills every app that is not not in a specific "skipkillapp" list. So this is not a nice shutdown signal to the app, but a hard kill.

My nokill mod simply deactivates that "KillAllAppsButSome" function.
I give no guarantee what the other FYT/Joying apps will do exactly with their settings, but "everything" should stay as it was before going into deep sleep.

I just posted the new mods for the 2019-11-28 firmware this morning.