BossPaper v1.1.1 is going into Cydia now. It’s a bug-fix release only. I hope it solves all the issues that some people experienced on v1.0, although I cant be sure as I cannot reproduce any of the missing icon issues. In any event, the changes are:

1) Fixed background location to include statusbar again.

2) Fixed help screen to talk about how to use the new “Under Winterboard” feature. See Help, then Feature Description.

3) Made some changes internally to try to make things more like how 1.0 worked for those that were having problems with layering when using winterboard. I verified this fixed the problem for one person, (thank you Scott). I still cannot reproduce this issue so can only hope for the best.

4) The change to #3 above also impacted dimming if you had a winterboard theme behind the bosspaper. On v1.0 the winterboard theme was covered but on 1.1 the paper dimming let the theme show from behind it.

If anyone is still experiencing the missing icons issue, I need someone that is SSH savvy to help me debug it further or anyone that can give me enough details to reproduce it on my own (a complete list of your winterboard themes and which ones are applied and in what order for example, also disable all winterboard themes and test, etc).

BossPaper v1.1 is released. The main addition is the ability to select whether or not you want BossPaper to be on top of or underneath your winterboard background.

BossPaper v1.0 overlays over winterboard. This means if you have a javascript date / time widget you want to run, you cant it will be covered up by bosspaper. This also has some benefits though for example, you can run a theme with one image and icons then use bosspaper to rotate backgrounds.

BossPaper v1.1 defaults to the same mode as BossPaper 1.0 where the wallpaper image is on top of winterboard. But it has a new switch called “Under Winterboard” where when “ON” the BossPaper wallpaper will be rendered underneath winterboard backgrounds. This lets you have a date / time widget or some other interesting javascript widget in winterboard while using bosspaper to rotate images. (Some theme makers have requested this).

I have explained this in the apps help and covered various scenarios. Those that understand winterboard really well can also make a transparent 320×480 png image and move it to the top of winterboard. Then put bosspaper below winterboard and winterboard will always show the blank wallpaper but behind that you’ll see bosspaper running. This would allow you to run themes that have both icons and backgrounds but have the background be ignored. I did not include a transparent 320×480 theme but I may release one as an addon if it is required and does not confuse people.

A quick note on memory usage (and hopefully this is the last note on libhide for months to come). There have been some questions as to how much additional memory is used by moving libhide into mobile substrate. I would argue that the answer is none. Here is why. First, the dylib itself, only takes a few kbytes of memory while running. Whatever is required to load a dylib and it just makes a list of your apps so that would be an array of some strings. Literally less than 100k including the 15k to load the dylib into memory. The “old” method had some overhead also. Springboard, itself, had to keep a list of hidden apps. But since it was not just focused on hiding icons, it had to keep more information in this list. Restrictions block protocols so that had to be handled. The new dylib prevents springboard from having to keep track of these things freeing up that memory. It’s a pretty bold statement to say that with the new method you are using *less* memory, but I will say it is roughly the same.

Update: I have v2.0.3 done and released in the main repository for beta testing. Changes: apps should no longer all be unhidden after installing something from appstore or sync from iTunes. (Respring solved the problem on 2.0.2). I’ll probably release this publicly in a few hours After over a 1000 downloads and no complaints, I’m releasing it public now.

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Bug Report: If you sync with iTunes or install an app or update from appstore, all hidden apps are unhidden. Solution: just respring and everything is back to normal. I’ll look into this for next version. This is due to my spotlight speed up code.

Update: I have v2.0.2 done and released in the main repository up for beta testing. Changes:

- You can now hide iPod app

- Further spotlight speed ups, in fact, I think spotlight is probably slightly faster with the extension than without because I bypass some logic. Recommend uninstall spotbright for better spotlight speed with this. It will work with spotbright, but both do much of the samething and libhide does it faster. In fact, I believe libhide’s spotlight is faster than spotlight without libhide because it cuts off some internal logic and makes everything visible.

- Added ability for an app to hide from spotlight search results or not. No app uses this yet.

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I believe I have solved the reported libhide issues and released v2.0.1 for beta testing. Please if you are capable of it update your libhide using this deb and then this command in SSH: dpkg -i libhide_2.0.1.deb.

Remember, as a beta tester you are expected to understand this may not be stable, although it does work for me tested on 3 devices. You must also be able to install this without help and report issues with a syslog if requested.

To use this, you will need bossprefs or sbsettings and simply hide some icons and unhide them. Note that mobile substrate safe mode should show all hidden icons, and a respring would hide them again.

Changes from 2.0:

1) Fixed speed issue of respring which was causing many older iphones to take forever respringing and in some cases, if enough hidden apps existed, go into an endless reboot loop.

2) Fixed major lag caused on spotlight

3) Added spotlight support for hidden apps. Spotbright is no longer needed. Your spotlight will be a bit faster if you uninstall spotbright if using libhide 2.0.1 or newer.

4) Fixed output bug in the update process and removed all the debug messages from the updater app (runs when you install from cydia only).

5) Added 2.x support. On 2.0 on 2.x firmware, you would have had no hidden icons.

For those of you worried about another mobile substrate addon for hiding apps, this also handles the hidden icons in spotlight so you may no longer need spotbright. That lets you remove one substrate in place of another.

Note: due to the all sources package adding my beta repository for users that were not capable of being beta testers, I have removed my beta repository and asked Saurik to update my main repository source that would force the beta repository to be uninstalled.

I put up a beta repository a month ago with the intent to have it host unstable packages for hacker level users that wanted to take an extra risk and were both willing and able to provide syslogs for debugging problems. This actually worked well for the BossPaper initial release.

It turns out that many users that did not fit the above description installed this repository anyway. In addition, all sources packages included it. Those “all sources” packages are dangerous and no one should ever install them.

The result of all this is that a bunch of end users have installed my latest beta updates intended for beta testers only. Due to that, I now have had Saurik release an update of the bigboss repository that conflicts with the beta repository. This will uninstall the beta repository from everyone when they upgrade the main source.

I will be posting the beta repository URL for users to manually type in for each beta test in the future and I will expect only users capable fo debugging problems (without complaining mind you) will install it.

Final Update: You can get v2.0.1 here.

Edit 2: Thanks to syslog provided by Cory Lustic and Rob Kreger, I have a fix for the springboard reload problem. Working on slow spotlight now. Should hopefully be all updated within the hour.

Edit: I am quite disappointed. This is crashing for a lot of you but not one person has offered a syslog output that can help me solve the problem. Not even one person says what firmware they are on or provides any data other than “it doesn’t work” that can be used to help solve this problem. This is in the beta repository. No one should be using that if they are not going to provide syslog output. No one should be using it if they are not familiar with SSH and know how to solve problems. Did this get tested well before posting ? No, of course not thats what the purpose of the beta repository is. It works fine for me on all 5 of my devices. With no additional information how is it ever going to be fixed?

Now because there are so many people that did not follow instructions and installed the beta repository but are incapable of using SSH or doing their part as beta testers, I am going to have to move the beta repository to a new location that requires users to type it in :(

Resolving this matter is relatively simple. Uninstall the beta repository, uninstall libhide and let it remove anything that it wants to remove. Exit Cydia and reload cydia. Refresh sources and reinstall whatever was uninstalled. It will use the old libhide and you won’t have any problems – as long as the beta repository is not present.

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I have rewritten LibHide and released an update to poof, categories for it. SBSettings and BossPrefs will use it instantly as soon as you install the updated libhide. Why do you care about this? Read on, I will try to be brief.

LibHide is the underlying library that lets you hide icons. SBSettings and BossPrefs use it. It works by modifying system files. In most cases, it uses restrictions to hide your application. The restrictions are backed up by iTunes and if you restore your iPhone and then restore the backup, the hidden icons are hidden still. The biggest issue with this method is that users often will hide apps and then restore the iPhone later and find that the icons are still hidden. I actually get multiple email messages a day from users that have had categories folders created, restored, then found all their icons are missing. They’re just hidden and the iTunes restoration of your backup caused it. Anyways, read on.

An alternative method to this is to use a key in the Info.plist that resides with each application. The downside here is that each time you update an app, the icon is unhidden. Not so great either.

I have managed to solve this all, I think. I have moved hiding of icons into a mobile substrate addon. That means no system files are modified. If you restore, you are back to unhidden icons as you would expect. Also, the added benefit is if you are in mobile substrate safe mode, the icons are back. This may be useful for getting to your apps in an emergency.

BossPrefs and SBSettings already used libhide so updating libhide means that the new method of icon hiding takes effect instantly. Categories and Poof, however, did not. These have been rewritten to use libhide.

Libhide is a library and is available for any developer that wants to write an app that needs to hide icon(s). You can view the example source code in /usr/lib folder after installing the library.

Finally, as a normal user, you normally don’t have to install libhide. It is installed automatically for you. In this case, libhide is an update so you should update it.

I have put it in the beta repository along with categories and poof updates. Please give me any feedback if there are specific problems. If not, I’ll move it to the “real” repository in a day or so.

Now EVERY feature is FREE! This is what everyone has been asking for and now you have it. The Caller ID Faking, Voice Changing, and Call Recording are ALL FREE!! These items will only work with the new upgrade to version 2.4. You can make as many calls as you like but each call is [...]

I released v0.95 with some help file updates as v1.0. It’s now officially out of beta and into major repo. Enjoy.  !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:'https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);lang: en_US

Edit (Aug 10): Added v0.99 into the beta repository as a 1.0 release candidate. I fixed a couple issues:

• Large camera roll images are too zoomed to see them
• Added solid color option (by request)
• Fixed broken longer time durations (like in hours) so that the image would change even though you lock the device and load apps in that time frame.

I have done some testing on 2.2.1 with BossPaper. It *mostly* works but there are a few problems: 1) The image doesn’t stop rotating because the springboard API to detect when an app is loaded changed. 2) Some settings app gui problems 3) My routine to copy dock is broken. I am not sure how much effort I am going to take to fix these things.

As it stands, I plan to release v1.0 as 3.0 only sometime later tonight baring any major issues with 0.99 reported. So far all issues seem minor.

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I have released a new BossPaper to the beta repository tonight. If there are no major issues, I will open this up by adding it to the main repository later this week. There are still a few things to be done, but the major feature is added: allowing to select individual images. Here are the changes for v0.95:

• Used better randomization algorithm. The images seemed to be repeating too often.
• When locked, image was switching one more time. Fixed this so that the image did not switch on lock.
• Added sequential ordering option to show images in order rather than randomize.
• Added Wallpapers folder to images to select folders.
• Added some explanation on dock replacement screen when winterboard is installed that winterboard will be used to replace the dock.
• Added single image(s) selection. You can select images by browsing the folders on the flash disk. If both images and folders are selected, all will be rotated. If you have folders selected, you must delete them if you wish to show only images. You can also preview the images.
• Made the prefs app switch paper when closed if a preference reload is required so the user “feels” like something is happening.
• Took some extra steps to make sure no timer is running if only 1 image is selected.
• Added a “delete all” button for image mode. (Note this button is intentionally difficult to press).

Here is the current status:

Bug Reports:

1) Icon labels are grey – Status: Investigating.This is default color of icons. Winterboard themes make this white. I have not yet decided if I want to touch this.

2) Lag introduced on springboard when not using fade transition – Status: Investigating. I cannot reproduce this at this point.

Feature Requests:

1) White icon label switch – Status: Investigating. Theoretically this could get into “let me choose the icon label color” which was out of scope for the project since it focuses on wallpapers, but I may do it anyway.

2) Lockscreen wallpaper – Status: Investigating.

3) Release for 2.2 – Status: Investigating.

4) Cube Transition – Status: Investigating. (I do not want to use any opengles in springboard).

5) Lock Screen Wallpaper With home button to change – Status Investigating. I like this idea and will probably get to it.

Issues reported closed out:
1) Cydia issue after installing BossPaper – Status: Closed. This is an unrelated issue. See other Cydia bug reports. The comments in this post (not the post itself) offer suggestions for resolving these issues.

2) Theme Icons – Status Closed. Icon theming is out of scope and makes bosspaper become a full winterboard replacement. I may, however, create something that allows for a pick-and-choose for various winterboard themes (this is on my todo list).

3) Image swaps while on lock screen – Status: Closed. This was not a battery issue. The image just changed one more time. I fixed it in the latest 0.95 anyway (mainly to avoid emails by concerned users). If this is a battery issue, I will consider it urgent for a fix.

4) Dock swap is confusing – Status: Closed. Added some text to the new version explaining that if winterboard is installed, winterboard handles the dock swap with a theme added by BossPaper.

5) Allow for sequential display not just random – Status: Closed. Implemented in v0.95.

6) Allow single image select – Status: Closed. Implemented in v0.95. In addition, you can pick and choose any number of images not just one. (Or just one if you want).

7) Import from stock wallpaper folder - Status: Closed. Implemented in v0.95.

Safari Download Manager (SDM), a $2.00 (USD) extension to Mobile Safari, was released in the Cydia Store today. UPDATE: Make sure you have the latest version! We’ve fixed some particularly annoying bugs. As always, the changelog is here. This extension brings a full download manager to Safari, complete with running and controlling multiple downloads, accessible [...]

I have decided to open a post specifically for BossPaper Beta tracking. I may periodically clear the comments as I integrate them into the main post to keep it clean looking. Here is the current list of reports and their current status. I will update the list as I take comments from this post and move them into the lists below:

Bug Reports:

1) Icon labels are grey – Status: Investigating. I think that the light grey is standard icon color and winterboard themes make the icon labels white. I added a feature request below.

2) Lag introduced on springboard when not using fade transition – Status: Investigating. I cannot reproduce this at this point.

3) Image swaps while on lock screen – Status: Investigating. Still researching if this is a battery issue or if it transitions just one more time after locking. If this is a battery issue, I will consider it urgent for a fix.

4) Dock swap is confusing – Status: Accepted. The dock change feature when winterboard is installed can generate some confusion. The dock is inserted as a winterboard theme and moved to the top. There is no way inside bosspaper to resolve this without opening Winterboard Prefs. But there is nothing that tells the user to do this. I will work something out to solve.

Feature Requests:

1) Allow for sequential display not just random – Status: Accepted. Will be implemented in future version.

2) White icon label switch – Status: Investigating. Theoretically this could get into “let me choose the icon label color” which was out of scope for the project since it focuses on wallpapers, but I may do it anyway.

3) Lockscreen wallpaper – Status: Investigating.

4) Allow single image select – Status: Accepted. Will be implemented in future version.

5) Release for 2.2 – Status: Investigating.

6) Cube Transition – Status: Investigating. (I do not want to use any opengles in springboard).

7) Import from stock wallpaper folder - Status: Accepted. This is obvious. I cant believe I missed it. You can still import wallpapers using “Browse Folders” and get to /Library/Wallpapers, but this should be a default option.

8) Lock Screen Wallpaper With home button to change – Status Investigating. I like this idea and will probably get to it.

Issues reported closed out:
1) Cydia issue after installing BossPaper – Status: Closed. This is an unrelated issue. See other Cydia bug reports. The comments in this post (not the post itself) offer suggestions for resolving these issues.

2) Theme Icons – Status Closed. Icon theming is out of scope and makes bosspaper become a full winterboard replacement. I may, however, create something that allows for a pick-and-choose for various winterboard themes (this is on my todo list).

I am releasing BossPaper v0.91 BossPaper v0.93 beta tonight for testing (if you grabbed anything < 0.93, please update). There are still a few features that I plan to implement that are not in this version, but I think it is a good idea to start getting feedback.

In order to test it, you must install the bigboss beta repository, which I have also released into Cydia for those of you that said you are a “hacker” or “developer” when you loaded Cydia the first time. BossPaper will automatically install logmailer because if you have any problems, I would like a logmailer output of your syslog. If you don’t plan to send syslogs to me when having problems, well then you should not try to beta test this. Of course the first non-beta repo version will not require logmailer. If you hate having logmailer icon, you can hide it for now using SBSettings.

Based on the success / failure of this release, I may move it into a public repository before adding the remaining features.

Currently, the app requires 3.0. I am not sure if I plan to support 2.x or not. Every day there are less 2.x users and more 3.x users. It makes little sense to focus on 2.x for a new app.

Features missing are:

1) Ability to select a single image. If you want a single image make a folder with that image for now.

2) Ability to exclude a single image or images. For now you have to delete it off the folder. In future you will have a way to tell it to not load that image again.

3) Photos – Camera roll is working because these are photos. If you sync pictures using iTunes, these are actually no longer images but an sqllite database of images. Therefore, you cannot use these images. (I haven’t tested this very much. So it could be in accurate).

4) I may examine lock background as well, although I am worried about performance. The lock background should be stationary so that you dont drain your battery while locked. I will think about this more.

5) Other things I didnt list here.

I am also releasing some BossPaper paper packs to go along with it.

Other developers: I have a beta repository so if you want to use this service you can submit beta level apps for the beta repository to get early feedback before going “live”.

Hey Guys, here is pH. I’ve been developing since May a cool Twitter Client called pHeety (I am pH, Twitter is Twitter, so, pH + Twitter = pHeety, :P ). pHeety is a semi-open-source project (who wants the source, talk with me and I will give or not the source) that can be ported for any [...]

Edit: v3.0.3 alert. It seems 1/2 the people loved my status bar sensitivity change and 1/2 the people hated it. I have made it an option in v3.0.3. It defaults to “off” which is like it is in 3.0.2. If you want to re-enable the sensitive swipe allowing for downward motion and all, hit the more app, extras, and the bottom option for “More Sensitive Swipe”. Set that to ON for the more sensitive version like 3.0.1 and older. This 3.0.3 release will be out tonight before I sign off.

Anyone having a hard time opening the window, it opens very easily if you use two fingers and tap one on the carrier logo and the other on the battery then let both go at same time.

SBSettings 3.0.2 comes with a very minor code change and a packaging fix.

The processes button “Free Memory” apparently has never done anything for anyone at all! I had one user report this and no one else. I found this today while installing SBSettings on a friend’s iPhone and noticing that there was no free memory after hitting the button. So none of you have ever seen how awesome this is! It is fixed now. Turns out I packaged the 3.0.1 toggle pack up poorly and the file was copied to the wrong folder.

v3.0.2 of the app changes the way the window opens slightly. It now requires at least 50 pixels of swiping before the window opens. This is to help prevent accidental opens. You can swipe left to right or right to left, it doesn’t matter. You cannot swipe down. (Let’s see if this one generates me any mail).

I have been working on a new FREE app called “BossPaper”. This is a very configurable advanced wallpaper app that lets you control what wallpaper shows up on your SpringBoard. You may be saying, “But Winterboard does that!” Sort of, but not like this. BossPaper can work with Winterboard (or without). Read on for details.

Last year, Saurik released Winterboard. This enabled some new features none of us have ever seen before such as rotating desktop wallpapers via Javascript HTML pages. While this was revolutionary for us iPhone owners, it also came at a cost. Performance running these themes sucks. There are a few ways the Javascript based images can be implemented and all of them have problems. If you load them all into memory, Springboard uses a signficant amount of memory. If you fade them, Springboard uses a lot of CPU. Javascript is very memory / CPU heavy. In addition, the Javascript runs behind all applications and while applications run. This impacts performance heavily and causes apps to lag even while you’re using them and not on SpringBoard. In addition, the script continues to run even while the iPhone is locked draining battery.

I have had it on my list to solve this for a while. The result is BossPaper. BossPaper is an advanced wallpaper manager that puts total control of wallpapers into your hands. BossPaper has these features:

• You control which images are displayed. You can use camera roll, installed themes, or a combination of! With Winterboard, you could only install a theme and use what came with it. Now you can use images from many themes or other sources such as BossPaper packs.
• BossPaper stops rotating images as soon as an app launches. This prevents battery and CPU drain.
• BossPaper stops rotating images as soon as the iPhone is locked. This prevents battery drain.
• BossPaper uses very little memory and CPU! It does not inject into apps only SpringBoard so you should not notice any application lag running it.
• BossPaper can use one of many transitions such as fade, water drop, page curl – you configure which one(s) you want. Configure how long the transitions last.
• BossPaper lets you control when to rotate images. You can rotate it on a timer you configure or you can rotate when an app closes, or both!
• BossPaper lets you hide icon labels so those that do not want to install Winterboard can use it without.
• BossPaper lets you dim the wallpaper.

Here are some screenshots of the “in progress” configuration app:

I plan to release a beta of this app in the next couple days in Cydia. Keep on the lookout.

I met with the major repository owners today and we all think SwagBucks apps are a scam against the user. Basically, it’s an app that you use to do some shopping. The guy that wrote the app then accumulates swag buck points or such to buy products.  It wasn’t so bad, but it seems that [...]