Front flashlight

What this is for

The front flashlight turns the whole screen into a lamp: a lit field in the color you choose, at the brightness you choose, with a clock on it. Use it as a light in a dark room.

In this order

  1. Open Front flashlight from the programs menu, the programs panel or a home-screen widget. If it is not offered, switch it on first in Settings, on the Management tab, in the group Additional programs and scenarios. The whole screen 1 lights up at full brightness.
  2. Press Light color 3 if white is not what you need, pick a color in the palette 6 and confirm with OK 8. The choice is remembered for next time.
  3. Set the brightness with one of the five steps 4, or swipe up or down anywhere on the screen. Both move the same five steps.
  4. The clock 2 shows the time while the lamp is on, so you do not need to switch it off to check.
  5. Tap an empty spot of the screen 1 to close the lamp. With a keyboard or a D-pad, press Enter.

The elements

The lit screen

1Lit screenThe whole window glows in the color you chose, so the screen works as a lamp.

The glow covers the entire window, also the areas behind the camera cutout and the system bars, and the screen stays awake for as long as the lamp is open. Only the brightness of this window is raised, never the brightness setting of the phone, so closing the lamp leaves the phone exactly as bright as it was.

A short tap on an empty spot closes the lamp. A swipe up or down changes the brightness; a sideways swipe does nothing. If one of the controls has the focus, Enter presses that control instead of closing.

Shortcut
Enter / D-pad center
2ClockShows the time on the glow, a quarter of the way down.

The time is drawn in black and moves on at the start of every minute. Whether it reads in 12 or 24 hours follows the unit system of the app (Metric shows 24 hours, US shows 12), not the clock format of the device. It is only a display: a tap on it closes the lamp like a tap anywhere else.

Light controls

3Light colorChooses another color for the light.

Opens the dialog with a palette of colors. The first time the light is white; after that the lamp opens in the color you picked last. A warm yellow is easy for reading, and a red keeps your eyes used to the dark.

4Brightness stepsFive steps from dim to full light, one tap each.

Tap a step to set the brightness; the step the window is lit at is highlighted. The lowest step is dim but not black, so the screen never looks switched off.

A swipe up or down anywhere on the screen moves through the same five steps: up is brighter, down is dimmer, and one sweep across the whole height covers the full range. The lamp always opens at the brightest step, because the brightness is not remembered.

Select Color dialog

5Current colorShows the color you are about to apply, with its name.

The square and the name next to it change as soon as you tap a color in the palette. Nothing reaches the lamp until you press OK.

6Color paletteThirty ready colors to choose from.

Tap a color to select it: a check mark marks the choice and the preview above follows. You can try as many as you like before you confirm. The palette holds reds, blues, greens, yellows and oranges, earth tones, grays, black and white.

7CancelCloses the dialog and keeps the color the lamp already has.

Nothing changes: the lamp keeps the color it had before you opened the dialog.

Shortcut
Esc
8OKApplies the selected color to the lamp.

The glow changes at once and the color is saved, so the lamp opens in it next time. The button has the focus when the dialog opens, so with a keyboard one press of Enter is enough.

Shortcut
Enter

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