When I bought my Galaxy Nexus, I gave my dad my HTC Incredible to replace his aging Blackberry curve. His eyesight isn't so great, and he has trouble seeing the soft keys on the Incredible when their backlights are off.
Is there a way to have those backlights remain on as long as the screen is on? Root or no root, it'd be great if someone had a solution.
In Cyanogen ROM there are options to tweak the auto brightness levels, including the "Buttons" level. Setting it to 255 for all brightness levels should keep them on all the time. It is also possible to add or remove brightness levels.
http://chromloop.com/2011/06/how-to-optimize-the-automatic-backlight-settings-in-cyanogenmod-7/
Rooting and using a custom ROM may not be an ideal solution, but it should get the job done.
The soft key lighting is tied in with the screen brightness level. Have him set the level to "auto" and see if that works for him. Also, if rooted, there's mods for it as well, but you probably don't wanna implode your Dad's head with rooting.
