Forge Android App

[squee1968]

Yuck. I was thinking you would have a stack like lands, tokens, etc. are stacked, with the card that will resolve first to be fully visible on the "bottom", with the name and mana cost of the next card visible on the top of that.

[drdev]

The problem is these aren't card stacks, so you'd see almost no useful information for items not on top of the stack. I chose the way I did to be more in line with how desktop Forge works where you don't have stuff hidden.

I'm open to trying it the way you're suggesting, but I'm not convinced it'll work well here. Can I maybe get a few other people's opinions on this please?

[squee1968]

You could make it so that when there are more cards on the stack, the amount of information that you can see of the underneath cards decreases. Or that the size of the panel increases. Or that the panel changes so that it's scrollable. Or a combination thereof. I play quite a few decks where a lot of triggers go on the stack. You've already said that users will be able to zoom view the stack, so I think that the underneath objects don't need to be completely visible.
An alternate option would be no overlapping or size reduction of the underneath objects at all, like it is in the desktop version.
You already have overlapping. All I'm really saying is that the Ghost-Lit Raider should be the closest to the word stack, and that the Memory Lapse should be cutting of the bottom of the creature instead of the top. And I don't really care for the width of the creature being reduced.
I'm just giving you my opinions, of course you can feel free to do what you think is best.

[friarsol]

An alternate option would be no overlapping or size reduction of the underneath objects at all, like it is in the desktop version.
You already have overlapping. All I'm really saying is that the Ghost-Lit Raider should be the closest to the word stack, and that the Memory Lapse should be cutting of the bottom of the creature instead of the top. And I don't really care for the width of the creature being reduced.

That sounds inconsistent though since the "top of the stack" would be at the "bottom of the list" and it would also mean my eyes would need to jump around to find what the next thing to resolve actually is, since it wouldn't be consistently positioned on the screen.

[rikimbo]

I agree that the top item on the stack should be the topmost item on the list.

What about making only the top item on the stack display its full information (ie name, picture, targeting info, like memory lapse in the picture)? Other items below it are the same width, but show only the name of the spell/ability, that way many of them can be displayed on the screen at once.

Clicking (tapping) on one of the lower items on the stack could expand that item, and collapse the rest.

[drdev]

I agree that the top item on the stack should be the topmost item on the list.

What about making only the top item on the stack display its full information (ie name, picture, targeting info, like memory lapse in the picture)? Other items below it are the same width, but show only the name of the spell/ability, that way many of them can be displayed on the screen at once.

Clicking (tapping) on one of the lower items on the stack could expand that item, and collapse the rest.

I can get behind this approach. I'll try out this idea and come back later today with a screenshot, then you guys can let me know if I need to tweak anything.

The one tweak I might make is to only display lower items in full if your finger is currently pressed down on them, allowing you to press and move your finger up and down to essentially rifle through the stack. The top of the stack will go back to being the only one fully visible once you lift your finger. As mentioned, tapping will eventually open the zoom view, at which point you can also scroll through the stack and have more details and options available. I can also apply this same press and drag approach to allow rifling through horizontal card stacks on the battlefield the same way eventually once I get those stacks working.

squee1968, does this new plan sound like a good compromise?

Thanks for the feedback. It really helps.

[squee1968]

Sounds good, although I'd have to see a screenshot to know for sure. I hope there's no overlapping in that case.

[drdev]

Alright, here's a screenshot of the simple counterspell example with the updated look:

To give an idea of what it would like with more than two items on the stack, here's a fun Storm example using a ridiculous god hand I created for testing:

In case it's not clear from the screenshots, the uber-tech here is Concordant Crossroads.

Let me know if this looks good to everyone or if I should tweak anything.

Thanks.
-Dan

[squee1968]

I'm not sure that I like idea of the color fading, but that's kind of a minor nit-pick. I think that (room permitting) if there's only a few items on the stack that we could see the full text. Of course if some triggers are very long (thinking of Cloudstone Curio, just off the top of my head) then they would have to be cut off.

[drdev]

I'm not sure that I like idea of the color fading, but that's kind of a minor nit-pick. I think that (room permitting) if there's only a few items on the stack that we could see the full text. Of course if some triggers are very long (thinking of Cloudstone Curio, just off the top of my head) then they would have to be cut off.

The main point is to cover up as little as possible with the stack and to make the top item on the stack clearly distinguishable from the others. You'll still be able to click on the stack to zoom in for more detail, and I'd say it's rare that you care enough about the lower items on the stack that having a little text cut off or having it be more transparent by default without zooming would be a concern.

This is already better than MTGO, where you only see the name of the card for items on the stack below the top. At least here you'll see the beginning of the spell/ability text, as well as the top of the card art.

Does that make you feel any better about it? I'm still open to suggestions of course, and I'd certainly be willing to tweak the height/transparency of the lower items if people feel it's necessary.

I personally do like this new look more than the first one I came up with, so thanks to everyone who helped me come up with it.

[squee1968]

No, it doesn't make me feel better, but if you're that concerned about the space, then I guess I'll just have to live with it . I'm certain nothing's really set in stone, so maybe if you get some more feedback on this, then things may change. I've never played MTGO, (WAY too expensive), so I really don't care about how they do things. Also today is the first time I've actually looked at the screenshots on my tablet, (I only bought it a few weeks ago) so maybe it'll grow on me once the app comes to life.

[drdev]

No, it doesn't make me feel better, but if you're that concerned about the space, then I guess I'll just have to live with it . I'm certain nothing's really set in stone, so maybe if you get some more feedback on this, then things may change. I've never played MTGO, (WAY too expensive), so I really don't care about how they do things. Also today is the first time I've actually looked at the screenshots on my tablet, (I only bought it a few weeks ago) so maybe it'll grow on me once the app comes to life.

As you said, nothing is set in stone, and worst case I can add a setting to tweak how it displays. Ultimately I want everyone be happy with it, and I'm just doing the best I can to design a usable interface for playing Magic on a low resolution phone screen, which is quite the challenge. I may tweak some things later for tablets so things look and feel better on them, but right now my focus is making it usable on phones.

Could you maybe mockup what you'd like it to look like, and maybe provide an example of a situation where you would want/need to be able to see more information at a glance for the lower items on the stack? That might help me better realize your vision for it, even if only as something that could be turned on via a setting.

Also, what screen size and resolution is your tablet that you'd be playing this on?

[squee1968]

I don't expect you to go through all that work making a setting just for little old me. You wanted feedback, I'm giving it to you. I also want everyone to be happy with it. My advice would be to wait until a few other people give you some feedback. I think it looks pretty good as is, (now that the overlapping and width reduction are removed, thanks for that, btw). The zoom in feature will probably satisfy most of my concerns about not having enough info readily available, anyway.
A mock-up is not needed. And I wouldn't even attempt to make one, as I have no artistic skills whatsoever. Some examples of information...hmmm... how about things like Replenish, Grapeshot, Teferi's Puzzle Box, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, anything that puts a lot of triggers, especially triggers that have targets, on the stack at the same time. My tablet is the Hisense Sero 7 Pro, a 7" tablet with a 1280 x 800-pixel display.

[drdev]

@squee1968 - In light of your concerns and how much I liked the look of the new card image stack display on the desktop application, I decided to revisit the look of the drop down menus and the stack. I decided to remove the transparency of the menus and the top item of the stack, and put a border and background around the stack items. I kept transparency on the lower items of the stack because I still like how it makes the top item stand out more, though its less transparent now and I decided to allow showing the full stack items.

The result looks like this:

As you can see from this stack, I cut off the drop downs at the top of the prompt panel, at which point you'll need to scroll to see more. Although it takes up more space now, you can still tap on the Stack tab to temporarily hide it, so it's still easy to see behind it.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.
-Dan

[drdev]

I've tweaked the selected tab appearance to use the Active color and a border instead of display with the border color as a background and no border.

I also got the Log pane working, which looks like this:

On this subject, will people want a smaller version of the log to be able to remain open as they play? If so, where should it be and how big should it be? I could make it so tapping the log switches between full screen and the smaller view. Otherwise, I'll leave it at this size and it will just grow until it reaches the top of the prompt, same as the stack. If there's indecision amongst the group, I could always add a setting to control this behavior.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.
-Dan