Forge Android App

[drdev]

As an update, I got two finger zoom working, and made some improvements to the handling of independent horizontal scrolling rows within a containing vertical scroller. The result allows zeroing in on any area of the field with ease, as shown below.

Next up is card overlay support.
-Dan

[drdev]

Another thing I forgot to mention that I needed to get working was Image View for Item Managers. It's going to work very similarly to Image View on the desktop version with the following differences:

• Instead of having a "Columns" combo box, you'll simply be able to use two finger zoom to adjust how many columns are shown
• Since support both horizontal and vertical scrolling is user friendly on touch screens, groups will no longer wrap, meaning if you have 8 piles and only 4 are shown at a time, you'll have to scroll horizontally to view the other 4. On the bright side it makes for less vertical scrolling and makes each group have only one row of piles to scroll though.

Here's a sneak peek:

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.
-Dan

[otherright]

I like the idea of standard zoom because that is precisely how a person holding a phone or a tablet is going to think about zooming when the need arises. Any idea when a test run is coming?

[drdev]

I'm hoping to have the first Alpha ready by this weekend. That said, I want all implemented features to be pretty stable without any glaring bugs, so if I can't get through my TODO list by then I may have to push it back a bit. At this point, that amounts to:

• Get scrolling and zooming working for Image View in ItemManagers
• Get card overlay support working
• Disable buttons linking to functionality that isn't implemented (such as Draft, Sealed, Quest, and Guantlet buttons on home screen)
• Test on tablet and fix any remaining scaling issues
• Implement functionality to automatically check for updates on startup and download resource files from the web
• Create Welcome screen with instructions for setting up for first time use, such as manually importing image and user data files from a desktop install. (Note that eventually I hope to provide some automation for syncing game files between the two, as well as support importing images directly from the web)

I'll post updates this week as I work through this list and zero in on the actual release date.

Thanks.
-Dan

[otherright]

Can auto update be optional? What if the next update has a glaring bug that breaks the build that you weren't aware of? What if I'm just looking for a quick game and don't care for taking the time to update at that moment?

[drdev]

It won't auto update. It will just automatically check for updates and prompt you if one is found. You'll have the option to ignore it. It's just a way to encourage people to stay on the latest version, as I may roll out fixes more often, especially during the Alpha.

I will also keep older versions available to install in the case of a newer build being broken. I don't want people to ever be afraid to update.

[drdev]

Steadily making progress towards being able to release the first Alpha. I've finished Image View on ItemManagers and fixed most if not all of the remaining scaling issues I think.

Another thing I realized I needed to implement was the avatar selection screen. Here's a sneak peek of what that now looks like:

The big change here was to make it a screen instead of a dialog, and also to put a button at the top left, left of the currently selected avatar, which when pressed will choose a random avatar. This is in place of having the ability to right-click to choose a random avatar, and is probably something worth adding to the desktop version for those who don't know about the right-click trick on the Constructed screen.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks.
-Dan

[Agetian]

Looks good, Dan! (both the deck editing interface and the avatar selection screen). Keep it up!

- Agetian

[drdev]

I had discussed doing this awhile back, and I wanted to make sure I did before the first Alpha. You may have noticed that the prompt message sometimes appears in really small font since there's only so much room for it. Sometimes it even gets cut off if the font can't shrink any further. You also may have noticed that the Game Log scroller on the Win/Lose overlay is pretty small and only able to show a few lines at a time.

The solution to these problems is to add what I'm calling "Magnify View". The way it works is that if you tab on the prompt message or the game log scroller, a larger panel will appear and extend upward, large enough to display the entire text in a nice size font. In the case of the game log scroller, this panel will stop at the top of the screen and you'll have to scroll if there's more than that, but at least you'll be able to see far more lines as you scroll.

Check out these screenshots for an idea of how this will look:

Thanks.
-Dan

[drdev]

I'm excited to share that I've got card overlays working now. I used a fancy technique to support outlined text using the same skin-defined font for the name and ID. I also used the same design for the p/t box as I did for the detail view, which helps the p/t stand out more. I also made it so if you zoom in enough the name and mana cost are visible, the name and mana cost overlays are hidden automatically.

I promise it looks even better on higher resolution screens, but certainly let me know what you think.

Also, as this was one of the last real outliers to releasing the first Alpha, I'm hopeful to have it ready either today or tomorrow. Super excited!!!

Thanks.
-Dan

[KrazyTheFox]

I'm hopeful to have it ready either today or tomorrow. Super excited!!!

I'm almost done testing the signing and releasing of the program for you. It seems to be working 100% so far, but I do want to actually test it all out on my phone before I commit anything.

Am I correct in thinking that the res folder should go onto the SD card under Forge?

Code: Select all

- sdcard/Forge
   |- cache
   |- data
   |- res
   |- version.txt

Trying that setup, it crashes after loading the cards.

Edit: Fired up logging and found the following:

Code: Select all

W/System.err(28042): The card Viridian Zealot Avatar was not assigned to any set
. Adding it to UNKNOWN set... to fix see res/cardeditions/ folder.
W/System.err(28042): The card Volrath was not assigned to any set. Adding it to
UNKNOWN set... to fix see res/cardeditions/ folder.
W/System.err(28042): The card Xantcha was not assigned to any set. Adding it to
UNKNOWN set... to fix see res/cardeditions/ folder.
W/System.err(28042): EDT > java.lang.RuntimeException: Edition with code '2ED' n
ot found
W/System.err(28042):    at forge.card.CardEdition$Collection.getEditionByCodeOrT
hrow(CardEdition.java:361)
W/System.err(28042):    at forge.model.CardBlock$Reader.read(CardBlock.java:247)

W/System.err(28042):    at forge.model.CardBlock$Reader.read(CardBlock.java:223)

W/System.err(28042):    at forge.util.storage.StorageReaderFile.readAll(StorageR
eaderFile.java:71)
W/System.err(28042):    at forge.util.storage.StorageBase.<init>(StorageBase.jav
a:43)
W/System.err(28042):    at forge.model.FModel.initialize(FModel.java:130)
W/System.err(28042):    at forge.Forge$1.run(Forge.java:80)
W/System.err(28042):    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:811)

[drdev]

Yeah, the res folder goes there, but I thought I was going to have to have Forge download that separately since it makes the .apk too big. My plan was to zip up the res folder and publish it along side the .apk, then download and extra the zip file when starting up the app. Is it possible to just have it in the .apk directly?

[KrazyTheFox]

Yeah, the res folder goes there, but I thought I was going to have to have Forge download that separately since it makes the .apk too big. My plan was to zip up the res folder and publish it along side the .apk, then download and extra the zip file when starting up the app. Is it possible to just have it in the .apk directly?

I think it's possible to put it in the .apk, but as you said, it makes it really large. Right now the build process does something along the lines of the desktop build. It creates, signs, and aligns the .apk, then copies that and the res folder into a new folder, zipping up the cards folder. I can have it zip up the whole thing if you want it to. Then you'll just have 2 things to publish.

Right now I'm still just having difficulty getting it to start, but otherwise the build process seems to be ready to go.

Edit: So it seems not everything got copied over to my phone. Testing again.

Edit 2: Yup, that was it! Copied over the missing files and what do you know? It worked! Let me know how you'd like things packaged and I'll set it up then commit it.

[drdev]

If the res files can be packaged with the .apk and be installed together, I'd prefer that. That would make things easier on the programming end for sure. I'm excited to see what you've got working once you commit it.

[drdev]

So another dialog I didn't realize I still needed to implement was the damage assign dialog. It's now done.

Since the desktop version of this dialog relies on left vs. right click on the card to add/remove damage points, I had to add plus and minus buttons instead to this dialog. On the bright side that's more intuitive and allows tapping the card image itself to open the zoom/details view.

Now I pretty much just need to wait on Krazy to finish getting the publish script working and then we should be good to go on the first Alpha release!

-Dan