Go-software for Android?

[mdobbins]

Andgs stays smaller than the screen in either view.

Either view? There are five layouts.

I would like to know more, maybe there is a problem with some devices. I think you said that you are running Android 1.6, but what screen size is your device. Also, what settings have you tried for for the "Select Layout" in the Preferences menu from the main view?

The 2 portrait variations should fill the full width of the screen with a board, and being square would not fill top to bottom. Portrait9 zooms to 9x9 which should be good for larger screens, portrait7 zooms to 7x7 which should be better for smaller screens as the positions are larger.

Small layout is a failed attempt when I understood less about Android screens, but I have been reluctant to remove it in case someone liked it. It sounds like that is the one you have selected and it tends to not fill the screen width.

The 2 landscape modes are similar to the 2 portrait, just layed out in a landscape orientation, I don't personally like the landscape layouts, but they do work.

There is even a D-pad control option that does not use the zoom. Just touch the screen as close as you can to where you want to make a move, refine with the D-pad directional controls, and select with the center D-pad button. I wanted to have a pure D-pad, but the interactions between touch and D-pad are complex and weird, so this was the best compromise that I could come up with so far. I use this all the time in an emulator on my desktop where I can double click to select a move with the mouse. Yes, I actually play on DGS in an emulator when at my desktop in preference to the browser.

Let me know what you have and maybe we can find a better set of options.

[shimari]

I think what I love most about all of this is that the folks who write the programs are right here on this forum, and totally responsive, lol. Both programs are terrific, and I am totally indebted to you for all your hard work on these. So let me begin by just saying THANK YOU!

For Oren first: I was referring to anDGS about the menu buttons. Yours are totally clear, because they have icons. Michael's are totally confusing, because they are blank in some screens. I would LOVE that KGS hover function as an option in Gobandroid.

For Michael: My device has a 5" touch screen, and no physical buttons whatsoever (touch only). I have tried all available options, and none of them fill the screen. This is because the width of your buttons overrules the width of the board display. What would be ideal is a less wide button display, that allowed the board to fill the screen. Your buttons should have icons regardless of context. Blank buttons are weird, no one has those o.O I should note that my device is not officially approved for the google marketplace. It has access to the Archos appslib marketplace instead, which is greatly limited. It does have Gobandroid and AndroidGo though. I got anDGS by using a hack that allows the Archos to access the google marketplace. Another issue with anDGS is that the move tree and resulting variations is totally confusing!!!! I remember this from Pilotgone on the Palm too. It took me forever to figure out how to change those annoying mis-recorded moves. The issue about wanting to change a move, and ending up with the wrong color being played, seems to have carried over to your program. Your help file does not explain how to deal with the various options, it just adds to the confusion. Pilotgo had a very complicated description of how it worked, and they also had the option of changing the color of the last move played (helpful when you are trapped in the wrong variation tree for what you meant to be doing).

[CnP]

mdobbins: Thanks for anDGS - this is my favourite app right now, I like it lots.

- it sucks about wegoigo not being available on 1.6. I'm running 2.1 btw. Yes it does handle Kogo's joseki sgf file (though my phone seems to have a problem with the file size - once I split it up it should be okay though)

[mdobbins]

My device has a 5" touch screen, and no physical buttons whatsoever (touch only). I have tried all available options, and none of them fill the screen.

Thanks, I have not seen that device in person. I will see what I can do to make it work better for you.

As far as blank buttons, would it be better if they simply disappeared instead of going blank when they don't have any use in a particular context? That would be an easy change.

[shimari]

Thanks, I have not seen that device in person. I will see what I can do to make it work better for you.

As far as blank buttons, would it be better if they simply disappeared instead of going blank when they don't have any use in a particular context? That would be an easy change.

You are so nice Michael, lol. I don't know how many folks use an Archos, and the Archos 5 has been discontinued. They are supporting their 4.8 inch screen one though, which may be more popular. Archos is a French company, I think they sell more in Europe, but are making inroads here due to their low price point.

On the buttons, disappearing would be weirder. Why not have all the ones that are fixed always display what they do? If one is at the beginning, you know that hitting rewind won't do anything. The button should still be labeled. As for the only one that has a changing function, this is indeed confusing I think. People will expect it to do one thing. Why is your save button so huge? Couldn't you just make that smaller, and add buttons for pause (||) and auto play? All of these criticisms are based on initial impressions of the program. Once I figured out what you were trying to do, I was able to operate the program.

I mention these things because it is the initial impressions that will determine whether or not people use your program I think. I could live with the buttons, but I would want the board, and the blow-up mode to both be full screen when I am using the program. I worked in the photocopy industry for 15 years. Xerox did a lot of research on how to improve their machines. They wanted feedback on whether how they had set things up made sense to people who operated their machines. They did a lot of this kind of thing, and came up with good ideas like making all the parts you had to open to clear a copier jam be a different color plastic. So my advice is based on my sense of what makes something easier to use, and hence more appealing. Apple is really good at this sort of thing too, which is why their devices command so much market share and have so much appeal. You will note I didn't buy an iPhone or iPad though, because of the price. I do own two macs though, a laptop and a desktop.

Your program is of course free, so really, none of us have any grounds to complain about anything. You have been very open to feedback though, which is really cool. If working on and improving the program is fun for you, then you should keep doing so. You have already given the community something valuable.

[mdobbins]

Why is your save button so huge?

If you are seeing the save button on the screen with the board and not in an android menu, then you have a very old version, maybe 15 or more releases back. You should either upgrade from the market place or if that is not convenient, PM me and I will send you the latest released .apk The latest is version 1.30 (version is displayed on the first view on since about 6 months ago.) This might make things more usable for you.

On the buttons, disappearing would be weirder. Why not have all the ones that are fixed always display what they do? If one is at the beginning, you know that hitting rewind won't do anything. The button should still be labeled.

Ah, yes, design trade offs. On the vast majority of devices screen real estate is precious. Having context sensitive buttons is a way to tie together "what you can do" with "where you are in the game" and not use up more real estate for other off button indicators. Without those indicators (on button or off button) you will not know if you are at the end of a branch or if there are variations related to where you are, etc. Other bigger screens have plenty of space to display a game tree (i.e. the KGS Cgoban client for desktops) and where you are in the game tree. It does require a small amount of learning that the buttons tell you more than only their basic function, but I still feel that it is the best design trade off for limited screen space.

One of these days I will have to have a different approach for the larger screens of the tablets now coming out, but I will cross that bridge when I get there. With the Archos 5 you are at the edge of that larger screen space. I still have some basic important features to add, to better replace the web browser interface before I get to the tablet interface design issues.

Time is a highly contended resource for me, so I have to make strict priorities. If it takes me an hour to layout and polish a graphic for a button (I am a programmer not a graphic artist), I will probably find a letter in 2 seconds and go work on a feature that gives some real functional value. It took me about 20 releases before I took the time to find existing graphics for the buttons in the Android menu. I could not find a complete ready made set for the board control, so we will have letters for a while longer.

[shimari]

If you are seeing the save button on the screen with the board and not in an android menu, then you have a very old version, maybe 15 or more releases back. You should either upgrade from the market place or if that is not convenient, PM me and I will send you the latest released .apk The latest is version 1.30 (version is displayed on the first view on since about 6 months ago.) This might make things more usable for you.

Yes, this must be the problem. I have version 30 (not 1.30). It is the only one I have access to, because updates are obviously not being posted to the Android 1.6 Market. This was one of my concerns with having the older system, which I read less than 16% of users are on.

If you could send me the apk, that would be great! I will PM you with my e-mail. Thanks so much.

Edit - Wait, I do have version 1.30. Not sure if it is because I just requested an update through my laptop on the android market, or because I had it all along. In any case, the save button appears in both the android menu and at the bottom of the screen.

[mdobbins]

For those without easy Android marketplace access, I put the latest .apk on my website for downloading.

See: http://www.hellogovernance.com/android-apps/andgs

[mdobbins]

If you are seeing the save button on the screen with the board and not in an android menu, then you have a very old version, maybe 15 or more releases back. You should either upgrade from the market place or if that is not convenient, PM me and I will send you the latest released .apk The latest is version 1.30 (version is displayed on the first view on since about 6 months ago.) This might make things more usable for you.

Yes, this must be the problem. I have version 30 (not 1.30). It is the only one I have access to, because updates are obviously not being posted to the Android 1.6 Market. This was one of my concerns with having the older system, which I read less than 16% of users are on.

If you could send me the apk, that would be great! I will PM you with my e-mail. Thanks so much.

Edit - Wait, I do have version 1.30. Not sure if it is because I just requested an update through my laptop on the android market, or because I had it all along. In any case, the save button appears in both the android menu and at the bottom of the screen.

30 is the internal unique version number. 1.30 is the display string for version 30. So you have the latest.

There should not be a "save" button on the main screen, I have removed it a long ago. Are you sure that you are not looking at a comment that has the word "save" in it. The large button below the 6 smaller buttons is a comment button.

The board width problem seems to be a restriction I put on the actual board widget, seems to only scale up to about 400 pixels wide. Archos 5 specs says 800x480. I am looking at how to remove that limit and upgrading my development software to get a larger emulator.

[mdobbins]

shimari,
I have been trying to reproduce your configuration in an emulator to see what is happening with your display. I have gone up to 480x854 with no issues, the board expands to the full 480 width. According to the spec sheet your device lists 800x480 Is there a problem in that your device switches portrait and landscape orientation. Please describe the issue you have giving which dimension (by number) you are expecting the board to fill and what layout setting in the app.

I am so happy to finally get a live Archos user to talk to, maybe I will have to create a custom layout for your type of device, which might be useful for other tablets.

[shimari]

Ah yes, that must be the comment button then - you see how confused I am by this. Clicking on that button when I am in game recording mode takes me to a blank screen with the word "Save" at the bottom. Evidently you intended this for saving comments. I think a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is one. Looks like your limit of 400 on the board seems accurate, 480 looks like it might fit. I have tried all the view options in the program, they all basically look like this (except the small screen one, which is tiny on my device).

I also include a shot of Gobandroid, which fills my device (I use the sente skin though, which is much prettier than the one in this pic.

By the way, I play on DGS all the time. When moving on my Archos, I am going to the website because it allows me to see the board at any scale I like. I have to navigate around a little, but one really needs to see the full board when thinking of where to move. If anDGS would display at the full size, then it might be much more convenient than the website. That said, my primary need is game recording.

Thanks for working on this, you are a trooper!

[mdobbins]

Perfect, a picture is worth a thousand words.
I setup an emulator with screen size 480x800 android 1.6 and it looks fine.
Archos must not be exactly the same as a stock android 1.6 or the emulator does a full screen scaling that the hardware does not do the same way. I do use some fixed numbers in laying out the board that I would expect to look like what you see on that size screen. I am doing some experiments to see what I can change without destroying the layout for existing devices. If you would be willing to test an newer version on your device, I can send you a .apk file and we can probably make this full screen width.

Here is what it looks like on my 480x800 emulator:

anDSG 480x800

Archos5.jpg (42.08 KiB) Viewed 10583 times

[shimari]

Oh, your screen cap looks awesome! Would definitely love to try it out. If you get this resolved, you should also submit anDGS to the Archos Appslib market. Their devices don't have access to the Google Market (since they don't have all the required features), so they have their own market instead. Surprisingly, it has several Go programs on it.

[mdobbins]

Oh, your screen cap looks awesome! Would definitely love to try it out. If you get this resolved, you should also submit anDGS to the Archos Appslib market. Their devices don't have access to the Google Market (since they don't have all the required features), so they have their own market instead. Surprisingly, it has several Go programs on it.

I have a stable beta for the next release uploaded at:

https://sites.google.com/a/hellogoverna ... andgs/apps

Any one can try it and give me feedback here or via pm or email. You will probably have to uninstall any previous version to install the beta, and you will have to uninstall the beta to get the final version from the market place.

This has a number of interesting changes, explore the preferences and the client to see most of them. When I officially release it, I will list all the changes.

I am particularly interested in the layout on real physical large screens. If you have a very slow device, I expect you will see a lag in updating the board views if you turn on the new board coordinates feature. I do notice it in emulators, I don't notice it on my original Droid.

As far as the Archos Appslib market, I am already in 2 markets and currently looking at about 3 or 4 other markets, particularly large go populations that do not have access to the Android market. I am not in a hurry to get into a manufacturer specific market and may just keep my download page if that seems to be usable for most of the other markets. So far only you and one other is using anDGS on an Archos. Who knows, I may change my mind

[shimari]

Yay! Thanks Michael ^_^ I just downloaded it and will give it a try. As for the market, being able to download from your site works just fine for me. I think most serious go players would search for this stuff, and find this forum anyway. Also, I am sure there will be future hacks to bring Archos users to the market anyway, and I suspect that with Honeycomb this won't even be an issue in the future. For those of us on obsolete systems, this forum is a godsend!

Will report back after I have had a chance to test the new version