Life In 19x19

AWESOME! It displays in full screen now, and the much coveted ability to move an incorrectly recorded stone without screwing up your record works perfectly. Display is a little grainy, but I assume that is from scaling it up from a lower resolution. Your interface buttons make a lot more sense now, especially if I am in an sgf file. Thank you so much for creating a new version of this to work on my device

shimari wrote:AWESOME! It displays in full screen now, and the much coveted ability to move an incorrectly recorded stone without screwing up your record works perfectly. Display is a little grainy, but I assume that is from scaling it up from a lower resolution. Your interface buttons make a lot more sense now, especially if I am in an sgf file. Thank you so much for creating a new version of this to work on my device

Wonderful, this is what I was hoping to hear.

I understand the grainy comment. The client currently has 5 graphic sets to make the display look good on the various sizes of Android screens (3 different standars widths) and board dimensions (currently will display 5x5 thru 19x19, even though new game only lets you set up 9, 13, 19; mostly because I was lazy in entering the handicap positions for all the sizes.) In some future release I will need to add a larger resolution graphic set to make the really large screens pop.

Instead of displaying black buttons, how about changing the text/symbol color to some shade of gray? That way you still the what the button is for while it's clear that it can't be used.

Li Kao wrote:Instead of displaying black buttons, how about changing the text/symbol color to some shade of gray? That way you still the what the button is for while it's clear that it can't be used.

Nice idea, I think solves the problem in a simple elegant way. Thanks.

Li Kao wrote:Instead of displaying black buttons, how about changing the text/symbol color to some shade of gray? That way you still the what the button is for while it's clear that it can't be used.

Beta 2 with this change and additional board sizes in new games is now available at:

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

Does this look better?

mdobbins wrote:

Li Kao wrote:Instead of displaying black buttons, how about changing the text/symbol color to some shade of gray? That way you still the what the button is for while it's clear that it can't be used.

Beta 2 with this change and additional board sizes in new games is now available at:

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

Does this look better?

Yes, it looks much better. Be nice if the big bar was labeled "comments" too.

I tried recording my game at club today, and I stumbled into a nightmare from hell. I miss-recorded a move, and tried to replace it immediately. It let me change the move, but then it would not let me return to regular playing mode. As I tried to do additional moves, it kept either playing the wrong color, or creating a variation that changed the last move played, instead of fixing the problem, it just kept replacing moves. I am not sure what I did wrong, but I spent five minutes at club trying to figure it out, and then had to abandon the game recording and finish the game. When I got home, I spent at least 15 minutes, but could not figure out how to undo a move and then continue to play from that point on. Once I was trapped in a variation, I was totally lost and couldn't get out. It also swapped colors when I tried to edit the variation, which confused me even more. This used to happen to me on PilotGone occasionally too.

Finally, after re-reading the help file several times, I figured out that you can undo the most recent move by clicking on it. Undo is a basic function. Anyone looking at the buttons would think you would get there by hitting the back arrow, but doing so will launch you on the nightmare I encountered. One simple fix would be to re-word the help file so that this is more obvious. I am not a computer programmer, so I had no idea what a "leaf node" was. You have to get practically to the end of the file to even find this information.

A helpful help file should give specific directions, and should prioritize them by relevance. After the listing of the main function buttons, perhaps Move Control should be first, followed by undoing and editing features. You could try something like:

To undo a move: Click on the last stone played.
To replace an earlier move that was recorded incorrectly: Rewind the game record to that stone, click on it, select create new variation, etc...

Note that actually describing how to do something is part of what makes a help file useful.

As always, thanks for your great work on this program. It is interesting to me that we all have different needs. You just want to play on Dragon, redbeard and I want to record our games. It is always hard to know how other people will use something you create. The cool thing is that we can communicate with each other on this forum, and as users, we really appreciate your willingness to modify things. You sure aren't going to get this kind of interaction with Apple, lol!

Version 1.31 is out in the market place and available on my website:

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

This was a major update to fix a number of problems and better handle larger screen sizes.

This a a fairly complete list of changes:
-Fix "bad information" in game info if Komi not set.
-Delete recovery file if a different file is loaded, to stop the annoying warning popup.
-Fix editor fault on >> (go to end) after a branch replace.
-Retry on network failures. In response to the timeouts by recent DGS network problems.
-Notifier Interval add (seconds) to the label
-Remove small layout
-Change layout options to portrait & zoom
-Change move control to zoom 9x9, zoom 7x7, d-pad, one touch
-One touch move control for large displays
-Auto switch to one touch mode if board size <= zoom size
-Fixed board dimensions for larger devices
-list running, finished and observed games, download from list
-Add new pref: Default Game Mode Browse, Edit, Markup, ...
-Add board coordinates option in preferences
-Fix handicap 7 setting for 13x13 and 19x19
-Fix change mode while zoomed
-Add new game sizes 5x5 - 19x19, handicaps for odd boards 7x7 and above
-Disabled buttons in editor: visible in light color
-Corrected Russian Translation

shimari wrote:I tried recording my game at club today, and I stumbled into a nightmare from hell. I miss-recorded a move, and tried to replace it immediately. It let me change the move, but then it would not let me return to regular playing mode. As I tried to do additional moves, it kept either playing the wrong color, or creating a variation that changed the last move played, instead of fixing the problem, it just kept replacing moves. I am not sure what I did wrong, but I spent five minutes at club trying to figure it out, and then had to abandon the game recording and finish the game. When I got home, I spent at least 15 minutes, but could not figure out how to undo a move and then continue to play from that point on. Once I was trapped in a variation, I was totally lost and couldn't get out. It also swapped colors when I tried to edit the variation, which confused me even more. This used to happen to me on PilotGone occasionally too.

Finally, after re-reading the help file several times, I figured out that you can undo the most recent move by clicking on it. Undo is a basic function. Anyone looking at the buttons would think you would get there by hitting the back arrow, but doing so will launch you on the nightmare I encountered. One simple fix would be to re-word the help file so that this is more obvious. I am not a computer programmer, so I had no idea what a "leaf node" was. You have to get practically to the end of the file to even find this information.

It is not clear to me how you got into a mode of playing the wrong color, I would like to understand that better in case there is a bug. I do understand that editing a sgf file can be very complex and confusing when you start getting into variations, particularly with a small minimalist interface like anDGS. I have had other reports of the round about ways people have found to replace the last move when they did not understand that selecting the last move will delete it

I am starting to understand that there are some users that want to be able to record games while playing in a tournament in as simple a way as possible without getting involved with any of the large number of complications in the edit mode. edit mode is over kill for tournament recording. It is nice to have after the tournament to do analysis and review.

I am thinking of adding a new "record" mode that will disable markup, variations, etc. and only allow playing a move at the end, deleting the last move, replace an earlier move or replace the entire rest of the game at an earlier move. The 4 options are needed and would reduce the complexity when you should be concentrating on the tournament game and not the excess options in the recording device. Is there anything else that would be required during a tournament? Are there any other sgf properties that you would like to add when setting up to record a tournament game?

I like your comments on how to improve the help text. I will see what I can do for the future.

mike

Very cool, it is great you are so responsive to everyone! Hope you didn't think I was complaining in my previous post. I was just letting you know my experience, and also for any other readers who might stumble into the same issue.

Is this the same version I downloaded yesterday, or did it change since then? Mine says 1.31 beta. Should I reinstall or is it fine as is?

Just found a glitch when doing a new install (not a problem for upgrades): You must close and open the app after setting your DGS user and password the first time before the client will open. I have a fix for the next release.

shimari wrote:Very cool, it is great you are so responsive to everyone! Hope you didn't think I was complaining in my previous post. I was just letting you know my experience, and also for any other readers who might stumble into the same issue.

Is this the same version I downloaded yesterday, or did it change since then? Mine says 1.31 beta. Should I reinstall or is it fine as is?

I put out a couple of beta versions, if you use the client on DGS and see an observed games button, then you have the last beta and all the functional changes, the only difference between the final beta and the official release is very minor wording in one help text in English and a complete Russian translation.

For support purposes, I would prefer everyone be on the official releases. But no hurry if it is working for you.

shimari wrote:Very cool, it is great you are so responsive to everyone! Hope you didn't think I was complaining in my previous post. I was just letting you know my experience, and also for any other readers who might stumble into the same issue.

SO focused on the release, I missed responding to this point.

I don't think you are "complaining", We may not agree on everything, but as a developer I need to understand your impressions and where you get caught. This app is being developed in a successive approximation approach, I try to get something minimally functional out to use and then as quickly as I can, adjust to the feedback (from myself and others.) When I started writing this app in Jan last year, I knew nothing about Android, it has come a long way from that first version (this is the 31st release in a little over a year) and it still has a long way to go as there are a large number of client features to be implemented and I do want to get a local scoring option for the editor.

Have a great responding user like you is wonderful for helping focus on important issues and defining priorities.

mike

mdobbins wrote:
It is not clear to me how you got into a mode of playing the wrong color, I would like to understand that better in case there is a bug. I do understand that editing a sgf file can be very complex and confusing when you start getting into variations, particularly with a small minimalist interface like anDGS. I have had other reports of the round about ways people have found to replace the last move when they did not understand that selecting the last move will delete it

I am starting to understand that there are some users that want to be able to record games while playing in a tournament in as simple a way as possible without getting involved with any of the large number of complications in the edit mode. edit mode is over kill for tournament recording. It is nice to have after the tournament to do analysis and review.

I am thinking of adding a new "record" mode that will disable markup, variations, etc. and only allow playing a move at the end, deleting the last move, replace an earlier move or replace the entire rest of the game at an earlier move. The 4 options are needed and would reduce the complexity when you should be concentrating on the tournament game and not the excess options in the recording device. Is there anything else that would be required during a tournament? Are there any other sgf properties that you would like to add when setting up to record a tournament game?

mike

First off, thanks for your willingness to keep working on this project. The program just gets better and better. I should explain that PilotGone often got me into trouble. I tended to use it only during tournament games, which meant there was a lot of pressure. It also meant that it would be months between using it, and the method for replacing an incorrect move was so confusing, that I often got it wrong and had to abandon recording. So creating a program that does not confuse a user during a tournament situation would be optimal. As for advanced editing features, who would really do that on their phone? I always copy my sgf files to my computer, and use a full featured editor like the KGS client for things like that. Of course, if you are moving into using anDGS on a tablet device, one could see needing editing features in the future.

Making a recording mode would be a good idea. "Create SGF file" is the terminology we are all familiar with from KGS, so that might be a good name for it.

Another really nice feature Pilotgone had was automatic naming, from defined parameters. When you started to record the game, it gave you an option to enter the date, the players, and handicap/komi. After the game, it gave you the option of naming the game from either the date, or from the players. For club this was great. If you didn't enter anything it would simply name a new file based on the date. For tourneys, you could specify the event, the date, or the players. The main thing was it automatically created a unique name for each game record, instead of overwriting a generic game.sgf file.

Lastly, there should never be advertising on anDGS, right? I get pop up ads at the bottom of the screen sometimes. I suspect this is because I must have gotten the malware virus that has been affecting android users. I read about it online, and it sounds exactly like what is happening on my device. I scanned for malware with a program called Lookout, which is supposed to find this virus, and it came out clean. I think it is wrong though, because the description of how it works is exactly what seems to happen on my system. I don't recall seeing ads on anDGS before, which makes me think I have in fact been infected.

Just experimented with recording again, and I am not sure you really need a separate "record mode" with fewer options. Now that I understand how to use the options, I am able to fix moves and undos without any difficulty. So again it goes back to the help file. Specific directions on how to do things might solve this issue equally well. Feel free to bounce any such directions off of me by e-mail, before making an update ^_~ I think the fact that you need to select "replace one move" twice is likely to confuse people. If you explained this in the help file, that would help. Alternately, it could pull up a dialogue asking you to confirm the move: "Selecting confirm will move the stone at J13 to J12, without disrupting any later moves." Don't know if that is hard to do or not, just mentioning it as an option.

shimari wrote:
Lastly, there should never be advertising on anDGS, right?

If you feel that way there is a preference to turn it off.