Angband for Android 10 (volunteers needed)

[Diego Gonzalez]

Yes, the current keyboard implementation is kind of "fixed", little open to customization. It's actually a modification of the classic "bottom" Android keyboard.

Angband is very interesting, most the time you use only a few keys, and suddenly you need many.

The ribbon approach is the right way. Thanks!

[Pete Mack]

I am trying to play in tablet mode on my netbook. Unfortunately the on-screen keyboard doesn't have escape or backquote on any screen (let alone on main screen.)

[Diego Gonzalez]

The escape key is bound to the back button of the device. Your netbook has one?

I'll add the backquote key soon.

[Pete Mack]

Got it. That is a little tricky, since the toolbar gets hidden on keyboard input. Another question: how to choose a smaller font? I am seeing something like 18 or 20 point type with the default.

[tg122]

I've had some time to play this more over the last day. Wow, this is an excellent port. I think the keyboard and interface works really well, and I can enjoy playing the game without struggling against the interface. I like specifically how you can use the "..." key to hide most of the buttons quickly, so you always have the keyboard at your fingertips, but can quickly hide it to see what's going on on the screen. The only minor difficulty I have is when I have to keep switching between the different keyboards. For this reason, I think that combining this current keyboard approach with a vertical, scrollable ribbon of programmable keys/macros on the right hand side of the screen would be perfect for me. That way I would have all the major keys I need from the main keyboard, and can program whatever other keys/macros on the right hand side to minimize having to switch keyboards.

Thanks again for creating this port. I love Angband but it's difficult to find time to get in front of a PC these days and this allows me to be able to play still. I'm sure there are probably a lot of other people in the same boat as me. Keep up the good work!

Edit: Maybe the right hand side of the screen wouldn't be the best place for the ribbon, because that would put it right next to the directional keys and cause a lot of accidental presses. Also, is there a vertical bar | key anywhere? I'm having trouble figuring out how to drop arrows in your quiver.

[Diego Gonzalez]

Thanks for your reply and encouragement! You all have very good suggestions for this port.

This is my current todo list:

1. Add missing keys (vertical bar, backquote, escape in main keyboard)

2. Add visual markers for direction zones in the game view (9 almost transparent squares at different locations)

3. Add horizontal ribbon of buttons with customizable keys (a la NH). I agree that swapping between the different keyboards is a bit tedious.

4. Improve portrait mode. Keyboard has to many keys per row and it looks ugly in portrait. I'm thinking about adding 1 or 2 more rows.

5. Related to point 4... Add an option in the core game to replace the left sidebar (stats, equippy, health, etc.) with a "bottom-bar". That way we could have a widest dungeon.

6. Fix font size and term size (Thanks Pete for the reminder!)

A couple of these are easy. In the next few days will be a new release, that will include the last changes to rangers and blackguards.

[Pete Mack]

The 'fit horizontal ' model works well enough on a phone, but it is wasteful on a tablet, leading to a huge font. Though I suspect it might be OK in portrait mode when the problem with empty space between map and keyboard is fixed.

[Diego Gonzalez]

New version in the playstore. Implemented points 1 and 2 of the todo list.

[Yamaneko]

Thanks for the update! Works well so far. The visual markers are really helpful. Looking forward to the other improvements as well

4. Improve portrait mode. Keyboard has to many keys per row and it looks ugly in portrait. I'm thinking about adding 1 or 2 more rows.

Indeed, the main keyboard is a bit cramped. My suggestion would be to remove the numpad and add the numbers as an additional row (like a regular hardware keyboard). Movement can be done with tap on screen, so the numpad might be redundant anyway.

[moosferatu]

Personally, I don't like touch directions and play with them disabled. Is it possible to not display the new touch hit boxes when touch directions are disabled?

[Diego Gonzalez]

Yes, of course! In the next update will be optional. Do you use portrait or landscape ?

[moosferatu]

Yes, of course! In the next update will be optional. Do you use portrait or landscape ?

Thanks!

I play landscape on a phone with the opacity sliders all the way to the right. I move with the numpad and use the "..." to toggle the rest of the keyboard as needed. I prefer the numpad to touch directions because I like not having to stretch/move my fingers/thumbs so far to move. On that note, I frequently toggle run, and wish that it was slightly closer to my left thumb... But, that's a minor point, and it sounds like it'd probably be solvable with the customizable ribbon, assuming that proves possible to implement.

Thanks again for putting this together!

[tg122]

I play on a phone with a 6.3in screen and also play in landscape mode using the number pad (which works great for me, with the occasional mistake if i get sloppy). I find with a larger phone, its difficult for me to use the touch directionals because my thumbs can't easily reach the middle of my phone if i'm holding the phone on both sides in landscape mode. One thing that could be useful is if you could customize the size and location of the touch directionals to all be located on the top right quadrant of the phone, then you could easily reach all 6 with your right thumb. I'm only saying this because there may be people with wider thumbs that might make it difficult to use the number pad, but still can't reach the middle of the phone with their thumbs (as phones become bigger).

Either way, great job with this. I'm still amazed at how easy Angband can be to play on a phone thanks to this well thought-out design. I would have never guessed it could be done.

[Diego Gonzalez]

You are reading my mind! I also think that the touch directions are too far away one of another! I'll work on your suggestion.

The next little project I should do after that is to adjust the size of the term to make use of all the screen. That will be more noticeable in portrait mode.

The port works only in 80x24. I've to modify this.

Thank you all for the reviews!

[Pete Mack]

much better with escape key (on devices with soft back button.) Bizarre behavior of number keysroguelike mode. (They are replaced with hjkl literals, as if they become macros rather than keymaps.) Additionallly, can't select items from a menu by letter, only by navigation. (I'd use the normal keyset, but I don't know any of the commands.)

Also: tablet mode, allow mini keyboard (and removal of number keys from default keyboard.)