Angband for Android 10 (volunteers needed)

[Cuboideb]

It seems that the ribbon is not very useful in portrait mode. The full keyboard seems more appropiate, but I need to add the user defined keymaps of the ribbon here too... It could be a mix of the two methods.

[Pete Mack]

Ribbon in portrait is ok if you rearrange the icons. (E.g. spellcasting icon can be offscreen for warrior.) But I agree it could be better--say with another rank of commands, and with more room for the selection list for commands that pick from inventory, spell or book lists, etc.

[tg122]

I love the way Shockbolt's tiles look but I find it difficult to use them in landscape mode on a phone because you have to zoom in to 2x to properly see them, and that means I can only see 5 spaces up and down (I always keep the map centered). I would like to suggest 2 ideas which may be able to help with this.
1) Adjust the tile multiplier so they aren't stretched so tall and skinny. It looks like zoomed mode on Android is equivalent to a 3x3 tile multiplier on a computer. I think the 4x2 looks much better and lets you see 2 extra spaces up and down.
2) Is it possible to add a quick hotkey to zoom in and out? This would allow you to quickly zoom out if you need to and then zoom back in so you can easily switch back and forth between the 2.

One final thing, zooming in and out sometimes crashes the game for me on Android.

[Cuboideb]

New version in the playstore

Changes:

-Incorporated latest Vanilla commits.
-Fixed a bug related to tile display.
-Added size multiplier for ribbon buttons.
-Added option to auto display long lists of choices in a condensed fashion. At first it seems strange but I think it speeds up the game.

Adjust the tile multiplier so they aren't stretched so tall and skinny. It looks like zoomed mode on Android is equivalent to a 3x3 tile multiplier on a computer. I think the 4x2 looks much better and lets you see 2 extra spaces up and down.

I'll include that in the next release. BTW, zooming or changing screen orientation sometimes cause a crash. I don't know exactly why. It's something related to the interaction between Java and C, I think.

Next in my todo list is adding support for sub-windows, at least for the monster list.

As always, thanks for the reviews!

[joeljpa]

Nice, downloaded the update yesterday.

Changes:

Next in my todo list is adding support for sub-windows, at least for the monster list.

Wow.

[Cuboideb]

New version in the playstore

Version 1.23 - 2020/07/12:

- Reworked the ordering of some preferences.
- More tile multipliers (they have their own preference option now).
- Sub-windows (up to 3, map views are not supported).
- Added toggle for sub-windows in the quick settings menu.
- Option to keep touch directionals fixed in place.
- Position of touch directionals are saved between games.

[joeljpa]

I've just tried it after a month hiatus and found myself unable to zoom out like I used to before. Updated to the latest version and one setting of mine it changed was this. I'm fully zoomed in and that's not how I used to playing.

Using touch to zoom out didn't work, but the classic volume down key did..at the cost of zooming out even the UI fonts including the subwindow. Even the fit to width/height is based on this 'new' default size which I recall wasn't before. I don't use any tileset. What changed?

I wanted to try out your mouse and subwindow features.

[Cuboideb]

It's strange. The only way I remember for zooming out is using the volume keys, decreasing the font size.

Perhaps you missed the new tile size multiplier preference. The default value is 4x2 (best value for graphics mode). Please try 1x1 or 2x2. Those are suited for text mode.

Also the subwindow font has its own multiplier, in the sub-window preferences.

[joeljpa]

Please try 1x1 or 2x2. Those are suited for text mode.

Also the subwindow font has its own multiplier, in the sub-window preferences.

Ah it was this that got changed with the update, I set it and I'm back to how it was, thanks!

[joeljpa]

It's strange. The only way I remember for zooming out is using the volume keys, decreasing the font size.

Oh and come to think of it now that you said this, I probably got confused this app with the dcss port. They have similar basic features, but only dcss has that zoom via pinch touch.

[joeljpa]

I've done a quick play-through of the recent version.

I must admit I find myself quite confused wit this mouse feature. I tried it on various tiles and am not sure what those three keys under "1, 2" roughly do or how am I supposed to work with it...(attached screenshot)

The subwindow is working minimally, which is great by itself...given the precious screen real estate on a mobile screen. I tried tweaking the various settings font, columns and number of windows, and found that only the list creatures in view least intrusive and most useful. The rest cover too much of the screen since they just have too much text. This setup I've gotten comfortable with is also present in the screenshot.

I experimented trying to lay it horizontally but it seems that it rests at the bottom of the screen just above the keyboard rather than the top. No way to change the positioning...

So vertical seems to work well in a pinch, enabling more than one submenu cramp sup the screen way too much...but I guess that's expected.

[Cuboideb]

The mouse addition is a wrapper for a existing functionality in Vanilla. 1 is "primary mouse button", 2 is "secondary". Shift, Alt and Ctrl are modifiers. Sorry for the lack of explanations. I will check the code of V to make a list with the meaning of every combination.

You are right, the subwindow view has the "too many text" problem. It works better in graphics mode.

Next in my to-do list is to give the player the chance to adjust the amount of rows and columns of the viewport. That way you can leave a black area to the right. You will have to use a smaller font because the minimum dimension is 80x24.

[Cuboideb]

Do you have any plans to ever port any Variants to Android as well? This is the best Mobile port of an ASCI roguelike I've ever seen and should be used as an example. I would love to see FAangband ported to Android someday (or FAangband 2 once Nick finishes it).

I have a branch with faangband2-beta. Once Nick and his team finish it I will upload it to the playstore.



For now it only supports text mode and it doesn't have the core hooks for the ribbon (the keys I need to show for menus and things like that).

[tg122]

This is fantastic news!!! Thank you for doing this!

[joeljpa]

Thanks for your advice, I've switched to tiles...I prefer ASCII but not that much when there are obvious practical advantages to ditching it. The subwindows work much better there and I even managed to put the maximum three subwindows. See? it works decently! I've been playing. Your disable subwindows in quick settings is useful when my char is at the extreme right of the map and I temporarily need a clearer view....nice.

One minor thing which was been a bit frustrating since the start: when I go to preferences, since I play in landscape, it switches back to potrait...can't the main settings too be forced to landscape?...It was especially harrowing while adjusting these subwindow's font and column and then going back to see if it looks okay ....back-and-forth, back-and-forth.

Regarding your mouse feature, I've tried it again. I've looked at how angband runs on desktop and the cursor interaction there. I really couldn't find any practical use for it for me in the app. Am I missing something or do you have any recommendations on how it would help me?