Feedback on 2.2.1pre (Beta)

[Vince]

Nope, but it's not in the desktop version either

Hmm, I think I see a potential problem, even though I still haven't debugged. The game has all its files in one archive file. ScummVM desktop handles this correctly, and Android doesn't for some reason (even though the port inherently has zlib statically compiled to handle compressed documents...).

I'll have a closer look later on.

Can you clarify if the error occurs straight away? Because on my smartdevice (Android 7.1.1) I can launch the game ok. Edit: just tested on the API 30+ emulated device, and it also runs the game ok.

If the error occurs on a specific point during the game, please provide a save game close to that point. Otherwise, it could be a case of corrupted data file on your part.

I have retested the latest beta today and now it works. I do not understand anything.

P.S.: As the key F5, F10, ESC, ... etc is represented I can only get a basic Android keyboard.

[scarmona]

- The on screen keyboard appears for the tablet, but this appears over the bottom part of the screen - where you'd expect it. But this covers the text and entry area. Any chance the "game area" could be shrunk so the keyboard could appear under it and not on top of it?
- It might be useful to allow the screen to be rotated too to play these in portrait mode?

I absolutely agree with these two combined as well!
For those who use a device with a stylus (phone or tablet) this could be very very handy to play older Sierra games that required text parser input. Playing the games in portrait mode, with the software keyboard ready to use at the bottom, the (smaller) game area at the top, and using the stylus (or Bluetooth mouse if you want to go fancy) to move the character, would be a dream come true.

Thanks for considering!

[Praetorian]

- The on screen keyboard appears for the tablet, but this appears over the bottom part of the screen - where you'd expect it. But this covers the text and entry area. Any chance the "game area" could be shrunk so the keyboard could appear under it and not on top of it?
- It might be useful to allow the screen to be rotated too to play these in portrait mode?

I absolutely agree with these two combined as well!
For those who use a device with a stylus (phone or tablet) this could be very very handy to play older Sierra games that required text parser input. Playing the games in portrait mode, with the software keyboard ready to use at the bottom, the (smaller) game area at the top, and using the stylus (or Bluetooth mouse if you want to go fancy) to move the character, would be a dream come true.

Thanks for considering!

Thank you for your feedback.

There is indeed consideration for this feature, internally. However, it could require a lot of work (I know in the past this was my experience when supporting both screen orientations and switching between them).

Thus it falls outside the scope of this particular beta. It may still come in the future or a more experienced Android developer could surprise us and issue a Pull Request that can be integrated before the beta goes live (one can only dream, eh?).

Still, I will *try* to improve the existing keyboard for this beta, mainly in these directions:
- Add more functional keys, that are present on a common qwerty keyboard
- Have it be semi-transparent, like the one in Android 2.0
- Support floating capability, so that you can move it around the screen and out of the way.
- I'll have a look about how hard it would be to support the shrinking screen functionality (when the keyboard comes up). I am not a big fan of this big change being added into this beta, but if it's easy, straightforward to implement (I've seen that Android SDK already has some options about this) and can be made as a GUI setting, *maybe* it'll make it in.

Hopefully, I'll have something soon, in time for the next beat update (or 2.2.1 final, if that's the next step)

[Sandman1973]

The ticket I raised for the save/load of IF has now been fixed in the daily build. I've tested this with the Windows version.
So when this appears in the Play Store beta I'll be able to confirm that too.

[Sandman1973]

Hi. I guess things are busy with the team merging and all. But is it likely the Android Beta on Play will be pushed with the fix to the save/restore of text games?

Thanks

[Praetorian]

Hi. I guess things are busy with the team merging and all. But is it likely the Android Beta on Play will be pushed with the fix to the save/restore of text games?

Thanks

As far as I can tell, dreammaster has committed the fix to the 2.2.1 branch, which is the branch that the Android Beta is using as well.

So the answer should be "yes", but the person to give a definite answer is dreammaster.

If things go well, we will be pushing a new beta update in the next few days and you will be able to test and verify if the fix is in.

On that note, the new keyboard will be in, and it will be semi-transparent, but I am not sure that it will be floating / draggable as of yet. This proved to be a bit more challenging than I had hoped.

[Praetorian]

The new 2.2.1pre beta 3 version is live on the Play Store as of today!

Let us know if it fixed any old issues, or of any new issues you encounter.

Currently the plan is for this beta to be the last before the final release on the Store so, provided that no major issues come up, this version is very close to how the final one will be like.

[Sandman1973]

Hi

Just got the beta to check it's ok.

The save/restore now works - so I'm happy. Thanks so much. I can finally play some portable text adventures on my android with its attached keyboard.

I also checked what you did using my other tablet and the on screen keyboard. So you've changed from using the system chosen keyboard to use a a custom one. This works correctly and is transparent as you intended. Although there is now no ability to use a floating keyboard.

The following it not bothering me too much, as I intend to use the first tablet with its keyboard, or this second one with an external one. But I'd say that, if you intend it to cover the "screen" bottom, it could do with being more transparent (including the text on the keys), so that you can read the main screen easily. Perhaps offer an option to change the amount of transparency too? I think, as I said before, it would also be better under the screen and have the option to display in portrait mode so that both are separate.

But, as above, I'm happy as I'll be using the first tablet to play text adventures.

Thanks.

[Praetorian]

I'm happy it works for you, and that you have a setup to workaround the docked keyboard.

Unfortunately, my real life work caught up with me and I'll have less time to engage with the Android port in the immediate future. If I have the time I'll look again into the floating feature (I've already tried a few things but they did not work quite right), and an option to switch to the system keyboard if the user chooses to (as that one may already have the option to be floating).

I would like for the port app to go live out of beta within the month, if possible, so next week at the latest.

[lovecrafthp]

Really happy to see the Android version being worked on again, keep up the amazing work!

I've just installed 2.2.1pre and the one thing I immediately notice is that the splash screen's resolution is normal but then the GUI is very low res to the point that there's not even enough space on a 10 inch tablet to completely display the texts. As the updated screenshots in the app store show a normal res GUI I tried looking for a setting which might allow me to fix this but so far no such luck, I'm afraid. Does anyone know what I'm missing here maybe? Thanks!

[Praetorian]

Really happy to see the Android version being worked on again, keep up the amazing work!

I've just installed 2.2.1pre and the one thing I immediately notice is that the splash screen's resolution is normal but then the GUI is very low res to the point that there's not even enough space on a 10 inch tablet to completely display the texts. As the updated screenshots in the app store show a normal res GUI I tried looking for a setting which might allow me to fix this but so far no such luck, I'm afraid. Does anyone know what I'm missing here maybe? Thanks!

Currently, whether one gets the low resolution or the higher resolution GUI is based on an automated check of the device screen's dpi (and maybe other parameters).

This is probably going to change in a future update, to allow user choice.

There are quite a few other optimizations that could be made for the GUI scaling using OpenGL and there are some ongoing internal discussions about such issues. Hopefully we'll see more work on that front, now that we have more Android users (of the modern ScummVM port) and more feeback

[lovecrafthp]

Really happy to see the Android version being worked on again, keep up the amazing work!

I've just installed 2.2.1pre and the one thing I immediately notice is that the splash screen's resolution is normal but then the GUI is very low res to the point that there's not even enough space on a 10 inch tablet to completely display the texts. As the updated screenshots in the app store show a normal res GUI I tried looking for a setting which might allow me to fix this but so far no such luck, I'm afraid. Does anyone know what I'm missing here maybe? Thanks!

Currently, whether one gets the low resolution or the higher resolution GUI is based on an automated check of the device screen's dpi (and maybe other parameters).

This is probably going to change in a future update, to allow user choice.

There are quite a few other optimizations that could be made for the GUI scaling using OpenGL and there are some ongoing internal discussions about such issues. Hopefully we'll see more work on that front, now that we have more Android users (of the modern ScummVM port) and more feeback

Thank you for taking the time to explain this, I can stop looking for now then Loving the app as always and definitely looking forward to future developments!

[Fullpom]

Hello, I have been using SCUMMVM on Android for quite a while and I have seen various options that have disappeared in this version:

_ I can no longer find the shaders that allowed to smooth the outlines of games and interface. Personally I used the H3QX.

_I can no longer return to the interface once the game has started. Before, I used the backspace function of my smartphone which opened a window offering me various choices of actions and options.

Thanks for your works.

[Praetorian]

Hello, I have been using SCUMMVM on Android for quite a while and I have seen various options that have disappeared in this version:

_ I can no longer find the shaders that allowed to smooth the outlines of games and interface. Personally I used the H3QX.

_I can no longer return to the interface once the game has started. Before, I used the backspace function of my smartphone which opened a window offering me various choices of actions and options.

Thanks for your works.

Those scalers are not in this version of the port since the were dependent on the SDL library, and we had to drop that part of the previous port (...) . I expect that in the future we will provide alternatives or maybe implement the same scalers without SDL. Code contributions are always welcome, by the way!

The backspace function you mention I am assuming is our Global Main Menu. Try to hold down the Android back key for that. See this post here for details
viewtopic.php?p=94316#p94316

[cnikiel]

I have tried 2.2.1 again on my android TV box on my FullHD TV and still have the same issues as with the 2.1.0.
I can not read any of the text as it is extremely tiny.
Looks like 5bit font on the big screen.
The games themselves work fine, but due to the tiny font I am not sure which game I am actually starting.
Is there any way to change the font for the gui or change the scaling of the GUI?
I tried the graphics filter, but that did not change anything.

Thanks for all the great work and teleporting me back into my childhood