Official android port

[mumra]

also, pinch-to-zoom is in

This, is great news

[Regnix]

Regarding the touch screen input, currently, you have to click the action icons and sometimes you may miss. If you hold your finger against the screen, you can move the yellow selection marker across the various buttons, however, releasing your finger does not activate the highlighted button - instead you have to tap the screen and hope you hit the button. How about making it so that releasing your finger presses the last highlighted button? I think this would reduce input errors.

Another idea would be that the action buttons were not actually clickable, instead clicking them simply highlights the button (puts the yellow box around it), then you have one clickable button that basically reads: "Perform highlighted action" (or L-Click). This solution is a bit more of a pain as it requires two screen taps, but again, it reduces the input errors. Just some ideas, what do you guys think?

[IndustrialRobot]

quick update mates: the UI changes (see mockups posted previously) are coming along great, I'll probably have something for testing next weekend. It's not too late for feedback either, if there is any.

also, pinch-to-zoom is in

Can't wait for pinch-to-zoom! Any estimation when you'll push the feature?

[mumra]

Another idea would be that the action buttons were not actually clickable, instead clicking them simply highlights the button (puts the yellow box around it), then you have one clickable button that basically reads: "Perform highlighted action" (or L-Click). This solution is a bit more of a pain as it requires two screen taps, but again, it reduces the input errors. Just some ideas, what do you guys think?

I'd prefer to see how it handles with scaled up buttons ... but actually your second option sounds quite appealing, quite often you'll be doing the same thing over and over (e.g. a particular spell or action) and having a big button to hit would be nice. Ideally when firing a spell or projectile, pressing this button a second time would fire at whatever you're aiming at - so when autoaim is doing a good job and you don't need to swap spells or anything you can just keep hitting that one button.

[galehar]

I'd prefer to see how it handles with scaled up buttons ...

Me too. Having to double tap every action is going to be very painful. Also, moving the yellow marker is already useful for mouse-over tips.

Ideally when firing a spell or projectile, pressing this button a second time would fire at whatever you're aiming at - so when autoaim is doing a good job and you don't need to swap spells or anything you can just keep hitting that one button.

You can do that by holding vol+ (or vol-, can't remember which one is mapped to ctrl) and tap the monster.

[mumra]

You can do that by holding vol+ (or vol-, can't remember which one is mapped to ctrl) and tap the monster.

Aha ... this isn't an ideal interface though, it's actually a bit tricky to press a button on the side of the phone at the same time as tapping the screen! And when Crawl gets sound the vol controls will have another use...

[galehar]

You can do that by holding vol+ (or vol-, can't remember which one is mapped to ctrl) and tap the monster.

Aha ... this isn't an ideal interface though, it's actually a bit tricky to press a button on the side of the phone at the same time as tapping the screen! And when Crawl gets sound the vol controls will have another use...

Another possibility is tapping the spell button from the spell panel and validating the target with menu.
Sound is supported, it's just that there are no sound effects by defaults. You can unmap the sound controls if you want to be able to control the volume. It's in the SDL configuration. I think having them mapped to ctrl and shift is much more useful though, so it's fine that it is the default.

[Regnix]

I've just tried the Android port of the console version and that successfully uses the first input method I'd suggested, ie holding your finger against the screen allows you to move across the keys and find the one you want, the key press is activated when you release your finger, reducing input errors. I think that method can work on tiles too, whilst showing the tool tips at the same time.

[mumra]

I've just tried the Android port of the console version and that successfully uses the first input method I'd suggested, ie holding your finger against the screen allows you to move across the keys and find the one you want, the key press is activated when you release your finger, reducing input errors. I think that method can work on tiles too, whilst showing the tool tips at the same time.

I assume that's because it uses the System Keyboard, which works like this already?

[anavlbolicMike]

hi guys!!!

I joined just today and wanted to tell you that on an 8.9 Samsung Galaxy Tablet the game is perfection!! I was playing the other unofficial one on the market for the longest time and whilst perusing this site found the tile version. I must say its pretty damned cool! Some of the buttons dont work such as go downstairs and etc but I just bring up the keyboard and all is good! Ihave to run the ascii version and angband in landscape mode so the keyboard doesnt cover the screen. So as you can imagine I only have a tiny screen to watch. This game was a godsend hahaha. Full Screen! Tiles! Touch Driven! You guys rock. Um are you going to put it on the market by any chance so I can autoupdate it and a wider audience can download it? Second where do I donate a couple bucks? I play this more then games I have bought and I would like to show some appreciation heh.

Thanks guys....

Mike

[galehar]

Some of the buttons dont work such as go downstairs and etc but I just bring up the keyboard and all is good!

Just tap your guy to take stairs. Doesn't work if there is some stuff on the stairs in which case you have to shift-tap (meaning using on of the volume control).

Um are you going to put it on the market by any chance so I can autoupdate it and a wider audience can download it?

We think the interface isn't mature enough to be put on the market. Especially on smaller screens. Wouldn't want to turn off new potential players. Players who already know crawl and play trunk can easily find it on the download page now.
We're giving ourself a few more months to polish the interface and we'll release 0.12 on google play.

Second where do I donate a couple bucks?

That's very generous of you but we're currently not accepting donations. Because we don't know what we would do with the money

[Regnix]

I assume that's because it uses the System Keyboard, which works like this already?

It uses "Crawl" keyboard, but you can switch to system if you prefer, I believe the behaviour is the same, but the "activate on release" behaviour might just be OS specific - I tried it on Jelly Bean.

[Sjohara]

I'm having trouble remapping my hardware keys. I like to remap my forward slash, comma, period, and OK buttons to diagonal movement for roguelikes (because they're near the arrow keys), but the only remap which takes is the one for the OK button. The others are all unwilling to overwrite their default functions, so the period key will still rest even if I try to set it to 7 or KP7. Is there any way to get around this?

Incidentally, there's also no way to bind, say, the question mark (alt+/ on my phone) separately from the forward slash, since the configuration tool only accepts a single physical button press and it treats the alt key as its own button. In the Angband variants I've played I've had complete control over my bindings (well, technically I don't think I COULD rebind the alt key in those, but that would do more harm than good anyway).

Given how convenient autoexplore makes things 95% of the time I guess I could just get used to using Y/U/B/N for diagonal movement, but it should be possible to do proper key rebinds anyway.

[galehar]

I assume you're using the SDL configuration menu to remap keys. Try with the bindkey option or with the in-game key remap feature (~ or ctrl-d then k)

[Sjohara]

Oh, right. I forgot you could do it in-game. The macro file wasn't getting written properly at first for some reason (resulting in my bindings getting reset every time I quit, even after specifically telling the game to save my macros), but reinstalling seems to have fixed that.

EDIT: It seems like setting a key to work as a control modifier only works with my directional keys. Ctrl-7 moves diagonally instead of attacking and ctrl-A opens my ability menu instead of toggling autopickup. I can't find an autopickup button in the tap menus either...how do you turn it back on after an invisible monster forcibly disables it?

EDIT AGAIN: Making a macro file in the PC version using Alt or whatever and then copying it over to my phone has proven to be an effective workaround, but keyboard recognition definitely seems to be a bit of a weak point in the current build.

[willshattuck]

I do want my tiles a bit bigger because they are still a bit small on a 7" screen with my old eyes.

Try the new tile_cell_pixels option. Default is 32, set to a higher value for bigger tiles. Still experimental. It might break the layout or burn down your phone. Doesn't do anything for menus yet.

How do you set up the option tile_cell_pixels in this version? I can't find a way to set this. I have a Galaxy Nexus and my eyes hurt just a bit from the small tiles.

So how do I do this please?

Thanks,
Will

[galehar]

Find your option file with the file explorer. On my phone it's in /sdcard/Android/data/org.develz.crawl/files/settings/init.txt

[Choko5]

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1ccSp ... mI5X09VWUk

This is how I see the android UI should look like. It's kinda rough, but I think it's understandable.
With this UI, I expect dcss to be playable even with my palm sized phone. Please check.

[galehar]

I changed my computer so I had to change my signing key. I'm using a real one now, not a debug key.
This means that to install the latest trunk I've just uploaded, you need to uninstall the previous version first.

[barbs]

Hey guys. I'm getting a lot of requests for the tiles port via the feedback on my console port. Mind if I put a link to the development builds on my market page? Obviously with the caveat that it's still under development?

Btw, still meaning to do that patch file, I've just been a bit lazy the last couple of weeks ><

[galehar]

Sure, that's a good idea. Thanks.

[frogbotherer]

Progress!

Normal View

tiny_touch_ui_1.png (91.1 KiB) Viewed 28863 times

Inventory Open

tiny_touch_ui_2.png (76.61 KiB) Viewed 28863 times

These are real screens of the game running at minimum mobile device resolution; there's a ton of testing still to do but I had an overriding urge to show off. Despite what it might look like, this is pretty playable (and kept me occupied on a boring train journey back from Bradford - happy days!) Apologies that updates have been a bit sparse, but Borderlands 2 came out and I've only got so much free time

New things for everyone to complain about:

• tabs pop out from the right, overlaying the rest of the screen, and disappear when clicked on
• pinch to zoom (and unpinch to unzoom). Currently zooming out further than the original zoom leaves big black borders. One day it'll take you to the minimap
• all the player stats squeezed in the gap between the dungeon and the tabs; clicking takes you to the player overview screen

Once they're stable, I'm going to push these changes up so we can get them in the official build, but I expect it'll still take a week or two for that to happen.

[bricks]

This is a great project. I was completely put off by roguelikes on mobile devices until I tried the Crawl ports.

[Galefury]

• all the player stats squeezed in the gap between the dungeon and the tabs; clicking takes you to the player overview screen

Status lights are often very important. Could the space for them spill over into the Str Int Dex AC EV SH area when needed?

[frogbotherer]

Status lights are often very important. Could the space for them spill over into the Str Int Dex AC EV SH area when needed?

The way I've got it currently working is:

• if there's one status, it'll print the full text
• if there are a few statuses, it'll print the first letter+colour of each one and the full text of the last if it'll fit
• if there are loads of statuses (potion of resists + hunger + poison + fire + berzerk + lev + tele?) it'll cram the first letter of each status in. For the smallest screen this is a max of 9-10

This is why the screenies show "V Pois", it's cos the player is 'V'ery hungry and poisoned. It's also why I've changed the behaviour of clicking on the stats region to take you to the stats screen (where all the statuses are shown). It'll need a load more testing to find out if this is the best way to present lots of lights though, I just wanted to make sure there was as much space for the health bars as possible.

[alastair]

It's so great to have a portable version of this away from home!

we're currently not accepting donations because we don't know what we would do with the money

A 3D engine with the quality of Diablo 3 graphics

[palin]

A 3D engine with the quality of Diablo 3 graphics

Who wants a 3d engine on a rouguelike?

[mumra]

• pinch to zoom (and unpinch to unzoom). Currently zooming out further than the original zoom leaves big black borders. One day it'll take you to the minimap

That's exactly how I thought minimap should be handled on touch.

Aside note: How hard would it be to support mouse wheel zooming on the desktop version?

Anyway keep up the great work, I can't wait to try this out!

[hpp3]

Is this crashing on Android 4.2 for anyone else?

I'm using a Nexus 7 with the OTA 4.2 and the latest version of android crawl (10/29) is crashing on start up. I had no problems on 4.1.

[ST510]

Progress!

Where i can get version with such interface? I downloaded version from development builds page, but it had full vertion of interface.

[edlothiol]

Status lights are often very important. Could the space for them spill over into the Str Int Dex AC EV SH area when needed?

The way I've got it currently working is:

• if there's one status, it'll print the full text
• if there are a few statuses, it'll print the first letter+colour of each one and the full text of the last if it'll fit
• if there are loads of statuses (potion of resists + hunger + poison + fire + berzerk + lev + tele?) it'll cram the first letter of each status in. For the smallest screen this is a max of 9-10

This is why the screenies show "V Pois", it's cos the player is 'V'ery hungry and poisoned. It's also why I've changed the behaviour of clicking on the stats region to take you to the stats screen (where all the statuses are shown). It'll need a load more testing to find out if this is the best way to present lots of lights though, I just wanted to make sure there was as much space for the health bars as possible.

We could use icons for the status lights (additionally if there's enough room, only icons if there isn't).

[Larald]

Is this crashing on Android 4.2 for anyone else?

I'm using a Nexus 7 with the OTA 4.2 and the latest version of android crawl (10/29) is crashing on start up. I had no problems on 4.1.

I just downloaded it and am having the same issue. I have the same setup.

[hpp3]

Regarding the crash on Android 4.2:
I used catlog to read the logs to determine why Crawl is crashing.
Here is the log starting from when crawl starts up to when it dies.
http://pastebin.com/Kw1fD1W6
I hope this helps you address the problem. Thanks.

[alastair]

I think it would be a lot better to have the resolution be a half or even a quarter of the tablet's native resolution (to make the tiles bigger.) Currently it requires mouse-like precision with the touch screen making it almost impossible to play. I think pinch zooming in & out constantly would get annoying, unless there was a zoom button to do it quickly.

[eimhin]

Hey all, I too have a crash on start up on a Nexus 7 - 4.2. (stock, rooted)

Looking at a log i notice there is an error in the libSDL loading:-

  Code:

D/dalvikvm(21347): Trying to load lib /data/data/org.develz.crawl/files/../lib/libsdl-1.2.so 0x412cbff0
E/dalvikvm(21347): dlopen("/data/data/org.develz.crawl/files/../lib/libsdl-1.2.so") failed: Cannot load library: soinfo_relocate(linker.cpp:975): cannot locate symbol "__exidx_end" referenced by "libsdl-1.2.so"...
I/System.out(21347): libSDL: error loading lib sdl-1.2: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Cannot load library: soinfo_relocate(linker.cpp:975): cannot locate symbol "__exidx_end" referenced by "libsdl-1.2.so"...
D/dalvikvm(21347): Trying to load lib /data/app-lib/org.develz.crawl-1/libsdl-1.2.so 0x412cbff0
E/dalvikvm(21347): dlopen("/data/app-lib/org.develz.crawl-1/libsdl-1.2.so") failed: Cannot load library: find_library(linker.cpp:889): "/data/app-lib/org.develz.crawl-1/libsdl-1.2.so" failed to load previously
I/System.out(21347): libSDL: Extracting APP2SD-ed libs
I/System.out(21347): libSDL: Error: java.lang.RuntimeException: libSDL: Extracting APP2SD-ed libs failed, the .apk file packaged incorrectly
W/dalvikvm(21347): No implementation found for native Lorg/develz/crawl/AudioThread;.nativeAudioInitJavaCallbacks:()I
W/dalvikvm(21347): threadid=11: thread exiting with uncaught exception (group=0x40b68930)
E/AndroidRuntime(21347): FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-243
E/AndroidRuntime(21347): java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Native method not found: org.develz.crawl.AudioThread.nativeAudioInitJavaCallbacks:()I
E/AndroidRuntime(21347):        at org.develz.crawl.AudioThread.nativeAudioInitJavaCallbacks(Native Method)
E/AndroidRuntime(21347):        at org.develz.crawl.AudioThread.<init>(Audio.java:54)
E/AndroidRuntime(21347):        at org.develz.crawl.MainActivity$1Callback.run(MainActivity.java:168)
E/AndroidRuntime(21347):        at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:856)
W/ActivityManager(19104):   Force finishing activity org.develz.crawl/.MainActivity

I also stuck the full log here, in case it helps.

[Styro]

I also have a crash on startup on my stock nexus 10. Is there anything I can do or provide that would be helpful in figuring out what is causing the problem?

[monodon]

I've just tried it on my Galaxy Tab 10.1' and it feels great. I can more or less successfully click on everything I want and scale is big enough even without zoom in function. I understand the need to change the whole interface for phones, but on large tablets bumping up scale of the tiles a notch might be sufficient.
Surely the usability can be improved for touch interface, but it is surprisingly functional for a roguelike port.

The colours seem off though, I think the contrast is too high, but this might be my own problem.

[tempest]

I have posted a bug report about the 4.2 crash referencing hpp3's logs.

https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=6425

[nightwisher]

Really happy to see an android port of crawl, however I've been having a really annoying issue that's persisted through every game and OS update so far - the screen jitters and jumps around after a minute or so of being open. Doesn't seem to matter what screen I'm on either. The screen kinda tears and jitters left and right a few pixels at a time. I'm running the latest android port on an Asus TF700, which has a full HD screen, which may have something to do with it.

Anyone else get this? Nothing I've tried has worked so far, mucking around with resolution settings in init and SDL config options.

[copingsaw]

Just registered so I could say thanks for all the work on this port. I have been playing on my Samsung Tab 10.1 and it has worked out much better than I would have expected. The lack of an immediate keyboard is difficult to adjust to at first but once I got used to using the small buttons on the control panel and some of the touch functionality things got progressively easier. I ended up using the config menu on the SDL load screen to add some custom keys for throwing and a few other commands. This helped but unfortunately it sits on top of the inventory and I can't seem to move it.

Bottom line is that after making some adjustments it is almost as easy to play on my tablet as it is on my computer. This is a must have app for me. Looking forward to future improvements. Thanks!

[said46]

I played on my Samsung Tab 10.1 as well but I didn't manage to get used to playing easily struggling for control my pers anyhow. My characted always did things which weren't intended to be done. I had played the ASCII version before and it seemed to me more confortable to play mainly owing to the fact the sceen was split to 9 parts to direct the character, and all your actions are controlled distinctly without a large change to screw everything up. Probably I need some pieces of advice how to control it easily.

[galehar]

A major UI update has been pushed by frogbotherer. I've uploaded a fresh build.

[Pereza0]

Too bad my phone got screwed up and I can't try the latest build, but you guys are really doing a great job here, DCSS is probably the best game on any mobile device right now.

BTW, have you guys thought of releasing it on the Google Market once it gets more stable?

[Styro]

Thank you for the continued development on this!

On my nexus 10 I now see an SDL loading screen and it looks like the load completes successfully. I can also click on the link to change settings and that seems to work fine. But then the screen goes black briefly and crashes to desktop. If someone can describe to me how to get to the log file I will post that if it would be helpful.

[copingsaw]

I downloaded the latest version to my Samsung Galaxy S3 and it crashes to desktop without showing the splash screen. As with the previous poster, the SDL screen loads and I can adjust the setting but then it goes black. Running Android 4.0.

[sanskrit]

Hey everyone, sorry if this is the wrong place, but I am at my wits end trying to get CDO/ssh to work on my Nexus 7. Could anyone give me kinda newb friendly step by step instructions. I have tried searching the forums to no avail, all I could find was that it's possible. Oh, and a suggestion on a good ssh client for the nexus would be appreciated to, actually, maybe that's my biggest problem. Ugh, anyway, thanks.

[srulz]

A major UI update has been pushed by frogbotherer. I've uploaded a fresh build.

Thank you very much galehar and frogbotherer! I have successfully run the latest one on my Samsung Galaxy S2, and here's my feedback:

1. For the latest version, the hardware buttons did not work at all. For the version which I downloaded on 1/12/12, the hardware buttons that work are the "back" button and the "setting" button. The "volume plus/minus" buttons did not work even for the old version.

BTW, for the versions between those 2, the game did not even load (just force-close while "loading maps"). I may have missed a few, though.

2. While the new UI is pretty awesome for phones with smaller screens, it's also a little bit cumbersome to use for the larger ones. Because you need to tap 2 times for all commands, unlike the old UI. Please see attachments for comparison of the two.

For SGS2, at least, the old UI is basically perfect! I just won several chars on it, and aside from some little issues (Ctrl not working - can be substituted with *, some mis-clicks here and there), with practice there's practically no difference with the PC version! Thank you very much!

BTW, the only change in default setting for OldUI.jpeg is: tile_map_pixels = 1.

So, can you please add an option in the init.txt for the UI to be "reverted" back to the old one? I really, really appreciate all the work you have poured into the new UI, and I would love very much to play with it some more in case I have to use a smaller phone. But on bigger ones/tablets, the 2-tap-for-1-command is too cumbersome, sorry.

For the old UI, what I would propose for improvements is only to add more icon shortcuts to tap easily. The one I miss the most is for "eating".

But the DCSS's UI is perhaps the most portable-friendly one ever! In PC I would never have dreamt to click on any of those icon shortcuts, since I have my keyboard, but on my phone, I never would have lived without them!

Again, thanks!

[barbs]

Hi guys, I'm the developer of the unofficial ASCII port. Looks like you ran into the same issue as me, namely that the app crashes in Android 4.2.
I've managed to fix this today, and you guys should be able to fix it in your code as well. I've posted details on the official bug listing (https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=6425).
Hope this helps!

[frogbotherer]

Hello everyone; here's some updates for you about some of the things raised in the thread so far:

• you can revert to the standard layout with tile_use_small_layout = false in init.txt. It is forced to true on Android devices with less than 480px of screen width, but I'm (about to) release some changes to allow proper true/false/auto options and decision-making based on physical screen size
• the Android layout has autoexplore on the first tab icon. This was really done as a test of the UI changes: we can now put any command from the menu onto a button like that - any suggestions?
• Android 4.2 issues: as barbs rightly said, this was caused by the toolchain we were using. This time it's been fixed by switching to the official NDK and making some changes to unicode.cc; new builds should work
• broken hard-buttons is not deliberate (it's a job for this weekend)
• crashing after the SDL start screen is also not deliberate . There's a couple of different causes for this, some of which can be resolved by completely uninstalling and reinstalling (the go-to fix for everything, naturally). If you know how to get at logcat and can post the output, this will help diagnose the problem.
• hanging on "Loading maps ..." shouldn't happen; however this step is super-slow, and isn't helped by all these new vaults and things that other devs have added recently
• running the latest build is giving OpenGL warnings as it goes, so there's probably another issue lurking; which I'm working on now. This might help with the display issue nightwisher was having, but I can't promise anything
• pinch-to-zoom is in the build, but it's possible that the settings aren't defaulting correctly on first start. The work-around is to manually bind KP_PLUS and KP_MINUS in the SDL settings before the game launches. If anyone has to do this to make it work please can you post or PM me on the forum?
  P.S. pinch-to-zoom is bound to ctrl-rolley-wheel in local tiles, too

All of the feedback in the thread is super-useful, by the way; Android is a very heterogenous platform, which makes flushing out every possible problem quite difficult. Posting logcat output will help with crash and display issues, though.

[srulz]

Hello everyone; here's some updates for you about some of the things raised in the thread so far:
[list]
[*] you can revert to the standard layout with tile_use_small_layout = false in init.txt. It is forced to true on Android devices with less than 480px of screen width, but I'm (about to) release some changes to allow proper true/false/auto options and decision-making based on physical screen size

Awesome, thanks! Just to check, you haven't released yet the latest build with that feature, correct?

[*] the Android layout has autoexplore on the first tab icon. This was really done as a test of the UI changes: we can now put any command from the menu onto a button like that - any suggestions?

Below are my suggestions from personal experience, in order of decreasing priority:
1. "Autoattack" - for a fighter, mostly. I haven't played too many spellcasters, but I guess the current "Spell" tab is good enough.
2. "Pray"
3. "Wait" - yes you could just click on yourself to wait, but if you are on some stuff/stairs/etc, that didn't work.
4. "Butcher"
5. "Inventory" - unless you could make it so that the new UI would have the "full" inventory slots. Current one is still "cropped".

BTW, I liked the fact that you "compress" everything in the new UI. However, it does seems like the HP/MP bar is unnecessarily big. You can cut it in half, or even to one-third, and it's still quite functional actually.

So, maybe you could just "free up" up some more space and put in more shortcut icons? The ones from the current "command" tab are prime candidates to be put there. Or just put in "custom buttons" which are modified using SDL?

Also, there's no minimap. Maybe you could add a specific icon to show minimap full screen?