#3 Graphics animations

[JonnyTech]

Thank you for your efforts and enhancements to this great little app.

In forty thieves, since v2 the fling animations are very slow, as if each frame is being redrawn quickly. I can move a card everywhere fine by dragging, it is just the fling when the card (or sequence of cards) move automatically to the top files.

Also, sorry I hate to say this, but I do prefer the older graphics. I tend to play forty thieves with large card art. The new designs don't seem as centered and symmetrical and can be off putting. Can you add an option to select decks?

Running on Android 5.1.1 (CyanogenMod 12.1.x) on HTC One - grabbed from F-Droid.

[Curtis Gedak]

Thank you for your interest in improving SolitaireCG.

RE: V2 fling animations slow

The fling animation does indeed appear slower for higher resolution devices. Most likely this is because I did not change this area of the code and there are more pixels of screen real estate for the cards to move across on higher resolution devices. I can look into this.

RE: Prefer older graphics.

To help me understand the new graphics issue, would you be able to describe, or outline on a screen shot, how a new card appears to be less symetrical or centered than an older card? (more left or right, more up or down, is the card suit the problem or the card number, etc.)
Do you see the issue on normal card graphics, or only on large card graphics?

In V2 the graphics are automatically selected by the Android OS based on the device resolution. As a work-around If you wish to see the original graphics on all screen resolutions, you might consider installing v1.15.2 which includes all the bug fixes, but none of the enhanced graphics.

SolitaireCG-1.15.2.apk (plus other versions) is available at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/solitairecg/files/solitairecg/

Thanks again for your suggestions.
Curtis

[Fred]

I can confirm both issues.

• On a 1440 x 2560 screen, a deal in Spider takes about 21 seconds (!) This renders the game unusable. Additionally, there seems to be a missing animation frame at the end, as the card 'jumps' to its final position. Your guess seems reasonable, i.e. animation is defined in terms of pixels of movement/second.

• Screenshots of card art on the same screen attached. Though the graphics look much crisper and are arguably closer to the proportions of real cards, on a phone-sized screen, the ability to pattern-recognise is greatly diminished as the symbols are now tiny. Additionally, the space between the cards is reduced, leading to a 'sea of white', especially on Spider. It would be great to have higher-res graphics with the same proportions as the 1.x series as an option, for ease of use on a phone, and to re-introduce the spacing between the card stacks.

Thanks for the work on maintaining this, greatly appreciated!

[Fred]

2nd screenshot

[Fred]

3rd screenshot

[Fred]

4th screenshot

[Curtis Gedak]

Thank you Fred for the providing screen shots and more details about the Spider dealing and graphics issues. 21 seconds is definitely too long to wait for a deal.

In order for me to get a better handle on these issues, would be be able to provide the following?

Make/Model of your Android Device
Screen size (e.g., width and height in inches or centimeters)
Screen density (dpi)

Thanks,
Curtis

[Fred]

It's a 5.7" diagonal screen (520 ppi).

[Curtis Gedak]

Thank you Fred for the additional details. I have some ideas on how to approach some of these issues. If you are able to test then I will post links for patches and debug APKs when I have code ready to test.

[Fred]

Can I suggest using an Android emulator, and then you can test on any number of device configurations (and test relative speeds of animations even if the emulation itself is slow).

[Curtis Gedak]

Hi Fred,

Your suggestion of using an Android emulator is a good one, and
I often use the Android emulator while developing and testing.

I ask for your help with testing for the following reasons:

1) Another persons help is greatly appreciated and can catch issues
that I as a developer can miss.

2) The Android emulator becomes painfully slow with newer Android API
versions and higher resolutions.

For example when emulating 1440x2560 on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
on my Intel i7-2600k computer with 8 GB RAM and 1680x1050 monitor,
the emulator takes several minutes just to start.

3) There is nothing better than running on physical hardware to see
actual screen resolutions and real-time performance.

Following are temporary links to the work-in-progress patch set v1 and
debug APK.

http://solitairecg.sourceforge.net/curtis/solitairecg-ticket3-v1.patch

http://solitairecg.sourceforge.net/curtis/SolitaireCG-debug-Ticket3-v1.apk

Patch set v1 includes the following enhancements:

• Base card animation speed on screen width
• Simulate Android scaling of original game card dimensions

Currently SolitaireCG includes graphics for screen densities up to
xxhdpi (~480 dpi). Graphics for resolutions beyond this have not yet
been created.

Please test and let me know your thoughts on patch set v1.

Regards,
Curtis

[Curtis Gedak]

Hi Fred and JonnyTech,

Would you be able to test the enhancements for this problem report?

Following are temporary links to patch set v2 and debug APK.

http://solitairecg.sourceforge.net/curtis/solitairecg-ticket3-v2.patch

http://solitairecg.sourceforge.net/curtis/SolitaireCG-debug-Ticket3-v2.apk

Patch set v2 includes the following enhancements:

• Base card animation speed on screen width
• Simulate Android scaling of original game card dimensions
• Add xxxhdpi high resolution graphic images for cards
• Add large screen xxhdpi graphics -> xxxhdpi graphics
• Add xlarge screen xhdpi graphics -> xxxhdpi graphics

Please test and let me know your thoughts on patch set v2.

Regards,
Curtis

[Fred]

Hi, I don't generally install APKs from third parties (actually I use F-Droid), and I don't have time to review the patch and build from source unfortunately.

Can I suggest publishing it as a beta release? F-Droid does build/publish betas (I can poke them if necessary) and then you get the benefit of a wider testing audience too :)

[Curtis Gedak]

Thank you Fred for your feedback on these issues to date. I can appreciate that you only wish to install APKs from F-Droid.

It takes time and effort to create each release, and with my limited time I do not plan to involve various APK distribution centers (F-Droid, Google, Amazon, etc.) in beta releases.

When I get some free time I'll see about publishing these enhancements as a production release.

[Curtis Gedak]

To resolve the issues in this report, the following code changes have been committed to the git repository:

[3905a6] Make card animation speed the same for all screen resolutions
[6fe34b] Simulate Android scaling of original game card dimensions
[d88418] Add xxxhdpi high resolution graphic images for cards
[e9c18c] Add large screen xxhdpi graphics -> xxxhdpi graphics
[8a8a00] Add xlarge screen xhdpi graphics -> xxxhdpi graphics

[Curtis Gedak]

This enhancement was included in the SolitaireCG 2.1 release on November 18, 2015.

[JonnyTech]

Hello Curtis, thank you for your reply and aplogies for not following up on my initial report sooner, a combination of being extremely busy and my phone dying. I shall get a chance to look at the app later this week but I just wanted to say thank you very much to both you and Fred for your efforts and solution. I shall post feedback soon.