#284 [android] Huge apk size, 250 MB

[mark]

The latest Android changelog for 0.9.31 says "Stamps integrated into the app, raising the app size up to ~250MB."

What about an option to make a separate apk, as 0.9.30 from F-droid is just 32 MB and usable without downloading stamps?

As a user with a limited knowledge of programming, I can tweak the build for myself, but I'm thinking about a redistributor such as F-droid, if such an option is feasible at all and makes sense for the general public.

[mark]

Related? #272 "Stamps not working on Android" https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxpaint/bugs/272/

[mark]

Note for myself: the relevant commit seems to be https://github.com/tux4kids/Tuxpaint-Android/commit/256bad4d5dac673030427c193959331fb4933a10

[William Kendrick]

Hi @mark789 thanks for the note. At the same time, we received a message from Terrence who has been maintaining the Google Play entry for Tux Paint and reported:

It appears the play store will not accept a compressed aab file with >200mb delivery, and that appears to be largely driven by the stamps directory (which is itself >200mb)

One of the reasons Tux Paint and the Stamps collection were packaged separately upstream (my tarball source releases), and why I've always encouraged separate bundles (Tux Paint, and the add-ons: Tux Paint Config., and Tux Paint Stamps) was because not everyone wants or needs the stamps. For some, bandwidth is limited or expensive, or storage space is limited (less an issue these days, 20+ years later). And of course many probably just want to "test drive" Tux Paint first, before bothering to download the other parts.

While having two F-Droid packages that both contain Tux Paint (one with stamps, one without) is less ideal, it would still offer some of the benefits (less space used on unwanted content).

In the private thread between @perepujal, Terrence, and myself, Pere suggested a few other ideas:
* remove the descriptive (spoken) sound samples
* re-encode the descriptive sound samples at a lower quality
... as well as some possibilities that might make it possible to download the Stamps and localized descriptive sounds (and only the one(s) you need) separately (e.g., with ContentProvider). That kind of solution would require a lot more development, compared to simply removing or reducing the size of files, and repackaging them, so I'm guessing we'll look into one of the former solutions first.

[William Kendrick]

All, I have just reencoded a tremendous number of OGG files to reduce their bitrates to no more than 32Kbps. This saved an additional 40+MB, on top of the 99MB I saved by converting all stereo descriptive sound files to mono.

@perepujal Could you build Tux Paint + Stamps for Android based on what's in master in tuxpaint + tuxpaint-stamps git repos, and tell us how large it is?

For comparison
* 0.9.30 (5/2023)
* "Direct download" APK on SourceForge - 33.6MB
* F-Droid APK download - 32MB
* 0.9.31 (12/2023)
* "Direct download" APK on SourceForge - 255.1MB
* F-Droid APK download - 243MB

[Pere Pujal i Carabantes]

Just compiled 0.9.31 + tuxpaint-stamps 2024.01.13
The size of the apk reduces to 142MB.
https://provant.freeddns.org/pere/public_html/Tux%20Paint/0.9.31/0.9.31-1/

Note, this is 0.9.31 release of Tux Paint, not current git. Stamps is current git.
Will see if I can build current Tux Paint's git tomorrow.

[Pere Pujal i Carabantes]

A debug build of current git
https://provant.freeddns.org/pere/public_html/Tux%20Paint/devel/20240114/

[William Kendrick]

@perepujal I installed it on my Google Pixel 7 phone and it seems fine to me! 154MB download, and under Info -> Storage & cache, it says 174MB of internal storage used.

Side-note, since this is from Git, I see it has some of the new tools I'm working on, and they look a little sluggish, so this also helps me put some thought into speeding them up. :) Thanks!!!

Moving forward, are we satisfied with a single version of Tux Paint for F-Droid (and direct APK download), or do we still want to consider offering "with Stamps" (~155MB) and "without Stamps" (~30MB) variations moving forward?

[Pere Pujal i Carabantes]

I'd prefer one single version, if possible without stamps, as in the other OSs, but until we get another reliable way to provide the stamps I am fine with all the stamps and the program packaged in one file.

[William Kendrick]

I understand that producing two versions would be 2x as much work for you, so I totally understand. :)

And yes, ideally, the stamps would be a separate add-on, but in the meantime (due to popular demand -- I get asked "why doesn't the Android version have any stamps!?!" frequently) I'd rather the single version include the stamps. It looks like my audio file compression endeavor was able to reduce the APK size by about 100MB, so I feel like that satisfies this ticket*, and will close it.

* The Tux Paint Android project at GitHub doesn't have an "Issues" (tickets) section, so I'll just open a ticket here on the SourceForge project to track the idea of making the stamps available as a separate download for Android.

[William Kendrick]

Opened https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxpaint/feature-requests/254/