Android app around arma

[K-Yo]

Hello,
I am learning android programming because I want to, and I thought about learning while creating an useful app. At least useful for me =)

I have already started something, fetching data from wrtl's feed and allowing the user to query it. I plan to add features as I learn new stuff (alerts when a player/someone from one authority appears online, maybe some social-network system similar to the pickup games or linked with it)

I don't know if anyone would use this, that's not why I'm creating it. Though, if people find any interest in it, that's motivating!

I plan to keep the app open source on github (another thing I want to learn to use properly =)) and will upload it there as soon as I have a first interesting draft.

I have few questions:

- who owns armagtronad.net / do you mind if I use it to name my app's package?
- which armagetron designs/textures are free for me to use?

any Ideas/remarks welcome.

[Z-Man]

- who owns armagtronad.net / do you mind if I use it to name my app's package?

That's Tank's. And sure, why not? You can definitely use armagetronad.org, which is my 'fork' used for the main website, currently.

- which armagetron designs/textures are free for me to use?

From the game, all, as long as you give proper credit (and include the source, which is a bit moot for designs/textures). Goes with the GPL. From the various websites, dunno. They were created with those specific websites in mind and it would not be right to automatically extend the creators' licenses to related material. You'd need to ask specifically.

[K-Yo]

Did the first part.
got a (more or less, less than more) working version, for android 4.1.1
You can try it at: https://github.com/K-Yo/arma-groom
it is slow, ugly, buggy and works only with latest android API, but still, it can display a server list, woohoo!

[nux]

Did the first part.
got a (more or less, less than more) working version, for android 4.1.1
You can try it at: https://github.com/K-Yo/arma-groom
it is slow, ugly, buggy and works only with latest android API, but still, it can display a server list, woohoo!

Looks good, i wish i could test it out. I dont remember if i told this to you (im sure i told somebody) but AI-team is planning to do a version for Android, im sure you can do something together.

[K-Yo]

AI-team is planning to do a version for Android, im sure you can do something together.

You didn't tell me, but I've heard about it.

Voodoo ported arma to iPhone (iirc) but it was un-usable from what I can remember, requiring too much resources.

[AI-team]

Voodoo ported arma to iPhone (iirc) but it was un-usable from what I can remember, requiring too much resources.

IIRC he said he didn't optimize it. There are games for iOS that are far more fancy than tron and still run smooth

[kyle]

also the mobile technology has improved a lot since his porting.

[voodoo]

That was on iphone 3G so yeah, performances have improved a lot since then.
There were a few bugs to fix but most of all, there was a performance issue on both rendering and networking.
Rendering could have been improved, I did not optimize things at all, it was raw vertex arrays fully rebuild on each frames. I get like 15 FPS on local game.
But on network games, it dropped to 3/5 FPS and something like 500/800 ping where I had 40/60 FPS and 80 ping on the same network with my old crappy laptop... So network perf of the device was kind of an issue to allow internet gaming.
On current devices like > iphone 4 and > samsung galaxy 2, it should work pretty well. The issue on iphone remains the GPL compatibility: while some says it's fine and you can find GPL game on the App Store, other dev says it's not and ask for removal (cf the VLC port episode where 1 of VLC contributor, working for nokia, ask the port to be removed from the app store). Every devs should be ok and that means also those who are "retired" ... Might be hard to obtain everyone agreement.

There's no issue for android.

If there's a port for android, the rendering part must be rewritten to support gles (preferably gles 2), directly or using a 3D engine. As far as have read, ogre 3d have official support for iphone and android. But that's plenty of work...

[K-Yo]

code update, refreshing the data from internet now works fine.

If anyone around is interested in testing, I'd love to hear feedback!

I'm also very open to design & layout suggestions, I'm quite bad in that area, if anyone has a proposal or wants to make some designs (I'm thinking about a logo, didn't find anything suitable in the game files) please don't hesitate. Either here or there is fine.

[K-Yo]

App now compatible with android 3.0 and more (honeycomb).
I'm still working on compatibility with Gingerbread (2.0+). more than 50% of users have this version...

[delinquent]

K-Yo: What about setting up a program to convert the PC based server browser's results, convert them into plain text and use that instead? That way, all you need do is build an app that can read the text, colour codes and spacing parameters and display it onscreen?

*Speaking as a noob to android programming

[K-Yo]

which PC based server browser result?
right now, I'm using the same source as (almost) all the server browsers you might find on web pages. and I do the formatting.

So basically, the app does "read the text, colour codes and spacing parameters and display it onscreen".

I plan to add more features as the time goes, so that's why I am making a native app and not just a web viewer =)

what would require more coding (and I think it's overkill in that case) is to connect directly to master servers from the android device and fetch data from there.
but:
1. it's too much work for now (I'm not confident enough in android dev for that)
2. it doesn't seem useful

thanks for your feedback!

[K-Yo]

First version of the app (wich is basically just a server browser) available on google play.

Any feedback welcome as usual.

Next release's focus available on GitHub. Let me know if anything seem more important to you.

If anyone is willing to do some graphics (mostly logos for the moment), (s)he is more than welcome, just PM me or reply to this thread!

[AI-team]

It's probably too late now, but you should have had a look at kivy

[Nagi]

Good luck K-Yo! Can anyone do one for iOS?