#cuberite

what do you guys think, should the android app have an option to use a different server as download host ie should you be able to change the server which is queried for update check, downloading and so on?

And another question: how useful is the webadmin as sole method for configuring? Is it enough to provide a method to set the webadmin user and password or do I need to provide special access to the config files (in theory all files are also accessible by the user manually, but it's isn't easy)

@sphinxc0re @puretryout....

for the first: yeah I think so. more choice is always good. if people want to provide their own binaries they then can.

for the second: if you have an Android app anyway, it would be nice to edit config stuff from the app itself. not directly editing the file using a text editor itself but using the app to do it

Ok

For the first: there is always the option to import a local zip file.....

hmm, for the first one I would go with a self contained app, if one just want it to work they won't care how the stuff is packaged, but could have problems updating (because the app don't have the Server, right?). If one is into doing their own homebrew, compiling a .apk shouldn't be an issue.

Or the app could (ask to) download the runtime on the first launch and store as appdata (/sdcard?), and then the user could add their own Server folder

for the second one, I would say to add the webadmin on the app as a webview... but we don't have a responsive UI just yet

actually, since an android app can't be headless, making it's interface a single webview should be actually interesting

Well not a webview

I think the webadmin should be better used by the computer the guy is using to play :P

I meant to make the webadmin responsive so there's something to show on the app besides the log

also to not duplicate efforts creating a settings interface using android apis while those already exist on the webadmin

Well the main difference is that the app would need to modify the config files and then reload them.....

I will just do the webadmin config

au contraire, the app would do nothing, you would use the android webview to display the webadmin, nothing more

but, like I said earlier, that would require the webadmin actually being responsive

Don't mean that

And I won't use a web view because 1. The webadmin, even if it would be responsive would be shitty looking and not very good performance, 2. You can just open the same URL on your computer you intent to play minecraft

what is the app supposed to show then?

I disagree with 1. though.

Native options either reading and writing the config files or using an app plugin

may be ot but... what about setting a standard interface convention to be followed across ports?

if one wanted to port cuberite to, let's say, winRT or iOS they would stumble across these problems too

Noone uses winRT (don't even know what it is lol) and noone has enough money for iOS

Imo not a problem

> Noone uses winRT (don't even know what it is lol) and noone has enough money for iOS

winRT is going to replace win32, I think that may be of interest if cuberite continues to run on windows

these were just examples, but I belive it makes a lot more sense to simply use something like HTML or QT on a project like cuberite than it is to go out and write android only code, and then write windows only code, and so on

actually, newbie users would welcome an GUI on the desktop I guess. think about mac users being presented with a folder with a lot of things versus a friendly drag and drop .app

unless there's another cross platform UI toolkit, I think there's not much getting away from QT or HTML

(for the reasons mentioned above)

as a bonus, the app GUI would not only run on android but also on sailfish, ubuntu phone, tizen, linux desktop, macOS, windows...

You know I "researched" about that a bit already. I intentionally took the android part knowing that it needs to be done with Android specific code. I tried to keep it at a minimum (compile the binary and just run the binary) but the UI is a lot different...

Desktop and mobile should always be handled separately, for desktop I would go for html (probably electron?) for mobile there is no such easy solution that works cross platform, and the few frameworks that compile down to native code are in early development, apart from that the options for the UI are so differently

Maybe I'll do the desktop gui when I'm finished with Android

why not QT on both?

> Desktop and mobile should always be handled separately

why? making a single code responsive is the way to go imo. just make sure you don't make screw things up like microsoft did with windows 8 oversized desktop elements. Actually, Windows 10 is (finally) handling responsive ui properly, tablets are getting a proper tablet UI with oversized buttons and the such, on desktop those items shrink to make using a mouse not a pain and when you use the same app on a phone items get

hidden on the hamburger menu

Yes, but Microsoft controls all three design aspects. That's not the case for other OS.

Go ahead and write a qt app that succeeds to run on all platforms with no code for a specific environment that looks nice everywhere and has a good performance everywhere. We don't want to waste performance we could use for cuberite

we are talking about a log display and maybe a settings list, not a last gen 3d game ;)

No, but the whole thing is a lot more than just a log display

(looking like that you could use my own argument against me: if it's so easy why not do it native on every platform)

Just a log display would be like 50 lines of code at max

I'm not saying it's easy for every platform. But i say it's worth the effort for a native android and a cross platform desktop app

And besides I personally can only code those languages I know :P

heh

you have a good point

I think I will code the interface of my learning project keylogger-statistic-charts using qt and see if it becomes that portable

speaking of cross platform ui still: apple (secretely) ported iOS UIkit to OS X when they made the photos app. that means they (should be) sharing a lot of code, while they do look similar they still work the way they should on the device they're running at.

Well I would do a native android app like I have it at the moment because there is a big difference in running cuberite appropriately on Android in comparison to a desktop.

That's why I would do the android app seperated. For a cross platform desktop app I would probably go for electron and html

also, making anything work on windows phone using winRT grants you worldwide news coverage from windows sites lol

seriously, a friend of mine forked an abandoned reddit client for winrt and started fixing some bugs and got attention from the whole windows mobile community, all the six guys :P

I see the point

qt looks like it would work fine on both scenarios but GNU/Hurd also looks like it would work :P

can you send me some screenshots or mockups of what you want to do with the android ui?

I'm going to do the android native anyway.... At least for scientific purposes and learning

oh I see

And I don't have a mockup yez

Yan Minari: cause you asked for some screenshot: settings activity goes by this at the moment (its as wide as the device is, and a scrollbar appears to make it scroll up/down

https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/ma... - Bildschirmfoto von »2016-12-27 21-40-36«.png (65KB)

so this is the first run/welcome screen, right? I liked it

no :P

its the settings screen

the activity that is launched by the launcher presents you one big button (install if its not installed / start if its not running / stop if its running), a button for the settings, a button to show the log (and input) and soon(TM) an info showing the ip of the phone if its running

well webadmin is going to be just one button

https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/ma... - file1482872703345.png (81KB)

this is for example the launch screen ( on a "tablet" here).... note that the topmost text view will be removed later

https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/ma... - file1482872888281.png (119KB)

And that's the current setting screen on this device.

got it

its actually a device with a fullhd 5.5" display, but i enabled global scaling so every app thinks its a tablet

thats a bit why the main screen looks so lonely

want a screenshot of the log too?

yup

https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/ma... - file1482873043148.png (330KB)

you might notice the notifiation at the very top left

https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/ma... - file1482873066580.png (287KB)

https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/download/ma... - file1482873109021.jpg (24KB)

That's its extended (I will remove the 22:09 too)

good detail

besides, that notification is not just nice to have, but required iin order to run the service in the foreground, which is required so android knows "the user is aware that it is running" and will not kill it

for that reason, you cant dismiss that notification

(will not kill it if the system goes to sleep or runs out of resources)

And for stopping cuberite: the main button has two stages, one being entering "stop" into the stdin of cuberite, if that is clicked the button will switch color to an even more red and offer you to kill it, that being kill -9 for the process

A third stage (killing the service that runs the process) would be possible but would also cause vast side effects that could drain your battery forever or make the app crash forever (last until you reboot the device). Because after process exits, there is cleanup done like removing the notification, removing the wake lock, closing the communication sockets and so on.... There should not be a problem with that, and

if there would be one, then the whole app should crash

If the app crashes => crash report and all components are stopped

Reminds me of.... I should probably push to github.... But i will probably wait until I have a version that can be distributed as beta

Meaning that has all the features that are crucially for beta

that actually makes me want to fix my mom's long dead moto e so I can play with that too :P

or (try and fail to) do a winRT port and use her lumia

From when is that moto e?

1st gen

broken lcd :(

I would be interested in the performance

Well, I've got relatively good specs, so it's not a wonder that it runs so well

Why do you wonder?

just so I know if there's a machine known to man that is capable to run chrome