newRPL for Android - early release for testers

[Claudio L.]

newRPL is now available on Android!

The latest release can be downloaded from here:

newRPL for Android APK package

Download this from a browser on your mobile device, then you might be prompted to allow installation of apps from unknown sources. You'll have to enable it temporarily to install newRPL, then you can disable it again.
Rest assured, newRPL contains no malware, no ads, no nagging messages. The only permissions it requires is to access files on your SD card, this is needed to let you save sessions and backup objects from the stack.

To open the main menu, touch near the top of the simulated screen. The functionality is exactly the same as newRPL Desktop, with some quirks:

* Copy/paste objects into the clipboard doesn't seem to retain the native newRPL format, all objects are pasted as text.
* USB functionality hasn't been tested even though it's enabled. I haven't researched how to do it yet, but it might require some special permissions (which can likely be granted only as root).
* Closing the app from the task switcher doesn't give newRPL a chance to save its state. Closing it by using the "Back" key or "Exit" from the menu does save the state properly.

As usual, test and report back.

[Eric Rechlin]

Very nice first attempt!

Unfortunately, on my Galaxy S7 Edge with Android 8.0, the rightmost column of buttons is cut off, so I can't press them:

[okkama]

Quote:Parse error
There was a problem parsing the package.

Android 4.1.2

[cdmackay]

(10-10-2018 03:46 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  Unfortunately, on my Galaxy S7 Edge with Android 8.0, the rightmost column of buttons is cut off, so I can't press them

same here: Note 9, Android 8.1.

I can see just enough of most of them to press, if I remember what they are. Except for F6

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(10-10-2018 04:46 PM)cdmackay Wrote:  

(10-10-2018 03:46 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  Unfortunately, on my Galaxy S7 Edge with Android 8.0, the rightmost column of buttons is cut off, so I can't press them

same here: Note 9, Android 8.1.

I can see just enough of most of them to press, if I remember what they are. Except for F6

Ditto.
Honor 8 Pro, Android 8.0.

[DA74254]

Same here. Only "half" the screen is visible. Cat S60 with Android 6.0.1

[SammysHP]

Some time ago I made a high resolution vector theme for go49g+. All labels can be changed and everything scaled as you want. Please tell me if you are interested in the theme and I can share the files (Photoshop IIRC).

[Luigi Vampa]

Thanks for this version of newRPL.
Tested on a 'Leagoo' (a well-unknown brand;) model M9 with Android 7.0
Only upper-left part of the keyboard is displayed.

[Claudio L.]

First, I apologize for not being specific: this APK requires Android 5.0 minimum. All people reporting errors are using android 4.x.

I'm overwhelmed by the completely different results that most of you are getting.
The code is basically a re-compiled version of newRPL Desktop, while I did some changes to better resize screen and keyboard, the code is identical for all devices.
The result is:
* On a PC it stretches fine
* On my Android 7.1 tablet, keyboard stretches fine, both in landscape and portrait position. However, the menu bar does not appear (hence I made the menu appear by touching the top of the simulated screen.
* On my Android 8.0 phone (which I hadn't tested before, I just did), I can confirm the keyboard thinks the screen is wider, and also when I rotate, the keyboard stretches properly in width but not in height.
* From what I read in posts above, on Android 6.0 it's even worse, with only half the screen visible.

This is going to be much harder than I thought (isn't the whole point of Android that applications run the same on all devices?).

[Claudio L.]

(10-10-2018 06:09 PM)SammysHP Wrote:  Some time ago I made a high resolution vector theme for go49g+. All labels can be changed and everything scaled as you want. Please tell me if you are interested in the theme and I can share the files (Photoshop IIRC).

Yes, I'm interested. However, I don't have photoshop, can you export it to perhaps SVG? That would make it a lot easier for me (and other users) to change the labels, and it should be much easier for me to display it. You can email it at claudio @ the domain where I usually put all the downloads for newRPL.

Thanks!

[Eric Rechlin]

The hardest thing about Android development when dealing with a bitmapped UI is making sure things scale properly with all the different aspect ratios, resolutions, and DPI settings that various devices can have. Even a single phone model can have a bunch of variations (for example, my S7 has three different screen resolutions you can run at, and within each resolution you can three different DPI/scaling factors too, and I am running at the highest resolution and the smallest scaling factor). That's why vector/scalable UIs are preferred instead, but that obviously would require a lot of extra development effort. The Droid48 emulator does a pretty good job of handling this, so maybe looking at its code could be useful.

With the emulator in Android Studio you can set different OS versions and different screen sizes and resolutions to see how it responds, which helps, but of course it's best to find people with different physical devices too.

[Guenter Schink]

(10-10-2018 03:46 PM)Eric Rechlin Wrote:  Unfortunately, on my Galaxy S7 Edge with Android 8.0, the rightmost column of buttons is cut off, so I can't press them

Same here Galaxy S4, Android 5.0.1 and Galaxy S8 Android 8.0.0

The S8 allows for various screen resolutions. 1480x720, 2220x1080, and 2960x1440. I tried all of them but every time the rightmost column is completely cut off. while the column of "F4" and below is cut off by 2/3.

It works some how on a Galaxy TAB S2 however.

Günter

[Ken S]

It is working fine on my Galaxy Tab S2 as well.

[cdmackay]

just to note: I see the problem with default resolution too, unfortunately.

but thanks very much for doing this, it looks otherwise excellent (aspect ratio issues aside), and I'll definitely use it.

In fact, other than F6, I can sort of use it now, as long as I have my 50g sitting there to remind me what the RHS keys are; of course, since the 50g has newRPL on it already, that's…

[Claudio L.]

I believe I resolved the issue.
After some reading about "device independent pixels", I was able to get things straight.
On one side the minimum sizes for the keyboard and screen images, which were OK for a PC (around 400 pixels), were not OK for Android because even though it has much higher resolutions, the whole system converts to virtual pixels, of which we have a lot less than on a PC screen.
Also, the emulated screen scaling factor has to be an integer number to avoid glitches (otherwise some simulated pixels would be bigger than others).
In the end, I had to undo all the treachery to calculate real sizes in pixels, compute an integer scale, then redo the conversion to get a virtual scale factor (not necessarily an integer) that would produce the desired effect of 1 simulated pixel = N physical pixels. What a mess.

I updated the APK. Notice that you will have to first manually uninstall newRPL, then install from the new APK, otherwise it will say "not installed" because the version in the APK is exactly the same as before. I'll figure those things out eventually and we'll get regular releases that you can run as an update.
For now, please test and report.

[burkhard]

Seems to install & work OK (very limited testing...) on a Nexus 7 (2013 gen) running Android 6.0.1.

The display proportions look proper, but the keyboard is a bit stretched in the x direction. Or squashed in the y. It's all there, though... nothing is getting cut off. Looks promising!

I'm not a grand fan of RPL, but the project intrigues me. I've got an extra HP50g I ws going to flash over at some point, but actually I like the idea of playing with the UI on the tablet first to decide if it's for me. Thanks!

[SammysHP]

(10-10-2018 08:35 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  Yes, I'm interested. However, I don't have photoshop, can you export it to perhaps SVG? That would make it a lot easier for me (and other users) to change the labels, and it should be much easier for me to display it. You can email it at claudio @ the domain where I usually put all the downloads for newRPL.

Thanks!

A conversion will probably fail because the buttons use filters for the borders and the labels might be misaligned. But I can look if it works with gimp and can help with modifications.

Maybe I made it with Inkscape, don't remember anymore. expect an answer today evening (CEST).

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(10-10-2018 11:05 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  I updated the APK. Notice that you will have to first manually uninstall newRPL, then install from the new APK, otherwise it will say "not installed" because the version in the APK is exactly the same as before. I'll figure those things out eventually and we'll get regular releases that you can run as an update.
For now, please test and report.

Now it looks OK. Thank you.
Going to play a little with it...

[Eric Rechlin]

This fixed it for me. Thank you!

Some tactile feedback when pressing buttons would be a nice future enhancement.

[SammysHP]

Wow, I made even two mistakes:

1. I didn't use Photoshop, I used Inkscape! That's good for you.
2. Not all labels are changeable. I only added the labels on the keys, not on the background which are from Olivier. As most of the labels were removed for newRPL, this shouldn't be a big problem.

Anyway, here is the SVG. It uses Arial for the labels, so make sure to have it (if you are on something different than Windows). Have fun!

https://cloud.finf.uni-hannover.de/s/a2BEzT30W1ymZMD