Andor's Trail

ornsio wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:31 am

Nut wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2025 2:17 pm Contributing is playing on another level ...

Lol, yeah, so...... I don't think I'm ready to play on that level

If it were just a matter of adding a new drawable resource, it looks like it might not be too bad, but it seems using image files provided at runtime is a whole different animal, and the existing code is clearly not designed with that in mind. I think this one is a bit beyond a Java / Android beginner!

Not only provided at runtime but also integrated in the savegame, so that you still have it for different characters.
Well, life is no unicorn farm ...

Nut wrote: Sat Jan 25, 2025 9:06 pm Not only provided at runtime but also integrated in the savegame, so that you still have it for different characters.
Well, life is no unicorn farm ...

Ok, I know I said this was beyond me, but I've caught the bug and my brain won't let it go.... I know you probably don't have a lot of time for thinking about this sort of thing, but does this sound like a viable high-level shell of a plan for a solution?

1. Expansion of the New Game UI for optionally uploading a custom character image to the app-specific internal storage space.
2. Expansion of the code that currently only "looks at" the character image files from drawable resources to support an alternative option of using the uploaded file kept in the app's internal storage. (This would need to include validation that the file exists and is useable, and fallback code to use one of the "baked-in" images if it's not.)
3. An abstraction layer over this code to allow most of the code base (including the savegame writing/reading code) to "not care" whether the underlying Bitmap object originates from drawables or from internal storage.

I know this "plan" glosses over a lot of tricky implementation details, but am I at least in the ballpark here?


Ideally you'd be able to support multiple custom images for multiple savegames, but I think supporting just one useable custom image would be a good first step.

Well, there are also the issues of image size and aspect ratio.

Right - I figured those would be validated by the image upload UI and underlying code before it accepts the user-provided image and stores it in the app's storage.

Do you also plan to enable the current players to be able to switch to a custom sprite/avatar/character image?

I mean, to be realistic, there's very little chance I will actually work on any of this , but if I did I would not try to allow existing savegames to have the character graphic swapped out.

That's not a current feature even with the built-in character image options, and I think it would be too ambitious to try to include that along with the other things mentioned all in one update.