Android 4.2, and large resolutions

[Tom4c]

Hello,

I've purchased the Android developer license, and a Nexus 10, in order to develop some Android apps for work. Unfortunately I have hit two problems:

• Livecode apps don't work on Android 4.2 (ruling out Google's popular Nexus 4, 7 & 10)
  I can't scale Livecode's display of a 2560x1600 stack/card (Nexus10 resolution), rendering the IDE difficult to use

I'm not looking forward to telling my boss. It would be handy to know:

• What is being done to solve these problems (ideally rough timescales)
  What are the current workarounds.

I like Livecode and I'm sure these problems will be solved at some point, but any help/information in the meantime will keep me out of trouble! I'm currently having to use a virtual Android device (AVD) and low resolutions.

Thankyou.

[shaosean]

Contact support.. Rev does not bother with us peons in the forums..

[FourthWorld]

Over the decades I've been making software, there have always been some customers with higher-res monitors than my own. This is not unique to mobile, nor LiveCode, just something software developers have to account for when designing their apps.

This is handled by resizing controls to match the size of the stack, using the resizeStack message.

For mobile, since resolutions vary so much, it's helpful to scale controls. The mobilePixelDensity function is provided to support this, so you can set up your scaling and work on your desktop, and it'll scale itself for testing on the target device.

If you were developing exclusively for this one device that may just seem like extra work, but limiting deployment to a single device in a world where new devices - with new resolutions - are being rolled out every month has its own risks.

[Tom4c]

My thanks to everyone for their replies.

Support confirmed that Livecode does work with Android 4.2. So I tried again. I'm pleased to say that last night everything worked perfectly on my Nexus 10 (Android 4.2.1) and with my virtual device (via AVD) running 4.2. I have absolutely no idea what the difference was between Monday and Tuesday, which is driving me nuts, but I won't tinker while it aint broke!

re. the scaling solution, I am an Ergonomist (partly a UX practitioner) and one thing that is important to me is ensuring that controls/text etc. are an appropriate physical size so that all users (including the elderly/disabled) can read & control the app. Therefore I need to follow standards and work in cm/mm. At the moment, this means performing ppi to mm and point (pt) conversions. I'm only just beginning to get my head around how to control this in Livecode, starting with mobilePixelDensity (which I hope returns a ppi value). Relational layouts make sizing physical dimensions further complicated (hence sticking to one device for the moment) but I'll get there.

Regards,

Tom4c.

[FourthWorld]

Glad to hear things are moving along well, Tom. Keep us posted with how things progress, and feel free to post any questions you come up against with layout, scaling, etc. That sort of thing is sometimes tedious and complex to set up, but doable and ultimately rewarding when it works.