May we please have landscape mode for mobile/tablets?

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JSP869
JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
in MPQ Suggestions and Feedback
There are many players who would like to play in landscape mode on their phone or tablet. I'm one of them. It really would not be that difficult to do. The Steam app is already in landscape so your developers already know how to set up the mobile UI for landscape, and according to this forum comment, the mobile app apparently originally had a landscape mode but it was removed/replaced with the profile version we now have.

I know the storyboards are all sized to fit mobile in profile view, but because of the Steam version you also already have all of them sized to fit landscape view, so I don't imagine it would be very complicated or take much work to make the changes to allow the mobile app to run in landscape mode.

By all means have it set to run in profile mode by default for those who prefer to play in profile, but for the many of us who really would rather play in landscape mode (and there are many of us, most just play in silent resignation), you could just add an option in Settings, a checkbox perhaps, that tells the mobile app to start & run in landscape mode.

Please?
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  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
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    JSP869 said:
    There are many players who would like to play in landscape mode on their phone or tablet. I'm one of them. It really would not be that difficult to do. The Steam app is already in landscape so your developers already know how to set up the mobile UI for landscape, and according to this forum comment, the mobile app apparently originally had a landscape mode but it was removed/replaced with the profile version we now have.

    I know the storyboards are all sized to fit mobile in profile view, but because of the Steam version you also already have all of them sized to fit landscape view, so I don't imagine it would be very complicated or take much work to make the changes to allow the mobile app to run in landscape mode.

    By all means have it set to run in profile mode by default for those who prefer to play in profile, but for the many of us who really would rather play in landscape mode (and there are many of us, most just play in silent resignation), you could just add an option in Settings, a checkbox perhaps, that tells the mobile app to start & run in landscape mode.

    Please?
    Well I agree wholeheartedly with your request for a landscape mode, your premises are wrong and unhelpful.

    Just because it exists in the Steam (i.e. Windows) version does NOT have any relevance to the mobile version.  They are programmed in entirely different languages (most likely by entirely different developers).  The engine that runs the UI (i.e. "where did you touch/click/drag/pinch/etc...") is likely entirely different as well.

    At best, the assets (images, sprites, backgrounds, etc...) may be transferable from thick-client to mobile, but that's about it.  Everything else would have to be done anew and is not a trivial process. And while the mobile version may have had a landscape mode ages ago (I've been playing for nearly 1400 days and I don't remember it), the amount of change the UI has undergone since the early days means that any old code is likely so outdated that it is useless and would take longer to bring up to speed than it would be to just start it from scratch.

    I too would like a landscape mode, as I primarily play on my 10" tablet, but trivializing the amount of work it would take doesn't endear the people who would be doing the work towards taking up your request as a project. 

    * I do software design for a living (not for D3 or Demiurge).  We have a web client that has been around for over a decade and a mobile client that was released with limited features 2 years ago.  We get requests like this all the time ("The web site can do this function, it should be trivial to add it to the mobile app!").  The reality is that the website is programmed in a mixture of CSS/HTML/PHP/Python/JavaScript/Node/PostgresSQL and the mobile app is in Java (Android) or XCode (iOS) with SQLlite DB engines.  They have basically no crossover between them because the mobile platforms (especially iOS) have very strict design rules and require the use of proprietary languages.  Everytime we want to add an existing feature from the Web to the Mobile, it's an undertaking to "re-invent the wheel" so that it functions exactly the same.
  • JSP869
    JSP869 Posts: 820 Critical Contributor
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    abmoraz said:
    JSP869 said:
    There are many players who would like to play in landscape mode on their phone or tablet. I'm one of them. It really would not be that difficult to do. The Steam app is already in landscape so your developers already know how to set up the mobile UI for landscape, and according to this forum comment, the mobile app apparently originally had a landscape mode but it was removed/replaced with the profile version we now have.

    I know the storyboards are all sized to fit mobile in profile view, but because of the Steam version you also already have all of them sized to fit landscape view, so I don't imagine it would be very complicated or take much work to make the changes to allow the mobile app to run in landscape mode.

    By all means have it set to run in profile mode by default for those who prefer to play in profile, but for the many of us who really would rather play in landscape mode (and there are many of us, most just play in silent resignation), you could just add an option in Settings, a checkbox perhaps, that tells the mobile app to start & run in landscape mode.

    Please?
    Well I agree wholeheartedly with your request for a landscape mode, your premises are wrong and unhelpful.

    Just because it exists in the Steam (i.e. Windows) version does NOT have any relevance to the mobile version.  They are programmed in entirely different languages (most likely by entirely different developers).  The engine that runs the UI (i.e. "where did you touch/click/drag/pinch/etc...") is likely entirely different as well.

    At best, the assets (images, sprites, backgrounds, etc...) may be transferable from thick-client to mobile, but that's about it.  Everything else would have to be done anew and is not a trivial process. And while the mobile version may have had a landscape mode ages ago (I've been playing for nearly 1400 days and I don't remember it), the amount of change the UI has undergone since the early days means that any old code is likely so outdated that it is useless and would take longer to bring up to speed than it would be to just start it from scratch.

    I too would like a landscape mode, as I primarily play on my 10" tablet, but trivializing the amount of work it would take doesn't endear the people who would be doing the work towards taking up your request as a project. 

    * I do software design for a living (not for D3 or Demiurge).  We have a web client that has been around for over a decade and a mobile client that was released with limited features 2 years ago.  We get requests like this all the time ("The web site can do this function, it should be trivial to add it to the mobile app!").  The reality is that the website is programmed in a mixture of CSS/HTML/PHP/Python/JavaScript/Node/PostgresSQL and the mobile app is in Java (Android) or XCode (iOS) with SQLlite DB engines.  They have basically no crossover between them because the mobile platforms (especially iOS) have very strict design rules and require the use of proprietary languages.  Everytime we want to add an existing feature from the Web to the Mobile, it's an undertaking to "re-invent the wheel" so that it functions exactly the same.
    You are correct. I thought I was making a respectful and polite request, it didn't occur to me that I was actually belittling the developers, and their years/decades of knowledge & experience.
  • broll
    broll Posts: 4,732 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I don't think landscape mode would work very well on a phone.  The tiles would be way too small.  I'm on an iPhone 6 Plus phablet and I still miss click sometimes. due to size, tinykitty hot dog fingers....  I think they should do it for tablet but it seems an unreasonable request for phone IMO.

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