Bottom bar on android devices

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dkffiv
dkffiv Posts: 1,039 Chairperson of the Boards
in MPQ Bugs and Technical Issues
Glad that immersive mode was finally removed in the newest patch but on a Galaxy S8 the bottom bar is now white/grey instead of what it was before (transparent I believe?  Maybe black).  

Very happy the buttons are back but the color is a little hard on the eyes.

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  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited August 2019
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    Yeah, I'm on an S9, and would rather not see buttons at all.  This looks like hot garbage.  These grey buttons weren't there before.  Previously, no buttons, and only if you swiped up from the bottom would buttons appear.  They were over a transparent background, much better looking.  Can immersive mode be made optional so those that want it can see the buttons, and those that don't won't?
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
    edited August 2019
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    I'm on 185 and I'm still stuck in immersive mode.  Help!  Please give me my buttons back!
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    And please take mine away.  I want the old behavior that they only show up when I swipe up from the bottom (and only then), not this always on system.
  • jamesh
    jamesh Posts: 1,600 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Presumably your phone is one with physical buttons at the bottom?  It sounds like they've gone through three phases here:
    1. Leave display of the soft buttons in its default setting.
    2. Hide the soft buttons via immersive mode.
    3. Show the soft buttons unconditionally.
    (2) annoyed people whose phones/tablets rely on soft buttons, but would have been neutral to those with physical buttons. (3) annoys those with physical buttons since they've now got two sets of buttons shown.  What we really want is a return to (1).
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    No, my phone has no physical navigation buttons.  Samsung Galaxy S9.  I'm fine not seeing buttons ever.  I think any game should have a good enough UI to navigate without reliance on anything external to the game itself, and feel MPQ does well enough at this.  

    If you need navigation that is separate from the game, then they shouldn't be a large  distraction from the game's aesthetics.  As the game worked on v184 and literally years before that, that was the case.  The navigation bar would be hidden by default, and only appear when you swipe up.  In fact, I can't think of any other game I have that doesn't behave this way.  MPQ is now the lone exception.


    Apologies for screenshots from other games, but they help exemplify what I'm talking about.

    No bar by default:


    Swipe up from the bottom, and you see a bar (as a transparent overlay):



    For MPQ, now the bar is always on, and now does not have transparency:


  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
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    firethorne said:
    <snip>
    As the game worked on v184 and literally years before that, that was the case.
    <snip>
    No... not at all, at least not for all of us.  I had the bar be there 100% of the time on all 5 devices I played on (2 tablets and 3 phones**) ranging across various android OSs.

    I rely on the bottom buttons as I usually play one handed while walking (playing on the phone) or while in bed (I have swing-arm mount attached to my night stand for my tablet so I am laying on my side and only have 1 hand).

    I'm not sure what the big deal is with allowing it to be an option.

    **Not all at the same time.  I've upgraded devices over the years I've played.
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    abmoraz said:
    firethorne said:
    <snip>
    As the game worked on v184 and literally years before that, that was the case.
    <snip>
    <snip>
    I'm not sure what the big deal is with allowing it to be an option.
    <snip>
    An option would be fine with me.  The problem is that I'm now forced to play with a bar, which has never been the case before.  It is very distracting.
  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,938 Chairperson of the Boards
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    firethorne said:
    abmoraz said:
    firethorne said:
    <snip>
    As the game worked on v184 and literally years before that, that was the case.
    <snip>
    <snip>
    I'm not sure what the big deal is with allowing it to be an option.
    <snip>
    An option would be fine with me.  The problem is that I'm now forced to play with a bar, which has never been the case before.  It is very distracting.

    It's very strange that your S9 ran in immersive mode on 184 and prior. I have an S9+ (and before that I had a HTC One M8) and I've always had a bottom bar on MPQ both phones. I don't think it was grey in the older versions though.

    I suspect you must have turned on immersive mode for MPQ on 184 and prior somewhere in the settings. There are settings in Android for running individual apps in immersive mode (right now mine says it's already optimized for that so it won't let me manually set it for MPQ, so maybe that's what's no longer available to you now that they added the bar back).

    KGB
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Found an old screenshot from 2018.  The bar did not exist.  I assure you, I never did anything in Android settings to make it look like this.


  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,938 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2019
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    Interesting. That would mean that the S9 and S9+ have different default settings.

    I also recall that in addition to the bottom bar I also had a top bar showing the time, battery, signal strength etc. I just tried changing screen resolutions from my default FHD+ (middle setting) of 2220x1080 to WQHD+ of 2960x1140 and it doesn't make any difference in terms of whether I can turn on immersive mode (I can't) or if I get a top bar in addition to the bottom one (I don't).

    I suspect they must have set the flag that says the game is optimized for full screen mode and didn't unset it when they reverted back to showing the bottom bar so that we could manually control immersive mode like we used to be able to do.

    Late note. I just did this and set it to auto hide the nav bar in apps and it makes it disappear for me (of course I put it back since I love that bar). Looks like you can also change the color (from grey to essentially invisible) too if you'd prefer to do that (top photo in the link).

    KGB


  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    KGB said:
    Interesting. That would mean that the S9 and S9+ have different default settings.

    I also recall that in addition to the bottom bar I also had a top bar showing the time, battery, signal strength etc. I just tried changing screen resolutions from my default FHD+ (middle setting) of 2220x1080 to WQHD+ of 2960x1140 and it doesn't make any difference in terms of whether I can turn on immersive mode (I can't) or if I get a top bar in addition to the bottom one (I don't).

    I suspect they must have set the flag that says the game is optimized for full screen mode and didn't unset it when they reverted back to showing the bottom bar so that we could manually control immersive mode like we used to be able to do.

    Late note. I just did this and set it to auto hide the nav bar in apps and it makes it disappear for me (of course I put it back since I love that bar). Looks like you can also change the color (from grey to essentially invisible) too if you'd prefer to do that (top photo in the link).

    KGB


    Unfortunately, that appears to be an OS level setting.  I don't want to disable navigation for my phone, just fullscreen games.  I'm not really feeling like should have to go into my OS settings every time I want to play a game, or specifically this game, since this is the only one doing this.  That would undoubtedly be the straw that breaks the camel's back (uninstall time).

    I'm also a bit confused as to why this was deemed necessary.  I mean, iOS has neither hardware or software navigation buttons, and works great.  Just a button to close the game.  @Brigby can you explain why the team decided to make different designs decisions on Android than they did in iOS, and can options be added to make Android behave as it does on iOS and had behaved for versions 1-183?



  • KGB
    KGB Posts: 2,938 Chairperson of the Boards
    edited September 2019
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    It is an OS setting. But it doesn't disable the navigation bar, it just *always* hides it. You can still swipe up and make the bar appear and then use it which is what you were doing before.

    Personally, I don't want MPQ on Android to behave like MPQ on IOS. I want it to behave like it did pre-I183 when the nav bar was always shown (at least for me and most other Android users who filled this forum with complaints). Somehow you were able to override that even if you didn't know that you were doing it when you played in immersive mode (possibly some 3rd app you have like the Samsung game tools app). That ability too should be restored (I suspect they have to turn off the 'full screen compile flag' that prevents you from manually setting immersive mode in the settings) but I wouldn't hold my breath because it doesn't seem like many Android users care to run in immersive mode.

    I suspect some programmer when doing the graphic engine update just changed the settings without any clear reasons for doing so other than they probably thought it looked better.

    KGB
  • abmoraz
    abmoraz Posts: 712 Critical Contributor
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    firethorne said:
    KGB said:
    Interesting. That would mean that the S9 and S9+ have different default settings.

    I also recall that in addition to the bottom bar I also had a top bar showing the time, battery, signal strength etc. I just tried changing screen resolutions from my default FHD+ (middle setting) of 2220x1080 to WQHD+ of 2960x1140 and it doesn't make any difference in terms of whether I can turn on immersive mode (I can't) or if I get a top bar in addition to the bottom one (I don't).

    I suspect they must have set the flag that says the game is optimized for full screen mode and didn't unset it when they reverted back to showing the bottom bar so that we could manually control immersive mode like we used to be able to do.

    Late note. I just did this and set it to auto hide the nav bar in apps and it makes it disappear for me (of course I put it back since I love that bar). Looks like you can also change the color (from grey to essentially invisible) too if you'd prefer to do that (top photo in the link).

    KGB


    Unfortunately, that appears to be an OS level setting.  I don't want to disable navigation for my phone, just fullscreen games.  I'm not really feeling like should have to go into my OS settings every time I want to play a game, or specifically this game, since this is the only one doing this.  That would undoubtedly be the straw that breaks the camel's back (uninstall time).

    I'm also a bit confused as to why this was deemed necessary.  I mean, iOS has neither hardware or software navigation buttons, and works great.  Just a button to close the game.  @Brigby can you explain why the team decided to make different designs decisions on Android than they did in iOS, and can options be added to make Android behave as it does on iOS and had behaved for versions 1-183?
    If I wanted a **** iOS experience, I'd buy an iPhone.  I prefer the freedom of Android to have things like a "navigation bar" and "customizable launchers".  Don't force us Android users to have the same awful lockouts that iOS users have.

    You call it a "walled garden".  The rest of the world call it a "Monopolized piece of locked garbage".
  • firethorne
    firethorne Posts: 1,505 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Customization is awesome... when it is actually there.  If I were able to customize this back to the way it had behaved in version 1 thru version 183, I'd have no complaints. All I'm asking for is a way to customize that to actually work, without fundamentally changing the way my navigation bars behave in the rest of my OS.  Is that so unreasonable?

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