Hero System Mobile - Next

[sentry0]

I'm still determining where I'm going with this post, but I've been diving into the HSM code again, fixing some bugs, and it has me reflecting on the app itself.

 

The app is coming up on its 5th anniversary, which is cool.  Five years is a long time in development years, though, and a lot has changed in the React Native (React Native is a mobile app development framework, which HSM is built on) world in that time.  Things continue to change in that world rapidly.  When I built the app, I followed the suggested best practices at the time, which were then replaced by different best practices. 

 

Time has gone by, and I have built a few apps in that time using React Native.  I follow the current suggested practices and work with up-to-date libraries whenever possible on my new apps.  HSM is a bit long in the tooth and looks cluttered and janky to my eye now.  It was the first app I ever developed, and it is showing its age.

 

I want to table the idea of a ground-up rewrite of the app's user interface.   

 

Nothing changes in terms of how the app generally functions.  You will still be able to load your Hero Designer characters up and use the app as you would today.  I want to upgrade the app's main component library, for example.  Upgrading this library is a breaking change in the HSM codebase (HSM uses v2 of the lib, and v3 is current) and would require a significant re-work.  Upgrading the main component library will also change how the app looks and feels.  Everything from input fields, sliders, dropdowns, and tabs would be affected.  

 

I also think there’s too much clutter in general in the UI.  I want to re-think how some of the UI is presented to the user now.  There’s too much information in the app, and maybe streamlining is in order.

 

Anyways, let me know if you have any thoughts on the subject!  

 

The app is open source, and anyone who wants to help is welcome.

 

[psiberdoc]

Overall, a great tool, and one of the only of its type. If you are willing to put the effort into re-coding the whole thing, I'd support

[Doc Democracy]

Yeah, I have nothing to contribute in terms of development but I have found the app a great tool.

[Doc Democracy]

If you want a "I would love" feature, then it would be allowing the GM to set up a group for players round the table to join.  Rolls could then be shared within the group - it would make the app more useful at the table.

 

Players should be able to join the group with an alias (the name of their character most obviously)

[sentry0]

7 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

If you want a "I would love" feature, then it would be allowing the GM to set up a group for players round the table to join.  Rolls could then be shared within the group - it would make the app more useful at the table.

 

Players should be able to join the group with an alias (the name of their character most obviously)

 

It is funny you mention this feature because I was working on just such a feature right when COVID hit.  It is sitting on a feature branch in the codebase.

 

The idea was the GM would start a local server on their app.  All players would join the game via a LAN connection, no remote connections.  The GM can see player rolls but ONLY if they have have been focused by the GM in app.  The GM could select the name of the player from a list and at that point on all rolls made by the player go to the GM.  Also, I built in a simple message system that allows players and GMs to communicate.

 

It got shelved when the world ground to a halt and the idea of playing in the same room became a little problematic.  The main technical issue that I ran into was that both Android and iOS will put your app to sleep after a short period of time.  For players, it's annoying because they have to rejoin the game.  When the GM device goes to sleep, the game needs to be restarted.  

 

I'm a little mixed.  I feel like because they devices go to sleep and muck up the connections it is too flakey to push into production.  The idea of running a simple server somewhere to handle the issue is appealing to me, but I have no money to pay for it.

 

[Doc Democracy]

There are apps given permission to override the sleep function aren't there?  I think at least one or two pdf readers do it.

[sentry0]

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

There are apps given permission to override the sleep function aren't there?  I think at least one or two pdf readers do it.

Yes, I can do this... I just did a quick Google search and saw an excellent library that does this for me; I should be able to pull it in.  That feature branch is pretty old, but I think I could resurrect it without too much fuss.

 

I can't promise anything because, if I remember correctly, I had to shim in many libs to get that to work.  I will need to go back and see if my approach still works in today's modern environment and update some libs.

[Ndreare]

I would love to see a feature to save and name/rename the random characters. 

Edited May 4, 2023 by Ndreare