Message #1265

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: Announcing MC4D for Android
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2010 20:29:22 -0800

Andrey,

I’m glad that you got it installed and have been playing with it. There
are certainly several big usability problems with the first version and
I intend to address some of them but it is really not meant to be
anything but a toy to fool with and show off. I would feel somewhat
horrified if anyone attempted a real solution with it, especially as
there is no way to save and load log files. I don’t want to encourage
that and almost didn’t include a "full" scramble option for that reason.
Still, I would like it to be somewhat useful as a portable practice
tool. I don’t want to add a control panel or menu modes for this reason.
The one mode I would love to support is the 4D shift-dragging which is a
wonderful way to show off the 4D nature of the puzzle and to get at the
invisible face. I just don’t see a good way to do any of these things.

Note too that there is no control, shift, or other modifier keys
supported since there is no natural way to do that in Android that I can
see. I implemented counter-clockwise twists as long taps, so if you hold
your finger down for more than a quarter second before releasing, it is
supposed to twist CCW, but obviously that’s difficult to do without
triggering 3D rotation.

I definitely want to tune the autorotation threshold which I agree is
too sensitive. It makes me crazy too.

I also need to not perform scrambling twists on the outer face because
there is no way for the user to deal with them.

I’m considering just turning this into a 2^4 puzzle because it is so
hard to accurately select from such tiny stickers, even with
pinch-zooming, and it’s very hard to twist on the central face because
of this and the difficulty of reaching between the other faces. I would
appreciate anyone’s opinion on the choice of puzzle because I would be
sad to not offer the full 3^4 but it may just be too un-fun.

The tablet platform seems like another thing altogether. Large puzzles
may be usable there, and a large, high resolution plus a multi-touch
interface may provide a much more direct experience with the puzzle than
our current desktop applications. When I went back to the desktop app I
found that I missed that sort of direct, tactile connection with the
puzzle. I definitely need to think about the possibilities for this
platform a lot more.

One nice thing is that I have gotten the better part of 1,000 downloads
in less than 48 hours, so it is generating a good bit of interest. Much
more so than my other apps so there is certainly some interest out there
which I hope will lead more people to try the full-featured app and to
join our nice little community of hyper-puzzlers!

Thanks for testing and for your suggestions,
-Melinda

On 11/25/2010 1:00 PM, Andrey wrote:
> Melinda,
> this way it works, thank you. But is there any way to stop autorotation? When I "click" screen I can make a twist sometimes, but on the everrotating model it is completely random :)
> BTW, I tried MC4D on Tablet PC. And there were two problems:
> First, it’s very difficult to make "firm" click with the pen - cursor always moves one or two pixels, and program treats it as the rotation of the model. The same problem I have with the mouse navigation in the desktop mode - most mice are too light to make confident clicks, sometimes I have to make 5 or 6 clicks to perform a single twist. In my programs I count mouse moves between "Down" and "Up" events, and if it is 3 pixels or less, consider this event as "click", otherwise as "drag".
> Another thing is that I can’t make ctrl-click without keyboard. May be, we should have a mask with "ctrl","shift" and "1,2,…5" checkboxes on the control pane (that should work for next one/all clicks and drags)?
> Andrey
>
>
> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, Melinda Green<melinda@…> wrote:
>> Interesting. I bet it does have something to do with your location.
>> Russia is supposed to be among the countries where it should be
>> available for both free and paid apps. Maybe it will take longer to show
>> up there for some reason. For the time being I uploaded it to the MC4D
>> location here<http://superliminal.com/cube/MC4D.apk>.
>>
>> -Melinda
>>
>> On 11/25/2010 4:55 AM, Andrey wrote:
>>> Tried both ways. "Magic Cube" gives 16 results, no "Magic Cube 4D" among them. In "Brain& Puzzle / Just in" looked through top hundred games - no result. May be there are different lists for USA and Russia.
>>>
>>> Andrey
>>>
>>> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, Melinda Green<melinda@> wrote:
>>>> Hm. It works fine for me. You probably need to search from an actual
>>>> Android phone using the preinstalled "Market" app. Other web-based
>>>> listings may take a while before pick it up. Another way to find it
>>>> directly in the Market is to click on "Games", then "Brain& Puzzle",
>>>> then "Just In" where it is still at the top of the list.
>>>>
>>>> -Melinda
>>>>
>>>> On 11/24/2010 8:43 PM, Andrey wrote:
>>>>> "There is no matches in Android Market for the search: Magic Cube 4D" :(
>>>
>>>
>>> ————————————
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
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>>>
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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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