Yeah, I admit that was a mistake. I’ve hit it by mistake myself and also a lot of people are complaining about it as well. However, @Popz expressed his interest in fixing that one, I set that one aside for him to do it 
Glad you liked it. Be careful though as it does not show notifications while the app is not running due to architecture limitations from the server (no push). So you still have to start the app and look for yourself…
I was thinking of maybe doing a refresh of the game screen. It’s one of the oldest parts of the app that have not been redone (I think only the login screen is older) and it’s showing. I would really love to hear some suggestions, or perhaps if one of you guys is an app designer, now would be a great time to come forwards with some hints.
So far I got these two versions (work in progress). I would love to hear what you guys have to say about them:
For example:
Any feedback would be appreciated.
This is never going to be a problem for me. I obsessively check what’s going on in the app every time I pick up my phone. In fact I have previously had all notifications switched off for the app because the delay for a notification to notify a nice was longer than the time between my checks of the app…
I like number 1 the best. Past match results not necessary for a game.
I’d miss the forward and back arrows for replaying game moves. This is one of the things the app does much better than the site. I often flick back a few moves and long press to zip through and automatically being been in the game is great.
I’d worry a little about long user names.
For Komi I like the current Ying Yang thing.
If the move notifier thing were at the bottom rather than the top for one handed playing and cycling through games that would be great!
@Gia sorry for not answering, it got lost in the noise.
For the notification bug: AFAIK it opens the main screen no matter what you click. It should be implemented correctly, but it’s not trivial and I don’t consider it high priority.
For the vibroation: Fair enough, I’ve implemented it and it should be available in the next version. It defaults to ON though so you need to go and disable it in the settings (once it will be available).
Fair enough, is there at least a way to get one notification only and not one for each game?
Do you like it more than what we have right now though?
The bottom bar will stay exactly the same for now, I was just lazy and didn’t want to spend 20 minutes on the mock-up (I am a dev, not a designer and so I am really struggling with these things).
Yes, that was one consideration for which I always left so much space after the username in all screens. However I don’t think it’s a biggie if we just truncate the very long ones.
The bottom bar is quite busy and dynamic as it is, I am not sure if that’s the best place to put yet another button. But I’m thinking that some sort of snackbar with a “move submitted, go to next game?” button might appear for correspondence games…
When you have more than one notification you should get them “condensed” into one, kinda like Gmail. Does that not work for you? What android version are you on?
8.1.0.
It doesn’t, I get individual notifications (but maybe it’s my phone 
). I then clear all notifications since I don’t want to clear 20-30 by hand, but then in that way I also clear the ones I haven’t played yet. I know it’s not that important, I’m mostly offering feedback, not complaining.
BTW I like that I can see in the notifications a thumbnail of the game, that’s cool.
That is very weird. It should look like this on android 7 or newer:
EDIT: I would like to also add that in the app ranks below 25 kyu show correctly, which I highly appreciate.
Not really! But I didn’t want to be rude or stand in the way of progress.
I feel the current layout is nice for making use of the screen area with a square board but I guess the new layouts are rotatable.
Might it be possible to relegate some of the less used things to the top instead.
Menu buttons are usually at the top for example and I would mind if pass and undo were at the top.
I am not a Dev or app designer so don’t worry about what I say!
I feel mine was like this previously but now behaves like mrAlex says.
It’s not about being rude, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it. But also we should be aware of our bias against change.
I made the original while being influenced by the very popular android chess apps (e.g. lichess, chess.com) however chess has a clear concept of “my side” vs “your side” (pawns can only move one way) so it’s natural to place the two players across from each other. I’m wondering if that was the right choice for GO though since in here the board is completely symmetrical. It also forces a lot of white space and, as you say, it’s actually quite weird if you were to rotate the phone…
I have another idea: how about placing the chat on this page (at least the last few lines). It is weird right now that you have to click into a modal dialog to see the new messages… Here’s a mock-up, what do you guys think?
I also prefer the current one. the new draft looks very busy.
chat shouldn’t be displayed by default in the game screen, clicking to access it makes sense to me.
when reviewing the game screen, I would propose something cleaner instead - one implementation I particularly like is the one of Pandanet:
the game screen focuses on essential information (player’s turn and timers), with everything else (including player’s profiles) accessible through the bottom bar.
Well, Go is played by players on opposite sides of the board IRL but this doesn’t translate very well online. (I think black should be shown at the bottom of the board… First move etiquette - #7 by yebellz)
This looks interesting but I worry that it would either be to small to be useful and/or just clutter. Most of my games have no chat beyond a basic greeting and I feel it might get annoying to be faced with HF GG top middle of each game!
Also you need a dialog thing to type anyway don’t you so it doesn’t feel too odd as it is. For me anyway
I’ve seen previous drafts above the last: to me this one looks good
I’m 50-50 on having the “past results” on the game screen… it’s not essential, but having it designed this way is not too much of a bother either, and I get that it would be a fun stat to see filled in from time to time
Ok, I see you guys are really against chat on the screen, perhaps I shouldn’t do it.
I do like the pandanet minimalist look, however perhaps it’s too minimal? I am not sure I’m getting all the info I need from that, for example what are the number in parentheses after the timers? Are they Byo-yomi (or whatever it’s spelled) periods? Are they prisoners? What’s the komi (if any)? Do we really don’t want the player ratings to be displayed (I do play differently against higher rated players than against lower rated ones)?
I think there is a balance between clutter and wasted space and it seems like you will get the balance right!
I agree that the pandanet screen is too minimal.
I suppose it’s a headache to have display options. I suggested switching off the view of ratings on ogs and like this when I’m on my desktop. It would be great if the app respected this it has a similar option.
I’m not against chat on the game screen necessarily I just wonder how it would work. It would certainly be useful to be able to see the board more easily when chatting about particular moves in teaching games for example.
