Hm. We haven’t made any kind of decision on adopting the project. On the other hand, I know that Java requires reverse-domain-style package name.
It doesn’t have to be a real domain. You could use org.fictionarium. But that is potentially confusing if someone does register the domain fictionarium.org.
How about you use org.ifarchive.fictionarium? That kind of fits the idea of preserving an old project. The page fictionarium.ifarchive.org is a placeholder but it’s a placeholder that we control.
I, of course, freely give all TM rights of Fictionarium to IF Foundation, if that’s a concern.
If you’re using code that originated with Fabularium, the copyright on that code remains with the original author. You can’t transfer that.
You might as well note the copyright as “Tim Cadogan-Cowper and (your name).” (Under the same GPL license as the original, of course.)
I actually did mean trademark and not copyright. The way I understand things is that, even if the source code is released under an open source license, this does not mean that we (neither I nor the IFTF) can actually release a new “official” version, because the ownership has not been transferred. Though, it’s true that my information comes from reading through various StackOverflow posts, on what needs to be done when trying to resurrect an open source project.
That information is also the reason why I decided to rename the project from Fabularium to Fictionarium: just so that we might be able to release it one day and not step on the original authors rights. For the same reason I think it would be good for the IF Foundation to have the ownership of the name: this would give you the ability to release new versions, redirect the project, etc. even if I stop responding.
So, when I reached the decision to rename (which happened before I reached out here on the forum), it seemed to me to be quite annoying that the internal project organization would refer to the classes and structures under com.luxlunae.fabularium, since this is now a different project. So, I reorganized the structure under com.preroq.fictionarium.
Then I reached out on the forum and @dfabulich proposed a good solution: if the IFTF is the owner then future maintainers will not have to go to the trouble of renaming and reorganizing things. It is true that it only takes a couple of hours to do and verify the git mv and a few sed operations but the problems start appearing if merges are needed or patches need to be applied from previous versions.
Anyway, I fully understand that such a decision cannot be reached over night. Perhaps it would be best for me to just continue with the structure I currently have and actually produce some usable builds
If the IFTF decide to embrace the project, however, I would be happy to do the restructure again and do whatever is needed to get the ownership sorted out so that future maintainers don’t need to go through this trouble and IFTF can release new versions.
this is really exciting!! issues I’ve had in fabularium:
not being able to backspace using a non-fabularium keyboard
pressing and holding the game screen (for ex in an attempt to select text) will automatically paste whatever I had in my clipboard no matter how long it is
file searching is incredibly cumbersome
maybe some ui version of editing settings instead of editing text files?
Noted, I guess I was just being too careful not to step on the original author’s toes. Anyway, will keep the new name and the offer is open indefinitely.
Can you elaborate a bit more on the file search? I am concerned about file management features because the new Android versions don’t allow as many things as were allowed before.
I think I may only be able to retain support for file management within the app file structure.
I love Fabularium! But the file manager is extremely frustrating. At first I had no idea what to do. Eventually I figured it out - you have to click on the back arrow to change to the right folder! It looks like an Undo icon to me.
Then it can be a nightmare trying to locate a file you know is there! I think it lists files alphabetically twice - once if the filename begins with a Capital letter, then after Z it lists all the files starting with a lowercase letter! So the file you need is often way down the list, which requires tons of scrolling to find it.
The app really needs an idiot proof way to find and open files.
I will be very interested in any new version you can make. My other adventure player app is Text Fiction, which has a horrible speech bubble format for inputs and replies, but does the job of allowing me to play z files on my phone.
I’d be happy with something basic (with a range of plain colour schemes) to be honest, so long as it’s easy to use.
You already solved the problem by picking a new name. Fictionarium is your project and you can decide what’s an “official” release of it.
(It shares a lot of code with the original project, but that’s fine. The GPL allows you to copy and modify the Fabularium code as long as the new version is also under the GPL. Lots of open-source projects share lots of their code. That’s the whole point.)
Sorry @johnbrown , can you elaborate? One of the things that took me a while to figure out, as just a user, is that the shadowed values take effect on long press on the key. So, 1 is reachable by pressing and holding ‘q’. Similarly ‘examine’ is reachable by pressing and holding ‘v’. Perhaps you mean a different keyboard?
I agree, though, that the keyboards are a bit clunky and the system keyboard is not supported well, with backspace not working properly. It will take me a while to get to a (hopefully) proper and better solution.
@chrishester I understand what you mean. It also took me a while to get the hang of it. What I do have to say is that the original developer did an amazing job in opening up all this functionality to the end user, even if it does have its UX issues. It empowers but does not really make it easy.
I think the “simple” end users should not have to do any file management of any sort. For the sort of user I actually wanted to be from the start: install the app, select a game and just play. Save progress, play again another time by just selecting the game and off you go.
So… to get to that point there is some redesign and features that need to be added so that such a seamless experience is possible. That will take time.
My question is: why did you have to navigate the files? What was the use case? Was it just to find the game you wanted to add?
I just realized that my previous post might be misconstrued as wanting to remove the features. That’s not the case.
The trick with good UX is that a “simple” user has a simple, no friction, experience. The advanced user, on the other hand, can still do what they want.
So, my target is, actually, to make the “simple” user, a user that just found about IF, to install the app and get going as easily as possible, but also allow the power users to add their own games, create them even, and for testers to continue to be able to get transcripts, etc.
On the flip side, I agree with Chris calling Text Fiction’s speech bubbles “horrible.”
One of Fabularium’s many advantages is that it properly implements the glk screen model and provides a lot of typography options. I don’t believe there’s a way to change the default typeface, though (?).
@prevtenet , looks like it’s not possible to change, you are correct.
Not sure yet whether that’s just for the lack of time or there is some additional reason. Changing the typeface has additional repercussions that some things might not render correctly. Font size has similar repercussions but it’s not quite the same. Will have to experiment a bit.
This works with the built-in gaming keyboard, but not with the default phone keyboard. Maybe the problem is only with this particular keyboard.
Of course, you can use the built-in keyboard, but I also play games with Cyrillic input. The keyboards.ini file, by the way, has ready-made settings for this. That’s good. But in order to change the keyboard layout you need to write it in fab.ini. And so every time you are going to play the game in another language.
Yes. I looked again and it starts in a list of default folders of no use. I then need to try one and then use the arrow to escape to my normal folders, find Download and hope I can locate my file!
I just noticed the arrow icon looks the same as the Reply one here. It is not obvious what it does - I only found out by desperately trying anything!
A neat solution would be to only list adventure game files. Plus have an option to add more in the Settings when a new format is invented. I don’t need a full list of images and screenshots on my phone!
Do I have to copy and paste the full address from my phone, or will just “Download” do?