BallDroppings for Android Update 1.1

BallDroppings for Android received its first substantial update today. The primary feature addition was the ability to share the worlds you create with others via email. The world is sent as a binary attachment that the recipient can open if they also have the BallDroppings full version. They can then save it on their own device if they want. Here are some screenshots:





The next nice addition was thumbnail previews of worlds that you have saved on your device. This makes it much easier to find that awesome creation that you forgot the name of.



There were a couple of minor changes as well. For example, the option for stereo sound has been moved from the Sound settings dialog to an application preference in the new Preferences screen, which you can get to via the menu. I figured that this was a setting that someone would probably want to set globally anyway. Calibration of tilt gravity has also been moved to the preferences screen, since it's usually a fire-and-forget operation.



What about the feature listed in the app description that says "Screen size independence"? Well, this is directly tied to the ability to share worlds with others. Since not everyone has the same size screen on his or her Android device, something had to be done to make the world coordinate system uniform across all devices. That's exactly what this feature does - all worlds will behave and sound the same for everyone now.

An unfortunate side-effect of screen size independence is that any worlds you saved on your device before this update will need to be converted to the new format, but only if your device has a screen larger than the "default" Android size of 480x320. Users with screens larger than this will have their worlds scaled-down to fit in the new coordinate system. This one-time operation happens during the database upgrade process that takes place the first time you open the new version of the app. Converted worlds will look mostly the same as before, but they probably will not behave or sound like they did since the physics of the balls is very sensitive to the slightest difference in the position and orientation of the lines.

I apologize for this inconvenience - it's possible that someone's masterpiece could be ruined. But I felt this was a necessary evil in order to prepare BallDroppings for many exiting new features, such as multi-player and sharing worlds on an online gallery.

Oh, and one more thing that you might miss if you don't look closely. The Physics screen no-longer has the Tilt toggle button for tilt gravity. Instead, there is now a Gravity Mode chooser that will allow for more gravity variations. (Currently the only options are the ones that were there before: Downward and Tilt).



I hope you enjoy the new features. Now I'm off to work on the next release!