GCA for the iPad or Android Tablet???

[Motosage]

Is there any talk about doing GCA for the tablet market? With over millions of iPads and tablets being sold each year in this fast growing market does any one have plans to move GCA to tablet? It just sounds like the next best step with most of the books in PDF format and the magazine being online. Right now I print my GCA Character to a PDF file in Dropbox than pull it up on my iPad and that works OK. But it would be nice to be able to work on character from my iPad.

Randy Smith

[chrisd]

I did actually start on writing a viewer only app for android - but because the world needs another text file parser like... (well you get the picture) I used the the XML export as the base file format. Seemed to work OK but I stopped mainly because my artistic skills weren't up to creating images for the various tabs.

Chris D-W

[panton41]

GCA is (being re-)written in VB.NET, which is a language with exactly nothing in common with Objective-C or Java by a programmer who is all but a volunteer being paid after the fact. I think your chance of seeing it rewritten on iOS or Android is somewhere to the south of zero, though it'll probably run just fine on Intel-based Windows 8 tablets (in desktop mode) when they are released.

At any rate, despite millions sold tablets are a niche of a niche compared to the billions of desktop PCs out there.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by chrisd

I did actually start on writing a viewer only app for android - but because the world needs another text file parser like... (well you get the picture) I used the the XML export as the base file format. Seemed to work OK but I stopped mainly because my artistic skills weren't up to creating images for the various tabs.

Frankly, if it's just going to be a character viewer I don't see any advantage over just exporting the character as a PDF file then opening the PDF on the tablet.

[chrisd]

It was more of an exercise in Android programming than anything else, as I'm mainly "management" these days I need to keep my hand in.

Anyway following on from this thread, it's all probably moot anyway.

Chris D-W

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

Frankly, if it's just going to be a character viewer I don't see any advantage over just exporting the character as a PDF file then opening the PDF on the tablet.

I'd actually suggest HTML with a nice style sheet - but what you can do with XML and a little program is add some useful in play management fiddles. Current HP and FP vs total, a button to "take damage" (or just up/down spin arrows), spend ammunition with a clicky thing, and an integrated die roller so when you click on a skill it pops up a window saying you succeeded or failed by X, or critically succeeded/failed (and note by X).

I wouldn't go overboard or a) you'll fall down the automation rabbit hole and b) SJG will Have Words with you for getting carried away and accidentally writing a video game.