What's the deal with MT on Android?

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Mantar
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What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Mantar » Post

I installed the official 0.4.17 on an LG tablet, and it totally failed to work. It would start to boot, then crash. So I installed the old 0.4.16, and it worked just fine, except it won't connect to servers online -- it starts to connect, then suddenly minimizes itself and drops back to the main menu with no error messages or anything.
Is the Android port just Minetest's redheaded stepchild? I think I see why there are so many "unofficial" versions out there with so many downloads, the official one appears to be a bit of a mess.
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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Linuxdirk » Post

Mantar wrote:the official one appears to be a bit of a mess.
It unfortunately is. And no-one seems to have the qualification and/or time to properly fix it and adapt it to nowadays Android and make it run properly.

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Mantar » Post

It's a shame, because single player works nicely on 0.4.16.
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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Mantar » Post

So anyway, what's the best solution for MT on android? I know there's a ton of variants out there, mostly adware drek, but are any of them worthwhile?
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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by srifqi » Post

For 5.0.0, Minetest developers have fixed and improved many things to make playing Minetest on Android more playable. I agree that some of those fixes that can be ported back to 0.4.17.x should be merged.

Maybe, you want to try 5.0.0-dev? :)
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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by paramat » Post

Yes 0.4.17 currently has a bug, it was caused by Irrlicht being built in debug mode when the playstore app was created. So easy fix, nerzhul (probably) will soon rebuild the app and update 0.4.17 with a point release.
Apart from that the 0.4.17 app is indeed a bit of a mess, but only because it is MT 0.4.x.

In MT 5.0.0-dev since April we have been making good progress and are making lots of improvements to Android MT, new controls, proper scaling of menus etc.
The MT 5.0.0 app will be better than any forked app, and of course free, with no adverts or pay-for-privilege.

> And no-one seems to have the qualification and/or time to properly fix it and adapt it to nowadays Android and make it run properly.

You obviously haven't been following development for 7 months because all of this is untrue and has been since April.

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Linuxdirk » Post

paramat wrote:The MT 5.0.0 app will be better than any forked app
I don't see any new releases being available to the end users. And I assume there won't be any releases anytime soon.

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by paramat » Post

So you're still complaining even though the app is now much improved. It'll be available to everyone when 5.0.0 is released. There's this thing called 'development' that has to happen before a release ;)

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Linuxdirk » Post

paramat wrote:It'll be available to everyone when 5.0.0 is released.
In the meantime dozens of adware clients are spammed to Play Store. When the 5.0.0 app will be released unfortunately barely no-one will notice/care :(
paramat wrote:There's this thing called 'development' that has to happen before a release ;)
I wish development would be done on a non-Microsoft platform.

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by craftblox » Post

Minetest is available for Android on the Google Play Store.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... -Mar2515-1
In my opinion, it works pretty well, especially if you have a higher-end device.

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by Mantar » Post

That's the same one that wouldn't work for me in the OP post.
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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by puzzlecube » Post

I've never had a problem with Minetests official google play app crashing or behaving unexpectedly (other than the fact that double tap = right click which is extremely annoying in survival and IMBHO the silliest development decision I have ever seen fro Minetest)
Spoiler
I had no idea the android ports UI was getting a revamp! I have a 10 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab E SM-T60NU (newly rooted) and I find the lack of subgame selection and access to contentDB to be kind of silly since the main menu takes up only ~25% of the screen. Furthermore the now dead Freeminer app nd the unofficial client Multicraft (The first Multicraft) had full PC UI and worked fine on an old LG vista phone and my Samsung tablet. I was starting to think about modifying it myself once I figured out android SDK and gradle and all the other java related hoops to jump through so it's a bit of a load off my shoulders. I can't stand the enormous amount of unofficial clients out there, I've played most of them and some are just Minetest engine + a half finished game + ads that sometimes caused crashes while a few are exceptionally stable — but then here comes the ad that may or may not have been programmed completely wrong. I can't wait to see them become outdated and unused but I imagine in order for that to happen all of the pre-5.0.0 servers must either update or die.
Why does the google play app not have a beta program for testing 5.0.0? I think if something like that were available to the general user the quality of the 5.0.0 Android release version will be a huge^∞ improvement to what it would end up being otherwise Okay I just found the beta program on google play, {repeated facepalms} I wish I saw that sooner.
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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by alparaz » Post

in my opinion mt on android there is indeed a problem. that is, it can only play 1 world in singleplayer. it can't be installed in package texture. then this needs to be developed. so much love
sorry with my english (i use google translate)

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by runs » Post

I want to make my android app. Of course free, no-adds, licenses accordingly...

I am waiting for 0.5.x...

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Re: What's the deal with MT on Android?

by paramat » Post

Note, the current playstore app has 2 bugs, we're working on it. However the 0.4.x app will never be particularly good as it has none of the big improvements of 5.0.0-dev.

The 5.0.0 app will have the ability to use multiple singleplayer worlds.
You can test the 5.0.0-dev app by using these regular builds viewtopic.php?f=42&t=21526
Because release of 5.0.0 approaches testing is appreciated.

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