Now I dont for a second pretend to have an artistic bone in my body, but one thing android development has forced me to do, is start thinking about graphics and layout. When I write windows apps they are usually forms full of radio buttons and drop down boxes. After just completing an update to Four Kings, I decided to have a look back at the GUI from the start of the app until now. Just to see how far I had come.
This was my first layout back when I was just getting started. Some horrible background I had created in paint and a card in the middle to click to pull the next card and display the next rule.
This was my second GUI. Basically the same as the first but with a couple of static images badly worked into the background to try and jazz it up a little. Also added the counters for cards remaining and number of kings still to be drawn.
OK third time lucky. I felt this is when I actually got things right. I added this starting screen to allow the player to select from three different sets of rules. The playing screen also looked very similar to this. No horrible background or bad clipart. Just a nice crisp, clean layout. I found this looked a million times better than trying too hard.
My latest GUI update. Same playing screen as the last one, but the counters which were still text based, are now graphical. Not perfect, but for someone with not a single artistic bone in his body, I am pretty happy with it. Especially if you compare the first version with the latest.
2 comments
henry says:
November 5, 2011 at 8:43 am (UTC 0)
Enjoy reading your blog!
Regarding being “artistic”, do you know how and where to get better graphics? Even though we could draw and paint as developer ourselves, it just seems too time-consuming – not to mention the quality of our own “artistic” work will never be as good!
Are there any sites offering sets of free graphics for Android, or (cheap) artists, etc?
Thanks.
arpreb says:
November 7, 2011 at 5:08 am (UTC 0)
I haven’t come across any. I have a friend doing graphic art at uni that I am going to use when I develop my next one. Im sure there would be quite a few students out there that would be keen to have a crack in their own time. It is good practise for them. If you do find something a little more formal than that, and cheap, let me know.