Hi all,

For all those following the development of a new Android app to take over Alexei's current app, I've created a new thread for it.
This is to allow people to be able to find it and follow it easily.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ndrue.gathereroffline

ATTENTION
Due to a recent Google Play Store policy update, app updates had to target only Android 8.0 (Oreo) and newer Android devices (https://android.gadgethacks.com/news/google-forcing-apps-target-oreo-will-help-with-androids-malware-problem-0185901), I've had to go another route for users who are unable to update via the normal Play Store method.
Users are to use it at their own risk, and I'm afraid I won't be able to help much if they run into any issues with this.

If they are fine with it, please visit this link, and download the latest installer file for the app (APK):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1L6kjPfDpXpPAWrI-qN5pQyq4srQNWb8i

I've included an MD5 checksum file for verification that you've downloaded the correct APK and not some injected/infected version.

Once done, copy it into the phone/device (if it's not already there).
Then, one would have to follow these instructions for installing APK from unknown sources (yeah, I'm unknown, bite me D:)
Follow only the instructions from “How to allow installation from “Unknown sources””
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-sideload-an-apk/

Using this method, they will no longer get any notifications from the Play Store on updates being available for the app, as it is no longer linked to it.

However, I will be releasing updates to this location too for users who are on older Android versions who do not have the option to update their phones to the newest.

Edited Andrew Teo (Nov. 21, 2018 11:34:27 AM)

AWESOME!

I'm happy this project is showing it's fruits.

I've been able to download the app and install it.
I've also been able to update my database and look some stuff up.
Haven't checked everything yet, but things seem to be just fine, if not
great. :D

Thanks!

Richard Drijvers

2012/11/23 Andrew Teo <forum-1961@apps.magicjudges.org>

Excellent! Keep us posted. I think I have the original App on my Nook (which I gather is sort of an Android wanna-be) but I'm a newbie with handhelds (unless you count my trusty Palm) so will be watching and cheering on the sidelines for now.

Thanks!

Martha (Skipper) Lufkin

I installed this and used it at Lisbon at the weekend. It does the important parts of the old app and it does them very, very well. Thanks for your work on this!

-Edd

Great to hear that it's doing fine, if not better, for all of you.
I'll be putting this up on Google's Play Store this week, once I have the time to tear myself away from work :o

Once again, thank you all for your kind words and encouragement :)

If possible, some suggestions on what you'd like to see in future updates would be looked into too. Also, what important parts of the old apps are all of you looking at, so that I can look further into it and tweak for better performance and accuracy if required?

Edited Andrew Teo (Dec. 5, 2012 10:17:27 AM)

Sweet! Thanks for the app! Actually, I've been looking to start doing some Droid dev myself, so if you need any dev help, let me know.

A couple things: Oracle is a pretty big feature of this app. Having it in “Misc” is probably not the best. It's also not evident what “Misc -> Miscellaneous options -> Check for database updates” does.

The Oracle lookup in the new MTGJudge App works just fine offline. That's what the “Check for database updates” does. It updates the Oracle database stored in the phone. It only goes online if you want to get the picture of the card.

It was because, I believe, too many of our users have phones that are already struggling for storage space, and another database pushes MTG Familiar into the unusually portly realm, after the database has been decompressed.

I don't remember the exact size of the gatherer text, but I remember it being fairly significant. I'm quite surprised that MTGJudge has been able to contain the entire Gatherer + Oracle rulings in an apk that is only 2MB.

The other reason is that Oracle lookups are generally fairly infrequent, and you never need to search the entire database at once for any particular reason, unlike the contents of Gatherer. Just grabbing it from online ensures that you always are looking at the most current rulings, anyways, without having to frequently update the database.

Which is all fine as long as you never judge in other countries. Becoming
dependant on apps for judging that I can't use overseas is setting my self
up for failure.

The other feature that isn't included (or easy to find) on many such apps
is the ability to select a card by set and collector number. Very useful
with odd foreign cards.


On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 9:53 AM, April King
<forum-1961@apps.magicjudges.org>wrote:

> It was because, I believe, too many of our users have phones that are
> already struggling for storage space, and another database pushes MTG
> Familiar into the unusually portly realm, after the database has been
> decompressed.
>
> I don't remember the exact size of the gatherer text, but I remember it
> being fairly significant. I'm quite surprised that MTGJudge has been able
> to contain the entire Gatherer + Oracle rulings in an apk that is only 2MB.
>
> The other reason is that Oracle lookups are generally fairly infrequent,
> and you never need to search the entire database at once for any particular
> reason, unlike the contents of Gatherer. Just grabbing it from online
> ensures that you always are looking at the most current rulings, anyways,
> without having to frequently update the database.
>
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–
Gareth Pye
Level 2 Judge, Melbourne, Australia
Australian MTG Forum: mtgau.com
gareth@cerberos.id.au - www.rockpaperdynamite.wordpress.com
“Dear God, I would like to file a bug report”

Whoa, a horde of comments cometh, heh :o

I'll be shifting some options around, and tweaking up on the search feature for the rulings section as I've gathered feedback from some of you guys, like Alexei, on it.

Also, the Oracle database was ripped directly off the Gatherer site through botting a PHP script (@Ryan: I do believe it might be the same scraping script concept that I've come across while searching for a way to get information from the Gatherer), so I'm planning to have it update the database every time a new set is released, or when there are suddenly a lot of Oracle updates, as the script updates with the latest Oracle ruling obtained from the Gatherer every time it runs. I'll see what I can do about integrating the information obtained from the database downloaded from Ryan's link.

Gareth does make sense in looking up cards based on their set and collector's number, due to the need when checking on foreign cards. I'll be doing something about that in the next update that will be pushed out, or perhaps the very first upload to Google's Play Store.

Will be editing top post to reflect on the upcoming changes, really appreciate the feedback :)

@Ryan: I've used your downloader to get everything (selecting “Limited Edition Alpha” and checking “And all Sets After”), and upon saving as SQLite, it says “PRIMARY KEY must be unique”. It seems like a primary key has assigned incorrectly to a column that might have repeating values.

I don't have an international data payment plan setup for my mobile phone, and accessing the net from abroad (most GPs) is quite expensive for me. Also, looking up oracle texts from the memory of the phone is much quicker than through an online source.

Please do include an oracle database, it's about 2 MB (200 bytes on average for 10.000 cards) which is smaller than photos in highest quality taken with a smartphone.

At the average GP, the Oracle lookup function is the one I use most. Maybe it's because foreign cards are more common in Europe compared to the US, but even in standard I get questions about ‘what does that card do’.

Hi Jasper, the current app in this post has a built-in oracle database which does not require Internet access.
However, I am not quite sure about your reference to “foreign cards”. Right now, there are no plans to include foreign text, and I am hoping I can keep the app mainly in English.
There are also other apps like Gatherer42 as mentioned in this thread, which you might want to look at too just for card look-ups?
As I am cleaning up the app and fine-tuning it further, if it's possible, you might wish to hold on for a while for the next update for this app to come up, which I predict should be by next week.

Only English is fine, I merely pointed out that because people use foreign (non-english) cards, there are quite some calls for Oracle text from players.

I haven't tested the app yet (but I will), but for oracle search in combination with foreign cards I have a suggestion, that might be possible to add in a future version. If it would be possible to search by collectors number and edition that can greatly help to identify foreign cards even if you can't read the language and don't know the english name.