• Free-floating
• Single tap to select
• Single finger to move
• Double finger to rotate (about an ambiguous point)
• Pinch to zoom

The existing map controls in iClone, whilst bordering on adequate, have never really felt 100% right to me. Whilst spinning and zooming the universe map has worked, the controls break down somewhat when zooming in on items orbiting planets in the system map. In addition, rotation has always become steadily more glitchy the further off centre the camera moves. With the added item location data now exposed through the API a more intuitive and precise control scheme was badly needed.

Spectacular failure

• Free-floating
• Single tap to select
• Double tap for full-screen
• Single finger to rotate (relative to eye point)
• Double finger to move
• Pinch to zoom

The first attempt at solving the issues seemed workable at first, modelled on FPS controls — mostly memories of multiplayer Descent! When zoomed out, the controls made sense. However, problems quickly became apparent. Firstly, as you got closer to objects the sensitivity of the movement wasn’t adequate — what was sensible when navigating a light-years wide zoomed out map really didn’t work when you were within a constellation. Add to that a lack of reference points, and getting lost was a certainty. The icing on the fail cake was that the full-screen double tap was far too easy to trigger, so whilst trying to regain your bearings the map would keep changing sizes. Not good.

…and in with the new.

• Anchored on a point.
• Single tap to refocus on a new point
• Double tap with two fingers for full-screen
• Tap and hold to select
• Single finger to rotate about the focus point.
• There is no double finger dragging.

This system followed on from the work toying with the previous scheme; It was only during testing that I noticed that this is also how the in-game system map works! Tapping on the screen now finds the closest celestial — be it star, planet or POS — to the tap point and focuses rotation and zooming on that. This suffers from none of the sensitivity issues of the other schemes — at least not when zoomed in to the level of stations. I’ll see how it fares when I start integrating the new item position data soon… In addition, this scheme has a far smaller chance of gestures being confused, and mistakes are far more recoverable.

I’ll be posting a video of the new map once I’ve finished off a few more bits of polish, and you’ll be able to take a look at FanFest — you are going to FanFest aren’t you?

The iClone Screensaver for Mac OS X 10.6

This has only been tested on my desktop and laptop, with nVidia and ATI graphics respectively, and should be universal for 32 or 64-bit systems.

After you’ve downloaded it, double click the zip file to extract the screensaver (if it doesn’t happen automatically), then double click on iClone.saver to install it. There’s a bug report/feedback forum if you have any comments or issues you want to share. The feedback’s welcome, but it’s worth remembering this is a side-project that takes a back seat to fixes and improvements to the iOS app.

Enjoy! And Happy 21st of January!

Resolutions

Rather than specific features, these are more general things I’m planning to try and stick to:

More responsive release schedule

In the past there has been a tendency to hold off on releases till I’ve run out of reported niggles to fix, and/or an upcoming CCP patch – and accompanying data – has been released. I need to step back from that and get fixes for critical issues out of the door quicker.

Beta testing

There’s some big new features coming soon, and I think it’s about time to share some of the testing pain before unleashing more bugsfeatures into the world. I’m definitely planning on starting this before the next major feature release, but there’s a chance the interim bug fix releases may go this way. More on this when it happens.

New functionality as well as refinements

Other than the little things, there’s been no major new features in iClone for a while (Since the map I think…). Given the recent crop of changes seem to be settling down a bit, I’m planning on getting some, or hopefully all, of the things below into your hands in 2011.

New functionality?

The following ideas may happen, or they may not. Also, this isn’t the sum total of features I’m considering – If you’ve given me any suggestions than they’ll all be in the master list.

Storage rewrite

I’m currently completely rewriting iClone’s API importing and data storage code. If early tests are to be believed, this should yield better performance, both for import speed and general app responsiveness, and let me bolt in new features more easily. Or it may all go horribly wrong.

Selective Updates

This one has been requested particularly often. The general plan is to keep the ‘update’ button as-is, but add:

• Per-character disabling of individual feeds. This will let you not waste time downloading the some of the data for your trade/market checking/spy/forum trolling alts.
• A per-menu item (and per-entity within a top-level menu) ‘update now’ function, exact form TBD but you can probably guess what I’m leaning towards.

This should help keep things leaner and faster for people. The only wrinkle on the horizon for this is the dependency chaining for some APIs – for example, assets require an up-to-date player-built station list. This isn’t hard to code, but I need to have a think over the best way to do it!

Autopilot

People seem to like the Jump Planner (or alternatively be confused as to why it can’t route from Dodixie to Jita), and I’ve had a lot or requests to extend it to include normal gate-to-gate planning. This is on the cards, aiming for a simple A-to-B calculator in the first release, with more bells and whistles to follow.

Filtering

This is heavily dependant on the above storage rewrite, but filtering of Orders/Transactions/Jobs should be coming at some point after that’s done.

More APIs

I’m definitely planning on adding support for the new Account Status API, as well as EVE-Mail reading support. Certificates are a possibility, along with any other APIs iClone is not currently grabbing. These will follow on from the Storage changes and Selective Update functionality – I think doing it before that would involve unfortunate comparisions with straw and camel backs!

iPad

Support for the iPad will be coming – I want it as much as anyone! However, I’m not willing to release a purely scaled-up version of the iPhone version, hence the slow development schedule.

A Hard Choice

Given the way some things are progressing, I’m thinking that support for iOS 3.x will need to be dropped at some point during the year, probably around the time the universal version comes out. The new goodies that iOS 4 brings to both the iPhone and iPad, coupled with not having to maintain as much conditional code (= fewer bugs) seem worth the cost to me. I’m sure you’ll let me know otherwise – compelling arguments will be listened to, if not necessarily agreed with!

That’s enough wittering for now – fly safe in 2011 everyone!

You all seem to be liking it so far – thanks for all the useful feedback. Some people have commented on the practical use of the map, so I think it’s worth responding that:

• It’s a spinny map. That bounces. That was justification enough for it to exist for me
• All system and station info should be available without having to navigate via the map – if there’s something that’s missing then let me know and I’ll look into it.

The Bad

Initial start-up time on first launch with the new version is slow. This is a one-off hit whilst iClone upgrades existing data, mainly adding indexes to make a few of the data views much quicker to load, but can take a few minutes – sorry!

There’s also possibly an issue with API Key importing – I can’t reproduce it, but am investigating, so if you’re having issues then please use the contact form to give me details.

The Ugly

A few (minor) graphical glitches have sneaked in on iOS 4, which I’m fixing at the moment. Also, I seem to have gotten Ice fields and Asteroid Belts confused. D’oh.

Fin

I’m at the EVE BBQ next weekend, so no patch release before then to fix the above issues, but hopefully one not too long after – If you’re at the BBQ then that might be a good time for feature requests…

Keep the feedback coming, it all helps make iClone better!

As I’ve stated on the E-O forums I do any in-game publicity on my coding alt, and people who’ve met me at Fanfest will know my in-game affiliation. However, I do iClone for fun, and don’t want to risk tarnishing that by abusing the trust people put into using their keys with the app. There’s precedent for people in alliances doing third party apps: EVEMon was originally written by a goon, and as far as I know hasn’t done anything untoward with anyone’s key (or login details, as your full account login was needed before the API came along).

Why an alt then? Seemed like a good idea at the time, and I’ve used him as the face for coding related side projects ever since.

Will I ever write code for iClone that sends me keys? Yes. At some point, fuelled by my complete lack of ability to focus on just one thing, I’m probably going to investigate push notifications. Skill training notifications will need a limited key, Mail and POS alerts will need the full key. In either case, there’s going to be an obvious warning (chances are it’ll be red, stripy or both) that you’re about to be giving your keys to me so you won’t stumble into it by accident!