Behind the scenes - app 3.0

Work on StuntSabers never ends - be it new hilts, improvements in saber's firmware or probably my favourite part - tinkering in the app. Particularly in the mobile version which allows to easier realise all ideas visually thanks to the friendly mobile format. When it comes to the desktop app it is significantly harder due to me wanting to fill all the empty space with something useful.

If you are using the StuntSabers Designer app for your saber, the first thing that you will notice in the new version is the navigation system change. Instead of the classic hamburger menu in the upper right corner there is now a whole separate page dedicated to it, which is the first thing you'll see after launching the app. It briefly describes all the options you can access, grouped in subpages. There is still some space left above the menu, but that is something for later, first I want to have the app fully fuctional.

The blade illumination subpage allows you to manage the colour and effects on your lightsaber. In the previous version everything was in one place and you had to scroll down to access the rest. This was problematic since when trying to scroll it was easy to accidentally touch other controls and change colours for example. Now the functionality is split in two, each part moved to its separate subpage that both have a clearer purpose and are more comfortable to use.

The second important change is related to the flash on clash effect. In the current version after you make any changes you will see a popup in the top of the screen telling you to upload the changes or discard them. It is not immediately obvious what it is supposed to do, if you go back to a diffent page the changes will have to wait etc. This is against the idea of the app being an extension of your saber - each change you make in the app is immediately reflected in the saber.

It would be best to just get rid of the necessity to upload anything "manually" like that, however due to technical limitations it is not possible. Additionally, to upload the saber needs to turn off the sound for just a split second, which you can hear as a short crack. That is why the changes were aggregated together, so that you can make them and then upload them all at once.

The final solution was to get rid of the possibility to edit in place and move it to a separate view. Thanks to that two birds could be killed with one stone - you can now easily compare what your changes do and then accept it or not, which will automatically upload if needed. There is nothing else you need to take care of, unlike before.

Those are of course not the only changes, basically evertyhing has been rebuilt from scratch visually, apart from the statistics screen. However those two changes have the most practical impact and solve some minor annoyances I had with it.

I hope that it was an intereseting read and see you next time!