Board Game Arena

GTSchemer wrote:Are you curious about the reasons for change in behavior in Safari? I can try to explain, but it may not make sense if you do not have a web development background.

Apologies if I came across as accusatory, that wasn’t my intention.

I have HTML/CSS coding experience, and would definitely
like to hear more about the Safari side of this situation, if you would. Thanks!

KenFin1 wrote: ↑11 September 2024, 09:53 Jaipur has issues still, cards overlapping the draw pile, player table area shrunk right down so over half the mobile screen is the footnotes on "how to play" etc. The top player bar scores area instead of being 2x2 as before is now a row of 3 and a lone 1 below it.

7 wonders duel is borked on desktop today. Everything has gone mega size and expands to fill the screen (incorrectly) irrespective of browser zoom. All I can see on screen is a horizontal row of 4 card placeholders for the wonders once played, and nothing else.

Who is making these changes? Stop ruining the site and leave it alone please

I understand your frustration -- believe me, I and many other devs voluntarily spending time are not happy either, but there is a widespread technical issue we are still working to wrap up. You can see instructions in my post near the top of this page: https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewto ... 89#p189689

I checked 7 Wonders Duel on Firefox and don't see the card placeholder issue. Can you take a screenshot? UPDATE: A dev was working on 7 Wonders Duel today to fix mobile issues, and it may result in temporary glitches.

I need the exact phone model and browser version to check Jaipur.

@mondrianbox I will get back to you later today -- busy right now.

KenFin1 wrote: ↑11 September 2024, 09:53 Jaipur has issues still, cards overlapping the draw pile, player table area shrunk right down so over half the mobile screen is the footnotes on "how to play" etc. The top player bar scores area instead of being 2x2 as before is now a row of 3 and a lone 1 below it.

I tested Jaipur on Windows Firefox, as well as mobile portrait + landscape simulation -- I cannot get the card overlap issue to happen. I will need the phone model (like Galaxy S20) and a screenshot.

What did the Jaipur play area look like in portrait mobile before? It seems to work fine in landscape.

mondrianbox wrote: ↑11 September 2024, 10:39 I have HTML/CSS coding experience, and would definitely
like to hear more about the Safari side of this situation, if you would. Thanks!

Following up real quick, sorry about the slow reply. First, a silly metaphor:

BGA is a mountain. Lightning strikes a boulder, which rolls down the mountain.
BGA staff are in charge of the whole mountain, and start installing lightning rods and securing boulders to prevent this in the future.
BGA devs are maintenance workers -- I'm scouting the mountain, reporting damage, and maybe fixing small things.

When I report that problems started happening when lightning struck, I don't mean lightning is the ONLY problem. You are frustrated because a boulder ran over your car!


Now back to the technical side, I and other devs are definitely aware of iPhone / iPad reports. I talked to a dev recently who only has iOS devices, not Android. I personally worked with a player's reports recently to correct iOS behavior on a certain game. We don't mean to ignore your problems!

The challenge is, once the Chrome 128 situation hit, BGA started brainstorming ways to fix it. The challenge is to support old Chrome/Edge, new Chrome/Edge, Safari, Firefox (and maybe other browsers, but these are probably most common). The first try used "viewport" which has pros and cons -- it is more of a "quick fix" just to keep most users playing on mobile. Some games may still use this viewport workaround, which may affect Safari too!

After the quick fix, BGA added another scaling option ("autoscale") which should (hopefully?) work the same on all browsers. However, some games were created long ago, or use unusual techniques because many volunteers programmed them. Because of the sheer number of BGA framework / dojo framework / browser combinations, there may be many small details which are now awkward since their assumptions are no longer met. Again, this may affect Safari.

Lastly, I think I have heard, but not personally verified, that in some cases Safari may even use the Chrome render engine instead of the normal iOS render engine.



"Why don't you leave working games alone?!"
As devs, we would love to! We don't enjoy wasting our time either. Unfortunately they WEREN'T working for everyone, so please forgive us as we work through this challenge.

"Why don't you have a simple solution which works on all browsers?!"
BGA is basically a collection of 1000+ different pieces of software. They have common elements, but not every one works the same. Making a fix that affects 1000 pieces of software the same is nearly impossible, and we have not found a perfect way to do it. Instead, some general fixes were made, and now we are working through the most popular games to find reported problems we can reproduce.


As a reminder I am just a passionate dev, not on the BGA staff, so this is just my understanding as I try to improve the platform for all of us.

Thanks, GTSchemer. Appreciate the details.

GTSchemer wrote: ↑11 September 2024, 12:26

KenFin1 wrote: ↑11 September 2024, 09:53 Jaipur has issues still, cards overlapping the draw pile, player table area shrunk right down so over half the mobile screen is the footnotes on "how to play" etc. The top player bar scores area instead of being 2x2 as before is now a row of 3 and a lone 1 below it.

I tested Jaipur on Windows Firefox, as well as mobile portrait + landscape simulation -- I cannot get the card overlap issue to happen. I will need the phone model (like Galaxy S20) and a screenshot.

What did the Jaipur play area look like in portrait mobile before? It seems to work fine in landscape.

sorry typo here trying to retype a post the forum threw into the ether. I meant llama not jaipur. Jaipur just appears a different screen zoom to before but no overlapping cards there. It's llama where the playing area has shrunk so much on mobile that player hands overlap the draw pile and weird transparency things start happening. I have a screenshot but can't upload it?!?

7 wonders duel now back to normal on desktop.

With the move to autoscaling, does anyone know if there's a way to get Break The Code to fit properly? I cannot get it all to fit on one screen on desktop and if I use browser scaling it just expands the page to show just the same amount of table space, now with even smaller side panels and text log. If i minimise the window it shrinks it down, but i cannot seem to use maximised windows with it. Any ideas?

KenFin1 wrote: ↑12 September 2024, 09:52 sorry typo here trying to retype a post the forum threw into the ether. I meant llama not jaipur. Jaipur just appears a different screen zoom to before but no overlapping cards there. It's llama where the playing area has shrunk so much on mobile that player hands overlap the draw pile and weird transparency things start happening. I have a screenshot but can't upload it?!?

7 wonders duel now back to normal on desktop.

With the move to autoscaling, does anyone know if there's a way to get Break The Code to fit properly? I cannot get it all to fit on one screen on desktop and if I use browser scaling it just expands the page to show just the same amount of table space, now with even smaller side panels and text log. If i minimise the window it shrinks it down, but i cannot seem to use maximised windows with it. Any ideas?

Thanks for the patient reply. The forum just deleted my post too.

I like Llama and will check it out. What phone model are you using?
I was able to reproduce the card overlap and am trying to determine if there is a maintainer. https://i.imgur.com/SGKnh8q.png

I'm not familiar with Break the Code but I can look to be clear, did it fit on desktop before September or has it always been like this?

I have to say this. While I still do not see any way to change screen size anymore at the top of my tablet. I am glad too see devs are working on it and trying hard. Much thanks GT. For keeping us all updated on this thread. Keep up the great work.

Thanks for all your hard work and explanations, GTSchemer!

yodamus wrote: ↑12 September 2024, 16:56 I have to say this. While I still do not see any way to change screen size anymore at the top of my tablet. I am glad too see devs are working on it and trying hard. Much thanks GT. For keeping us all updated on this thread. Keep up the great work.

The fullscreen button should be working again on tablets EXCEPT for iPad / iPhone devices. I asked about this today, and it seems there are still some Safari updates BGA is working on.

(Side note, even if you use another browser on iPad etc., there is a chance it uses the Safari engine behind the scenes.)