gg module: odd create_image functions situation

[Wajinn]

First, happy holidays and hope all are doing well. Happen to be playing with some examples, and came across the flappylearning one. This example works fine on Windows, but simply would not work on Android (after using vab). When looking a bit deeper as to what could be wrong, came across a number of posts detailing the issue. It appears that the gg module create_image functions issue has been an ongoing thing. It looks like it may have worked previously, possibly sometimes, and not other times. Some of the links that are connected; 16542, 239, 16564...

The thing about the issue is that since it is an example, probably many would expect it to work and would be disappointed if it didn't. Something else that I noticed is the way in which flappylearning was attempting to load the image seems a bit strange. Would think it could load it from a file, like how fonts are, but instead it was using from_byte_array. Just saying and noticing the difference. By the way, neither option seems to presently work.

Wondering if there are those that got it to work or have any more in depth knowledge about the situation?

[larpon]

Happy holidays.
It works on my Android device after #16564 , and to my knowledge no one have had any unexpected problems since? The image viewer example works also. Is this a bug report? For details please see the wall of text reasoning I give in #16564 (more investigation in #16670). It's a small friction between the the channel count in sokol_gfx and the stbi image loader - something that existed because gg is trying to cover more ground than either of the two libs previously mentioned.

(gg tries to hide away any pains from the user regarding image channels aka. Red, Green, Blue and Alpha channels. Images doesn't always have all channels set - especially if an image has been optimised by some external app etc., and users shouldn't be stopped by such irrelevant problems that can arise, when simply trying to load and display an image)

[larpon]

... as for create_image vs. create_image_from_byte_array - Android's filesystem doesn't work like you would expect it to do on a normal desktop PC, because of Android's resource system, security policies and the fact that APK/AAB allows users to package their own files - everything file related for APK/AABs needs to be handled specially. See https://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/res/AssetManager for the functionality we also use in V/vab

[spytheman]

imho a small dump( background#[0..10] ) call will help to show if the file was loaded from the APK

[larpon]

@Wajinn here's a version of flappylearning built with: vab --min-sdk-version 21 --api 26 -o /tmp/flappylearning.apk -v 3 ~/path/to/v/examples/flappylearning/

You should be able to unzip it and install the flappylearning.apk file in the archive, on your device with either vab or via file transfer.
flappylearning.zip

If this does not work on your device we'd really like to hear back from you about what the exact log output is.

[Wajinn]

os.read_apk_asset is quite dependent on the resource actually being in the APK/AAB - e.g. it might be a an APK package issue rather than any gg related.

imho a small dump( background#[0..10] ) call will help to show if the file was loaded from the APK

Of course you guys are sharp foxes with great advice. Sorry for being a bit late getting back, holiday hangover. As mentioned, the simplified examples worked, indicating no trouble with gg. The issues were a combination of incorrect usage, in more elaborate variations based on the examples, with os.abs_path and os.join_path inside the os.read_apk_asset(inside here) function, not using os.read_apk_asset for android, or the correct file not being in the asset. So, its all sorted out. Thanks.

[larpon]

So, its all sorted out. Thanks.

That's good to hear, thanks for letting us know.