#boardview

So I've begun work on BoardView, just simple steps for now.

I've created some shell classes, with just variables and accessors for now, which will both most certainly be expanded upon. I'm aiming for a Listener model pretty similar to that already found in Java.

BoardView - The main class for this project, extending android's View class. This will have flags for whether a view is pannable, zoomable, etc, and will have defined dimensions and padding values.

BoardViewElement - The class for items that will be displayed within the BoardView. This class will have an image, listeners, and coordinates.

BoardViewException - Exception class for BoardView specific exceptions.

BoardViewListener - A listener interface. A BoardViewElement will have one, none, or may of these listeners, which will be triggered when the element is selected, double-clicked, etc...

BoardViewEvent - Event class passed to listeners, providing detail about what happened.

Some points already come to mind, that I must consider later on:

For a BoardView with a large number of items, the initial code for detecting what has been clicked on will be, if anything, will iterate a lot of those items needlessly. At a later date, I'll probably need to implement something to get around this; a QuadTree comes to mind.

Also, I'll need some way of filtering what elements are to be drawn when a redraw is called. Don't need to constantly update the whole board, especially if it's many times the size of the screen.

I've studied Views and the Canvas class of Android, and have decided to write my own implementation for my desired pannable and zoomable area. My plan of action is as follows:

Create a class that can contain clickables and other interactive elements. I'll be calling this a 'BoardView' for now, since It'll be like a game board, and probably be used for turn based board-like games. This class will be an extension of the android view class, and will optionally be zoomable, pannable and possibly even rotatable, within given constraints.

The second objective I have is to implement a simple board game using this class. This will be a implementation of the board game 'Twixt' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwixT a variation of the connect lines game. On a whim, with no in-depth thought, I'll give the game a tron-like styling and call it 'Night Lines'; Twixt moves are like a Knight in chess... maybe.. get it? Thought not.