Steve Troughton-SmithFeb 10

My Codex usage cap has reset, so it's time for another big porting project. This time, replacing my crummy old Android version of Lights Off with a version that matches the modern iOS app 1:1.

Whenever it goes astray, I tell it to look back at the iOS code and make things look / layout exactly like that

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 10
And with an evening of prompting, I have got a complete port of the modern version of Lights Off on Android, in Java/XML, complete with responsive layout, themes, settings, animation, sound and more, using the latest iOS codebase as a reference. It matches the version on iPhone and iPad almost down to the last pixel. I haven't touched a line of code manually (except for the original Swift code), and Codex 5.3 did all the work. It completely replaces the old Android version I wrote a decade ago
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11
It is really hard to design a beautiful modern Android app, because no two apps on the system look the same, and there are no good references from Google, at all. And if a human won't have a clue, an LLM certainly won't know what to do either. The freaking Clock and Recorder apps are the best examples I can draw from
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11
Codex is trying its hardest, though
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11
OK, I've done my research, I've pointed it at the APIs and styles I want, and I've painstakingly guided it through the process, so this is my best attempt at a Material Design 'settings' view for Lights Off on Android
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11
And here are the screens in picture form. I used the recommended MDL3 Expressive styles from the design docs, I checked as many system apps as I could for reference, it uses the inherited system theme colors as appropriate, and on foldables it expands out into a navigation rail view
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11
I don't think I have anything more to add to this project. It's a complete one-to-one recreation of the entire iOS version of Lights Off, every feature and corner of the app intact, with native Material Design 3 Expressive UI, and full support for phones, foldables and tablets. It is absolutely leagues better than the previous version of Lights Off I wrote for Android back in the early 2010s, and I haven't touched a line of code myself. I need to redo the app icon by hand, but it's ready to ship
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11
Since I have so much extra time to work with, I inserted a new dynamic theme that inherits the user's Material You system theme colors, drawn from the user's wallpaper
Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11

You may have a different opinion, but I believe I have put together a beautiful version of Lights Off for Android. I started it late last night, picked it back up at 9am this morning, and I've started submitting builds to Google Play's internal testing mechanics at 1pm.

(I have burned through 19% of my Codex weekly limit on the $20 plan)

Show threadSteve Troughton-SmithFeb 11

Since people are fascinated by the behind-the-scenes, here's the starting prompt.

I wish I had taken screenshots of the first run, because it didn't look anything like what I have now. But through iteration, perseverance, getting it to refer to the iOS source code over and over again, and doing quite a bit of design research of my own, I got exactly what I wanted, and much more

Show threadEerko Feb 11
@stroughtonsmith Although it's fascinating this works, frankly writing these kind of prompts woud bore me to death. I much rather do the work myself. There's joy in creating things. It's why I left a management job to be an independent developer.
Show threadSteve Troughton-Smith

@eerko I don't find it boring, but I do find it /exhausting/. It's exercising different muscles to programming, not ones I use a whole lot, and even a week of this has me tired out.

Re joy, I fully agree with you. But I still feel like I've created something — it exists, exactly as I imagined it, where it didn't before — even if I didn't have to write the code. I get the same joy from that end result. And I certainly did a ton of work to make it happen, just not the same kind of work as coding

Feb 11 at 2:38pmIvory for Mac