BlackBerry® World™ Development

[MSohm]

---

steve_web wrote:

That said, it would still be very nice if there was an option to output to a higher quality non-lossy format for screenshots... e.g. PNG

Taking a photo with the camera... JPEG is ideal and the appropriate format... however when taking a device screenshot, a PNG image is more appropriate (or at least should be an option) as the resulting image would be perfect... not a lossy image.

Cheers,

Steve

---

That's a great idea.  I recommend logging a feature request for it in Issue Tracker:  https://www.blackberry.com/jira/secure/Dashboard.jspa

[TauPowered]

2 steps to fix everybody screenshot issues:

1) Submit screenshots with appropriate size (640x640 pixels) to avoid the distortion (use photoshop to add empty space if you want a different screenshot size, or use a "zooming" approach - show a part of the screenshot that would describe what your app is doing best

2) Submit in PNG format (best). If saving in JPEG, make sure you set compression to 100 (no compression)

Hope this helps.

I do wish RIM allow non-square screenshots, but it seems to be a requirement to support all the device specifications.

[peter9477]

TauPowered, nope, it doesn't help.

First, most of us have read the requirements. Do you have any specific things to point to where we may have done the wrong thing relative to the requirements that were in effect at the time we posted our screenshots, or is yours just a general accusation? (Hint: I posted mine almost a year ago... maybe the requirements have changed since then. Feel free to point me to where changes were described.)

Secondly, the instructions do NOT say to use 640x640, but merely that the size can be *up to* 640x640. "Please add screenshots from your product here. You may have a maximum of 50 screenshots sized at no more than 640x640 pixels. Screenshots must be in GIF, JPG, or PNG format." In past, other sizes worked perfectly well, including 640x375 or 375x640, without unexpected distortions of the aspect ratio.

Finally, while it's correct that PNG will not result in compression effects, do you have any evidence that RIM is not converting all images to JPG before sending to the client anyway? My images, by the way, were all uploaded as PNG files, and yet they demonstrate clear signs of distortion from compression effects typical with JPG.

[TauPowered]

Peter,

I meant no offense and was speaking in general tone, so forgive me if it came across the wrong way.

After dealing with numerous various app stores for various platforms (20+), it's a second nature to me to read through the corporate requirements and follow exact steps to avoid being burned (you cannot outsmart the Machine).

So, if they say "up to 640x640" - that means a SQUARE image requirement, and if they say "up to" - that means give the exact size. 

We dont have any distortions on our screenshots and we published in PNG with size 640x640 - go figure...

[lewellyn]

---

TauPowered wrote:

Peter,

I meant no offense and was speaking in general tone, so forgive me if it came across the wrong way.

After dealing with numerous various app stores for various platforms (20+), it's a second nature to me to read through the corporate requirements and follow exact steps to avoid being burned (you cannot outsmart the Machine).

So, if they say "up to 640x640" - that means a SQUARE image requirement, and if they say "up to" - that means give the exact size. 

We dont have any distortions on our screenshots and we published in PNG with size 640x640 - go figure...

---

Not everyone's app is affected the same way, in regards to this screenshots issue. That's one of the sheer joys of JPEG compression. Also, you must not have noticed that there are apps in App World which are obviously padded with ugly borders to make them square and they also exhibit this issue.

Also the official RIM best practices documentation available via the vendor portal makes no reference to our uploaded screenshots being any specific aspect ratio. If they meant for us to use colored padding (JPEG does not support transparency), they would certainly have given us guidance for a consistent App World experience.

[peter9477]

I'm unsure whether squareness is really the issue here. My 640x375 screenshots are perfect except for the newly introduced compression effects.

You're likely quite correct that applying appropriate "letterboxing" would work around the problem, but mostly this thread was an attempt to highlight the situation where previously perfectly presentable images were now broken, through no fault of the developers or any change on their side of things.

I believe they did something intentionally with the recent updates to try to speed up downloading the images, or to reduce load on their servers, and it simply wasn't thought through well enough, and probably had mistakes in the implementation as well.

Could you please provide a link to your app, or its name or something, so we can look at your images ourselves to compare? Thanks.

[TauPowered]

---

peter9477 wrote:
I'm unsure whether squareness is really the issue here. My 640x375 screenshots are perfect except for the newly introduced compression effects.

You're likely quite correct that applying appropriate "letterboxing" would work around the problem, but mostly this thread was an attempt to highlight the situation where previously perfectly presentable images were now broken, through no fault of the developers or any change on their side of things.

I believe they did something intentionally with the recent updates to try to speed up downloading the images, or to reduce load on their servers, and it simply wasn't thought through well enough, and probably had mistakes in the implementation as well.

Could you please provide a link to your app, or its name or something, so we can look at your images ourselves to compare? Thanks.

---

Peter,

Due to the corporate policy, I cannot represent our apps, reference or promote them anywhere...

I did look through the AppWorld catalog and looked at the apps that had perfect screenshots and I see the issue - over compression/pixelation. I had to restart my Playbook to get the latest shots from AppWorld (looks like it's caching it).

Our screenshots dont have much small details or text, so it's not that noticeble but if you look at some of the Modern Combat 2 shots - the text is pixelated even there.

It is a big issue, indeed - makes an app look horrible to an end user...

[eblade]

I was away for a week while my PlayBook was being sent back to it's home, and a replacement sent.

I'm back.  And every single one of the app world's screenshots still look terrible.  Including brand new apps.

I'm just an enthusiast dev trying to make a little coin doing something I love to do, but I'm seriously considering removing all my screenshots, because this is [b]embarassing[/b].

[steve_web]

Dear RIM,

This is starting to get out of hand. I have verified personally on no less than 4 separate playbook devices that the JPEG over compression has caused ugly screenshots for all applications in AppWorld on PlayBook.

This has been the case since this thread started in February.

100% of the screenshots being sent to devices right now need fixing.

I hereby re-state my interest in solving this issue and re-offer my expert advice on image compression to anyone at RIM that needs clarification on the exact problem (and solution)... As well as my free services to assist in the process wherever I can.

Using high compression on JPEG images will certainly make them smaller and thus transfer faster but JPEG is a lossy image format designed for PHOTOGRAPHS... and the detail and image quality degrades significantly the more it is compressed.

Please advise when the images have been re-processed from the original source images to avoid any significant compression artifacts... So that we can verify that the new images are starting to appear.

Please DM me if you have any questions you'd like to take offline.

Steve

[eblade]

Please take Steve up on his offer. This needs to be fixed, 2 months ago.