Bannerlator 2.9-pre1

     

Bannerlator 2.9-pre1 — test build

⚠️ This is a pre-release, not a stable build

It exists so the two changes below can get real testing on real devices. Expect rough edges. The headline feature — the rebuilt virtual controls editor — is in-progress work from an open pull request that hasn't been merged or fully reviewed yet.

• Stable users are not affected. 2.8 remains the Latest release; nobody is offered this unless they ask for it.
• To get it in-app: Settings → enable "Include pre-releases" in the updater. Otherwise just sideload the APK below.
• If it misbehaves, install 2.8 back over the top. It's app-side only, so nothing about your containers is at risk either way.
• Please report what you find — that's the entire point of this build. Open an issue with logs where you can.

Like the last several releases this is entirely app-side — no ImageFS reinstall. Containers, themes, custom accent and per-game settings all carry over. Install straight over 2.8.

✨ What's in this build

🕹️ Virtual controls editor — rebuilt in Compose (in progress)

The whole on-screen controls editor has been rewritten, replacing the old Fragment/XML settings interface with a Compose one — and a large set of new capabilities along with it.

• New control types — Dynamic Stick, Mouse Area, Button Grid, Expandable Button, and an Android Keyboard control.
• A real editing UI — Compose toolbar, visual control-type picker, and a sliding settings panel that opens automatically when you add an element.
• Per-element tuning — dead zones for Stick / Dynamic Stick / D-Pad, sensitivity, hold bindings, detection-area styling and grid cell shapes.
• Better bindings — category-filtered binding selector, multi-key combos, binding presets, and custom icons.
• Control groups — name a group, toggle its visibility, and move its members together.
• Reference background images with adjustable opacity, so you can lay controls out against a screenshot of the actual game.
• Live in-game profile editing — adjust a profile without leaving the Wine session.
• Versioned ICPx import/export — embedded icons, legacy .icp compatibility, validation and atomic writes.
• Input hardening — fixes for stuck and conflicting buttons, sticks, and duplicate bindings.

⚠️ This is the part that most needs testing. It is a very large change to the input system, it is not yet merged, and it has not had a full review. Please exercise your existing control profiles and report anything that regressed — especially profiles created in an older version.

This work is entirely by @arro000 in PR #156, published here as a test build so it can get device coverage before merge. Thank you.

🖱️ Cursor to Touch — fixed, and given real gestures

Cursor to Touch (in-game drawer → Controls → Mouse) moves the pointer to wherever your finger lands. Two long-standing bugs are fixed and the mode has been built out.

Fixes

• The toggle never showed as on. The chip stayed dark no matter how many times you tapped it, even though the mode was actually working — the drawer was reading a value nothing ever wrote to.
• The setting was silently lost on every launch. The preference persisted, but was never re-applied when the touchpad view was created, so it quietly reverted to off each session until you toggled it again.
• The three Mouse chips no longer close the drawer when tapped, so you can see the state change where you tapped it.

New gestures — shown under the toggle whenever Cursor to Touch is on, each independently switchable, applied instantly and saved:

• Drag to box-select — drag past the tap threshold and the left button is held while the cursor tracks your finger, giving you a real selection rectangle. This is what makes strategy, tactics and point-and-click games playable by touch.
• Hold for right click — hold in place and the right button fires where your finger is, with an adjustable 150–800 ms delay and a haptic tick so you can feel it land.
• Two-finger drag still scrolls the wheel, which in most strategy games is your camera zoom.

Gesture set modeled on the RTS touch controls in Producdevity/gamehub-lite #73 by @Nightwalker743 — the behaviour and thresholds are theirs; the implementation here is written against Bannerlator's own touch path. Thank you.

🐞 Known issues

• Occasional ANR ("Bannerlator isn't responding") during input. The UI thread can block on a socket write and stall touch delivery for 5+ seconds. This is pre-existing — it reproduces on 2.8 and earlier, and is not caused by anything new here — but you may well meet it while testing, so it's listed rather than left as a surprise. Reports with a timestamp are still useful.
• The virtual controls editor is unmerged, in-progress work. Treat anything it does as provisional.

📥 Downloads

Variant	File
Standard	Bannerlator-2.9-pre1-standard.apk
PUBG	Bannerlator-2.9-pre1-pubg.apk
Ludashi	Bannerlator-2.9-pre1-ludashi.apk

ℹ️ Updating in-app? Turn on "Include pre-releases" in the updater — without it you'll stay on 2.8. This build is entirely app-side: there's no ImageFS reinstall, and your containers, themes, accent, per-game settings and control colours all carry over. Install over 2.8.

🙏 Credits

• @arro000 — the entire virtual controls editor rebuild (#156): the Compose editor, the new control types, per-element tuning, control groups, background images, live in-game profile editing and the ICPx format. Published here as a test build with the work still in progress.
• @Nightwalker743 and Producdevity/gamehub-lite — the RTS touch-control design (#73) the Cursor to Touch gestures follow.
• Everything 2.8 stands on — full credits in the 2.8 release notes and the repo README.

🔗 Notes

• 2.8 is still the Latest release. This pre-release is invisible to the default updater; only the "Include pre-releases" opt-in surfaces it.
• Everything from 2.8 — gyro motion aim, the rebuilt Big Picture, PC-accurate vibration — is included here unchanged. See the 2.8 release notes for that feature list.
• Nothing about your existing containers or settings changes on update.