Feature Request: Helper to guide users on making scores public

[raugaral]

Hi, and thank you for this great package.

I've noticed a common issue with Google Play Games where new users have their leaderboard scores set to 'private' by default. This often confuses players because see the leaderboards are almost empty.

To improve the user experience, it would be fantastic to have a helper function in the package, something like showMakePublicScoreGuide(). This function could show a dialog or screen that explains to the user how to change their score visibility settings within the Google Play Games app.

This would be a great workaround for this Google policy and would save many developers from having to implement their own solution.

Thanks for considering it!

[egonbeermat]

Seems like Google is trying to introduce more "social features", so while they're unlikely to change the default from 'Only you', it may give the user more visibility into their profile and settings and prompt them to change - but they could go either way, including back to private :)

https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/16501675

[theLee3]

Hi @raugaral,

I don't think this package should be opinionated on how to handle this scenario, but the tools are there for you to handle it smoothly, especially with the ability to view player profiles in the feature/friends branch. The following is an example of how you might go about handling this situation.

Firstly, please use the feature/friends branch by updating the following in pubspec.yaml:

games_services: # ^5.0.0
  git:
    url: https://github.com/Abedalkareem/games_services.git
    ref: feature/friends
    path: games_services

If a PlayerScoreObject exists for the current player but the rank value is -1, then the player's score is private. Therefore, we can check if the player's score is hidden from the public leaderboards like so:

final playerScore = await Leaderboards.getPlayerScoreObject(
  scope: PlayerScope.global,
  timeScope: TimeScope.allTime,
  androidLeaderboardID: leaderboardID,
);

final isPrivate = playerScore != null && playerScore!.rank == -1;

Now, if isPrivate is true, we can display the current player's profile, putting their privacy settings one button press away.

NOTE: You may want to present an explainer dialog or screen as you discussed before taking them to their profile page.

if (isPrivate) {
  currentPlayer.viewProfile();
  // or Player.viewProfile();
}