[Kde-games-devel] kbattleship and welcome screen

[Paolo Capriotti]

On Tuesday 12 June 2007 16:30:12 Mauricio Piacentini wrote:
>
> I agree with you completely. Some of these points were raised a while
> ago in IRC discussions, when we are deciding what to do with statusbars
> and toolbars. There was no agreement, some people prefer the
> desktop-integration path, while others prefer the game-special-interface
> one. But I believe that having the KWelcomeScreen experiment in
> kbattleship is a good thing so we can actually see the problems (and
> solutions) it brings in action, and not only speculate on them.

I agree that experimenting has been a good thing, but I think that it's time 
to stop experimenting and to implement a definitive solution.
I am pleased to see that there is quite a general agreement on using a 
conventional approach, and I think that I'll take this route from now on, and 
implement a ksudoku-like welcome screen.

> For me, KDE games should in theory implement the desktop metaphors and
> behave just like any other KDE application. This means toolbars and
> menus for actions, and status bar for feedback. Standard KDE config
> dialogs and menu entries should be used as well. The point is to make
> the game fit perfectly into the KDE-desktop style and provide
> consistency. This will also guarantee that the games age well in the
> future, as changes in the KDE UI and styles will automatically be
> reflected, without the need for new in-game specific code. 

I used to think that consistency could be sacrified for the sake of a prettier  
and more immediate interface, but after trying with kbattleship, I don't feel 
so sure anymore.
There are some advantages in implementing user interfaces with custom 
graphics, such as the ability to add smooth animations and the integration 
with the underlying game (concrete example: I don't think it's possible to 
have a QWidget smoothly fade out revealing what's behind using the current Qt 
API), but probably the lack of graphical effects could be mitigated by future 
progresses in the Qt graphical system.

> But maybe having some games with KWelcomeScreen-type
> solutions could also be a good experiment during the beta, so we can get
> user feedback on it.

I see, but I don't think kbattleship will be one of those. Kollision is 
probably a better candidate, but right now my opinion on this matter is so 
utterly reversed that I feel more like adding toolbars and menus to it :)

Paolo