[Kde-games-devel] Fwd: KDE/kdegames/katomic

[Aaron J. Seigo]

(i just re-sub'd to kde-games-devel which i wasn't sub'd to for a while.. but 
now i have a reason to be here so .. here i am ;)

On Thursday 31 May 2007, you wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ian Wadham <ianw2 at optusnet.com.au>
> Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 13:07:25 +1000
> Subject: Re: [Kde-games-devel] KDE/kdegames/katomic
> To: KDE games development <kde-games-devel at kde.org>
>
> On Wed, 30 May 2007 06:03 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > On Wednesday 30 May 2007, Dmitry Suzdalev wrote:
> > > If I understand you correctly you're suggesting some place where
> > > _technical_ descriptions of themes/levels/etc are held? I.e. some
> > > resource with docs&references for artists/level-makers/etc which they
> > > use while creating the content?
> > > And the content itself go to e.g. kde-look, yes?
> >
> > yep; we're going to be facing the exact same issues with plasma, btw. =)
>
> That being the case, and with EDU too (as you mentioned later), lets
> get off on the right foot. 

=)

i'll be meeting up with kde-edu people @ akademy to discuss a bunch of these 
related issues. i'd like to invite kde-games team members to join us.. we 
don't have a firm date/time yet, but it will likely be either monday or 
wednesday at this point.

> For each theme there is a *.desktop file, one of which is called
> default.desktop (the default theme for new players).  Mauricio chose
> the *.desktop format because:

we're using .desktop files as well. of course, in plasma we have more than 
visual themes we also have entire mini-programs that include scripts (js, 
ruby or python) and random bits of data (though the latter can for these 
purposes be considered similar to image data). we're using KPluginInfo as our 
template for the .desktop file entries for the applet bits.

we (plasma) should adopt the same key names as you guys for things like the 
preview.

perhaps the kdegame theme .desktop entries could also be made a bit 
more "standard" (i use that term loosely in this context) for things like the 
author name, email, etc.. see:

http://api.kde.org/4.0-api/kdelibs-apidocs/kdecore/html/classKPluginInfo.html

we're also bundling up all the files into little packages for transport 
purposes. on disk they'll probably be expanded, though we're not 100% sure on 
that yet either (it's often more efficient to read a bunch of little files 
out of an uncompressed archive than a each one separately from the 
filesystem). this is a separate issue from the .desktop file handling, but 
probably should be thought about.

> Mauricio has added classes KGameTheme and KGameThemeSelector
> to libkdegames.  The first is to find, load and decode a theme.  The
> second is to drive a theme-selection page in KConfigDialog.

hm.. i'll have to take a look at these classes indeed. we have dialogs for 
this from kicker (and superkaramba, which is based on the one from kicker). 
it probably makes sense from a user experience POV to harmonize all these 
visually and work flow wise...

we'll also be using the new GetHotNewStuff2 dialog for downloading themes and 
something called "plasmagik" for the packages, but that won't be in kdelibs 
until 4.1 due to it missing the libs cut off. we'll be giving it a temporary 
home in libplasma until then.

the plugin selector is already in kdelibs; perhaps we could make it a goal to 
get all these things together in kdelibs for a truly unified way of providing 
this functionality in all kde apps. it seems more and more of us are needing 
this functionality. have some of the pieces in libkdegames and libplasma for 
4.0 will certainly help prove (and improve =) these classes before they get 
launched onto the rest of the world.

> > user data customization really isn't appropriate for techbase which is
> > for software development, systems admin and eventually sys integration;
> > wiki.k.o might be a decent starting place though it's harder to raise
> > visibility of stuff there. techbase has been great for organizing content
> > and making it easily visible.
> >
> > a wiki specifically for this purpose just seems .. "right" ...
>
> May I suggest that the KDE main page and the KDE Look main page
> include a "plug" and a link for wherever this wiki ends up, so that
> interested artists can easily come across it. 

completely agreed.

> I'd also suggest that 
> there be overviews on how it works, followed by details on how to
> theme each game, EDU package or plasma desktop.

that would be the goal, indeed.

> I would also like to help with the writing, if you need me.

we'll need everyone we can get... if we divide up the work amongst all of us, 
we may be able to do it pretty quickly.

> > > README's I commited were the effort to have at least _some_
> > > instructions for theme makers.
> >
> > which is great; documentation is next to godliness, or something like
> > that
>
> Amen to that.  We agree on something, Aaron ... :-)

*pops the champagne* =)

> BTW, congratulations to you and everyone on Techbase.  It is coming
> along nicely.  I have learned such a lot from it in the last few weeks.

it's still a work in progress, but yeah, i'm quite happy with how it is 
shaping up ... 

btw, if anyone is so motivated ... adding tutorials on how to use things in 
libkdegames or other kde game development related topics is -more- that 
welcome on techbase.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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