[Kde-games-devel] Re : Re : What to do for default theme for Kapman?

[Matthew Woehlke]

Mauricio Piacentini wrote:
> Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>> We also need a way to identify what maze an svg belongs to (I was 
>> thinking about generating a checksum or something, or I guess you could 
>> just add some sort of identifier in the maze xml), because I don't want 
>> mazes to be tied to themes :-).
> 
> Well, Kapman is not using themes (yet). But you guys should probably use 
> the same approach used by the rest of kdegames: a .desktop file that 
> contains meta-information about the theme, and specifies the .svg file 
> (or files) to be used.

That's more-or-less what I had in mind, yes :-).

> This .desktop file is localizable, and it can 
> contain extra information

...like the names of the enemies? ;-)

> (like the fact that the theme is a full maze 
> graphic one or not), so less logic and detection of files and paths are 
> needed at the game level.

Well, I'm not sure we need the svg's to have different names (why? what 
would be the benefit?), and I still want themes to come from mazes, 
rather than the other way around.

> Without proper support for loading themes (and 
> the companion .desktop files) we can not consider Kapman for the main 
> module at this time, as it would not be fully localizable.

...but yeah, I hear you there.

> You wrote that you have a theme description in-progress, can you share 
> this? Maybe we can help, as almost all of the other games have faced 
> this issue in the past year.

Well, I'd asked Thomas, but if other people are bugging me about it as 
well... ;-). Attached. I haven't looked at it in a bit and don't 
remember how "completed" it is, so there may be gaping holes.

> And the solution might be different from 
> game to game: KGoldrunner for example shares the runner graphics, while 
> other games use a single .svg for all elements, including backgrounds.

So far we have one svg per entity type, which I think is a good 
solution; it makes for less cluttered svg's when you start adding 
animation. Monolithic svg's make more sense when you only have a few 
static elements.

> You mention that you already wrote most of the code for tile levels, is 
> this right?

Yes; if you recall the screenshots I posted, those were using tile drawing:

http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/1931/kapmanfg5.png (retro)
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/6435/kapman1ow6.png (classic-oxygen)

> I re-read some of the messages, and what I feel from this 
> discussion is that for one reason or another some of your goals or 
> priorities at the moment might not match the ones from the original 
> developers.

Well... no :-). The places that itch will naturally vary by developer. 
Given any two developers, it's almost guaranteed they will have 
different opinions on what the priorities should be. But I hope we can 
figure out a way to work together to both work on those areas we think 
need improvement without getting in each others' way too much.

> And both you and them are very polite, and do not want 
> confrontation, while disagreeing respectfully about some points :)

Something like that :-). And made more difficult because until a few 
days ago there was a "no community contributions allowed" policy.

> I might be wrong, but if this is the case, then of course contributing 
> is more difficult. At the same time, their vision might simply be 
> different, and they might be looking for simpler solutions at this time, 
> and do not want to get distracted from what they consider is essential 
> to complete the game. A lot of maybe's and might's... Anyway, if this is 
> the case, it might be better to let them complete their initial vision, 
> as a rough first cut. When this is done, it is easier to start accepting 
> external input, I think. Maybe not optimal, but easier :)

The biggest issue for me is that I have code already written, and am 
currently maintaining significant patches outside the main source base. 
So far this hasn't been unduly difficult, but it's still an ongoing 
maintenance burden. So I hope you (and Thomas, et al) can understand why 
I prefer getting my changes merged ASAP :-).

-- 
Matthew
Yesterday, I thought of the best .sig that has ever been contemplated. 
Alas, I forgot it before I could write it down.
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