[Kde-games-devel] When will background be configurable? (was: Kpat and card style chooser)

[Luciano Montanaro]

On Tuesday 18 November 2008, Parker Coates wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 13:05, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> > Parker Coates wrote:
> >> I personally think the independent selection of card fronts and backs
> >> is a simple case of over customisability.
> >
> > I still don't like making fronts and backs inseparable. What about
> > standardizing on some common sizes, and restricting the choice of backs
> > to those matching the "shape" of the deck? You can still do "unusual"
> > decks; they just won't have many choices of back. But "standard"-sized
> > decks can have many choices. (And a back can provide more than one
> > "shape", of course.)
>
> This just seems like overkill to me and a case of "just cause you can,
> don't mean you should". Is there really anyone who cares that much
> about card backs, but who wouldn't be willing open up the SVGs to make
> a deck of their own. It just seems like a lot of code and a lot of UI
> noise to add functionality that (I'm guessing) very few people care
> about. I think conceptually it's much cleaner to select a deck which
> has predetermined front sides and back sides, as it mirrors real life.
> It also ensures consistency while keeping thing simple for deck
> designers.

I agree completely with you here. Unifying deck fronts and back would simplify 
things for the artist, the translators and would require less code.
And it would require a simpler user interface. Maybe that would mean we'll 
have lots of decks differing only in their backs, but I don't think this is 
bad.

>
> >> It also seems a bit odd that in KPat 4.2 you can choose
> >> card backs independently, but not the background image which is
> >> something I would assume a lot more people would be interested in
> >> customising.
> >
> > I've been complaining about that for some time :-).
>
> Maybe if you'd done more programming and "Les Whinen", it could've
> been included in 4.2, but as it is, we're stuck with what we've got
> until 4.3. ;)
>
> >> Of course, if we're in the process of unifying decks, then maybe it
> >> makes sense to also include backgrounds and transition from "decks" to
> >> "themes". It works for our other games, why not for our card games?
> >> For example, the current default background looks very nice when
> >> combined with the Royal Jolly deck, but looks a bit odd when combined
> >> with one of the cleaner, simpler decks like, say, Nicu Ornamental.
> >> Letting deck designers choose their backgrounds seems pretty
> >> reasonable to me.
> >
> > ...but then you /remove/ that choice from the user. IMO there's a reason
> > our mahjong games didn't go this route.
>
> Technically, you can't really "remove" a choice that the user never
> really had in the first place. In fact adding the background to the
> theme would technically be giving them more background choice than
> they currently have, but I see where you're coming from.
>
> I could be convinced that a separate background selection is a
> worthwhile feature, but I really can't see the usefulness of
> independent card backs and fronts. But then again, maybe I'm just
> biased because I mostly play Simple Simon where you don't see any card
> backs at all.
>

About the background, I'm less enthusiast in the unification. I can think of 
changing tablecloth every now and then, and there are all time classics like 
the green felt that go with everything.

More importantly, KPat is not the only card game we have now, and hopefully 
more games will come which could share the card themes. Their background needs 
may be different though. I think LSkat uses a competely different background, 
with a different set of hot areas.

I quite like the KMahjongg settings for tiles and background. If we keep the 
split, its classes could be made just a tad more generic, and handle kpat as 
well.

> Parker
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-- 
Luciano Montanaro //
                \X/ mikelima at cirulla.net