[Kde-games-devel] When will background be configurable?

[Matthew Woehlke]

Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> On Tuesday 18 November 2008, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>> Conversely, what if you want to make several options for backs for a
>> particular deck? How would you propose to do that? (Duplicating the
>> whole deck just to change the back brings all sorts of problems.)
> 
> How so? It will use more storage than strictly needed, but that's not a very 
> big problem.

Wasted space (LOTS of wasted space), updates break, Inkscape is slower. 
It seems like I was thinking of others, but just the wasted space IMO is 
enough. You may say "disk space is cheap", but I only have ~200 MB 
(that's *megabytes*, not gigabytes) on my brand-new Asus, and having to 
mess with external storage isn't necessarily friendly. (Besides, it's 
still IMO needlessly wasteful, which should be wrong if only on moral 
grounds ;-).)

> A way around that could be through the use of a single svg file and multiple 
> desktop files:
> 
> The .svg file would contain the normal cards, plus a number of elements for a 
> few backs.

I know I was already thinking about that. But that's one-to-many, when 
the ideal is many-to-many. So... why not just allow a deck to request an 
external back, or even (yes, I know, shocking idea) "any backs that are 
available that provide <shape>" :-).

>> I don't buy the "creates restraints" bit /at all/. How does it create
>> restraints?
> 
> You either have to draw all decks to a certain size and corner style or 
> mixing and matching backs and fronts is not going to work.

Ah... no. I already answered that; define some "well known" styles and 
have backs advertise what they support, and decks advertise what they 
use. If a deck designer wants to use something "non-standard", they are 
free to do so. They just won't get a bunch of matching backs (unless 
they improve the backs themselves to support their shape).

100% of decks working with 100% of backs is a nice goal, but not a very 
realistic one, nor should we reject a solution because it would make 
that "difficult". After all, you're proposing a one-to-one relation.

> Or do you think this combination (which is the "use predefined back" option 
> for Tigullio International) is good looking?
> 
> http://www.cirulla.net/listing/Immagini/kpat.png

Um... my "Tigullio International" deck looks nothing like that (nor does 
it seem to want to use that back).

As I said, this would be addressed by each deck having a "shape", and 
each back supporting one or more "shapes". You'd restrict choices to 
appropriate combinations thereof.

(borrowing from elsewhere in the thread:)
> I can't see how someone could want to mix the two styles.

I agree, but even in my original suggestion I explained how to avoid 
that problem. (Mixing /artistic/ styles is another question, but I'd 
rather let users make that choice.)

-- 
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
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