[Kde-games-devel] Statusbar messages in KPatience

[Matthew Woehlke]

Frederik Schwarzer wrote:
> in KPatience there are status bar messages to tell the user that
> - This game can still be won! Good luck to you.
> - Nope, this game cannot be won anymore.
> - Timeout while playing - unknown if it can be won
> - This game is lost.
> 
> Isn't that a bit too much?

Well, three of them are distinct states, and the fourth means we don't 
know which state we are in.

> Besides that the difference between the 2nd and the 4th message is no
> difference at all from the user perspective 

I guess I don't get that. The second says "there is no sequence of moves 
you can make at this point and still win". The fourth says "there are no 
more moves you can make".

> the 1st message draws the
> player's attention after every move made (I only asked three people,
> but I think it distracts more). The 3rd message however has not been
> understood by these three people. They actually thought they waited
> too long to make their next move.

The third message could probably be worded better; maybe "Solver took 
too long - unknown if the game can be won".

> So I think it might be cleaner to drop all these messages and only
> have one (maybe in style of the "You have lost" message in kmines)
> for the situation where the game is not solvable anymore.
> 
> What do you think?

Do you mean to show a message as soon as the game is in a non-winnable 
state, or when you cannot make any more moves?

I think I like the positive reinforcement (i.e. 'the first message') :-).

-- 
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
-- 
"What's Cygwin?" you ask.
'Tis mostly absurd software
Concerning hippos.