[Kde-games-devel] KPat Progress and Regressions

[Parker Coates]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 12:09, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> Parker Coates wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 22:58, Parker Coates wrote:
>>> Okay. So I tried moving the "Change Game Type..." action to the Game
>>> menu, but it seemed awkward and/or hard to find no matter where I put
>>> it. I then got to thinking that maybe "Change Game Type..." wasn't the
>>> best name for the action, because really, it's just an alternate form
>>> of "New". So that lead me to the attached patch. (For those too lazy
>>> to try the patch, see [1] and [2].)
>>>
>>> I think I've been looking at this for too long, as I'm no longer
>>> certain this even makes sense. What are people's thoughts? Does anyone
>>> have any better suggestions? Would this idea work better with
>>> different labels?
>>>
>>> [1] http://imagebin.ca/view/7H5YgR.html
>>> [2] http://imagebin.ca/view/18qaBe.html
>>
>> Does no one have any opinions on this? The string freeze is coming, so
>> I'd like to get this sorted out as quickly as possible.
>
> I haven't had a chance to try the patch yet, though I like the idea. Why
> not just "New Game..." for the choose option?

Because unfortunately English uses the word "game" to mean a few
different things and it can lead to confusion here. "I played 17 games
of Simple Simon, which is my favourite game in KPat." I've spent a lot
of time thinking about this, and I keep hitting this wall. No matter
how you do it, differentiating between "game" and "game type" is
awkward. But your comment just now gave me my eureka moment.

There's no need to use the word "game" to describe "a round of
playing" in KPat, because solitaire games already have specific
terminology for that: "deal". If we use this terminology, that frees
up "game" to be "a named set of rules".

That gives us this [1] [2]. Note that other actions have changed to
match the new terminology. The layout has also been changed for better
grouping. This feels right to me. Much more natural. I still think
there's a chance that players will click "New Game..." when they
really wanted "New Deal" but that mistake does no damage, is easy to
learn from and will cost them at most one click.

Unless someone has suggestions or criticisms, I think this is the
version I'm going to go with.

Thanks,

Parker

[1] http://imagebin.ca/view/4MhGwr
[1] http://imagebin.ca/view/M874mVob