[Kde-games-devel] How to use KNewStuff3?

[Ian Wadham]

This is a new topic arising out of the "Proposing KGameRenderer" thread.

On Sunday 13 June 2010 7:33:53 am Stefan Majewsky wrote:
> On Saturday 12 June 2010 19:31:27 Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> > > KNewStuff3 is in 4.5.
> >
> > I know, but are all the games that could benefit from it currently using
> > it? I have not had the time lately to follow kdegames development, but I
> > understand there could be low hanging fruits there.
> 
> From what I saw on kde-commits, all games using KNS2 have been ported to
>  KNS3, as well as KGameThemeSelector. (Ask Frederik Gladhorn if in doubt, I
>  think he did the conversion.)
> 
> Concerning those games which currently do not use KNS at all, these
>  probably have a good reason to do so, because using KNS is pretty simple.
>  (Adding it boils down to changing one flag in the KGameThemeSelector
>  constructor, and installing a four-line knsrc configuration file, and
>  creating a corresponding repository on kstuff or similar.)
> 
Well I do not find using KNS at all easy, which is why I have not used it
so far in KGoldrunner.  There is just a stub of KNS3 there.

What I would like to do is have new-stuff repositories not just for new
graphics themes but also for:

  - New sets of levels (currently 1 or 2 sets per year),
  - Solutions to levels (files of replayable recordings),
  - Hints on non-Championship levels (English only?) [1],
  - International high-score bids [2],
  - Recording of accepted international high-scores [2],
  - Modifying and deleting new stuff [3],
  - Restricting access to some new stuff to read-only [3].

The C++ programming of KNS3 looks easy enough, but my
problems lie in other areas, mainly to do with data definition,
data storage, user access and user documentation.  For instance:

  - Where do I actually *store* the new stuff?  On SVN or where?
  - What guarantee do I have of continuity of space and URL?
  - How do the users know where to find it?
  - How do the users go about preparing and uploading stuff?
  - Where do you store the doco on formatting data, how to upload
    stuff and how to use stuff of various kinds?
  - How do the users know where to find the doco?
  - What is the translation policy for text in new stuff?
  - Last but not least, how do you program multiple sources of
    different kinds of stuff?

I saw a thread on the last question and have made a note of it
for future reference.  It seemed to involve having a separate
new-stuff instance for each type of data and was not, IIRC,
considered to be very elegant.

All the best, Ian W.

[1] KGoldrunner policy is to make hints mandatory only for
     Championship and Tutorial games, to keep SVN file sizes
     down, to reduce hint-writing work and to minimise the work
     of translators.  Nevertheless, some levels of Normal games
     are quite difficult and it might be nice to have a contributory
     source of hints for them.

[2] My idea is that someone going for an international high-
     score would first submit a recording of the game-play that
     claims to have achieved that score.  After vetting (by me?),
     the score could be posted somewhere, but in read-only
     form.

[3] Typically a new set of levels requires a few amendments
     and typographical corrections (by negotiation with the
     composer) before it can be put into general play.  Also,
     it would be necessary to delete high-score bids after
     acceptance and (occasionally) to delete stuff that is
     complete junk, full of bugs or just hackwork.