[Kde-games-devel] KDE games strategy

[Inge Wallin]

On Wednesday, July 27, 2011 02:39:55 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 26, 2011 16:43:07 Inge Wallin wrote:
> > * Improve the separation of engine and UI so that we can create new UI's
> > for smartphones, tablets and other form factors
> 
> the challenge with having separate UIs is that the maintenance burdon
> raises and for projects with minimal resources this can produce rather
> unfortunate results from spreading focus (see kontact and kontact touch
> for a good example of this).

While this is true in general, I think the scales are totally different. If I 
take KReversi as an example I think the total view is 2 or 3 classes.  That 
has to be more than a magnitude less than kontact. 

And since every game is separate, it's not as if every game needs to have a 
mobile UI.  The ones where the maintainer or anybody else is interested in 
providing one can get it, and the others... well, the time will perhaps come 
for them too.

And many of the games haven't had any big changes at all for a long time and 
they are still playable. This means that once the architecture of the game is 
suitable for > 1 UI and there is actually a mobile one created, then there is 
not much need for heavy maintenance.

> for the kinds of games in the module, if you need a separate UI for touch
> then the desktop UI is also probably sub-optimal. for the kinds of games
> in the kdegames modules (perhaps with a few exceptions) there really
> should be no need for separate interfaces for touch- and mouse-driven
> interaction.

I don't understand how you can say this.  Of course there is a difference in 
handling with a mouse (where you have e.g. a right button) and a touch 
environment where you could perhaps utilize multi-touch, something that is 
impossible with a mouse.

And even if the input is disregarded, the different form factors of a 
smartphone and a desktop with a big screen create different needs for the 
presentation.

> menubars and toolbars, small popup dialogs (e.g. "high scores" dialogs) and
> other such "mouse oriented chrome" are entirely unecessary and even get in
> the way of enjoying the games even on the desktop.

Says who?  I am sure many people enjoy their high scores. I am one of them.

> the game selection in kpat or the game setup in kbattleship are nice
> examples, and well known games like "plants versus zombies" or "angry
> birds" pull these things off rather nicely too imho ...

Nobody is saying that the current designs cannot be improved.  But from that 
to saying "one UI to rule them all" is a very long step.

> oh, and of course, all truly touch-friendly games will quickly end up on
> the Plasma Active image :)

See?  :-)

	-Inge