Phonon Sample Cache

[Ian Wadham]

Hi Colin, and thanks for taking some notice of what I had to say ... :-)

On 27/08/2011, at 10:28 PM, Colin Guthrie wrote:

> 'Twas brillig, and Ian Wadham at 27/08/11 00:54 did gyre and gimble:
>> 
>> KGoldrunner sounds are already themed and have been for more than
>> three years.  It is no sweat.  The sounds just go in the same directory
>> structure as the graphics themes.  It is true, however, that while there are
>> six graphics themes, there is only one sound theme.  I think that is just
>> because sound composers are even harder to find than graphics artists.
> 
> This is great, but I'd be interested in making things work in a standard
> way rather than an ad-hoc, per-application basis. I appreciate this may
> mean some changes to where you install the sounds, but I don't think
> it's a massive upheaval and I think the sound-theme specification is
> something that can benefit everyone on the systems generally. That said,
> I fully appreciate if you are reticent to this kind of change.

Well, the way we manage graphics themes in KDE Games *is* standardised
and has been since at least a year before the first release of KDE 4.  This
standardisation is supported by conventions artists can follow in their SVG
files and KDE translators can use when translating the names and
descriptions of themes.  It is also supported by modules in the KDE Games
Library that find themes, display them in dialogs, render graphics and
manage caches of pixmaps.  I do not think the KDE Games team are
about to change all that across dozens of games.

Adding sounds to the graphics structure was not so much "ad hoc" as
a logical extension to what was already there IMO.  Another author wrote
that code, but I am not likely to change it.

I am not against standards.  Indeed I have always promoted them
throughout a long career as a programmer, designer and project
manager.  It's just that you need to get them in place *before* 
people have written much code.  It is unrealistic, unproductive and
actually risky IMO to expect people to rewrite code that is currently
working well just because a new standard has been introduced,
unless of course the standard has the force of law.  I wonder when
the USA will go metric ... :-)

Cheers, Ian W.