New Documentation: Games Library

New Documentation: Games Library

[Eric McDonald]

Hello fellow Xconquerors,

   I have now added automatically-generated HTML documentation for the 
entire Xconq games library to the Xconq Web site. The link can be 
accessed from the Xconq home page. Or, here is the URL:
   http://sources.redhat.com/xconq/gamedoc/index.html

   Essentially everything that the online help system provides, you can 
also find in the Web pages.

   I will continue to work on improving the formatting and content of 
the individual help sections in the weeks (and likely, months) ahead. 
But, this mostly concludes my work with providing output files from the 
help system. The only additional improvement to the help file output 
that I can currently imagine, would be to report unit type names in the 
navigation bars of the help pages, rather than the generic "Unit" for 
the "Next" and "Previous" links. Likewise, for terrain, materials, and 
advances.
   Other than that, I think the help file framework is fairly sound. 
However, I would like to hear from you, if you have any suggestions or 
if you find problems.

   Enjoy,
     Eric

Re: New Documentation: Games Library

[Jim Kingdon]

>   http://sources.redhat.com/xconq/gamedoc/index.html

Ah, OK, so that's what all that help system hacking was all about.

> But, this mostly concludes my work with providing output files from the 
> help system. The only additional improvement to the help file output 

* Provide some brief introductory text at the top of the "Table of
Contents" page.  Perhaps the existing string which is "The standard
Xconq game, loosely based on WW II ca 1945." in the case of standard.g.

* Images for units, terrain, etc.

* General cosmetic improvements.

Re: New Documentation: Games Library

[Eric McDonald]

Jim Kingdon wrote:


> Ah, OK, so that's what all that help system hacking was all about.

Yeah, you didn't really think I was doing nothing and just writing up 
changelog entries for it, did you? :-)

> * Provide some brief introductory text at the top of the "Table of
> Contents" page.  Perhaps the existing string which is "The standard
> Xconq game, loosely based on WW II ca 1945." in the case of standard.g.

This sounds reasonable.

> * Images for units, terrain, etc.

I had that in mind as a longer term goal. It would probably be nice to 
convert the associated images to PNG's or something.

> * General cosmetic improvements.

To the help file output or to the help system in general? If you're 
referring to the help system in general, that is something I am going to 
continue to wittle away at (as mentioned in my previous message). If you 
want to see cosmetic improvements that I have already made, then the 
first couple of paragraphs of the unit type descriptions are an example 
of what I have in mind. Even those can be further improved; I plan on 
making list (table row or table col) output easier to read, and making 
subsection headings stand out better (probably with an H4 tag in HTML).

Eric

Re: New Documentation: Games Library

[Hans Ronne]

>> * Provide some brief introductory text at the top of the "Table of
>> Contents" page.  Perhaps the existing string which is "The standard
>> Xconq game, loosely based on WW II ca 1945." in the case of standard.g.
>
>This sounds reasonable.

This is a very nice addition. Hopefully, it will make people browsing the
web site more interested in trying out the game.

I have two suggestions.

One is what Jim already asked for, even though he didn't refer to it by
name: the blurb. This is the most important item in the whole help system,
since it provides a brief description of the game. Only some games have
instructions, but every one has a blurb that makes sense. I made sure about
that when I updated the game library earlier this year. The blurb can now
also be much longer (max 480 characters) and I tweaked the interfaces so
that a bigger blurb can be displayed. So it is possible to put a little
more info in there than just the title and the author name.

The other thing that would be nice in the help pages are screenshots of the
games. Like the ones Stan already put on the web site a long time ago. This
would give the reader a much better idea about the available modules. Of
course, this would require some human work since I doubt that xcscribe
could be made to play games and take screenshots :-).

Hans

Re: New Documentation: Games Library

[Eric McDonald]

On Mon, 26 Jul 2004, Hans Ronne wrote:

> This is a very nice addition. Hopefully, it will make people browsing the
> web site more interested in trying out the game.

Thanks, I hope so too. Matter of fact, that is why I went through 
the trouble to begin with. 

(It was fun to discover CVS "limitations" when it came time 
to check in the horde of files...; I ended up writing a script to 
spoon-feed the CVS server one directory at a time.)

> One is what Jim already asked for, even though he didn't refer to it by
> name: the blurb. 

I had inferred this was what he was asking for. I think that I 
should be able to add that fairly easily tonight. (Along with 
making HTML the default output mode for Xcscribe.)

> that when I updated the game library earlier this year. The blurb can now
> also be much longer (max 480 characters) and I tweaked the interfaces so
> that a bigger blurb can be displayed. 

Yes, I saw those changes. They were quite recent.

> The other thing that would be nice in the help pages are screenshots of the
> games. Like the ones Stan already put on the web site a long time ago. This
> would give the reader a much better idea about the available modules. Of
> course, this would require some human work since I doubt that xcscribe
> could be made to play games and take screenshots :-).

Well, the Mac version of Xcscribe has that feature.... Just 
kidding.

I think the windowshot stuff might be able to be scripted. 
Either I'll have to hunt down the sources to my venerable old 
friend, 'xv', or else I'll have to find out whether ImageMagick or 
GIMP can be made to do what needs to be done with command-line 
switches. (Actually, I need to remind myself whether even XV can 
do time-delayed captures using command-line switches; it 
certainly can if you are using its UI.)

I will also have to think how to make sure focus is in the correct 
window before a shot is taken. I suppose if the Xconq window 
fills the entire screen, then a screenshot can be taken instead.

Starting Xconq from a script is not a problem: "./xconq -g 
modulename". "kill -9" on its PID, after the capture, is even 
easier.

The SDL interface is probably ideal for windowshots or 
screenshots. But, doing that would feel a bit like 
"bait-and-switch" marketing, when we have to tell the newbie to 
use the Tcl/Tk interface instead.

Eric