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177 lines
6.0 KiB
177 lines
6.0 KiB
====================
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Creating Themes
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====================
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This document is your guide to creating themes for the Knights chess
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interface.
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-----------------------
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1. Anatomy of a Theme:
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-----------------------
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A theme is a collection of images, sounds, and settings which create a
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unique representation of a chess environment. Typically, this theme is in the
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form of a gzipped tarball.
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There are three types of themes for Knights: Chessboard themes, Chessmen
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themes, and Audio themes.
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------------------------
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2. Tarball Information:
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------------------------
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Themes must be stored in tarballs. Knights will use any type of tarball that
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KDE supports. A good test is to try loading it in Konqueror using a
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tar://mytarball URL. Generaly speaking, using the standard gzipped tarball
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( with a '.tar.gz' extension ) will be fine.
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The first two letters of your filename must be 'KB', 'KC', or 'KS' depending on
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the type of theme it is. KB tells Knights that it is a Chessboard theme,
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and KC represents Chessmen themes. KS is a sound theme. This is
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case-sensitive.
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Between the prefix and the extension comes your theme's name. Write it exactly
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how you want it displayed in Knights, except use underscores instead of spaces.
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So if you want your theme to be called "My Uber Chessmen" within Knights, you'd
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have the following filename: KCMy_Uber_Chessmen.tar.gz
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As a general rule, you should remove write and execute permissions on the
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files, and either remove Owner/Group attributes, or make them something
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harmless ( like nobody:users )
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---------------------------
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3. theme.conf Information:
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---------------------------
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Every theme must contain a text file called 'theme.conf'. Here's a
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sample theme.conf file:
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################################
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# A Sample theme.conf file
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################################
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[General]
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Type=Board
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Name=Default
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Version=1.0
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Author=Troy Corbin Jr.
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AuthorEmail=tcorbin@users.sourceforge.net
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AuthorWWW=http://knights.sourceforge.net
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Notes=This is the default chessboard for Knights. It was made with the Gimp.
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[2DWhite]
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King=white.king.png
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Queen=white.queen.png
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Bishop=white.bishop.png
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Knight=white.knight.png
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Rook=white.rook.png
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Pawn=white.pawn.png
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[2DBlack]
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King=black.king.png
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Queen=black.queen.png
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Bishop=black.bishop.png
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Knight=black.knight.png
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Rook=black.rook.png
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Pawn=black.pawn.png
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[2DBoard]
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Light=square.light.png
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Dark=square.dark.png
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Motion=square.motion.png
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Select=square.select.png
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Danger=square.danger.png
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[Coordinates]
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TextColor=255,255,255
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ShadowColor=0,0,0
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[Audio]
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Select=select.wav
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Move=move.wav
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Check=check.wav
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MatchOver=matchover.wav
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Challenge=notify.wav
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Tell=tell.wav
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Notification=notify.wav
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DrawOffer=draw.wav
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Say=tell.wav
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Promote=promote.wav
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################################
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Nothing too tough to figure out. 'Type' must be one of the following:
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- Board
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- Chessmen
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- Audio
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- 3DBoard ( For future use )
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- 3DChessmen ( For future use )
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'Name' is your theme's name and 'Version' is the version of your theme. Author,
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AuthorEmail, and AuthorWWW should be self explanitory. Notes are any comments
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you want to add.
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The '2DWhite' and '2DBlack' sections are required in Chessman themes. Each line
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specifies the file to be used for each different piece type.
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'2DBoard' and 'Coordinates' are required in Chessboard themes. 'Light' and
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'Dark' specify the file to be used for each color square on the board. 'Motion'
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is the highlight used to indicate that a piece moved, 'Select' is the selection
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highlight, and 'Danger' indicates an attacked piece. The 'Coordinates' are
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standard 8bit RGB colors. These are the colors that Knights will use for board
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coordinates. Try to use colors that contrast with the board itself.
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New in Knights 0.5.6 are Chessboard borders. They are not required, but they
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can greatly enhance the appearance of your chessboard. If you'd like to use one
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then under '2DBoard' add the following lines:
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HaveBorder=true
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Border=border.png
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BorderLightOn=light_on.png
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BorderLightOff=light_off.png
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-----------------------
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4. Pixmap Information:
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-----------------------
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Your pixmaps can be in any format that Qt supports, as long as it supports an
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alpha channel. For this reason you are strongly encouraged to stick with PNG
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images. Note that there are a few exceptions to this in Chessboard themes. The
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'Light', 'Dark', and 'Border' pixmaps constitute the lowest layer of graphics,
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and so they will never be transparent. Therefore, for these items you can use
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non-transparent file types ( like JPEG ).
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Knights will scale your pixmaps to the current theme size. This means you can
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supply any sized images you want and Knights will make it work. However, when
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Knights has to enlarge a pixmap, the resulting image tends to be of poor
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quality. To keep this from happening to your themes, you should make all your
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pixmaps 144 pixels by 144 pixels. This ensures that your images will never be
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enlarged, and it's not so large that it's wasteful.
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Borders are an exception to the size rule. The 'Border' itself needs to be 9
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times the size of your other images. So if you use the recommended 144 pixel
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image size, the 'Border' needs to be 1296 pixels. Likewise, the 'BorderLightOn'
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and 'BorderLightOff' images need to be half the size of your other images. So
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a regular size image of 144 pixels required that the lights be 72 pixels.
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----------------------
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5. Audio Information:
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----------------------
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Like pixmaps, you can supply your audio using any file format that aRts
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supports. I recommend you stick with .wav and .ogg, although the last time
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I checked aRts' Ogg Vorbis support was flaky with short sounds. Also, for
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very short sounds, .wav files are actually smaller. It's best to try both
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and see which works best with your paticular sounds.
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----------------------
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6. Copyrights:
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----------------------
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If you're planning to share your themes with the Knights Project, you must be
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the copyright owner on all the material contained in the theme. As much as I'd
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love to see the heads of Neo and Agent Smith flying around the board, I don't
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want to recieve any nasty letters from Warner Brothers.
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Your material must also be released under a GNU or similar license. If you're
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in doubt, contact us and we'll work it out.
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