I noticed that there is no translator plasmoid in the default selection. kde-look.org has a Google Translator plasmoid, but I use Leo normally and like their dictionary quality. Is there any work being done on a translator plasmoid + data engine which can plug in arbitrary translation services? (If not, hint hint for you.)
Archive for January, 2009
The week in Kolf: make it a game
After a few months where Kolf-NG was just a quite complex rendering engine for simple geometric objects, I thought that it is time to make it a game.
That is how my commit message reads. As usual, a picture says more than 1000 words^Wlines of code.
The new Kolf2 game engine.
Comparing to the screenshot I took two weeks ago, the attentive observer discovers a couple of important features:
- We can have multiple players at once. These are managed through the new game engine.
- There is a hole (which means that the game has an objective).
- Kolf has actual score management, and a cool new score card. (Yes, you can also put this dock on the bottom side of the window, and it will then behave exactly like in Kolf 1.)
Here is the disclaimer: The “New” button does nothing currently (only one course with a hardcoded name can be played with exactly two players exactly once). And this code is not coming to your desktop before 4.3 (unless you compile it manually). Also, you should not wonder why this new code has a localization: I’m just reusing the Kolf1 localization.
2008 wrap-up
So everyone has been posting turn-of-the-year blogs, and I have been visiting my parents (who live in the country without internet connection), so I’m late. At all, 2008 was a very interesting KDE year for me. After having used KDE 3 for about one year and 4 for some months, I joined the developer team in February with the import of KDiamond. In April, development on Palapeli started, and its targeted feature set increased more and more over time: It’s the first KDE “browser game” (i.e., has a KPart which can be included in Konqueror), it has GetHotNewStuff integration, it comes with a plugin architecture for patterns, and I even thought about making a KIO slave for Palapeli puzzles (no joke!).
In 2009, I see more libraries coming into life: In February and March, we will see a one-man developer sprint spanning over several weeks to make Kolf 2 ready for 4.3. This release will hopefully include networking via GGZ (knock, knock, Josef) and a 3D view.
And while we’re on the “library” topic, what did Aaron mean when he talked about “a book publishing deal for KDE”? This is one of the things that makes me look forward into 2009 even more excitedly.
