Stories of a KDE programmer

This is an important message to people using SVN to checkout the latest Palapeli. (All others can just skip this article.)

Before you do the next “svn update”, go to your checkout directory, delete the “*.puzzle” files in the puzzles/ subdirectory (i.e., the five ones created by make-puzzles.sh). You do not have to call make-puzzles.sh anymore, the puzzles are now on the SVN server again.

Second, I have changed the configuration format for a last time. You know, when we say “playground”, we mean it. (Also, it’s easier to change it now when I don’t have to write complicated update scripts to keep compatibility.) So what does that mean to you?

• Before installing the updated Palapeli version, you should do a “sudo make uninstall” to avoid orphaned data files in your system directories.
• If you want to keep your savegames or own puzzles, do the following:

 cd $(kde4-config --localprefix)
 mv share/config/palapeli-{libraryrc,collectionrc}
 mv share/apps/palapeli/{puzzlelibrary,collection}
 sed -i 's/puzzlelibrary/collection/g' share/config/palapeli-collectionrc

Update: Thx to Matthew for reminding me of the fourth command which I forgot in the first run.

Just a quick notice for anyone out there who builds Palapeli from SVN: It does now officially require Qt 4.6. I’m in the process of cleaning up the animation code, and esp. the new QGraphicsObject class in Qt 4.6 helps me very much in this regard.

Update: I’ve also updated the Palapeli compilation guide. If you’ve used this guide to build a Palapeli from SVN, please do the following in the “build” directory:

sudo make uninstall

Then delete everything and use the guide to create a new checkout. Stuff has changed too much. Please note that the new guide makes you install Palapeli into the standard system directories. This should work around the problems people are having with slicers not found etc.

2nd update: By the way, I’ve also changed the puzzle file format. Instead of BZip2 compression, I’m now using GZip because this reduces loading time on my system by about one second for a medium-sized puzzle. (File size is about the same.) If you’re having problems with puzzles that don’t load (sorry for the missing messagebox that tells you when a puzzle file is broken), rerun the make-puzzles script and “sudo make install” everything again. This should fix your problems.

In the last two weeks, I’ve added quite some features to Palapeli which are hard to impossible to show with screenshots, so I’ve decided to make a screencast for the very first time. recordmydesktop worked quite well, and I found a microphone in one of my junk boxes.

Hm, it seems like WordPress.com does not like embedded flash objects, so you’ll have to use the link to the 1st Palapeli screencast.

I’m searching for possible ways to improve the user experience of Palapeli’s puzzle table. Problem: I do not know which features would help the users. Solution: Ask them (i.e., you).

After all, Palapeli is about replicating in virtuality a game that exists in reality. Everybody who plays a jigsaw puzzle on his PC will automagically try to use the same techniques and tactics which he uses to solve jigsaw puzzles in reality. For example, it is very common to search for edge pieces first.

Do you have other techniques? If yes, please don’t be shy, and leave a comment. I want to map as much as possible of your techniques to convenience features in Palapeli.

Update: A first summary. Most people say that, apart from searching for edges, they’re looking for pieces with similar colors and by level of detail. As one commenter puts it, “it all boils down to divide-and-conquer”.

Also, there has been quite some feedback on the puzzle table. Because quite some stuff occurs multiple times, I find it easier to answer them once here:

• People are concerned about how zooming is implemented, and how pieces are limited to an certain area. I’m concerned, too. It’s becoming more and more obvious that we need a better solution, and I’ll see what I can do about this.
• An annoying “feature” of Palapeli is that pieces are spit out randomly at the beginning, and one has to clear a part of the puzzle area to get some space for the actual image. I’ve made a quick hack-style fix for this: The pieces are now distributed only on one half of the puzzle table. A better solution will appear when the zooming stuff improves.
• Some people would like to change the background texture. That’s possible: Right-click on the puzzle table. As you see, this is extremely non-obvious, I’ll put this interface into the Settings menu very soon.
• The request for rotating pieces has occurred quite often. I’m generally positive towards it, because it gives a nice and easy way to introduce a difficulty parameter.
• Some want a preview of the picture. I have a nice idea for this, but this will strongly correlate with some other features which I cannot add before KDE 4.5.

Thanks for your input. I’m currently collecting input from various sides (the kde-games-devel mailing list is also quite active currently), and evaluating possible solutions to your requests.

Since starting to rewrite Palapeli (three weeks ago), it was not possible anymore to create new puzzles. This last and most important feature is now back again.

Proof that the last missing feature has been added

And here’s a call for participation: The layout of the puzzle creator dialog (which comes up when you click that button) is far from optimal. Please try Palapeli, create some puzzles, and if you can come up with a better design for this dialog, please write back. Thanks in advance!

I was uncomfortable with the current way of starting puzzles for quite a long time. The old list view had a play button and the piece count displayed at the right, so if you had the Palapeli window maximised (which is a good idea for playing), the play button is very far away from the description and thumbnail. Fitt’s law says that’s not a good idea. I hope that the new way is a good idea: The thumbnail turns into a play button when you hover the puzzle item.

New Palapeli puzzle list (first item is selected, second item is hovered, i.e. the mouse cursor is over it)

Because people always ask when I forget to make it clear: Palapeli is a jigsaw puzzle game which I’m preparing for KDE 4.4. Now that we have that out of the way:

Today, I’ve spent hours to break Palapeli, put the pieces together again (puzzle pun intended), and take care that it does the same things as before. Such activities appear quite senseless to outsiders, but programmers know that this is necessary from time to time.

They call it “refactoring”.

Of course, I have a bigger aim. Currently, the only source of puzzles is the local library, but I want to make more sources accessible. “Within the reach of your fingertips”, like some people describe it. For this initiative, I’ve chosen the buzzword “social puzzling”. Actually, what I want to do, is quite similar to KNewStuff, but I’m not completely sure whether KNewStuff provides all the technical foundation that I need. (If it is the case, the current architecture of Palapeli allows to add KNewStuff integration later on.)

My plan: The current puzzle library is basically a list of puzzles (or, more detailed, a list of URLs to puzzle files and a metadata cache). A list of puzzles could be provided anywhere, also on remote sites, as a type of “puzzle feed” (similar to a RSS feed). Such puzzle feeds can already be read by the Palapeli::ListCollection class, but there is no interface yet to display and use them. This is because I’m not sure about the best way to present them to the user.

So what is certain by now? Palapeli 1.0 will ship with puzzle feed functionality, though it will be hidden a bit. It’s not sure how puzzle feeds will be generated on the server side. And it’s not clear yet for what we’ll be able to use this functionality at the end of the day. It’s a big experiment, and I’m quite excited about it.

Yet again, a commenter on my blog gave me a hint for a nice extra feature. Palapeli now has a new zoom widget, which allows to seamlessly adjust the zoom level.

Seamless zooming in Palapeli