Re: Defaults problem

[bob at fla dot fujitsu dot com (Bob Carragher)]

shebs@shebs.cnchost.com sez:

> Bob Carragher wrote:
> > 
> >      1.  Is it possible to specify a "save" file other
> >          than save.xcq?
> 
> Uh, yeah.  You get a dialog with ~/.xconq as the selected
> directory and "save.xcq" as the file name to use, but it's
> a standard file dialog and you can change everything as
> you like.  (I take it you haven't tried saving a game using
> the new interface yet?)

I have.  I meant as a default or command-line option.  (Keir
inadvertently "helped" me on the latter.  B-)  You have to
remember that game players are inherently lazy when it comes
to details not directly relevent to game playing.  ("I have to
type '-f foo.xconq' every time?!"  B-)

> >          One could imagine a command-line
> >          option like "-S" which loads up a saved game and
> >          bypasses the first couple of dialog boxes (i.e.
> >          the "new" vs "saved" game dialog box, and the
> >          dialog box which does a file search).  So, you
> >          might invoke xconq as
> > 
> >               xconq -S ./my_saved_game.xconq
> 
> I'm inclined to think that someone who's savvy enough to
> use Xconq from the command line won't have any trouble with
> the -f option, but you're right that restoring a saved game
> should whiz through setup dialogs (it might be useful to
> click through some, just as a refresher on the variants and
> players in the game).

I agree that the last 2 dialog boxes can be useful under
certain circumstances, and should be "clicked through" unless
(perhaps) the user specifies some option whose meaning is, "No,
I really want to start the game NOW!"

> >      2.  Could extra resources be added to the game?  I'm
> >          thinking of maybe "xconq*savedGameName" and perhaps
> >          "xconq*savedGameDirList."  The former is self-
> >          explanatory; the latter might be a colon-separated
> >          list of directories to search for "savedGameName,"
> >          and might be ".:~/xconq" by default.  (Of course,
> >          then you might need "xconq*loadGameDefaultDir" or
> >          somesuch for the dialog box that performs file
> >          searching ....)
> 
> Resources aren't cross-platform, but there is a preferences
> mechanism that would work well for this.  The more I think
> about it, the less I favor multiple search locations for
> saved games; just seems like extra complexity with little
> value (admittedly, that hasn't been an impediment to Xconq
> hacks in the past... :-) )

Admittedly, yes, but why complicate things this way when
there's maze-routing-displaying to be implemented!  ^_^;;;

Thanks for listening to my random thoughts!







Keir Novik <K.E.Novik@qmw.ac.uk> sez:

> >      1.  Is it possible to specify a "save" file other
> >          than save.xcq?  One could imagine a command-line
> >          option like "-S" which loads up a saved game and
> >          bypasses the first couple of dialog boxes (i.e.
> >          the "new" vs "saved" game dialog box, and the
> >          dialog box which does a file search).  So, you
> >          might invoke xconq as
> > 
> >               xconq -S ./my_saved_game.xconq
> 
> What functionality would this add over the existing -f and -g options?

Thanks for pointing this out to me.  That'll teach me to do
an "xconq --help" before posting.  B-)

Actually, this would add no functionality over the -f and -g
options.  Please ignore my suggestion.  ^_^;;

				Bob