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authortpearson <tpearson@283d02a7-25f6-0310-bc7c-ecb5cbfe19da>2010-02-17 01:24:36 +0000
committertpearson <tpearson@283d02a7-25f6-0310-bc7c-ecb5cbfe19da>2010-02-17 01:24:36 +0000
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Added KDE3 version of Knights
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+====================
+ Creating Themes
+====================
+
+This document is your guide to creating themes for the Knights chess
+interface.
+
+-----------------------
+1. Anatomy of a Theme:
+-----------------------
+
+A theme is a collection of images, sounds, and settings which create a
+unique representation of a chess environment. Typically, this theme is in the
+form of a gzipped tarball.
+
+There are three types of themes for Knights: Chessboard themes, Chessmen
+themes, and Audio themes.
+
+------------------------
+2. Tarball Information:
+------------------------
+
+Themes must be stored in tarballs. Knights will use any type of tarball that
+KDE supports. A good test is to try loading it in Konqueror using a
+tar://mytarball URL. Generaly speaking, using the standard gzipped tarball
+( with a '.tar.gz' extension ) will be fine.
+
+The first two letters of your filename must be 'KB', 'KC', or 'KS' depending on
+the type of theme it is. KB tells Knights that it is a Chessboard theme,
+and KC represents Chessmen themes. KS is a sound theme. This is
+case-sensitive.
+
+Between the prefix and the extension comes your theme's name. Write it exactly
+how you want it displayed in Knights, except use underscores instead of spaces.
+So if you want your theme to be called "My Uber Chessmen" within Knights, you'd
+have the following filename: KCMy_Uber_Chessmen.tar.gz
+
+As a general rule, you should remove write and execute permissions on the
+files, and either remove Owner/Group attributes, or make them something
+harmless ( like nobody:users )
+
+---------------------------
+3. theme.conf Information:
+---------------------------
+
+Every theme must contain a text file called 'theme.conf'. Here's a
+sample theme.conf file:
+
+################################
+# A Sample theme.conf file
+################################
+[General]
+Type=Board
+Name=Default
+Version=1.0
+Author=Troy Corbin Jr.
+AuthorEmail=tcorbin@users.sourceforge.net
+AuthorWWW=http://knights.sourceforge.net
+Notes=This is the default chessboard for Knights. It was made with the Gimp.
+
+[2DWhite]
+King=white.king.png
+Queen=white.queen.png
+Bishop=white.bishop.png
+Knight=white.knight.png
+Rook=white.rook.png
+Pawn=white.pawn.png
+
+[2DBlack]
+King=black.king.png
+Queen=black.queen.png
+Bishop=black.bishop.png
+Knight=black.knight.png
+Rook=black.rook.png
+Pawn=black.pawn.png
+
+[2DBoard]
+Light=square.light.png
+Dark=square.dark.png
+Motion=square.motion.png
+Select=square.select.png
+Danger=square.danger.png
+
+[Coordinates]
+TextColor=255,255,255
+ShadowColor=0,0,0
+
+[Audio]
+Select=select.wav
+Move=move.wav
+Check=check.wav
+MatchOver=matchover.wav
+Challenge=notify.wav
+Tell=tell.wav
+Notification=notify.wav
+DrawOffer=draw.wav
+Say=tell.wav
+Promote=promote.wav
+################################
+
+Nothing too tough to figure out. 'Type' must be one of the following:
+
+- Board
+- Chessmen
+- Audio
+- 3DBoard ( For future use )
+- 3DChessmen ( For future use )
+
+'Name' is your theme's name and 'Version' is the version of your theme. Author,
+AuthorEmail, and AuthorWWW should be self explanitory. Notes are any comments
+you want to add.
+
+The '2DWhite' and '2DBlack' sections are required in Chessman themes. Each line
+specifies the file to be used for each different piece type.
+
+'2DBoard' and 'Coordinates' are required in Chessboard themes. 'Light' and
+'Dark' specify the file to be used for each color square on the board. 'Motion'
+is the highlight used to indicate that a piece moved, 'Select' is the selection
+highlight, and 'Danger' indicates an attacked piece. The 'Coordinates' are
+standard 8bit RGB colors. These are the colors that Knights will use for board
+coordinates. Try to use colors that contrast with the board itself.
+
+New in Knights 0.5.6 are Chessboard borders. They are not required, but they
+can greatly enhance the appearance of your chessboard. If you'd like to use one
+then under '2DBoard' add the following lines:
+
+HaveBorder=true
+Border=border.png
+BorderLightOn=light_on.png
+BorderLightOff=light_off.png
+
+-----------------------
+4. Pixmap Information:
+-----------------------
+
+Your pixmaps can be in any format that Qt supports, as long as it supports an
+alpha channel. For this reason you are strongly encouraged to stick with PNG
+images. Note that there are a few exceptions to this in Chessboard themes. The
+'Light', 'Dark', and 'Border' pixmaps constitute the lowest layer of graphics,
+and so they will never be transparent. Therefore, for these items you can use
+non-transparent file types ( like JPEG ).
+
+Knights will scale your pixmaps to the current theme size. This means you can
+supply any sized images you want and Knights will make it work. However, when
+Knights has to enlarge a pixmap, the resulting image tends to be of poor
+quality. To keep this from happening to your themes, you should make all your
+pixmaps 144 pixels by 144 pixels. This ensures that your images will never be
+enlarged, and it's not so large that it's wasteful.
+
+Borders are an exception to the size rule. The 'Border' itself needs to be 9
+times the size of your other images. So if you use the recommended 144 pixel
+image size, the 'Border' needs to be 1296 pixels. Likewise, the 'BorderLightOn'
+and 'BorderLightOff' images need to be half the size of your other images. So
+a regular size image of 144 pixels required that the lights be 72 pixels.
+
+----------------------
+5. Audio Information:
+----------------------
+
+Like pixmaps, you can supply your audio using any file format that aRts
+supports. I recommend you stick with .wav and .ogg, although the last time
+I checked aRts' Ogg Vorbis support was flaky with short sounds. Also, for
+very short sounds, .wav files are actually smaller. It's best to try both
+and see which works best with your paticular sounds.
+
+----------------------
+6. Copyrights:
+----------------------
+
+If you're planning to share your themes with the Knights Project, you must be
+the copyright owner on all the material contained in the theme. As much as I'd
+love to see the heads of Neo and Agent Smith flying around the board, I don't
+want to recieve any nasty letters from Warner Brothers.
+
+Your material must also be released under a GNU or similar license. If you're
+in doubt, contact us and we'll work it out.