This is gcompris.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.13 from gcompris.texi. INFO-DIR-SECTION Games START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * gcompris: (gcompris.info). Educational games for small children. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY This is the documentation of GCompris. It contains both a user manual and implementation detail suitable for developpers. Copyright 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".  File: gcompris.info, Node: Top, Next: Introduction, Prev: (dir), Up: (dir) Gcompris ******** * Menu: * Introduction:: * User Manual:: * Internationalization Issues:: * Developers Guide:: * GNU Free Documentation License:: * Concept Index::  File: gcompris.info, Node: Introduction, Next: User Manual, Prev: Top, Up: Top 1 Introduction ************** 1.1 Why GCompris ================ GCompris intent is to provide a central location where a user can find different kind of small educational content called 'boards'. Today there is already a lot of free software that provides a small education content. Unfortunatly, it is difficult to track, intall and use them because they do not evolve at the same speed and offer their own user interface. GCompris aims to provide a unique user interface that gives access to different boards. GCompris is part of the GNU project.  File: gcompris.info, Node: User Manual, Next: Internationalization Issues, Prev: Introduction, Up: Top 2 User Manual ************* 2.1 Control =========== All controls are designed to be user friendly for the youngest. For this reason, GCompris does not stick to the Gnome standard for user interfaces. GCompris is controlled with a mouse. It cannot be used without a mouse or a pointer device. 2.2 Gameplay ============ 2.2.1 Main window ----------------- Once started, GCompris presents a graphical view that includes from top to bottom: 1. Boards icon list Each icon represent a board. When you move the mouse over them, they are highlighted and the name and description of the board is displayed in the board description area. 2. "Boards description area" Display a small description of what the highlited board icon is about. Note that the descriptions are internationalized which means translated in a target language (See *note Internationalization Issues:: for more information on Internationalization). 3. Control bar: The control bar is always present in GCompris. This icons are contextual which means that when an icon is not meaningfull in a specific context, it is simply not displayed. The control bar contains the icons from left to right: 1. Help: In some case, a board can be too complex to be described in the "Board description area". In this case this will provide access to the additionnal instructions. 2. Level: Some boards provide different level. The number of levels is board dependant. 3. OK: Some boards do not automatically detect that the child has finish the given task. Clicking here is similar to entering on the keyboard and thus the key is a shortcut. 4. End: End the current board if any, otherwise Exit GCompris. When entered at the board menu level, it will create a dialog window to confirm the Exit of GCompris. 5. About: Display the about box for gcompris with the version number, the author, the licence and links to online resources. 6. Configure: Display the configuration box for gcompris. Configuration can be done at gcompris level when no boards is selected. If a board is selected, it can provides configuration options. Configuration is persistent and saved in the gnome file in the user home directory under '.gcompris'. 2.2.2 Starting a game --------------------- At the menu level, just click on the board icon. 2.2.3 Ending a game ------------------- In the control bar, select the right most icon.  File: gcompris.info, Node: Internationalization Issues, Next: Developers Guide, Prev: User Manual, Up: Top 3 Internationalization Issues ***************************** 3.1 Is my language supported? ============================= GCompris is internationalized and today it already supports different languages. To be sure you're one is done, you can check the 'po' directory found within GCompris source package. If your language is translated, it will contain a file of the form `fr.po' where fr means French. If your language is not supported, you can provide help by doing it for GCompris. For instructions, contact the official project maintainer. 3.2 How to translate GCompris for my language ============================================= First, add your locale name in ALL_LINGUAS in configure.in recreate the configure file with `autoconf' Second, generate a fresh or new file `gcompris.pot' by using the command `cd gcompris/po' `make update-po' Now, get the file `gcompris.pot', copy it to a file named `XX.po' where XX stands for your locale like 'it' for Italian. Read the file, it contains all the english text found in GCompris. You just need to write your translation in the empty area after each Engish sentence. To check your translation, you must install gcompris with `make install' at the top level. Then, send the translation to the GCompris maintainer. He/She will add it into the next official release.  File: gcompris.info, Node: Developers Guide, Next: GNU Free Documentation License, Prev: Internationalization Issues, Up: Top 4 Developers Guide ****************** 4.1 Why adding boards to GCompris ================================= If you have a game idea that you feel suitable for children, you can create a new project, let's call it gIdea. If you start from scratch, you will have to implement a menu, a status bar, user feedback mecanism and so on. If gIdea is not a complex and huge program, it can be easier and faster for you to implement your gIdea as a GCompris board. This way, you benefit from all the current infrastucture and can focus only on your very Idea. For the end user, it is also easier to have a unique interface to a bunch of different boards instead of having to install gIdea1 gIdea2 and so on. It is not the intent of GCompris to becomes a new programming language. It is implemented in C and boards are implemented in C also. Boards and GCompris dynamically linked at runtime (plugins) which makes it possible to distribute new boards independently of the gcompris core. Current implementation is based on the Gnome Canvas widget (see `http://www.gnome.org' documentations). The Gnome Canvas provides a high level widget that free programmers of bitmap manipulation when doing graphical application. In current implementation, it is not possible to write boards using another widget. If it appears that the Canvas is not powerfull enough, GCompris will have to be modified to support other widgets. Another approach is to have smarter boards that can read data files and behaves accordingly. In this case we can envision a GCompris board editor that will let non programmer add content to GCompris. Since the target of GCompris is definitly teachers and educators, this option seems very promising. Note that following this track, the shape board already receives its data through an XML file. 4.2 How to add boards to GCompris ================================= 4.2.1 The whole picture ----------------------- [image src="overview.jpg" text="Here a graphic describes how gcompris core and the boards communicate through function call. Check the .html documentation to see it. "] 4.2.2 GCompris API ------------------ GCompris provides several sercices to boards developpers. These services are described in the file gcompris/gcompris.h * `GnomeCanvasItem *gcompris_set_background(GnomeCanvasGroup *parent, gchar *file);' Set the background image for your game. You can get help from gameutil.h to load the image. * `void gcompris_bar_set_level (GcomprisGame *gcomprisGame);' The user did fine and has to go to the next level. Before calling it, `gcomprisGame->level' must be updated by the board. * `void gcompris_bar_set_timer (guint time);' The timer is a progress bar that is usually used to inform the user of were he/she is in the board. This value must be in the range 0 to 'maxtimer' given with `bar_set_maxtimer()' * `void bar_set_maxtimer (guint time);' Set the max value of the progress bar. So when you create a board, you must include gcompris/plugin.h to have access to those methods (this is already included in gcompris/gcompris.h). plugin.h also define the BoardPlugin structure. It is the heart of GCompris. Each board creates its own BoardPlugin and give it back to Gcompris when called in the get_bplugin_info() entry point: `BoardPlugin* *get_bplugin_info ();' The BoardPlugin returned structure must contains callbacks to your implementation methods. The BoardPlugin structure must provide callbaks to at least: * `void *GcomprisStartBoard (GcomprisBoard *gcomprisBoard);' This is called by GCompris when this board has been requested by the user * `void *GcomprisEndBoard (void);' This is called by GCompris when the user clicked 'end' in the control bar. Optionnaly, a GComprisGame structure can contains callbacks to: * `gint *GcomprisKeyPress (guint keyval);' If the board wants to receive user keypress, it must provide this callback method. The keyval is not filtered and is returned as Gnome return it. Check the Gnome documentation to understand how to manipulate it. * `void *GcomprisOK (void);' This method is called when the user click the 'OK' button in the control bar. It is a good practice to make the enter and return key behaves as the 'ok' button, but it may not be always appropriate. For this reason, it is the responsibility of the board implementation to do it. * `void *GcomprisSetLevel (guint level);' This is called with the level requested by the user. You provide the maximum number of level you support in `gcomprisGame->maxlevel'. Gcompris will take care to call it only with a valid level value. 4.2.3 Example of duplicating an existing board to create your own ----------------------------------------------------------------- This describes all the steps required to add a new board to GCompris. As an example, I describe here how I created the clock game. 1. Copy an existing game (closest to your new board). `cp algebra.c clockgame.c' 2. Edit src/boards/Makefile.am and add the file to the list of lib_LTLIBRARIES Then add at the end the entries for libclockgame_la_LDFLAGS, libclockgame_la_LIBADD and libclockgame_la_SOURCES. Look at examples in src/boards/Makefile.am to see how to do that. 3. In clockgame.c replace all 'algebra' by 'clockgame' 4. In clockgame.c set the proper information for the new game: `if(g_strcasecmp(gcomprisBoard->type, "clockgame")==0)' You must then create or copy the board description to the proper location `cp boards/algebra.xml boards/clockgame.xml' Then edit clockgame.xml with a proper description and icon. Set the icon file at the location given in clockgame.xml. 5. In boards/Makefile.am add your file in the list. Respect the alphanumeric order. Same step in po/POTFILES.in 6. make should compile everything fine. 7. make install is mandatory or the icon won't be find at runtime. 8. Now running gcompris should show up the new icon and you should be able to play the game you did copy. Now it's time to code the board in clockgame.c 9. Update the po files: `cd gcompris/po' `edit POTFILES.in and add src/clockgame.c)' `make' `make update-po' 10. Now you can add the translation in the po files. 11. 'make' and then 'make install' will compile and install your translation.  File: gcompris.info, Node: GNU Free Documentation License, Next: Concept Index, Prev: Developers Guide, Up: Top Annexe A GNU Free Documentation License *************************************** Version 1.1, March 2000 Copyright (C) 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. 0. PREAMBLE The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other written document "free" in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others. This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for free software. We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS This License applies to any manual or other work that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. The "Document", below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as "you". A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language. A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (For example, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them. The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose specification is available to the general public, whose contents can be viewed and edited directly and straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup has been designed to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque". Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple HTML designed for human modification. Opaque formats include PostScript, PDF, proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML produced by some word processors for output purposes only. The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text. 2. VERBATIM COPYING You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3. You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY If you publish printed copies of the Document numbering more than 100, and the Document's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects. If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages. If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copy a publicly-accessible computer-network location containing a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material, which the general network-using public has access to download anonymously at no charge using public-standard network protocols. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to the public. It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document. 4. MODIFICATIONS You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version: A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission. B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has less than five). C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher. D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document. E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices. F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below. G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice. H. Include an unaltered copy of this License. I. Preserve the section entitled "History", and its title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence. J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission. K. In any section entitled "Acknowledgments" or "Dedications", preserve the section's title, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgments and/or dedications given therein. L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles. M. Delete any section entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version. N. Do not retitle any existing section as "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section. If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles. You may add a section entitled "Endorsements", provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by various parties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard. You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one. The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice. The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work. In the combination, you must combine any sections entitled "History" in the various original documents, forming one section entitled "History"; likewise combine any sections entitled "Acknowledgments", and any sections entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sections entitled "Endorsements." 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects. You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, does not as a whole count as a Modified Version of the Document, provided no compilation copyright is claimed for the compilation. Such a compilation is called an "aggregate", and this License does not apply to the other self-contained works thus compiled with the Document, on account of their being thus compiled, if they are not themselves derivative works of the Document. If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one quarter of the entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed on covers that surround only the Document within the aggregate. Otherwise they must appear on covers around the whole aggregate. 8. TRANSLATION Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License provided that you also include the original English version of this License. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the original English version of this License, the original English version will prevail. 9. TERMINATION You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See `http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/'. Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of this License "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. A.0.1 ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents ---------------------------------------------------------- To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the following copyright and license notices just after the title page: Copyright (C) YEAR YOUR NAME. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being LIST THEIR TITLES, with the Front-Cover Texts being LIST, and with the Back-Cover Texts being LIST. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License''. If you have no Invariant Sections, write "with no Invariant Sections" instead of saying which ones are invariant. If you have no Front-Cover Texts, write "no Front-Cover Texts" instead of "Front-Cover Texts being LIST"; likewise for Back-Cover Texts. If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use in free software.  File: gcompris.info, Node: Concept Index, Prev: GNU Free Documentation License, Up: Top Concept Index ************* [index] * Menu: * About GCompris: User Manual. (line 58) * Configuring GCompris: User Manual. (line 65) * Control bar: User Manual. (line 36) * Exiting from GCompris: User Manual. (line 55) * FDL, GNU Free Documentation License: GNU Free Documentation License. (line 6) * GUI: User Manual. (line 17) * Icon About: User Manual. (line 57) * Icon Configure: User Manual. (line 60) * Icon End: User Manual. (line 53) * Icon Help: User Manual. (line 41) * Icon Level: User Manual. (line 45) * Icon OK: User Manual. (line 48) * Interface: User Manual. (line 17) * Objective of Gcompris: Introduction. (line 22)  Tag Table: Node: Top779 Node: Introduction1029 Node: User Manual1680 Node: Internationalization Issues4428 Node: Developers Guide5890 Node: GNU Free Documentation License12646 Node: Concept Index32568  End Tag Table