Aisleriot, Klondike menu and other ideas

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

Screenshot of Ubuntu featuring Aisleriot
http://www.linux.com/blob.pl?id=1e89022aa9ab410a42185e57032273d2

Note the menu labelled Klondike.

Rather than dynamically rearranging and renaming menus for every
application I was thinking it might be better to have a Settings menu
(more on that later).

I recently bought a CD full of budget games and it included an old
version of Pretty Good Solitare (it was slightly rebranded but
recognisable as the same program).  There is a demo of the latest and
version available from http://goodsol.com and if you try it out you might
see some ideas you would like.  You will quickly realise how many of the
variations are not significantly different.  It has also given me plenty
to think about and many things I would like to try and also do for
Aisleriot but I may as well mention them in case anyone else is
interested (or if there are any ideas I shouldn't waste time on if I
stop playing long enough to implement any new ideas).

The game selection has a whole seperate window all to itself and it might
make you rethink the fairly minimal game selection menu in Aisleriot.

The same options appear in many of the games.  "Autoplay" and "King Only"
are very common and "Deal Three" appears less frequently (more often it is
considered as a seperate game which works out nicely for marketing
purposes I'm sure).  You probably already know "King Only" means only a
King (or a column starting with a King) can be moved to an open space but
it is an option many games could allow.  I've seen it used already in
aisleriot but it certainly wasn't optional.  Essentially I think a
Settings menu would be better than having an unique menu for each game and
there are quite a few things which could be put in it.

(I made a bunch of other notes about things I liked and disliked in
goodsol, game variations I thought were fun and other thing which I might
bring up later if anyone seems interested or if I have patches.)  Oh yeah,
they use greyed out Aces in the foundation slots which makes it clearer
and much more obvious what you are supposed to do.  If you have windows
and some time to spare I encourage you to take a look at the trial version
of goodsol and it might give you ideas.

Been playing Gnome Games in Ubuntu 2.12.  The way the cards now go blue in
Aisleriot when they are a drop target is pretty clever.  I'm pleased to
see some of my graphics even if they are not being resampled on resize I
think they still look pretty good.  I notice Five in a Row now only
includes the 2 SVG themes by default which might serve as incentive for me
to try and redraw or recreate some of the graphics as SVG.

Lots of ideas floating round my head and not much time to do anything
about them especially since I'm having so much fun "testing" Gnome Games.
;)

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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