hello, and gnome tali (gtali) manual draft

[Jon Allen <jon jonallen org>]

Hi there --

Here's a re-introduction to the gnome-doc-list.  I've been working
mostly on Nautilus since I last introduced myself here, and I'm trying
to contribute to the GDP in my (copious ;) spare time.

I noticed on the Tasks page that gnome-games are a high priority item. 
I looked in the doctable and noticed that no-one is on GTali (Gnome
Tali), so I drafted a manual for it.  Mind you, this is my first attempt
at the glories of Docbook, and it's a very rough draft.  As of now, some
of my tag selections are flaky and I'm not sure what to put in the
Authors info yet.

I'll request a doctable username/pwd and put my info in the table for
GTali.  All feedback is welcome and encouraged.

Regards,
Jon

--
Jon Allen
jon jonallen org
http://jonallen.org/

Title: GNOME Tali Manual

 ]>

2001 Jon Allen 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. You may obtain a copy of the GNU Free Documentation License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to: Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. Many of the names used by companies to distinguish their products and services are claimed as trademarks. Where those names appear in any GNOME documentation, and those trademarks are made aware to the members of the GNOME Documentation Project, the names have been printed in caps or initial caps. This is version 1.0 of the GNOME Tali manual. Gnome Tali is a game similar to poker, but played with dice and without money. During your turn, you roll five dice three times and try to create the best "hand." Your two rerolls may include any or all of your dice. The objective of the game is to create hands that match scoring combinations similar to poker scoring (e.g. 3 of a kind, Straight, etc.). Gnome Tali is very similar to the dice game Yahtzee, which is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. To run Gnome Tali, select Games-> GTali from the Programs Menu, or type gtali on the command line. Gnome Tali is included in the GNOME-Games package, which is part of the GNOME desktop environment. This document describes version &version; of Gnome Tali. When play starts, you see the results of your first throw of the dice. Click on the dice you wish to roll again and they will turn into pumpkins. When you have selected all the dice you wish to reroll, press the "Roll!" button. When you have a hand you like or have run out of chances to throw the dice, click on a row corresponding to what you think is your best scoring combination. If you select a scoring combination that does not correspond to your hand, you will be scored accordingly. For example, if you get "Yahtzee" -- 5 of a kind -- and click on the "Large Straight" scoring row, you will receive a zero in your Large Straight scoring row. You can only use each scoring combination once. Once you've entered a score in a slot, you can't change the score later if you roll a better hand. To change the game settings, select Settings-> Preferences... . This opens the GTali Setup dialog. The properties in the GTali Setup window are: Computer Opponents Delay Between Rolls Selecting this option will make the computer opponents pause between rolls of the dice so you can see what they are doing. This slows down game play slightly. Show Thoughts During Turn Selecting this option will print the computer opponents' thoughts to the console window. You can see the computer opponent evaluate each score box and select dice to reroll. Number of Opponents Select the number of computer opponents. You are allowed a total of six human and computer players. If you attempt to increase this number near the limit, the number of human players will be decreased to maintain only six total players. Human Players Number of Players Selects the number of human players. As described above you are only allowed six total players. After you have made all the changes you want, click the OK button to apply the changes and close the GTali Setup dialog. To cancel the changes and return to previous values, click the Cancel button. GNOME Tali was written by GNOME-HACKER (hacker gnome org). To find more information about MY-GNOME-APP, please visit the MY-GNOME-APP Web page. Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. (Instructions for submitting bug reports can be found on-line.) You can also use Bug Report Tool (bug-buddy), available in the Utilities submenu of Main Menu, for submitting bug reports. This manual was written by Jon Allen (jon jonallen org). Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this manual to the GNOME Documentation Project by sending an email to docs gnome org. You can also add your comments online by using the GNOME Documentation Status Table. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330 Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA