Customization
Preferences
To change the game's settings, select Settings->Preferences.... This opens the Preferences dialog.
The properties in the Player Selection tab are:
- Player 1 and Player 2
These options tell Gnect who's playing. To play against a friend, select Human for both Player 1 and Player 2. (Note that changing players will end a game in progress and reset the scores.)
- Who starts?
These options let you select which player starts when a new game begins.
The properties in the Appearance and Behaviour tab are:
- Theme selection
The theme menu lists available themes and lets you choose between them.
- Keyboard control
These options let you arrange keyboard play to your liking. Select the entry box of the action you'd like to change, then press the key you'd like to perform that action.
- Animation
Here you can toggle all animation on or off, or just enable or disable the wipe effects between games.
- Sound type
Gnect can make sounds when certain events occur. If you choose the Speaker beep option, Gnect will beep when a game ends or if you make an illegal move. If you choose the GNOME sound option, Gnect will play the audio files you specify using the GNOME Control Center. To disable sound altogether, use the sound toggle in the Settings menu.
- If stopping an unfinished game: Ask me first
If this option is selected, the program will ask you before quitting or starting a new game while there's a still game in progress.
To check your changes without closing the Preferences dialog, use the Apply button. Once you've made all the changes you want, select OK.
Custom Themes
This section's included in case you'd like to make your own themes for Gnect. It assumes you're familiar with basic text editing, graphics software and the command line.
Images
Gnect's tilesets contain six tiles of equal size, lined up horizontally. From left to right:
Player One's counter as it'll appear on the main board
Player Two's counter as it'll appear on the main board
Main board background
Top row background
Player One's counter as it'll appear on the top row
Player Two's counter as it'll appear on the top row
 | TIP |
|---|---|
PNG format is recommended for tilesets. They should usually contain transparency in tiles 1, 2, 5 and 6. Tiles 3 and 4 should be solid, with no transparency, even if you'll be supplying a full window background image. |
Gnect automatically calculates the tile dimensions:
tile height = tileset height tile width = tileset width / 6 |
That is, your tiles can be square or rectangular - and any size you like. Most of the tilesets that come with Gnect use square tiles measuring either 40x40 pixels ("small") or 50x50 ("large").
So, what if you want a full-window background image, rather than repeating tiles 3 and 4 over the game board? For that, you'll need to make a separate image. Say each tile in your set measures 50 by 50 pixels. The game board measures 7 by 7 tiles, including the top row, so the ideal background for your tileset measures 350 by 350 pixels. But if your background doesn't fit, Gnect will scale it for you.
Before you can try your new tileset and background image, you'll need to create a theme file.
Theme Files
Here's an example theme file, showing all possible keywords. Lines starting with a hash (#) are ignored. Note that values containing white space must be quoted.
# # buttons_50x50.gnect (an example theme file) # # This theme's title (required) Title = "Button Shop (large)" # Tileset filename (required) Tileset = tileset_50x50_buttonshop.png # Full-window background image (optional) Background = bg_buttonshop.jpg # Description of player one's counter (required) Player1 = Green # Description of player two's counter (required) Player2 = Yellow # Grid colour (optional, defaults to RGB:52/5F/6C) GridRGB = RGB:/FF/FF/FF # Disable the grid for this theme (optional) NoGrid # Details (optional) Tooltip = "artwork credits or whatever you like" |
Legal values for the Player1 and Player2 keywords are as follows: Light, Dark, Black, White, Grey, Yellow, Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, Pink, Violet, Brown.
Putting it all together
So, you've made a tileset, a theme file and maybe a background image. Now what?
Make a ~/.gnect directory, a ~/.gnect/pixmaps directory and a ~/.gnect/themes directory. Copy the image(s) into the pixmaps directory and the theme file into the themes directory. Make sure the theme file has .gnect as the suffix. Next time you start Gnect, you should find your new theme listed in the Preferences dialog. If not, try running Gnect from the command-line - if your theme is found, Gnect should display a message to let you know what the problem is.