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This manual describes version 0.9.3.2 of Quimeleon.
Copyright © 2005 Aike Reyer
Table of Contents
Quimeleon is a game engine for multiple choice trivia games. You can load your own lists of questions and answers. You can also change appearance and sounds using an XML configuration file.
You have full control over the program, you can
jump to the next/previous question
advance the current level
select/deselect answers
decide whether the selected answer is correct
and invoke special actions.
Quimeleon is therefore not so much a computer game, but an application which enables you to do your own little game show.
Although it is possible (and common) to mimic some better known game show, Quimeleon comes with a ready-made “style” and a set of dummy questions and answers to demonstrate some of the possibilities. You can simply start by invoking the command
quimeleon
At first you will only see a black window. This is to allow to first hide your desktop from your audience and then start the actual game. You can toggle fullscreen mode with F11. To exit the program press Escape. To continue press Space or Return.
When a question is displayed, you can select an answer by pressing the corresponding key a to z. You can deselect an answer with A to Z,
To be most flexible it is possible to select more than one answer. If you continue by pressing Return Quimeleon will only continue if the selected answer is correct, or mark a wrong answer and end the game. If you however continue by pressing Space all selected answers will be marked as correct.
quimeleon [
-hvfnb
] [
-t
] [
FILE-s
] [
FILE-S
] [NAMEDATADIR]
Options
Show help.
Show version of program.
FILE,
--triviafile=FILE
Read questions and answers from FILE.
FILE,
--stylefile=FILE
Read style data from FILE.
NAME,
--style=NAME
Search for bitmaps, sounds, style-file, and
trivia-file in the sub-directory
NAME of the Quimeleon
data directory before default data directory.
Start in fullscreen mode.
Do not keep Pixmaps in RAM
Keep Pixmaps in RAM (default)
Quimeleon searches for files in the following directories:
The current working directory
When DATADIR is
given on the commandline
The sub-directory corresponding to the
current language settings in
DATADIR.
DATADIR
The sub-directory corresponding to the current language settings in the global default data directory
The global default data directory
The sub-directory corresponding to the current language settings in the quimeleon data directory
The quimeleon directory
All questions and answers are listed in the trivia-file.
If not specified otherwise with --triviafile
the name of the file is default.trivia.
The following is an example of the format of a trivia-file:
[begin]
[question1]
q=Good question
a0=wrong answer
a1=correct answer
a=1
[question2]
qaudio=ua.ogg
q=Good question
a0=wrong answer
a1=wrong answer
a2=correct answer
a=2
[question3]
q=Good question
a0=correct answer
a1=wrong answer
a2=wrong answer
a3=wrong answer
aaudio=ua.ogg
a=0
[question4]
qimg=squares.jpg
a0=wrong answer
a1=wrong answer
a2=wrong answer
a3=correct answer
a=3
[question5]
a0=wrong answer
a1=correct answer
a2=wrong answer
aimg=squares.jpg
a=1
[end]
As you see, the file begins with [begin] and ends with [end].
The questions start with
[question.
A question/answer-entry consists of several
key-value-pairs, with the key and value connected by
<number>]=. The values to the keys are the following:
Table 1.
q | The question |
a | One possible answer. Start numbering with 0. |
a | The number of the correct answer |
qaudio | The name of an audio file. It will be played when the question is displayed. |
aaudio | The name of an audio file. It will be played when the correct answer is marked. |
qimg | The name of an image file. It will be displayed together with the question. |
aimg | The name of an image file. It will be displayed when the correct answer is marked. |
The following is a minimal working example of a Quimeleon style-file (for one question with one possible answer):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE quimeleon SYSTEM "quimeleon.dtd"> <quimeleon> <group id="trivia"> <level number="1"> <pos width="50%" height="10%" /> <fixed> <label> <normal color="#ffffff" font="Sans 16" /> <text parse="true">%d</text> </label> </fixed> </level> <question> <pos x="50%" y="0" width="100%" height="50%" /> <fixed> <varlabel> <normal color="#ffffff" font="Sans 12" /> </varlabel> </fixed> </question> <answer number="1"> <pos x="50%" y="50%" width="50%" height="10%" /> <fixed> <varlabel> <normal color="#ffffff" font="Sans 12" /> </varlabel> </fixed> </answer> </group> </quimeleon>
The style consists of groups. Most important is the group
with the id trivia. In this group the layout
of the questions and answers is described.
A group consists of nested items.
The children of an item are either put in
a fixed (as in the example) or in a
box environment.
The position and size of an item is defined using the
pos-tag. The values are interpreted
relatively to the parent item.
Although it is possible to use fixed values, it is advisable
to use the percent-notation which refers to the width/height
of the parent item.
The values of x and y
default to 0.
The values of width and
height default to 100%.
If put in a box instead of
fixed, the positon and size will be
calculated (if not specified) depending on the
attribute orientation of the
box, that can be either
vertical or horizontal.
Depending on its state an item can have
different colors, fonts, pixmaps, and alpha values.
The respective attributes are color,
font, file,
and alpha.
They are assigned to a state using the tags
normal, selected,
active, prelight,
inactive, and insensitive.
The value of color is in HTML-Hex-notation.
The value of alpha is between 0 (= transparent) and 255
(= opaque).
The value of file is the name of a file in a format,
which is understood by the underlying GTK+-library, i.e. you
need the respective GDK pixbuf loader installed.
The value of font is the name of a font as used by the
underlying Pango-library.
items of type label
define a string to be displayed with the tag
text.
If the item is nested within an
item with a level-id,
text can define the attribute
parse with a value of either
true or false.
If true the string will be parsed for
%d, which will be substituted with the
number of the level.
If there are more levels
than questions in the trivia-file, only so much
levels as necessary will be shown.
If there are less levels
than questions in the trivia-file, all levels are shown and
Quimeleon will stop when the highest level is completed.
Defines a sound to be played on display of an item.
When this is a child of audio the
attribute id defines on which action
the sound is to be played.
attributes: id, file, continue
The id of group
determines when the children will be displayed -
the intro, the game itself or the outro.
attribute: id
children: frame, pixmap, label, question, answer, level, action, status, sequence, alternatives
Quimeleon will decide to use one of the children of
alternatives, depending on how many
answers to a question are defined and how many answers
can be displayed with the item (i.e. how many
items have an answer-id.
This tag may only be used in group
trivia.
children: frame, pixmap, label, question, answer, level, action, status,
The children of sequence will be
displayed one after the other during the intro or
outro.
This tag cannot be used in group
trivia.
children: frame, pixmap, label, pause
attributes: id
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id, keepaspect
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id, keepaspect
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id, number
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id, number
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id, number
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id, number, reference
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
attributes: id
children: sound, pos, normal, selected, active, prelight, inactive, insensitive, fixed, box
Use this tag to say that the positions of the children are to be interpreted as fixed positions.
children: filler, frame, pixmap, varpixmap, label, varlabel, question, answer, level, action, status,
Use this tag to say that the positions and size of the
children are to be calculated, so that they are aligned
depending on the value of the attribute
orientation, which can be either
horizontal
or vertical.
attributes: orientation, spacing
children: frame, pixmap, varpixmap, label, varlabel, question, answer, level, action, status,
Use pos to define position and size of an item.
The values are interpreted relatively to the parent
item.
Append a % to the numerical value of
x, y,
width and height
and the values will be calculated as a percentage of
the parent item's width or height.
The values of x and y
default to 0.
The values of width and
height default to
100%.
The attribute anchor can be one
of n,
ne,
e,
se,
s,
sw,
w,
nw,
or c and defines the reference point
of x and y within
the item.
children: x, y, anchor, width, height
Use normal to define color, alpha
value, font, and pixmap filename for
items that are in normal state.
Whether the attributes take effect depends on the type of
the item.
The value of color is in
HTML-Hex-notation.
The value of alpha is between 0 (= transparent) and 255
(= opaque).
The value of file is the name of a file in a format,
which is understood by the underlying GTK+-library.
The value of font is the name of a font as used by the
underlying Pango-library.
attributes: file, color, font, alpha
Assigns a key to a command. The attribute
id is one of
next_question,
prev_question,
next_level,
prev_level,
toggle_fullscreen,
quit,
continue,
continue_benevolent,
select_answer,
deselect_answer,
select_action and defines the command.
For select_answer,
deselect_answer,
select_action,
next_status,
prev_status,
set_status
the attribute number defines the
number of an answer, an action or status.
For set_status the attribute
pos defines the position of the child
within status.
The attribute key is either a
single letter or one of
Alt_L,
BackSpace,
Caps_Lock,
Control_L,
Control_R,
Delete,
Down,
End,
Home,
Insert,
ISO_Level3_Shift,
KP_0,
KP_1,
KP_2,
KP_3,
KP_4,
KP_5,
KP_6,
KP_7,
KP_8,
KP_9,
KP_Add,
KP_Begin,
KP_Delete,
KP_Divide,
KP_Down,
KP_End,
KP_Enter,
KP_Home,
KP_Insert,
KP_Left:,
KP_Multiply,
KP_Next,
KP_Page_Down,
KP_Page_Up,
KP_Right,
KP_Separator,
KP_Separator,
KP_Subtract,
KP_Up,
Left,
Menu,
Next,
Num_Lock,
Page_Down,
Page_Up,
Pause,
Print,
Prior,
Return,
Right,
Scroll_Lock,
Shift_L,
Shift_R,
Super_L,
Super_R,
Tab,
Up.
attributes: id, number, key
Quimeleon was written by Aike Reyer
(<aike@users.sourceforge.net>). To find more
information about Quimeleon, please visit the
Quimeleon
Web page.
To report a bug or make a suggestion regarding this application or this manual, send e-mail to the author.
Quimeleon is distributed 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. A copy of this license can be found at this
link, or in the file
COPYING included with the source code of
this program.