# The &khangman; Handbook

Anne-Marie
Mahfouf

    annma@kde.org

2001
2003
Anne-Marie Mahfouf
&FDLNotice;
2004-04-22
1.4

&khangman; is the classical hangman game for children, adapted for &kde;.

KDE
kdeedu
KHangMan
hangman
game
child
words

## Introduction

&khangman; is a game based on the well-known hangman game. It is aimed for children aged 6+. The game has four levels of difficulty: Animals (animals words), Easy, Medium and Hard. A word is picked in random, the letters are hidden, and you must guess the word by trying one letter after another. Each time you guess a wrong letter, part of a picture of a hangman is drawn. You must guess the word before being hanged! You have 10 tries.

## Using &khangman;

Here's a screenshot of &khangman; when you start it for the first time
&khangman; screenshot

Here you can see &khangman; as it is the first time you run it. Level is Easy, language is default (English here), there is no background theme and the hangman pictures are not transparent. Any changes in level, language or background mode are written in the configuration file and restored in your next game.

Please note how easy it is to change the level and the background mode, just click on the combo boxes on the toolbar. Getting a new word and quitting the game are also easily done by clicking on the corresponding buttons on the toolbar.

### General usage

A word is displayed, hidden. You know how many letters there are in the word. You have to guess the word by trying one letter after another. The word is picked at random and it is not the same as the previous word.

All words are nouns (no verbs, no adjectives, &etc;).

Usually, it is not important whether you type in lowercase or uppercase. The program converts all input into lowercase except for German words which begin with an uppercase letter. The program does that automatically.

The current level and current language are displayed in the status bar.

Each time you guess a letter that is not in the word, another part of the hangman is drawn. You have 10 tries to guess the word. After that, the correct answer is displayed.

There are 4 levels: easy, medium, hard and animals, plus levels for other topics in some languages. The program scans for all data files in all languages.

In the easy level, the words are quite simple and related to everyday life. It is suitable for children from 6 to 9. The animals level contains only names of animals so they are easier to find. Some of them are easy, others are more difficult. In the medium level, the words are longer and more difficult. It is suitable for ages 9+. The hard level is just that, hard, &ie; the words are difficult to spell and not very well known. This level is challenging, even for adults.

After a word is guessed (or the hangman is completed), you are prompted for another word and you can either use the Y or N keys or the mouse to answer yes or no. If you say No, the game quits. If you say Yes, another word is ready to be guessed.

You type the letter you want to try in the field (the mouse cursor is ready in the field) and you hit the &Enter; key. If the letter belongs to the word, it takes its place, as many times as it appears in the word. If the letter does not belong to the word, it goes in the Misses field and a further part of the hangman is drawn on the right. You have ten tries and after that you lose and the correct word is displayed.

During the game, you can choose to start a new game by going in the Game menu and choosing New or clicking on the New icon on the toolbar. You can also change the level with the level button on the toolbar (this will bring you a new word for the new level).

Future improvement will allow you to create your own words file or to load a file different from the four included ones.

### Playing in different languages

You can play &khangman; in nineteen languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Spanish, Serbian (Latin and Cyrillic), Slovenian, Tajik and Swedish.

By default, after the first installation of &khangman; for KDE 3.3, only English and your &kde; language if it is one of the above and if you have the corresponding kde-i18n package will be installed. For example if you are a Danish user and if you have &kde; in Danish, &khangman; Languages will have two items: English and Danish and Danish will be the default.

You can still play &khangman; in other languages. It is very easy to add new data in &khangman;. All you need is a working internet connection. You click on the File menu and then on Get data in a new language.... A dialog appears, similar to this one:

The Get Hot New Stuff dialog for &khangman;
Get Hot New Stuff screenshot

Click on the language name you want to install and then on the Install button. A dialog will tell you when the language is installed by displaying: Successfully installed hot new stuff. You click on OK to close this information dialog then on Close to close the Get New Stuff dialog (if you want another language, you get repeat these steps). The new language is now available!

You can then easily change the language by going in the Languages menu and choosing another language.

Please note that you can now type the special characters in a language by displaying the Special Characters Toolbar. This toolbar holds buttons with an icon of each special character per language like é in French for example. Clicking on such a button will write the corresponding letter in the input line and you validate your choice with Enter. You can of course also use the keyboard layout corresponding to the language. This toolbar can be shown or hidden. The setting is restored next time you play &khangman;.

Please note that you need Arial and URW Bookman fonts in order to correctly display the special characters in some languages. Provided you have those fonts installed, &khangman; will automatically use them. If you see small rectangles instead of letters, then you migh miss one of these fonts.

### A few tips

Try to guess the vowels first. Then have a go with the most common consonants: l, t, r, n, s

When you see io, try n after that, in French and English.

In Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese, the accented vowels can be discovered when you type the non accented corresponding vowel. For example, all the accented a are displayed in the word when you type a. This is when Settings Configure &khangman; Type Accented Letters is not checked. When Type Accented Letters is checked, then you have to type the accented letters yourself. When you type a, only a is displayed and you have to type for example ã for this letter to be displayed.

Did you know? In English, the most common letter is e (12.7%), followed by t (9.1%) then a (8.2%), i (7.0%) and n (6.7%).

## Menubar and toolbars

### The Main &khangman; Window

The Game menu has 3 items: New, Get data in a new language and Quit.

New brings you a new game, &ie; a new word to guess, in the same level you already are. Get data in a new language will display the Get New Stuff dialog to allow you to download data in a new language. Quit quits the game by closing the main window and writing the actual settings in the configuration file.

The Languages menu has one or two languages as default: English and your kde language if available (if your &kde; language is one of the following eighteen: Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Spanish , Slovenian, Serbian Latin, Serbian Cyrillic, Swedish and Tajik and if you have the corresponding i18n package installed then it will be the default. After your first game, the language you set up the last time you used &khangman; is restored.

The Settings menu allows you to configure &khangman; easily. First, Toolbars and Show Status bar give you the possibility to hide/show the Toolbars and Status bar.

There are two toolbars: the main one which is the one on top with the buttons and combo boxes and the Characters toolbar which, when it is shown, is on the bottom. This toolbar has buttons with the special characters for each language: accented letters and other special characters. This allows users to easily play in another language without having to configure a new keyboard layout. You click on a special letter and it is displayed as the letter to try. Pressing &Enter; will make the program see if the letter is present in the word or not. The toolbar can be hidden if you don't want it. This is saved in the configuration file so if the toolbar is hidden, it will be hidden next time you run &khangman;.

It is of course possible to move the toolbars around. Put the mouse cursor on the small handle on the left of the toolbar, press the &LMB; and drag the toolbar to position it on the screen where you want it. If you point the mouse on one of the toolbars and press the right mouse button, a context menu appears to let you choose different options for the toolbar.

Configure Shortcuts... is a standard &kde; setting that allows you to choose different shortcut keys for different actions. For example, &Ctrl;Q is the standard shortcut for Quit.

Configure Toolbars... is also a standard &kde; menu item that allows you to add or suppress items from the toolbar. When Full-Screen Mode is checked, it brings you in full-screen mode, with only the toolbar on top and &khangman; occupies the whole screen. On the main toolbar, the icon Back to Normal Size allows you to come back from full-screen mode to the window size you had before.

&khangman; blue theme
&khangman; blue theme

Here you have &khangman; with the Blue theme, transparent hangman pictures, Catalan language and level Easy. The Characters toolbar is shown here.

The level is chosen with a combo box and you have easy, medium, animals and hard. Easy is related to common objects a child aged six or seven knows. Medium regards nouns a bit more challenging, hard is quite difficult and animals is only animals nouns.

All words are nouns. No verbs, no adjectives. The chosen level is then displayed on the status bar.

Only letters are allowed to be typed in the field.

### Available Settings

#### Normal Settings

&khangman; normal settings
&khangman; normal settings

A toolbar is provided for quick access to some settings. You can click on a button to have a new game (i.e. a new word), to quit the game and to have full-screen mode (provided for low resolution screens and to play with several people). This user manual also will open if you click on the &khangman; handbook icon. The level and the background are easily changed via 2 drop down boxes on the toolbar.

In Settings, Configure &khangman; you will find two tabs. The first one is for normal settings. Transparent Pictures gives you the choice of having the hangman pictures transparent or not. Softer Hangman Pictures gives you the choice of having the last of the hangman pictures softer. Softer pictures mean that the man is not hanged but he is holding the rope with his hand. This is more suitable for younger children. Transparent and softer pictures are the defaults.

Please note that transparent pictures for the hangman are not enabled in No Background mode. Transparency is only available with a picture background. By default, transparency is enabled.

For some languages, you can have special settings. These settings are not enabled if they are not available in the language you are currently playing. The first setting, Type Accented Letters, is available for Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Portuguese and Spanish. If you check Type Accented Letters then you will have to type all accented vowels (like ã). If this remains unchecked, when you type any vowel, all accented vowels will be displayed as well.

Some languages also have hints to help you guess the word. The hint is shown by a right-click and gives a short definition of the word to guess. If this setting is enabled and if you check that option, you can &RMB; click anywhere on the game and get a hint shown for four seconds. This hint should help you to guess the word

In the Sounds section, if you check Enable Sound then a sound will be played on new game and another sound will be played when you win a game.

#### Advanced Settings

&khangman; advanced settings
&khangman; advanced settings

If it is checked, Only One Letter Instance will display only the first instance of a letter if there are several same letters in the word. For example, if the word is 'potato' and you type 'o', then only the first 'o' will be displayed. You will have to type 'o' again to display the second instance of 'o' and a third 'o' will go to the missed letters. This increases the difficulty.

If you check Do not display the "Congratulations! You Won" dialog then this dialog will not be shown when you win a game. Instead the word will be displayed for 4 seconds and a new game will then immediately start.

## Command Reference

### Menus and shortcut keys

#### The Game Menu

&Ctrl;N Game New

  New game (&ie; new word)

&Ctrl;G Game Get data in a new language...

  Display the KNewStuff dialog which lists all the data available in the different languages.

&Ctrl;Q Game Quit

  Quits &khangman;

#### The Languages Menu

Languages Languages

  Choose the language for the words

#### The Settings Menu

Settings Toolbars Show Main

  Toggle the Main Toolbar

Settings Toolbars Show Characters

  Toggle the Characters Toolbar

Settings Show Status bar

  Toggle the Status bar

&Ctrl;&Shift;F Settings Full-Screen Mode

  Toggle the full-screen mode

Settings Configure Shortcuts...

  Configure the keyboard keys you use to access the different actions.

Settings Configure Toolbars...

  Configure the items you want to put in the toolbar

Settings Configure &khangman;...

  Display the &khangman; settings dialog

#### The Help Menu

&help.menu.documentation;

## Developer's Guide to &khangman;

### How to add words in a new language for the game

Thanks to Stefan Asserhäll, it is very easy to add a new language directly to the game. The procedure described here can also be found in the `khangman` source folder in the file `README.languages`. Please follow the procedure and then send me the files tarred and gzipped to annemarie.mahfouf@free.fr.

Download the latest cvs version of &khangman;. The words are stored in 4 separate files, one for each level. The files are in `/khangman/data/language_code`. The file `easy.txt` is for level easy, the file `medium.txt` is for level medium, the file `animals.txt` is for level animals and the file `hard.txt` is for level hard.

1. Enter the following commands in a &konsole; to create the folder and files for the new language:

       ./add_language language_code

   Here you must replace language_code with your language code.

2. Edit all indicated text files in the new folder with a text editor, and replace each word with a translated word. It is not really important that the exact meaning is preserved, but try to keep the length and level of difficulty roughly the same.

   You can just translate the words but you can also adapt them following the level and add new words if you want. For example, table is in level easy in English but in your language, it can be level medium. Feel free to adapt the files to your language needs. The number of words in a file is not important, you can add some if you want.

   Remember that all words are nouns.

   Note that you must use UTF-8 encoding when editing the files. If your editor cannot do this, try using &kwrite; or &kate;. When opening a file in &kwrite; or &kate; you can select utf8 encoding with the combo box at the top of the file open dialog.

   Please keep the actual English filenames in your language_code dir.

3. Enter the following command to install the new data files:

       make
       make install

   You may have to become root to run `make install`, depending on your installation.

4. Run the game and check that your language has been added:

       khangman

5. Then tar the files and send them so I can add them to the Get New Stuff server and also in the corresponding kde-i18n module in cvs.

If you want to have hints in the new language, then you will have more work to do. You will have to use the kvtml format and the best thing to do is to have a look at the French or Italian data. The tag `o` is for the word and `t` for the hint. Try to match the hint with the level of difficulty. The level Easy will require an easy hint but the level Hard will require the definition in the dictionary. Try not to use words of the same family in the hint, that would give the word away too easily!

An example of a kvtml file is as follow:

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <!DOCTYPE kvtml SYSTEM "kvoctrain.dtd">
    <kvtml>
    <e>
    <o>cane</o>
    <t>è il tuo animale domestico preferito</t>
    </e>
    ...
    ...
    </kvtml>

### What is stored by &khangman; and where

When you get a new language via File -> Get a new language ..., the new language data is stored in `$~/.kde/share/apps/khangman/data` in the language code folder. The available language dir names are also stored in the &khangman; config file in `~/.kde/share/config/khangmanrc`.

The provider name (i.e. the address of the website where to download the new languages) is stored in `$KDEDIR/share/apps/khangman/khangmanrc`.

The English language (default) and the user language from his i18n package (if available) are stored in `$KDEDIR/share/apps/khangman`.

In the configuration file, stored for each user in his `~/.kde/share/config/khangmanrc` are saved all the game settings such as the background, last level played, ... plus the files that were downloaded from the KNewStuff dialog.

### Planned Features for &khangman;

A planned feature is of course to have more language data and also hints in every language. You can help for this in your own language if it is not done yet. Please contact me if you want to help with this, it's just a matter of translating the English words to your language (see How to add words in a new language for the game).

What can also be done is to use other kvtml files like the ones that are on the KDE-Edu website to play &khangman;. For example, imagine you can play the capitals of the world, the hint will tell you the country and you have to guess the capital. Or learn words in another language, the hint is the word in your language, the word to guess is the translation in the new language.

## Questions and Answers

&reporting.bugs; &updating.documentation;

I have an error message telling me the pictures cannot be found.

The game installs by default in `/usr/local/kde` so add `/usr/local/kde/bin` to your path and set the `KDEDIR` variable to `/usr/local/kde` before running the game. An easy way is to configure &khangman; with the option `--prefix`=$`KDEDIR` where $`KDEDIR` is where the rest of &kde; is installed. This could vary widely, depending on the distribution and operating system you.

&khangman; does not start correctly after I upgraded to one of the &kde; 3.3 versions

There might be a problem due to the change of the configuration file. Please remove the `khangmanrc` file in your `$HOME/.kde/share/config` folder.

## Credits and License

&khangman;

Program copyright 2001-2004 Anne-Marie Mahfouf annma AT kde DOT org

Contributors:

- Hangman graphics: Renaud Blanchard kisukuma AT chez DOT com

- Sounds: Ludovic Grossard ludovic.grossard AT libertysurf DOT fr

- Blue theme, icons and code: Primoz Anzur zerokode AT yahoo DOT com

- Swedish data files, coding help, transparent pictures and i18n fixes: Stefan Asserhäll stefan DOT asserhall AT telia DOT com

- Nature theme: Joe Bolin jbolin AT users DOT sourceforge DOT net

- Softer Hangman Pictures: Matt Howe mdhowe AT bigfoot DOT com

- Spanish data files: eXParTaKus expartakus AT expartakus DOT com

- Danish data files: Erik Kjaer Pedersen erik AT mpim-bonn DOT mpg DOT de

- Finnish data files: Niko Lewman niko DOT lewman AT edu DOT hel DOT fi

- Brazilian Portuguese data files: João Sebastião de Oliveira Bueno gwidion AT mpc DOT com DOT br

- Catalan data files: Antoni Bella bella5 AT teleline DOT es

- Italian data files: Giovanni Venturi jumpyj AT tiscali DOT it

- Dutch data files: Rinse rinse AT kde DOT nl

- Portuguese data files: Pedro Morais morais AT kde DOT org

- Serbian (Cyrillic and Latin) data files: Chusslove Illich chaslav AT sezampro DOT yu

- Slovenian data files: Jure Repinc jlp AT holodeck1 DOT com

- Czech data files: Lukáš Tinkl lukas AT kde DOT org

- Tajik data files: Roger Kovacs rkovacs AT khujand DOT org

- Norwegian (Bokmål) data files: Torger Åge Sinnes torg-a-s AT online DOT no

- Hungarian data files: Tamas Szanto tszanto@mol.hu

- Coding help: Robert Gogolok robertgogolok AT gmx DOT de

- Coding help: Benjamin Meyer ben AT meyerhome DOT net

- Code fixes: Lubos Lunàk l.lunak AT kde DOT org

- Code fixes: Albert Astals Cid tsdgeos AT terra DOT es

Documentation copyright 2001-2004 Anne-Marie Mahfouf annma AT kde DOT org

&underFDL; &underGPL;

## Installation

### How to obtain &khangman;

&install.intro.documentation;

### Compilation and installation

&install.compile.documentation;

&documentation.index;