|
0. Tools of the trade
To customize M-SudoKu you need a ZIP tool which supports .jar files; we will use 7-Zip (you can find the download link in the utility page), but other similar programs such as ZipGenius, WinRar etc. will be ok.
1. Game appearance
First, launch 7-Zip and through the graphic interface browse to the directory where you saved the M-SuDoKu.jar file.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
Then, double click on the M-SuDoKu.jar file to browse the files inside the archive.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
1.1 How to modify the splash screen appearance
To modify the image shown by the splash screen at program startup, move inside the META-INF directory in 7-Zip window, extract the MANIFEST.MF file (simply drag&drop it on the desktop or in a working folder) and open it using Notepad.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
Insert the file name of the foreground image (which will be drawn in the center of the screen) next to the "splash-logo:" tag (do not remove the leading "/"!); optionally, to change the background image (which will be tiled on the screen instead), change the value next to the "splash-background:" tag; if no background image is set, a black background will be shown.
Images must be in PNG format exclusively; pay attention and type the exact file names (including lower/upper case) too!!!
Save the modified MANIFEST.MF file, and add it to the META-INF directory of the M-SudoKu.jar file: drag&drop it on 7-Zip window and click the Yes button in the Confirm File Copy dialog which pops up.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
In a similar fashion, you can add the new image(s) for the splash screen to the main directory of the M-SudoKu.jar file.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
To reduce the resulting file size, you can remove the original splash screen images, if you don't plan to use them any more: just select them, press the Del key (or the Delete button on 7-Zip toolbar) and click the OK button in the Confirm File Delete dialog.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
1.2 How to modify the board appearance
To modify the background images and colors used for the game grids, extract the MANIFEST.MF file from the META-INF directory and open it with Notepad.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
To configure a new look&feel for the board, find the tag beginning with "background-" with the highest number (in the Figure above, "background-3") and add a new line increasing the number of the tag (in the example above it shall be "background-4:"); after the tag, the new line have to provide the following information in a comma-separated list:
- the name of the background image file (in PNG format) - again, pay attention to the exact file name!
- the text to show in the Background... menu;
- the background colors of the cells:
- the color for the cursor;
- the two colors for the normal cells (M-SuDoKu uses different colors to distinguish between adjacent 3x3 regions);
- the color for the cells where a wrong number has been entered (to be used in a future release of M-SuDoKu...);
- the color for the empty cells which can be easily solved (shown when the Hint option of the Cheat... menu is selected).
All colors have to be in HTML format, that is as a triplet with the values (ranging from 0 to 255) for red, green and blue component in hexadecimal (for example, red is FF0000, yellow FFFF00 and so on).
In a similar fashion, you can change the settings of any of the default appearances for the grids of M-SuDoKu.
Save the modified MANIFEST.MF file and add it to the META-INF directory M-SuDoKu.jar, as shown above.
2. Menus and translations
To translate M-SuDoKu in another language, you have to:
- translate the instructions (shown in the Help menu);
- translate the texts for menu items.
2.1 How to translate the instructions
Extract the help-en.txt file on the desktop or in a working directory, rename it (possibly, in a way that is consistent with the language you're translating into: for example, help-de.txt for German): you can use the ISO language codes that you can find here; then, open the renamed file with Notepad.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
Follow the instructions in the comments (that is, again, the lines starting with #) and translate the help text in the file (of course, you are not required to translate comments, since they're ignored by the application!): keep in mind that line breaks are preserved when the text is shown to the user in the help screen.
Save the modified file and add it to M-SuDoKu.jar file by dragging&dropping it on 7-Zip window.
2.2 How to translate menu items
Extract the en.txt file, rename it according to the language you want to traslate it into and open it with notepad.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
Follow the instructions in the comments and translate all the text for the game menus and screens: the texts for the different items of each menu have to be separated by commas, so please pay attention and avoid using commas in the translated texts: they will confuse the application!
You will also have to enter the name of the instruction file that you have just created: pay attention to type the correct name!
Save the modified file and, as usual, add it to the M-SuDoKu.jar file.
Finally, to add the new translation extract the MANIFEST.MF file from the META-INF directory and open it with Notepad.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
Find the tag beginning with "lang-" ending with the highest number (in the Figure above, "lang-8") and add a new line increasing the index of the tag (in the example above it shall be "lang-9:"); after the tag, the new line have to provide the following information in a comma-separated list:
- the ISO 639 language standard code (the complete list of hte codes is here);
- the language name (for example, Deutsch, Français, etc.);
- the name of the file with the translation (the one that you have just created).
Save the modified file and add it to the META-INF directory of M-SuDoKu.jar file.
Finally, close the 7-Zip window and, if you wish, rename the modified M-SuDoKu.jar file.
3 Other customizations
To change the name of the game which is shown in the mobile phone menu, open the MANIFEST.MF file with Notepad and modify the value in the MIDlet-Name field.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
Then, add the modified file to the jar file, overwriting the file which is located in the META-INF directory.
Click on the image to enlarge it in a new window
To change the icon associated with the game, extract the M-S_icon2.png file, edit it with a graphic editor and then add it back to the jar file, overwriting the existing version.
Now, you can test your custom version of M-SuDoKu with a PC emulator, before sending it to your cell phone: to do so, follow the instructions at the end of this guide.
| 
