___ King's Casino Solitaire Evaluator __________________________ This program is a suite of seventeen different Window's solitaire card games. What you have is an evaluation copy, which I am distributing on CompuServe and other BBSs, the first three games are fully functional; the rest (marked with a ~) will deal but will only play for a limited number of moves. No other features have been disabled. You are free to use this evaluator program for ever and ever without charge. But, if you would like a copy of the fully-enabled version, send me a cheque for $16.50. See the topic Registration, etc. on the Shift-F1 (Help/How To) menu. I think you'll find it easy and painless. (CompuServe users can register by GOing SWREG and using the Registration I.D. 3173.) Release 1.1 is an update providing two new games: the old standby, Klondike; and a nasty new title, Queen's Quadrille. Two card backs have been changed to more medieval patterns and a few minor bugs have been stomped (see below). If you are upgrading on top of release 1.0, your old KCSol.ini file, containing your stats and preferences will be overwritten. (Because of the insertion of the new games, the odds and statistics for games from Klondike on would be incorrect if the version 1.0 .ini file were used with the version 1.1 program.) King's Casino Solitaire requires VGA or higher resolution and a mouse or other pointing device to run: this release does not provide keyboard support. VBRun300.dll also required. ___ Installation ____________________________________________ King's Casino Solitaire installation is a simple three step process. By un-Zipping the archive into some temporary directory, you've performed step one. Step two: copy all files into the directory in which you wish to keep this program, creating its own directory if you desire. Step three: drag KCSol_e.exe from File Manager into the Windows group of your choice in Program Manager (or your other favourite Windows Shell). (Alternatively, you can run King's Casino by selecting File/Run from the menu in Program Manager or File Manager and typing in the path to KCSol_e.exe and its name.) King's Casino Solitaire does not modify your Win.ini, your System.ini, your AutoExec.bat or your Config.sys. ___ Files Supplied __________________________________________ The following files should be in the KCSol1 archive: - Files best kept in a games directory - - KCSol_e.exe the program itself - QCardX.dll playing cards library - KCSol.ini configuration file updated by program - KCSol.bmp a bitmap image used when you win a game - KCReadMe.txt this file (not necessary to run program) - KC_Order.txt order form (not necessary to run program) - KCSWins.zip an archive of winnable games (see below) - Feedback.txt questionnaire and comments form (not needed) - Files you may already have in your Windows System directory - - MSAFinx.dll and potentially used by other Windows programs - CmDialog.vbx ditto - CommDlg.dll ditto - Ver.dll ditto [Note for advanced users: You may delete any of the second group of files if you have the same file with the same or later date in your Windows System directory (usually C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM). If any of the second group are dated later than a file with the same name in your Windows System directory, you may want to move it to your Windows System directory, replacing the copy residing there.] While you also need the file VBRun300.dll in your Windows System directory in order to run this program, it's big and most everybody already has it, so I haven't added it to the archive. If you don't have it, you can download it from almost any BBS, and use it with hundreds of other nifty Windows shareware programs also on your favourite BBS. ___ To Un-install ____________________________________________ To remove King's Casino Solitaire from your system simply delete the files listed above. If you added an icon for King's Casino Solitaire to some other group, highlight the icon by clicking once on it (then again if necessary to get rid of the pop-up menu) then press Delete. [Advanced users: be wary of deleting any files in the second group if you moved them to your Windows System directory, since they are files which other programs may also be using.] ___ Getting Started ___________________________________________ King's Casino Solitaire uses standard Window's main menu commands and should require no effort to use or understand for anyone familiar with other Windows programs. Each of the many solitaire card games you can start from Games on the main menu has instructions you can access from the Help/Game Rules menu or by pressing F1 when the game is on screen. All other features are documented from Help/How To or by pressing Shift-F1. If your only previous exposure to solitaire games has been with the one which comes with Windows, I advise spending a few minutes with the Solitaire Concepts and Getting Started topics under Help/How To. ___ Accessibility ____________________________________________ This program is, unfortunately, inaccessible to anyone with visual impairment. You will find a speech-friendly solitaire suite and much more in the archive VIP611.zip available in the Disabilities forum on CompuServe, BlinkLink, PC-Ohio, CRS and many other fine BBSs. I have no experience in programming for motor disabilities. I believe everything in this program is accessible via single mouse clicks and very occasional mouse drags. Don't forget that you can - single click on any card for a default action - use the space bar to deal cards - use the right mouse button to pop up the Games menu. If you can think of any changes to improve this program's accessibility, please let me know. Anyone with a disability and limited financial resources may acquire the fully functional version of King's Casino for the reduced price of $3.50 by including a photocopy of any legal document confirming the disability. -------------------------------------------------------------- Note: the following topics are purely optional. The information from here on is not needed to get up and running with this program. -------------------------------------------------------------- ___ What to do with KCSWins.Zip ______________________________ Exchanging winning and/or unusual games with other players is one of the more important functions of Games/Save and Games/Load menu options. Inside the main download .zip file is a second .zip, KCSWins. This contains one game each of the games in King's Casino (except Try Again, which I haven't won yet!). Each of these games is winnable. If you are interested, create a sub-directory within the directory in which you are keeping King's Casino, called Wins or Games or some such. Unzip KCSWins into this directory. Now start King's Casino, then choose Load Game from the Games menu. Change the directory box to point to the sub-directory in which you unzipped KCSWins. Double-click on any of the games shown in the files box. The game you've now loaded can be played to a win by a correct choice of moves at every turn. This does NOT mean you will win the game the first time you play it, since there are so many decision points in any solitaire game for which there is more than one equally logical move. Sometimes playing a known winning game can be even more frustrating than playing an unknown game. The first registered user who sends me a winnable game of Try Again will have his/her registration fee refunded. Save the game one or two moves before the winning move and e-mail it to me at the mail address at the end of this file. I'll include that Try Again file in future KCSWins.zip. ___ Changing the Winner's Graphic ____________________________ While I'm very proud of the crown I Paintbrushed for the Winner's dialog box, you may have other ideas. The crown is stored in the file KCSol.bmp which must stay in the same directory as the exe- cutable (KCSol_e.exe). If you wish to reward yourself with another image instead, simply: - rename KCSol.bmp to something else, for example, KCCrown.bmp - copy any other .bmp file of roughly square dimensions to the same directory as the executable - rename the new .bmp to KCSol.bmp (The Winner's dialog box sizes any bitmap named KCSol.bmp to the dimensions 320 wide by 320 high in pixels, stretching and compres- sing as necessary.) ___ Version Information _______________________________________ Version 1.10 contains two new games as well as a few minor bug fixes and changes. - John D. Cain gets the credit/blame for pleading the case for in- cluding good ol' Klondike. - I changed two card backs to medieval period patterns. (The curving lines pattern is Celtic.) - The worst bug in release 1.0: exiting the program via the Exit choice on the Games menu fails to update your stats and preferences to the .ini file. Fixed in 1.1, but embarassing none the less. Stephen Murphy caught this one. - Nearly as bad, if you didn't have the MS Serif and Sans Serif fonts in your System directory, Try again and Double or Naught would crash the program. Credit to Isabelle Parsons. - Ze'ev Ionis gets credit for discovering what happened when you drag cards and right click. - The Winner's dialog box picture displayer is no longer 1 pixel off in size. - The Statistics dialog box text no longer overflows its frame when viewed with certain high resolution, large font display drivers. - Loading a game from file now deducts the correct number of dollars from the player's account. - Several Double or Naught platitudes have been reworded for greater clarity. (Please send me additional witty/upbeat platitudes to add to the current stock.) - CompuServe SWREG information has been added to the Registration, etc. help text. Happy computing, Dale Cotton CompuServe 73632,703 (Internet 73632.703@Compuserve.com)