xBaK README
===========

0. Contents
-----------
1. Introduction
2. Requirements
3. Building
4. Running
5. Contact

1. Introduction
---------------
xBaK ("http:://xbak.sourceforge.net") is a fan-made remake of the classic
Sierra computer RPG "Betrayal at Krondor" running on linux. xBaK is licensed
under the GPL version 3. See COPYING for more information.

2. Requirements
---------------
Required tools and software (minimum version is listed):
* SDL-1.2.13      ("http://www.libsdl.org/")

Recommended tools and software (minimum version is listed):
* SDL_mixer-1.2.11 ("http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/")
* SDL_sound-1.0.3 ("http://icculus.org/SDL_sound/")

xBaK uses SDL_sound to convert the MIDI sound to WAV format. Therefore
SDL_sound must be built with Timidity++ support. SDL_sound also requires a GUS
compatible set of sound patches. These should probably come with your linux
distribution.

Note that SDL_mixer must be built _without_ Timidity++ support! Building both
SDL_Sound and SDL_mixer with Timidity++ support will result in both libraries
providing the same functions originally from Timidity++. This will inevitably
lead to either build time or run time problems.

xBaK should build and run without SDL_mixer and SDL_sound, but there will be no
sound.

3. Building
-----------
To build on linux change to the directory where the xBaK sources are extracted.
Next run "./configure" and, if no errors are reported, continu to run "make".
There is no need to run "make install" yet. The resulting executables can be
found in the "./src" subdirectory.

The default options for the configure script should be OK for most people. A
couple of options are worth mentioning though:
  --enable-error-on-warning  : treat compiler warnings as errors
  --enable-debug             : support debugging

Run "./configure --help" to see a list of all possible options.

If the configure script fails, try running "./autogen.sh" to recreate all
files generated by the autotools. This requires (minimum version is listed):
* autoconf-2.63
* automake-1.10

Once the configure script is built successfully, retry building from the start.

Building xBaK on other platforms is possible but not actively supported,
because I lack the hardware and software to be able to do that. The forums
contain several messages from people who built xBaK on a variety of hardware
and operating systems.

4. Running
----------
To play the game simply start the xbak executable. Please keep in mind that
this is still a work in progress. Many features are either buggy or not
implemented at all.

Notes for running the xBaK game:
* Original data files
  xBaK requires the following files, containing resource data:
  - krondor.cfg
  - krondor.rmf
  - krondor.001
  - frp.sx
  - startup.gam
  Note that the filenames are in lower case. You might need to rename them.
  These original data files must be stored in one of the following
  directories:
   - ./
   - /krondor/
   - ./krondor/
   - ../krondor/
   - /opt/krondor/
   - /bakcd/
   - ./bakcd/
   - ../bakcd/
   - /opt/bakcd/
* Other files
  On Linux/BSD/Unix platforms xbak will create its own directory structure
  for user specific data on startup. The directory structure is as follows:
    ~/.xbak           # for user data
    ~/.xbak/capture   # for screenshots
    ~/.xbak/games     # for saved games
  On other platforms the current directory is used for everything, except
  the original Betrayal at Krondor data files mentioned above.
* Grabbing keyboard and mouse
  Initially the keyboard and mouse are not grabbed. Grabbing the input
  can be toggled by pressing the F12 key. Or, if the input is not grabbed,
  move the mouse inside the xbak application window and press the left
  or right mouse button to grab the input. When the input is grabbed,
  pressing the middle mouse button will release the grab on input.
  Note: the mouse is not grabbed if debugging support is enabled.
* Screenshots
  Screenshots can be made using the F11 key. The screenshots will be saved
  in the dedicated screenshot directory mentioned earlier. The images are
  stored in BMP format. The filenames have the following form:
  xbak_<nnn>.bmp, with <nnn> ranging from 001 to 999. Pre-existing screenshot
  files will be overwritten.

Besides the xbak game engine several other applications exist. Most of those
are just utilities that are only helpful for developing xBaK. The only other
application that can be useful for end users is convertresource. With
convertresource one can extract the data files from, and recombine into the
resource archive. It is also possible to extract the bitmap images from the
.BMX data files.

5. Contact
----------
The preferred method for contacting me, Guido, the sole developer of xBaK,
is either through the forums or through the general discussion mailing list.
If you experience anything not working correctly, crashes or any other errors,
please report a bug in the xBaK bug tracker. If you have a fix, extension
or improvement for xBaK please submit a patch in the patch tracking system for
xBaK.

All details about forums, mailing-lists and trackers are provided on the
project website ("http://sourceforge.net/projects/xbak").