# &app; Manual V&manrevision;

## Introduction

GNOME Mahjongg, or Mahjongg for short, is a solitaire (one player) version of the classic Eastern tile game, Mahjongg. It has all the functionality you expect from a tile or card game. You can change the type of tiles, the background, and the difficulty level, among other things, in the Preferences… dialog. Other features, like the Pause button and the ability to set the game from a user defined seed, make the game more competitive when you play against the clock. This document describes Mahjongg.

### A Brief History of Mahjongg

Mahjongg tile sets are used to play many variations of the original game. The version of Mahjongg you play is the solitaire one. Each tile also has a meaning associated with it.

Mahjongg's origins are not fully known, but many theories have been put forth. One such theory says that Noah played Mahjongg on the ark because the East hand is dominant, presumably the direction the rains came, in the flood. Another theory says that the Chinese philosopher, Confucius, made the game. The three Cardinal tiles have the same names as his three Cardinal virtues, Chung (middle) the Red, Fa (prosperity) the Green, and Po (white) the White, cooresponding with Benevolence, Sincerity, and Filial Piety. Still another theory says that Mahjongg is derived from other Chinese games. Ya Pei is played with 32 cards made of wood or ivory and have the same oblong shape as present day Mahjongg tiles. Ma Tiae is played with 40 paper cards, similar in appearance, numbering 1 to 9 in four different suits along with the flower cards. It has been suggested that two brothers made the game, around 1850 A.D., from a combination of these two games.

In the early 1900's Mahjongg was introduced into English clubs in Shanghai. Mr. Babcock started the importation of Mahjongg tiles to the Western world. He stripped down the rules to the very basics and even put Arabic numerals on the tiles. 1923 was the height of the Mahjongg craze with major gaming companies, like Parker Bros., Milton Bradley, and United States Playing Card, importing Mahjongg tile sets by the thousands.

Many different rules sprang up and in 1924 the Standardization Committee of the American Official Laws of Mah-Jongg was formed to write a rule book. Still today many clubs play by different rules and sometimes even add flower or joker tiles. Players of the computer version are becoming intrigued with the beauty and detail of the hand crafted sets of the 1920's and 1930's and are searching antique shops and flea markets for sets of their own. Many new players are being introduced to the game solely through the solitaire version and are slowly realizing the intrigue and challenge that the traditional game offers.

Portions of this text were adapted from the Mah Jong Museum.

## Playing Mahjongg

You start with five levels of tiles which are stacked so some are covered up by the tiles on top. The harder the level you set in the Preferences… dialog, the more tiles are covered when the game starts. The object of GNOME Mahjongg is to remove all the tiles from the game. To remove tiles you have to find matching pairs which look alike. A matching tile will usually have the same number of buttons or markings on it or will look similar to each other.

As an example, the highlighted tile, in the figure below, has five buttons. The matching tile is the one which also has five buttons. The tile is third from the right on the same row as the hilighted tile. If you wanted to match the tile on the top level, you need to look for the tile with the same green bamboo symbols. Do you see a matching tile yet? There are two tiles, which are visible, that match the tile on the top level. One is to the left and the other on the right. You can't remove the tile on the left yet because the tile isn't on the outside of the stack of tiles. Later I'll explain more fully which tiles can be removed and which tiles can't be removed even though they match. I'll let you find the other two matching tiles, which are visible, on your own.

### Mahjongg's Main Window

Main window.

GNOME Mahongg is played by pointing and clicking on the two tiles you want matched and then they are removed from the game. If the two tiles don't match, a dialog appears telling you this.

### Information Dialog

Information Dialog.

Only tiles at the far left and right edges on each level can be selected. This is because you can't remove any tiles which aren't at the far left and far right sides. If the tiles are on a different level and at the left or right sides, those can be removed when you find another matching tile.

If you can't match any more tiles, a dialog will appear telling you no more tiles can be matched.

### Information Dialog

Information Dialog.

### Toolbar

The toolbar can be moved around the desktop. If you click on the far left side of it, you will be able to drag it any place on the desktop you wish. The toolbar also snaps into place at the top and left side of the Main Window in GNOME Mahjongg, but the default place the toolbar is located, and the best in my opinion, is under the menubar.

The toolbar contains the following buttons:

New

- This button starts a new game with the current settings.

Restart

- This button restarts the current game to the beginning without shuffling the tiles.

Pause

- This button pauses the game. When the game is paused, the clock, at the bottom right corner of the Main Window, stops and you cannot see any of the tile's faces.

Undo

- This button replaces two tiles you removed until you reach the beginning of the game.

Redo

- This button replays your previous move, the Undo button took back.

Hint

- This button gives you a pair of matching tiles to remove.

Shuffle

- This button sorts the tiles randomly. It does not restart the game. You remain at the same point in the game with the same tiles removed, but the tiles are just resorted.

There status bar at the bottom of the window gives you information on the current state of the game:

Tiles Left:

- This shows the number of tiles remaining to be matched.

Moves Left:

- This number of possible matches you can make.

#### Mahjongg's Toolbar

Toolbar.

### Menus

The menu bar, located at the top of the Main Window, contains the following menus:

Game

- The menu contains:

  - Ctrl-N New game — This item starts a new game with a predefined seed.

  - New game with seed… — This button prompts you for a seed for the random number generator and then starts a new game. This lets you replay games you have played in the past (the seed of the current game is displayed in the title-bar of the window).

    #### Select Game seed

    Select Game Dialog.

  - Restart game — This item restarts the game with a predefined seed.

  - Pause game — This pauses the game, stopping the clock and hiding the tiles.

  - Ctrl-Z Undo move — This item takes back two tiles you removed until you reach the beginning of the game.

  - Ctrl-R Redo move — This item replays your previous move the Undo button took back. When you reach the state you started undoing the message No more redo! appears at the bottom left corner of the Main Window.

  - Hint — This item gives you a pair of matching tiles to remove.

  - Shuffle tiles — This item sorts the tiles randomly. It does not restart the game. You remain at the same point in the game with the same tiles removed, but the tiles are just resorted.

  - Scores… — This item brings up a dialog showing you the ten best scores. The dialog has the scores identified by user name, score, the time it took to complete the game, and the date the game was completed.

  - Ctrl-Q Exit — This item allows you to quit the game.

Settings

- The menu contains:

  - Toolbar — This item determines whether the toolbar is shown or not. If the item is checked, the toolbar is shown in the last place you put it. If the item is unchecked, the toolbar is not shown.

  - Preferences… — This item brings up the Preferences… dialog.

Help

- The menu contains:

  - F1 Contents — This item shows this manual.

  - About… — This item gives you some basic information about GNOME Mahjongg, such as the author's names and the application version number.

## Customization

To change the application's settings, select Preferences… from the Settings menu. This opens the Preferences… dialog.

### Preferences… Dialog

Preferences dialog.

All the options are applied and saved immediately.

The properties in the Preferences… dialog are:

- Tile Set: — Select the look of the tiles from this list.

- Select Map: — Change the difficulty of the game by altering how the tiles are stacked. The more spread out (easy) version lets you see more of the tiles while the more compact (hard) version does not let you see many tiles.

- Background Color: — Change the color of the background by bringing up a color picker to let you select a new color.

- Warn when tiles don't match — Select whether you see an dialog when the two tiles you selected don't match. If this option is not selected then the warning message will appear in the status bar in the lower left corner of the main window.

To alter the size of the tiles simply resize the window in the normal way. The tiles will expand to fill it.

## Known Bugs and Limitations

This application has no known bugs.

## Authors

GNOME Mahjongg was written by Francisco Bustamante (pancho@nuclecu.unam.mx), Michael Meeks (mmeeks@gnu.org), Max Watson, Heinz Hempe, and Philippe Chavin. Tiles for GNOME Mahjongg were made by Jonathan Buzzard and Max Watson. Please send all comments, suggestions, and bug reports to the GNOME bug tracking database. (Instructions for submitting bug reports can be found on-line.) If you are using GNOME 1.1 or later, you can also use Bug Report Tool (`bug-buddy`), available in the Utilities submenu of Main Menu, for submitting bug reports.

This manual was written by Eric Baudais (baudais@okstate.edu). Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this manual to the GNOME Documentation Project by sending an email to docs@gnome.org. You can also add your comments online by using the GNOME Documentation Status Table.

## License

This program and tile artwork is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it 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.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is included as an appendix to the GNOME Users Guide. You may also obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License from the Free Software Foundation by visiting their Web site or by writing to

        Free Software Foundation, Inc.
        59 Temple Place - Suite 330
        Boston, MA 02111-1307
        USA