Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

The first version of Miniature serves the purpose of a board for face to face games. Therefore buttons on both sides are needed since you have two real players.

Please check http://wiki.maemo.org/Miniature/Deve...ew_UX_proposal in order to get familiar with the use cases and the workflow. Folllowing this threrad is also useful if you want to get involved. ;)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Ah makes sense! I'll have a mock up this evening then sir.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Not completely happy with it, we'll call it a first draft.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Looks like you are in the right way, thank you! First impressions:

- The Play button is hit to confirm every single piece move, while rewind/stop are less frequent use cases. maybe you can find a way to make the Play more relevant and easy to hit? The other two smaller, less remarkable?

- The CHECK! area looks too much like a button isn't it? It's a banner with information. Maybe smaller but with a more visible color? In the style of Danger! or New! banners. Having it smaller will give you more space to expand the Play button...

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Nice work.

The CHECK! area should have the same style as the last moves/time areas. All three only show information.

I guess you have problems with the board integration. It might be easier to use the SVG directly (I forgot to include it in the ZIP file, my fault): http://gitorious.org/miniature/minia...rds/glossy.svg

With that, you could play with the cell colors perhaps?

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Regarding Unicode and chess move notation: with a black background/white text I needed to reverse the meaning of black/white pieces (in the Unicode characters). That explains why I now see the second move as a black move :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

I find the notation abrasive. By indicating a capture with a picture of a pawn, this is a cute alternative, but it is completely different than standard chess notation, which focuses on the place the pawn comes from rather than its identity as a pawn. So you have e x f4 or something like that.

This is kind of a return to English Descriptive Notation, which proceeded Algebraic, which is universally accepted now.

It is not easier to understand (picture of a pawn) takes f4 than e x f4. In the former case, you have to understand that the pawn picture represents a pawn AND to understand f4 you have to know the algebraic way of referring to files such as the f-file.

For e x f4 all you have to know is the algebraic notation, not both algebraic and picture notation.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

OK, I forgot the x (to indicate capture) in the mock-up, too :) Rest assured, it will be easy to switch notations.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Cool, I'll make a new version for this evening.

1. Are these the best icons to use? Would these be better

Play = Check Mark or Check Mark + Play
Rewind = Undo Icon (counter clockwise arrow

Just a thought. I'll mess with the sizes in the mean time.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

The best idea is to look into the applications that are installed on the N900 by default. Undo could be the one from the photo manager app (black on blue ccw arrow, visible after rotating/cropping a photo). I think the play button is still better than a check mark, although both do not really match "confirm move" ...

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

I believe Play, Stop & Rewind are good metaphors in this context.

Using the Figurine Algebraic Notation saves localization hassle and looks easier for newbies.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_notation :

(sorry for missing the Unicode fonts of the chess figures in the quote)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

There is a new developer interested in contributing to Miniature: Malcolm. Welcome! He is interested in the P2P online use case (playing against a contact without a chess server in between). This is why we have started to work on the Phase 2.x planning.

Phase 2.0: Play P2P online against other Miniature users
Phase 2.1: Play P2P online against non-Miniature users
Phase 2.2: Play over Bluetooth

Phase 3.x Chat with your opponent is the natural continuation. :) Check the updated roadmap.

Feedback welcome, as usual.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

A new version has been released. It fixes the engine bugs that have been reported so far.

I'd like to ask the reporters to check their reported bugs and confirm that they're fixed (if not, re-open them). Thanks for your feedback, it's appreciated!

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

This is very cool! All in all it looks like you *can* play offline games now, providing that both players know chess rules. :) Just like it happens with a physical board.

En-passant, castling and pawn promotion seem to be solid enough to play. All chess moves are now covered. Still some glitches on legal moves but nothing that you opponent couldn't remind you not to do. While the glitches get fixed....

... now all the attention turns to the UI!

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Fellas, I have stumbled upon this thread due to curiosity, and the hope that facing a human will be much, much easier then the default setting on the N900, and whilst I haven't really got a clue how your doing it, id like to say thank you for doing it.

So thank you. If we ever get online chess going on the N900, id be more then ready to lose embarrassingly to you all :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

mikhas and I had similar thoughts right now in the #miniature IRC channel: we will start working on a next release aiming to reach Extras for the first time.

3 items are missing:

- Play button on each side. No name.

- Chess rules applied. Please play real games with Miniature and report any problems you find. Detecting checks is the current weak point. Weird scenarios around castling and pawn promotion are needed too.

- "Game over" banner after checkmate. For this release is not even essential to detect stalemates or draws.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Hi! There are unpolished but satisfactory alternatives already now. Check http://wiki.maemo.org/Chess

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

This evening Iván (of Tracker hacking fame) and I tested Miniature with a real pub-chess game. Overall result: SUCCESS! One hour playing passed away just like that.

Posing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quimgil/4270188306/
And the real one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quimgil/4269447455/

He liked the rotations of the game. The display dimming was an interesting side effect, like a polite silent voice telling you to stop thinking and make your move. The game ended abruptly after one hour due to a human mistake but one of us got already enough advantage... The app itself was stable and solid.

The test was very useful to proof the fluent workflow: select piece -> select destination cell -> validate. Iván felt it was natural and useful. In fact he could save his queen once thanks to this. :) Observing him playing was useful to find also a tiny UX improvement.

Please, find a friend and give Miniature a go in real life. Even if it's in Extras-devel and contains some bugs the app behaves quite well with your system. Just enable Extras-devel, download the app and disable Extras-devel again to avoid potentially ugly updates of other apps you might have installed.

Share here the results!

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

How could I miss this: jump directly to 1:28 to meet mikhas and see Miniature's 5 seconds of fame: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_30AKgVAE

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

My neighbour sister taught me play Chess when I was 12 years old. I am working these years in another city where far away from my native village. So now, I haven't enough to play chess. But I know, I will play chess again after I return home.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Showing the game to more chess aficionados friends of mine. Just got a suggestion that perhaps someone has mentioned here before (?):

Sandra found disturbing the animation when turning the pieces. (Ivan likes it). She proposes that each player has the pieces orientated towards their own side. All the white pieces loking towards the white pleyer and the black pieces "upside down". Interesting.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Bad news: several bugs appeared in legal moves not allowed and also illegal moves allowed, during a game with Sandra. Couldn't find a single pattern but took pictures (with another device ;) ) of the moves. They involved the King near pawns and with the potential influence of a Rook and a Queen. I will report the bugs later.

The good news is that Miniature seems to be really stable: not a single crash seen during a game, and they last about one hour.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

A friend of mine I played with told me the same :)
The problem for somebody seems to be that the pieces always turn around and it is hard to think during the opponents view (when the pieces are upside down).

I for myself like the rotation of all pieces. Maybe this should be configurable?

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

OK, got it. The animation needs to go :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

I think the best look is to simply raise the chess piece off the board when selecting one and then dropping it back down at the destination square.

Many of the iphone chess programs rock the piece back and forth when selecting it which, quite honestly, looks like goofy fluff.

I think all that's needed to make the piece look like it's up off the board is by moving the graphic up a few pixels.

Should be easy enough.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

I've updated the player's dashboards (that is, the area below/top of the board). It's rather ugly but then again I am no designer ;)

Two screenies:
http://taschenorakel.de/pictures/scr...dashboard1.pnghttp://taschenorakel.de/pictures/scr...dashboard2.png

This code can be seen in action when using the dashboard branch.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Great! The screenies look good enough not to stop a release if we don't get anything better. In fact they are not bad at all. :)

Is there more playing real games with the version in Extras-devel? There is at least one bug in the engine caused by an unknown reason: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8141

More tests would help. If you don't find a sparring you can always pick a famous game and play it through with Miniature. Looking for inspiration? http://www.chessgames.com/ :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

That is conceptually quite close to what we want to achieve with our dashboard BTW:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wGLw...layer_embedded

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

I was cringing the whole time watching that as the dude was chewing up his screen with the constant dragging of the stylus.

The stupid idgit should have used his finger. :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

That would be really lightning chess. :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

More screenies:

1. The stop resolution menu.
http://taschenorakel.de/pictures/scr...oard4_menu.png

2. Notifications
http://taschenorakel.de/pictures/scr...rd5_notify.png

3. Fullscreen!
http://taschenorakel.de/pictures/scr...fullscreen.png

4. Stop resolution menu for top player.
http://taschenorakel.de/pictures/scr...7_menu_top.png

This is all done within the QGraphicsView, and sometimes, that's a real pain =)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

mikhas, this is just great!

I don't think we need to wait for better graphics for the first release targetting Extras. If they come, fine. If they don't, fine as well.

Do the "??" In the text string imply that localization is in place, or do they just mean to that those strings are not final?

Also, what are your current thoughts about rotating the whole board versus pieces of each color always positioned towards the corresponding player?

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

The "??" mean that a) they are not final (for example, the most critical button - resign game - should be on the bottom right, maybe with an alerting background color), and b) they dont work yet =)

Also, for pub mode I will just enforce fullscreen now (= I only have to align widgets for the 800x480 resolution), and perhaps have a "Send to background", "Switch to start screen" menu when you click the avatar. The other possibility is to append those two menu items to the stop resolution menu, below a nice menu separator.

Re: piece rotation. Keeping the pieces positioned towards each player was what I first started with. I thought it was OK, but jukey's proposal to rotate all pieces is actually less distracting to me. I guess I'll include an option for that and we'll find out what's better out in the field =)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

A few questions regarding the buttons below the board:

There is a "Back" button. I'm not sure if it is really necessary in the offline- and online game mode. How often you go back a few moves in a real game? I think this happens not as often as a "draw" or "decline2 request. I think this type of button (together with a "foreward" button) could be useful in a "repeat game" or "PGN view" mode where you can see every step of a game and this kind buttons could be used to go one half move forward or backward.
My question also is: What happens if I press the backward button? Will there also appear a forward button?

The "play" button: Is this the button I have to press to confirm my move? If yes I would think it should be bigger but a real test will clarify this. :)

Last but not least there is a "stop" button which will bring up the menu options. I think the current square icon is not the best because most of the people would assume thaat the game is stopping after they pressed the button. My proposal would be a "menu" button.

So all in all I would say the area below the board should contain only two buttons "confirm move" and "bring up game options" which will get all the (width) space available beside the players picture.

What do you think?

Anyway I'm really impressed what has be done from the first days of the project until now. Thanks for all the hard work!

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

The main practical use for this for a real chessplayer, in my opinion, is to view games either online or in a chess book. You certainly need a "back" button for that. I see why "pub" mode was used to start, but I think that most people playing in pubs and thus in the same place at the same time should use a real chess set. Spectators are not going to be gathering around your tablet kibitzing, I predict.

There is every reason in the world to use electronic versions of chess for playing thru famous games because you can re-setup the pieces instantly, remember games, and analyze them.

The original charter of "Miniature" was to make it usable for online chess. I don't have it installed now because memory is precious and because there is not yet any use for it as far as I am concerned.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

We'll get there, promised!

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Specially aficionados do request moves back. This is the function of that button in "pub chess" and online games.

Maybe. :) We haven't even thought about the adaptations needed for the "Review game" UI.

No, the workflow is:

# Pressing the rewind button a player requests a move back.

1. The rewind button of the opposite player is highlighted and a "?" appears on top of it.
1. If the opposite player presses the rewind button the move is retracted.
2. If the opposite player moves a piece the request is ignored and the game continues.


I have been advocating for a bigger "play" button as well. But considering that mikhas is just "covering" joshua or whoever designer taking the lead, I think the current solution is just find. I'll also wait for real testing.

But it is common sense that there are different ways to stop a chess game, isn't it? Thy show up when you press Stop. Also detailed in the workflow:

Pressing the stop button a player requests some kind of resolution for the game. The options appear in his dashboard without overlapping the board:

1. "Pause" button requests to stop the clock.
2. "Draw" button requests a draw.
3. "Resign" button leads to a confirmation dialog to resign the game.
4. "Adjourn" button requests to save the game.
5. "Exit" button simply closes the application.
6. Moving a piece cancels the dialog and the game continues.

I think the current UI is better, more precise than a simple Confirm/Else, but let's wait for the real tests with real users. I find the mixture of a chess interface and a media player UI is at least provocative and I'm looking forward to users' reactions. :)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Real chessplayers go to pubs where the availability of real chess sets are given (if they don't bring the chess set under the arm themselves). However, the rest of us often meat in places where there is no board available and, in fact, nobody interested following our game.

One device is enough to capture the attention of the two players, just look the (real!) pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quimgil/4284797879/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/quimgil/4269447455/

geneven , I agree that it will take a while until Miniature is useful for advanced players. But if mikhas says that we will get there I won't be the one stopping him. ;)

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Also, the right column (where it reads 42. Rc1 - sadly the preinstalled unicode fonts on the device dont include chess pieces) is reserved for the timer and the last n moves. The timer was an active element in one of the UI proposals, so it will need some button-ish look, too.

Re: Miniature development: Play chess games online
 

Should we pull a font with chess pieces as dependency?

The buttonish UI is needed only at the beginning of the game, since it's the only time when it can be clicked.