Author: Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
Date: 11:19:31 01/08/00
Tim Mirabile's automatic diagram inserter is a really great feature.
(For those of you who came in late, the code that put the diagram in
this message in response to the string below:)
[D] r1bqkbnr/pppp1ppp/2n5/1B2p3/4P3/5N2/PPPP1PPP/RNBQK2R b KQkq -
and there are a number of nice touches that I suspect most readers here may not
have fully appreciated. So ... I'll point them out. Some of these things may
have been suggested to Tim by others, so perhaps Tim can reply to this to give
credit where credit is due for such things. (You know, the Academy awards thing,
where you say "I'd like to thank ...")
1) The relatively obvious
a) this solves our long-standing conflict of how to post
positions in a manner that are both computer readable
and human-readable.
b) the human-readable images are much more human readable than
anything previously available to post on CCC (e.g., text boards)
c) It is incredibly easy for us to now post human readable diagrams -
we can just set up the position in our computer program, and
use "Copy EPD string" from our program, and "paste" into our
browser (does anyone's program allow "drag from chess program
and drop into browser" yet (hint! hint!)). Of course, we
do need to put the [D] in front to cue Tim's routine that we
want a diagram. (In Sigma Chess Mac, I type [DIAGRAM] in the
annotation box to get a diagram in my printout - quite similar.)
2) Slightly more subtle
a) Tim provides "side on move" markers that use both color
(open circle for White, filled circle for Black, like SmartChess Mac)
and position (White side for white, Black side for Black, like
PGNtalk Mac) to cue you. [ I think they could be made smaller,
more of the size of a chess piece, though - they are a bit distracting]
b) Tim is using the most familiar family (to Americans) of piece font
(the original is the Reinfeld-Chernev-Horowitz font developed for
Chess Review in the early 1930s and used by all the authors I've
named it after, and current variants include the
Chess Life font, the Thinker's Press "Horowitz" font, my "American"
set, and the commercial Alpine "Linares" font (which Tim uses).
(Those with different backgrounds - e.g. whose taste was formed
in Europe or by computer chess products using the European style
favored by Chessbase, of course, may be less happy with this than
I, but this is the style I'm comfortable with. Until I saw
the Chess Alpha pawns, I couldn't think of any way to improve on
this).
[ Of course, the designer of the "Linares" font deserves the real
credit here, but Tim can at least be complimented on his taste <grin>]
c) Tim's board colors meet the following good design rules:
- low brightness (not garish)
- complementary colors
- Good contrast between White squares, Black Squares, White pieces
and Black pieces (all too often, Black pieces hide in Black squares).
Finally, Tim chose the colors most familiar to USCF chess players,
since they are a close approximation of the most popular board colors
used in United States tournaments.
Obvious, you say? I once thought so, but after seeing these principles
violated over and over again in chess software, web sites, and print,
(If any of you suffered through the L.A. Times chess column for the
dark months of last summer, for example), I'm willing to praise
the uncommon demonstration of "common sense".
3) Really subtle - you won't see this unless you look at his HTML
a) Tim has provided "alt" strings for the images, which means that
you can view these diagrams (as text diagrams) with images turned
off in your browser, or with a text-only browser, like Lynx.
Since I surf by vt100 emulator through dialup into a Unix box
with Lynx (since, when appropriate, it is often faster than surfing
using my cable modem and Netscape, since it cuts out all the
bandwidth-hogging multimedia stuff), I appreciate this.
b) Tim has given himself considerable flexibility by generating HTML
where the squares are defined separately from the pieces, as opposed
to the common technique of generating separate GIFS for, say, a White
Bishop on a White square and a White Bishop on a Black square.
This lets him eliminate 7 GIFs he would otherwise need, and makes
it very easy for him to change board colors if (for example) he felt
like using a different color pattern for each day of the week, or
use a different color pattern for positions with Black to move from
those with White to move (I just thought of that - What do you think,
Tim? You could use the Chessbase brown on brown for Black to move,
and the green & buff for White to move ...)
Great job, Tim!
Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
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