Author: Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com)
Date: 19:32:57 02/11/00
Go up one level in this thread
On February 11, 2000 at 20:24:30, Vincent Vega wrote: >Can somebody please explain to me why are chess programmers so seemingly unable >to create a decent user interface? Half of the programs run only under Firtz >interface or under X/Winboard. While it seems like it is a logical choice not >to reinvent the wheel, those interfaces are very far from being good. They are >so limited and so unintuitive. The other half is much worse - how can anyone >justify having a DOS program in the 21st century? > >And before somebody says that it's hard, why don't you do it yourself, blah, >blah - I just finished a 200,000 LOC commercial program with UI complexity much >greater than any chess program ever had, so I know it can be done and no I won't >do it unless there is good money involved. I suspect some of it is the lack of feedback on how to improve the interface. I work with many computer chess authors, and make frequent suggestions for UI improvements, many of which get implemented. Since they are mainly Macintosh programs, this doesn't necessarily help you, though. Still, the principle holds. You can take a look at a sample UI at: http://users.cybercity.dk/~bst10651/ There are screenshots, menu shots, and a full online manual, so it doesn't matter what computer you have, you can see what it is like. Richard A. Fowell (fowell@netcom.com) http://dmoz.org/Games/Board_Games/Chess/Software/Macintosh/
This page took 0.01 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.