[ggo-discussion] [zotan@web.de: Re: Some ideas for improving gGo, if you like... :))]


This is my reply to an email I got from a user, I forward it to the mailing
list as it might contain some interesting stuff, with the original authors
permission.

Sorry for not being too active with gGo lately, lots of other work at the
moment.

 Peter




----- Forwarded message from Peter Strempel <zotan@xxxxxx> -----

From: Peter Strempel <zotan@xxxxxx>
To: MihaiL <mihail@xxxxx>
Subject: Re: Some ideas for improving gGo, if you like... :))

On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 03:11:23PM +0200, MihaiL wrote:
>        First of all I want to thank you for your gGo. Is the best *.sgf
>    viewer and also IGS client in the market (and believe me I've tried
>    quite all). Is a wonderful job you do with it, and it is also free.
>    Congratulations !

Thank you very much. :)


> 
>        Unfortunately, even if I work in IT field, I'm not a programmer,
>    so if you don't mind please consider the following as opinions of an
>    (quite experienced) user. If they will appear in the following gGo
>    versions OK, if not, I'll use anyway this program.

That is no disadvantage. Programmers are usually bad when it comes to
interface design, and usually think much to complex about easy problems.
Actually, I get the most valuable feedback and suggestions from
non-programmers. They see what I usually don't see.



>    - to permit the setting up of the Autoplay option to a variable time
>    (8 sec for instance) not only the four options now available and
>    to permit saving this option as default

Possible, just another menuitem what opens an input dialog where you can
enter the delay in seconds. I thought the given delays should be okay, but
adding such a customized menuitem would be no problem at all. Same as with
the "Addtime" feature in own games, that has some predefined menuitems, and
one to input a customized value (access this menu by right-clicking on
opponent clock, or from the menu in own game boards).


>    - to can rotate and mirror the board (around X and Y axes) (so as
>    Black 1 is in the top right everytime, for instance, but they are some
>    other applications of this option) (reference: GoWrite 1.4)

This feature has been requested before, I want to do that somewhen soon. It
just didn't make it up to the top priority section of my TODO list yet.
I did not know GoWrite, just had a look at the GoWrite2 Java version (1.4 is
windows only, not much of use for me).


>    - to have an optional window in which one can see the tree of variants
>    (as a matter of fact, I think that gGo has the best variant
>    manipulation I've saw, but in a teaching game with many variants
>    uncommented, you can loose (without this kind of visual tool) the main
>    diagram). (reference: CGoban 2)

Yes! Been on my TODO list since long time, but as this sounds like a quite
big project, I have not started with this yet. Maybe around christmas, I
should have some more time around then. Right at the moment I somewhat lack
the time for programming such bigger things.

Btw, I prefer the way SmartGo displays trees. I don't know the newest
version, it is commercial and for windows only. And I dont buy windows software.
But I got the older Mac Classic version which runs fine under OS 7.5 in an
emulator. This is a most excellent piece of software and the best SGF editor
I saw so far, although it is several years old now.

I'd probably do a mixture of CGoban2, SmartGo and own ideas. I dont really
want to copy the CGoban2 tree, this is pretty unique, and it's not good
style to copy everything from other software, especially as William Shubert
has helped me with some code already (gGo and CGoban2 actually share some
code), so I want to be nice and not clone all his ideas.
I dont know exactly how to do the tree yet, I need to play around with
SmartGo more and wait for inspiration. The cgoban2 tree is good, but for
bigger variations I get lost (Kogos Joseki dictionary, a pain in CGoban2.
gGo does this well.)

Well, this is definately on my TODO list, but I cannot promise when to do
this. Im too busy fixing minor stuff in the IGS client. IGS is a pain
(technically). Elsewise I like it. :)


>    - to permit adding in the game info of other standard SmartGo tags
>    (for instance I have a database of games, each of one including the
>    EVent and ROund tags, but maybe other user are interested in another
>    tags). Maybe the possibility of editing the *.sgf from a text mode
>    session from inside the viewer (this is an idea I never saw in any
>    viewer till now, but of course is only an idea)

I used the tags used in CGOban2 and Jago, which seem to make some sense to
me. gGo does not support all tags, that is correct. The unsupported tags
looked quite useless. I might implement them all at some point, but this is
very low priority.
If you want to edit the sgf file, use some text editor. :) No need to
program a editor inside gGo. Would not be much efforts, but plain
texteditors are installed on pretty much every computer, in worse case it
would even work with notepad on windoze.
And most users would be confused by this, I think. It requires basic
knowledge of SGF. People want to click buttons and enter short text in
predefined dialogs. Who does know about SGF syntax, should be able to load
the sgf file in a normal editor.


>    - to permit (in the IGS client) to set up commands customizable by the
>    user (eventually with shortcuts, or I don't know...) (for instance I
>    use a lot "user Romania"; of course in the same session, I can take it
>    from the downside arrow ("Show command history), but in a new session
>    I must type it again, you know what I mean...) (Reference: Jago 4.49)

Thought about that. Maybe you know the gGo partner project qGo (actually
this was my first attempt, gGo is a branch of qGo when I converted
everything from C++ to Java, but someone else took over the qGo development
now, and we work together, although the IGS client is pretty different now).
I saw these user-defined buttons/commands in qGo. You can define the F1-etc-keys
with commands, and then hit that in the main terminal window. As I dont use
any F-key in the terminal, those would be free.
I don't consider this too important. Came to my mind to do it, but another
one on the very low priority list.


>    And finally...
> 
>    - to permit viewing/editing/converting the Ishi (*.go) format also (I
>    think that viewing both *.sgf and *.ugf/ugi formats is a wonderful
>    thing, but *.go is the last well known format for go game records not
>    supported by gGo. If it will do that, it will become the most complete
>    viewer in the market without doubts. I understand this is a difficult
>    thing, but...)

That would be a somewhat bigger task, but since I added the UGF support my
parser is more dynamic, so it would not be a big pain to add another format,
as I made it quite extentable. It would make gGo the truely all-round game
reader, especially if I implement writing in the formats somewhen. I did not
consider Ishi format yet, as I never saw a game in this format. I agree, it
is a good idea tho. But I fear that is to end up on the low-priority section
as well and have to wait.


>        Please take my excuses for this long message, but I sincerely want
>    gGo to improve itself because I like it very much (it become my Go
>    friend :) ). If I was a programmer I'd like to help you practically,
>    but being not I can do that only with ideas.

No need to excuse! Feedback is very welcome. Although I just cannot do all
the suggestions I get within a certain time. After all, gGo does not pay my
rent or life and I work on it in my spare time. No spare time? No gGo work.
Simple as it is.

----- End forwarded message -----

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