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I have started to incorporate this into Game Courier, so that you can make diagrams from presets and game positions, but it looks like it will have to be a bit more sophisticated than it currently is to handle what Game Courier can throw at it.
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I made an automated set for your interactive pieces. For a directory listing, would you prefer a listing of every file or just a listing of graphic images? If the latter, would you prefer a list of pieces or of all graphics?
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I have added a script to each directory of piece images called list.php. It will list file names in order, putting file names in both the HREF and text part of an A tag. It will not list directory names.
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There are two other options. Game Courier groups pieces into sets, and it groups sets into groups of sets with images for the same pieces. This allows people using Game Courier to change the piece set for a game being played. So, one option is to use a set of internal names for the pieces instead of their external names. You can keep the internal names consistent no matter what external names the piece artists give to them. The other option is to put piece images into folders under your own control, so that you can name them as you please.
As a relative newbie, I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if a Pegasus piece image (e.g. in an Auto Alfairie set) stands for any sort of standard fairy chess piece? I'm not absolutely sure that it isn't a way used to represent a Nightrider. I was thinking of using the Pegasus symbol to represent a novel idea for a piece otherwise. A second question is: does the Unicorn symbol, when used for 2D variants, standardly represent a Banshee (i.e. Nightrider & Bishop compoiund), as stated on wikipedia? In that case, that's how I'd be thinking to use it, but I'm curious since 2D variants commonly show Unicorn symbols. Tonight I spent quite a while generating a diagram for a 91 cell hexagonal starting position for a hypothetical variant, partly as a test to see if I could do so. I succeeded, but I eventually became so tired that I accidently closed the Diagram Designer window on my laptop... fortunately the FEN code was remembered by the Diagram Designer, so reconstructing the diagram won't take so long if I try.
There is already a designated Nightrider piece. So the Pegasus is not used for that. As far as I know, the Pegasus is mainly a mythological creature, not a particular kind of fairy piece.
I'm not familiar with the name Banshee for David Paulowich's Unicorn. The Fairy chess piece article does not say that the Unicorn standardly represents this piece. All it says is, "Combination of Bishop and Nightrider. Also known as Unicorn." The name of Unicorn for this piece was introduced by David Paulowich, a contributor to this site, and I used the same name for the piece in Caissa Britannia, which included pieces based on the heraldic animals of Britain.
In general, there is not a whole lot of standardization in names for fairy pieces. For example, the two most common fairy pieces are each known by several names. One is known as Princess, Archbishop, Cardinal, Equerry, Centaur, and Paladin. The other is known as Empress, Chancellor, Marshall, Guard, and Champion. Meanwhile, some of these names have been used for other pieces. There's a different Cardinal in Cardinal Super Chess, a different Champion in Omega Chess, etc.
To give an example in the other direction, the name Lion has been used for several different pieces. There is the Chu Shogi Lion, the Murray Lion, the Leo (called a Lion in Caissa Britannia), and the Half-Duck Lion used by David Paulowich in Unicorn Great Chess.
In general, it's up to a game inventor to choose which names he uses for pieces. However, some names are more closely associated with a particular piece than other names. Nightrider is a name closely associated with a particular piece, because it is a homonym for a literal description of the piece, Knight-rider. Other names may gain popularity if the game they are used in is popular enough, and the same piece does not appear in other games of equal popularity.
Although I've sometimes seen a Pegasus image used for pieces, it's not a common name for any fairy piece I can think of, and it is not listed in the Piececlopedia or the Wikipedia article.
Thanks Fergus. I saw a hexagonal variant diagram used by Charles G. some time ago in the Comments section, and it had me wondering about possible fairy chess conventions for piece images. Fwiw, here's a wikipedia link, that mentions Banshee as an alternate name for Unicorn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess_piece
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I am also not familiar with the Pegasus as a named piece. As an image I am most familiar with it as representing the Bishop-Knight in Ed Friedlander's applets. That has a nice feel to it, the Bishop move somehow adding "flying" to the knight(/horse)'s move; but in most places people somehow overlay a more traditional Bishop imagery with the knight, which I think is a better representation. I think the Pegasus and Unicorn images (and the latter name) are just attractive choices as chess pieces, and so get reused for several different things. I wouldn't expect any confusion to arise if you reuse them in a new way.
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