Would it be possible to have a check box to the right of the piece selection for pieces to keep? The box would be automatically checked (and greyed-out to prevent from being unchecked) when the piece is on the board for setup.
The problem here is space. The new Applet page looks pretty wide, but that is because it has no add sidebars, like it would get if it would ever become an ordinary article in the database, rather than a separate html page. (Which of course would be a good reason to keep it as a separate page.) The table is already so wide that sometimes you need horizontal scroll, although that problem has been ameliorated now that the new definition of n on obliques has very much shortened the XBetza for the Falcon move.
Putting a single button 'starts off board', e.g. next to the Apply button, which you have to click after selecting a piece, wouldn't take up any space. The advantage of a checkbox per piece is that you can see at any time whether it is checked, though. But this could also be indicated by, say, changing the background color of the piece name in the table.
As for reverting a cell on the capture matrix to empty, perhaps that could be done by simply clicking on the space when the piece selected is already there? Or with a right-click? Or by putting a Hole in that spot, and then double-clicking the hole?
The problem is that left-clicking replaces whatever was there with the piece that is selected in the table, (or with a hole if the Create Holes button had been pressed last), and that there is no way to deselect that. And for the holes, just like the pieces, a double-click would fill the rank with those. A right-click would be possible, but would people ever discover that? Eventually I will need some additional buttons anyway, to indicate other things than a piece or a hole. E.g. check and win squares for the morph board, evaporate / explode for the capture matrix. 'Blank' could be another button in that group.
Tangentially, maybe the "more rules" section could also include a box to specify Royal piece(s)?
Good idea.
Another tangent: Is there any way to add graphics to this?
It uses the graphics that it finds in the alfaeriePNG35 directory. If any new image appears there, it will be automatically added to the piece table. E.g. the 'wolf' image I recently added is already in the table, without making any provision for it on the Applet page. So this isn't really an issue for the Applet, just that you want more pieces added to the Alfaerie set.
Also note that the Play-Test Applet is just an aid to creating HTML code for Interactive Diagrams. You don't have to leave the whole job to it, and it would be easy to edit the HTML code afterwards, e.g. to replace some of the graphics by images outside the alfaeriePNG35 directory. Even to images you uploaded yourself.
The problem here is space. The new Applet page looks pretty wide, but that is because it has no add sidebars, like it would get if it would ever become an ordinary article in the database, rather than a separate html page. (Which of course would be a good reason to keep it as a separate page.) The table is already so wide that sometimes you need horizontal scroll, although that problem has been ameliorated now that the new definition of n on obliques has very much shortened the XBetza for the Falcon move.
Putting a single button 'starts off board', e.g. next to the Apply button, which you have to click after selecting a piece, wouldn't take up any space. The advantage of a checkbox per piece is that you can see at any time whether it is checked, though. But this could also be indicated by, say, changing the background color of the piece name in the table.
The problem is that left-clicking replaces whatever was there with the piece that is selected in the table, (or with a hole if the Create Holes button had been pressed last), and that there is no way to deselect that. And for the holes, just like the pieces, a double-click would fill the rank with those. A right-click would be possible, but would people ever discover that? Eventually I will need some additional buttons anyway, to indicate other things than a piece or a hole. E.g. check and win squares for the morph board, evaporate / explode for the capture matrix. 'Blank' could be another button in that group.
Good idea.
It uses the graphics that it finds in the alfaeriePNG35 directory. If any new image appears there, it will be automatically added to the piece table. E.g. the 'wolf' image I recently added is already in the table, without making any provision for it on the Applet page. So this isn't really an issue for the Applet, just that you want more pieces added to the Alfaerie set.
Also note that the Play-Test Applet is just an aid to creating HTML code for Interactive Diagrams. You don't have to leave the whole job to it, and it would be easy to edit the HTML code afterwards, e.g. to replace some of the graphics by images outside the alfaeriePNG35 directory. Even to images you uploaded yourself.