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Game Courier Developer's Guide. Learn how to design and program Chess variants for Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jan 10, 2005 05:57 PM UTC:
<P>I have added the <B>alias</B> command, which is quite a significant new command that will change how presets are developed. It significantly reduces the need to create new sets and to use the Custom Board rendering method. This command lets you create aliases for piece and coordinate labels, which players may use for entering moves in place of the internal representations used by Game Courier. Heretofore, internal and external representations have been identical. Now they may be separated. Here are some examples for how this can be used:</p> <P>I have added the following line to the Shogi presets:</P> <PRE> alias +p t +n y +l m +s v +r d +b h +P T +N Y +L M +S V +R D +B H; </PRE> <P>This provides more intuitive labels for promoted pieces. Each promoted piece is now represented to the players as a plus sign before the type of piece it is the promoted form of. For backwards compatibility with pre-existing games, the internal representations still work. But the new ones may now be used, and they are what show up in tooltip text when you place your pointer over a piece.</P> <P>I have added the following line to the Grotesque Chess preset:</P> <PRE> alias e a E A g m G M; </PRE> <P>This allows the use of e and E for the Equerry and the use of g and G for the Guard.</P> <P>If I were to do an Omega Chess preset, I could use the usual rank and file system to define the board and then use the alias command to create aliases for the four corner squares. Previously, I would have had to settle for not using the official names for those squares or for figuring out how to enforce rules with the Custom Board method, which would be difficult. But now by distinguishing between internal and external coordinate systems, I can use an internal representation that is perfectly logical while allowing players to use the official coordinate system for a game. Likewise, I could now make a preset that enforces the rules for Glinski's Hexagonal Chess and that also lets players use its official coordinate system, which is unsuitable for simple mathematical descriptions of piece movement.</P>