Ratings & Comments

Affecting the initial state is somewhat tricky, because the Interactive Diagram is initialized with a certain delay. This to make sure the initialization routine can see all Diagrams on the page, and is not immediately executing after the page has been loaded enough to only see the first Diagram. So you cannot use the code you use later for altering a Diagram that you use in the buttons immediately.

The way I would do it, is first alter the mechanism by which you change things now, by letting all buttons call the same function (say 'AlterDiagram(n)'), specifying by the parameter n what should actually be altered. So AlterDiagram would contain a switch(n) statement, where each case does what you now have written directly in the button. Initially you can then call AlterDiagram with a random number as parameter (Math.floor(nmax*Math.random()). Or call it twice, once for the base variant, and once to choose the off-board piece.

The main difficulty is when to call it. You could call it with a delay larger than the betza.js script uses to call its Init() function, but that seems a bit risky in case the page lows more slowly than that (or future versions of betza.js use another delay). Now you can prevent that betza.js invokes the Init() routine at all, by, before specifying the URL to betza.js

<script>var scriptSeen = 7;</script>

(Betza.js uses this to make sure the Init() routine is only executed once, even if there are multiple links to the script on the page, such as could happen in a Comments page.) You then should arrange the Init() function to be called from your own code. You could do this through

<script>
function MyInit() {
  Init();
  var n = ...; // number of the random position you want to show
  AlterDiagram(n);
}
setTimeout('MyInit()', 100); // arrange MyInit() to be invoked 100 msec from now.
</script>

This guarantees that you execute the AlterDiagram() for picking the initially shown position only after the initialization has been done.

We will have to add additional opportunities for human on-line play (pychess.org, gamerz.net, freechess.org, chess.com), and for 'strong' computer opponents (Fairy-Stockfish, ChessV, Sjaak II, Nebiyu, HaChu, CrazyWa, KingSlayer...).

Since some of these engines are configurable, it would often be possible to supply game files for them, to use them for variants that are not in their standard repertoir.

Standard repertoir of Sjaak II:

• Normal chess (Jazz, Sjaak and Leonidas all play this).
• Spartan chess, where black and white play with different armies and black has two kings (Sjaak and Leonidas can both play this).
• Seirawan chess, where both sides start with an extra off-the-board piece that can be introduced later (Sjaak and Leonidas both play this).
• The Maharaja and the Sepoys, where white has only one piece (the Maharaja) (needs to be played as variant "fairy" in XBoard). In Sjaak II you need to load the variants.txt configuration file to make this variant available.
• Amazon chess, where the queen moves as an amazon (needs to be played as variant "fairy" in XBoard).
• Knightmate, where the king moves as a knight and the knights move as a king.
• Berolina Chess, where pawns move one square diagonal and capture straight ahead.
• Shatranj, a historic precursor of modern chess.
• Capablanca Chess, a variant played on a 10x8 board with two extra pieces.
• Gothic Chess, the same as Capablanca Chess but with a different starting position.
• Fischer Random Chess and Capablanca Random Chess, which are like normal chess and normal Capablanca chess, but with a randomised starting position (Sjaak does not generate a starting position, however).
• Makruk, the Thai version of Chess. ASEAN chess and Ai-Wok are supported Makruk variants.
• Pocket Knight, like normal chess, but players have an extra knight they can drop on the board.
• Grand Chess, on a 10x10 board.
• Indian Grand Chess, or possibly Turkish Grand Chess. On a 10x10 with four extra pieces.
• Burmese chess (Sittuyin), needs to be played in XBoard with legality testing off.
• Courier chess, a medieval variant played on a 12x8 board.
• Chinese chess (Xiangqi), Black and white face eachother across the river that runs along the board, with their kings confined to their palaces.
• Japanese chess (Shogi), where captured pieces can be dropped on the board to reinforce your own army. Also supported are a number of Shogi variants (sho-shogi, mini-shogi and tori-shogi).
• Traditional Mongolian Chess (Shatar), which has restrictions on how mate can be delivered.
• Omicron Chess, which is basically Omega Chess on a slightly smaller board.
• Omega Chess, a variant on a 12x12 (effectively 10x10 with four extra squares) board.
• Grande Acedrex, a large (12x12) mediaeval variant of chess with divergent pieces: the Rhinoceros/Unicorn (first as Knight, then as Bishop) and the Gryphon/Aanca (first as Ferz, then as Rook). Can be played by Postduif.
• Various minor variantions and challanges, including Peasant's revolt, Legan's chess.

I have remade the six articles with the games in my collection of games inspired by Kevin Pacey, into one. Hopefully that is better for everyone involved. Please take a look! If this article is accepted I'll delete the six old ones.

Since I can’t insert third-party links in the game description, I’ll do it in the comments. shogitter.com - https://shogitter.com/ Description and online game Mini-Shogi Gold and Silver: https://shogitter.com/rule/5%E4%BA%94%E5%B0%86%E6%A3%8B%20%E9%87%91%E9%8A%80

Now when I try to move in any game other than secret intelligence chess it says You may not move one of your opponent's pieces or similar

@fergus I am playing a copper pocket shogi game, and when you play against another person there is a preview button and a confirm button. It seems to me that when you press the confirm button I am getting error messages in the "post move section of the code". If I had to guess the variable dollar moved is either not getting populated or it is getting populated in a different way. If I had to guess, when you get to the confirm button the variable dollar moved contains the previous move, and not the preview move. If you want we could play a shogi game so that you can see what I mean. Jim.

*** you fixed it thank you.

Now when I try to move in any game other than secret intelligence chess it says You may not move one of your opponent's pieces or similar

I added some new code today for which I neglected to include $nopreview as one of the conjuncts of the condition, figuring that it wasn't necessary to do that. But apparently it was necessary, for adding it allowed making a move to work properly. The code is supposed to change $submit from "Send" to "Preview" when $moves is empty, and it looks like it was doing that when a player was confirming a move. So now it looks like this:

if ($nopreview && empty($moves) && ($submit == "Send"))
    $submit = "Preview";

This was in conjunction with using the Test rendering method to test changes to movepiece.js that would prevent moves started by clicking on an empty space when $nopreview is true, as allowing this type of move could cause moves to be accidentally made, and when $nopreview is true, they can't be undone without editing the log and the database.

There is now the issue of whether any logs were damaged by this bug and are in need of repair. [EDIT: As far as I can tell, this bug stopped moves from being recorded, and the recent logs all seem fine. But if I'm wrong, let me know.]

@fergus, one of our games is stuck. The error message is:

Syntax Error on line 396

MOVE: @ f2-f1 is not a valid expression, because @ is not a recognized piece, coordinate, command, or subroutine.

Drawish positions in the sense that there are conditions arise for repeating the position. Yes, there is sennichite, but nevertheless... I meant drawish = boring

That is amazing! Thanks! How can I implement it inside the main body of the page? Just thinking about those who may access it from their smartphone, which are very unlikely to check out the comment section!

I tried to recreate the same Interactive Diagram with the Betza notation you used but I got some troubles with the pieces' image... How do I get to know their filenames?

Yeah I’ve found a time to finish writing this, so it’s ready, please review it.

Please review this page.