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H. G. Muller wrote on Thu, Oct 20, 2022 07:19 PM UTC in reply to Bn Em from Sun Oct 9 06:07 PM:

The obvious remaining reason to favour static images over the interactive diagram is that the latter only works with Javascript enabled. I suppose the obvious(?) way around that would be to also have the design wizard generate a link to a Diagram‐Designer‐ or Scalable‐Diagram‐Editor‐generated (if the latter gets installed?) image and wrap it in <noscript> tags?

Indeed, this is what I have done in my own articles that use Interactive Diagrams as principal diagram. I don't think a special application would be needed to generate the static image; once people would have created an Interactive Diagram to their satisfaction, they can simply take a screenshot of it to obtain an identical static image, and upload that.

But there are two different issues here: (1) how we could streamline the submission process, and guide the user to submit articles in a form we like to have them, and (2) what we would like best, and whether we should make an effort to give the CVP website a facelift to cast existing articles authored by people that have left long ago in that form.

For the moment I would like to focus on (2). If we all agree that the Interactive Diagram at its current stage should be preferably used as principal image of the initial setup, I am in favor of starting working towards that goal, and replace the images there are now by Interactive Diagrams (with 'noscript' static backups). We can argue about how perfect the Diagram representation has to be in order to be superior to a static image. (E.g. should the AI work perfectly, work at all, or would it be sufficient to just use it for summoning move diagrams and highlighting piece moves?) Or how poor the image that there is now should be in order for replacement by anything whatsoever to be an improvement.

I would for instance be in favor of replacing all ASCII diagrams, even for games the Diagram cannot actually play (yet?), and even when some of the more quirky rules (such as turning a piece of choice into a King when you lost your old one) can not be implemented when the Diagram is operated by the user. Even a static screenshot of the Diagram would be an improvement there.

I have already started churning out Diagrams for all variants in the Alphabetical Index that are playable, and can be made to look like the static image the article is using now (if not ASCII). I think I worked my way all through 'a' now. A problem is that the CVP seem completely unorganized as to available piece graphics; some of the diagrams use piece images that are probably available, but I have no idea where to find those.


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