Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

The comments section of the developer guide does not work on edge!

@Fergus It seems that the infinite loop was caused by the following code:

setelem op .JW + elem .JW op 1; setelem op .jw + elem .jw op 1;

That's two lines of code. In the first line, you are trying to increment #op[".JW"] by one, and in the second, you are trying to increment #op[".jw"] by one.

.jw is the wazir camel piece and I had wanted to to increase the number of them in reserve. Probably the dot is causing trouble. Do you agree?

Yes, it looks like it is causing trouble. In a test I ran, it incremented #op["JW"] and #op["jw"] by one instead of the elements you named. This is probably because the period is now used as a separator between array and element names, and the setelem command now just concatenates the array and element names by putting a period between them, and uses this concatenated name with the function for setting a user variable.

What I would recommend is to follow the instructions I have previously given for replacing piece labels without using aliases, which is in the comments for the Game Courier Developer's Guide. This would give you nice clean piece labels that you can use in your code without running into problems like this.

@Fergus It seems that the infinite loop was caused by the following code:

setelem op .JW + elem .JW op 1; setelem op .jw + elem .jw op 1;

.jw is the wazir camel piece and I had wanted to to increase the number of them in reserve. Probably the dot is causing trouble. Do you agree?

I have a preset for one of my new games. Once after saving the preset I could not access it anymore as I get a totally white window. I use microsoft edge. What happens?

My best guess is that your code contains an infinite loop. You can figure things out more precisely by going here:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Grand+Apothecary+Chess+3&settings=Default&submit=Edit

1. Save each block of code to a text file on your computer.
2. Delete each full block of code in turn until you determine which block of code is causing this to happen.
3. Restore your code from your backup.
4. Working with the block of code that is buggy, delete or comment out large portions of it to determine where the problem lies. Make sure that each portion you delete or comment out can be safely removed without breaking up control structures.
5. Once you isolate the problem to a large section, delete or comment out smaller parts of that section until you find the line that is causing your problem.
6. Examine that line to figure out what the problem is, fix it, and see if it fixes your problem.

@Fergus

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Grand+Apothecary+Chess+3&settings=Default

In the link above I have a preset for one of my new games. Once after saving the  preset I could not acces it anymore as I get a totally white window. I use microsoft edge. What happens?

I redid the Thunderbirds to make them look good on both light and dark backgrounds. I did this by anti-aliasing them against a grey (#808080) background.

Fergus, I don't see them in alfaerie many though.

Since the most appropriate labels were not already taken by other pieces, I added them as fb/FB for Firebird and as tb/TB for Thunderbird.

Fergus, I don't see them in alfaerie many though.

Also don't bother with other pieces as I have renamed the Cyclops and Giant to tiger and lyon.

Thnaks very much, Fergus!

I need a Valkyrie, a firebird, a thunderbird, a giant and a cyclops!

I made two of these using art I found on the Internet:

Firebird

Thunderbird

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll take them into consideration.

OK so for the birds (I assume based on previous comments that ‘thunderbolt’ is a typo, though I suppose md or something suggests some kind of energy) I'd go with either modified bird pictures (things like _PA_cd, _PA_wa, _PA_wc, _jc_af, !aaf, !aak, !aaw ⁊c) or something which suggests the move (so the likes of _JG_bgr, _JG_bspgr, _JG_co, _JG_gr, _JG_ha, _JG_raa, _JG_rc, _JG_rcd, _JG_rcflaa, _JG_re, _JG_rspaa, _MLV_si2 ⁊c.).

The humanoids could, given their moves, also draw from the same set as the birds, or you could just go with the various human heads (ge, maybe th or ch, _MLV_ge, _MLV_ma ⁊c) — as far as the cyclops is concerned, you can only see up to one eye at a time(!) Alternatively _MH_ge kind of looks like an eye.

As for the Valkyrie, idk how I'd represent an actual valkyrie so I'd suggest some kind of augmented bishop. _MH_b, _JG_ap2b, or _JG_apb2b perhaps?

I need a Valkyrie, a firebird, a thunderbird, a giant and a cyclops!

Are you sure the rather extensive Alfaerie: Many set doesn't have what you need? If not, what do you feel you're missing?

They will represent the pieces in my new Grand apothecary chess with it's 3 variations alert, classic and modern. I'd prefer to make them alllfaerie style but I have no tallent. So I chose those or the simbolic ones. I have 5 pieces missing from allfaerie.

Exact, very sorry, I had not looked carefully enough. What is your purpose for designing those pictures?

The second and third links are very similar but different. I have made pictures with letters, but I'm not very proud of them! Thanks for your interest Jean-Louis!

Quite mysterious for me. The 1st link doesn't work. The 2nd and the 3rd show the same thing. I suspect that you are posting comments on a page which I can see because I'm not an admin. I can only see your post in the Explore>Comments page.

I try to guess. You want an opinion on a proposal of pieces' icons which are either symbolising the moves or showing a letter.

My opinion on moves-based icons is I don't feel at ease with them to play with. On letter-based icons, I think they have several drawbacks, they are mostly valid for English-speakers, they are affected by the direction from where they are read (same as some are complaining for shogi's pieces).

Try the comment made a few days ago by me on this specific topic. And also on Grand Apothecary Chess alert and Grand Apothecary chess classic. This means:

here,here and here.

I guess I don't see the same page as you. I look at it from the Explore>Comments. There I see no images and no link to another page

On the comments below!

where is the link to see the images?

I have updated the images on all three variants below. The are now just characters. Please take a look and give an opinion!

Dear Aurelian

Personally I'm not fan of abstract design indicating the moves. Even when simpler than yours. It is extremely confusing for my brain to see more than one at once and if of course I understand the logic behind, I cannot play at all with them. For example the ones used here: https://www.chessvariants.com/rules/sac-chess I cannot play with that. Hopefully not everyone is like me.

I think that for moves of more than 2 squares it gets difficult to tell easily what the move is exactly on those tiny diagrams. There's a lot of redundancy in your images because everything is repeated 4 times, or more.

If you really need to represent the pieces with their movements, try doing it more abstractly.

Using letters would be ok if you can't get good images. Maybe just use letters for things you don't have images for yet.

In the following is what I did for images and names for this game. I had tried a diagram representation. Unfortunately the 50x50 pixels of the images need to be split in a 9x9 grid leaving little room for things to happen in one grid cell. That is because the longest path mover moves 43&41 and some bent riders bend after the 3rd step. The excepting for that is the joker. The joker is represented by a big J. That got me thinking about making instead images with 2 letters from the English alphabet. What do you think about this? Also if you have any suggestion on how to improve the images I'm listening gladly. I am not talented at this nor imaginative.

 Just the Bishop.

The Rook.

 The queen.

 The king.

 The Pawn.

 The berolina.

  The kinghtrider.

 The chinesse cannon.

 The joker (imitator).

 The vulture (a 41&43  falcon).

 The knight of this game(NmZ).

 The mameluk (WL).

 The siege elephant (FAH).

 The caliph(BL).

The dragon (a ferz then rook).

 A unicorn  (BNN).

 The firebird. A  Bishop3 then rook that can also step like a wazir.

The thunderbird. A rook2thenbishop that can also step like a ferz.

Thanks for reading all this! I await your reactions.

Thanks!

249, 249, 249

@Greg, May you please tell me what is the RGB for the colour #f9f9f9.

I could not draw the pieces in question (Thunderbird and Firebird) so if someone is willing to help me I'd be extremely grateful.

Yes, that is possible.

You only need to make white pieces and the white should be #f9f9f9. From this we'll render the white and blue pieces in PNG.

Is it permited to make draws that are more colored than white and blue (in allfaerie). I want to create the firebird with a fire shadow on it's back. That shoul be red, or cherry for black and a lighter red for white. Something similar I'd like to do do to the thunderbeard.

Any ideas on how a Thunderbird and a Firebird should look like?

I'll try inkscape on my own, for now. I have to learn to do this one day, anyway!

I don't see where can I upload graphics.

Go to the page for one of your games and select 'Upload or Manage Files' from the black box towards the bottom.

I'd also like them to enter in a directory so that it can be used by the interactive diagram.

I will have to do that for you.  You can only upload to the membergraphics folder.

I might be able to help you make graphics but my availability is limited since I'm in the process of moving right now.  Any new graphics should be made in SVG (vector graphics) format, not a bitmap format.  Inkscape is the free program typically used for this.

Everyone can upload graphics, but incorporating them into a GС piece set requires an editor.

1. I don't see where can I upload graphics.

2. I'd also like them to enter in a directory so that it can be used by the interactive diagram.

We really must do something about that. I don't see any reason why there couldn't be a user-defined mapping between piece labels and graphics URLs.

Everyone can upload graphics, but incorporating them into a GС piece set requires an editor.

I thought everyone that has posted an article can upload graphics files?

Which images should I use for the Thunderbird and the Firebird. Can anyone help me with drawing and uploading the pictures as I don't have any skills with the draw part and I do not have upload rights?

Thunderbird and Firebird then!

While we're on the topic of mythical creatures, I wonder how many of them appeared in Chess Variants

I only know there's Unicorn, Dragon(?), Gryphon/Griffon, Aanca/Anqa, Kirin, and Phoenix

And what about Firebird and Thunderbird for bent-riders? With these you keep the mythical bird theme for bent-riders (even if they aren't from the same cultural origin: the Firebird is from slavic folklore, the Thunderbird from North American idigenous culture). And, even if they have been certainly used for fairy pieces in recent variants, these names are not already used in a historical game, a fortiori for the original naming of a well-known fairy piece (Aanca-Gryphon).

I'm wondering though why can't the creature Anqa be used in a proper way as described by history and you don't like it to be used at all?

Ok,Jean-Louis!

Too bad Aurelian you don't want to change your mind. Anka is the word used in Spanish for the Gryphon. Is like if you call a Bishop, a Torre. You can call your piece otherwise, a Simurgh or anything, why a Anka/Anqa/Aanca? Check that page: http://history.chess.free.fr/acedrex.htm

You mean the Interactive Diagram?

That takes all its images from the same directory, which you can specify through graphicsDir=... amongst the parameters. If you cannot create files in that directory, the only option is to copy all the files you need from there to a directory of your own, where you can create files, and then put the extra images there too.

@HG, How do I add extra images to the diagram designer?

Jean-Louis, acording to wikipedia Anqa or Anka is a Arabian mythical bird : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anqa,

I'm provisionally using the name for a piece that moves 2 squares like a rook, may stop here or in the intermediate square, and then towards outside like a bishop. It may also move like a ferz (In an attempt to make it as strong as a queen. Thanks for your interest.

What do you call an Aanca or an Anka? I can't see what you are talking about

There already is a gryphon in this game. Aanca spelled "Anka" it is so far my proposition in the other game with bent riders. Thanks for your input Zhedric!

I'll just call them Gryphon and Aanca at this point

Hello,

I am in the process of creating three larger version of apothecary chess. This is one of them - apothecary chess classic.

The purpose of this comment is to get help from the community naming and drawing the pieces.

In the previous comment on this thread I have made a interactive diagram with some preliminary names and pictures from what I could find. They are not very good so do not mind them to much.

In the following I'll name the properties of the new pieces and I expect from who may help a name and a description for the picture.

A piece that moves 3 squares like a bishop and may stop here or in the intermediate squares and continues like a rook toward outside. And it may also step like a wazir.

A pieces that moves 2 squares like a rook and may stop here or in the intermediate square and then toward outside like a bishop. And it may also step like a ferz.