SMFChess

[PLAYBOY]

PLAYBOY - They are done, but I'm still adding to them. If you can give me a about a week I'll work something out, that should make it easy enough.

Sure.

[feeble]

one question, is there anyway to impliment a timer of 1 minute or 2 minutes, some of these guys bore me into a bad game. I like quick thinking and I attack attack attack but when you wait for 6 minute moves you tend to lose interest..lol If they do not move in the matter of time they lose their turn. I love that Idea. The current is set for 1 to 3 days.

I have looked into this.
Due to a few limitations and issues that crop up when the timer gets that short I haven't put it in just yet.
But I won't say it will never happen, just not yet. Sorry.

Thanks for the compliment
We took our best 8 and divided them up, took the next best 4 and divided them up and the worst 4. Its a lot of fun, we have to play each team once as an official game. The team with the most wins win.

Cool, sounds good, I'll be really interested in how it turns out.

A poker game featuring chips, 5 card draw, 7 card stud something of that nature. I know a lot of people that would pay for that mod.

Umm, lol. Ill leave the answer for this for some other day.



I've put out a small update, its not required really, judge for yourself.
-Compressed most Javascript files to increase page loading speed.
-Added warning to Dark chess games to inform of crippled information including export, move history and move log.
-Added column "Variant" to challenge, my page, current and finished.
-In "Challenge" PM, have included variant and move clock into pm, so opponent knows what he is accepting.

download link is in first post

[Paracelsus]

I'm planning on doing a tournament on my site, but due to the normal "correspondence chess" nature of SMFChess, there are some things to be considered.  In the chart that Playboy posted on the 24th, there were 4 rounds of play before the tournament was over.  I don't know how long games take for some of the rest of you, but a decent game of SMFChess against a skilled opponent will often take a month to complete.  So, 4 months to complete a tourney?  I don't think so.

I'm considering making my tourney a "live" tournament.  Players who sign up for it have to agree to be online for the duration of the tourney, or at least until they're knocked out.  With timed games of say 30 minutes, a 15 minute break between rounds, we could do a tourney like the one in the chart in 3 hours.  Sounds better than 4 months.  Any thoughts?

This is a large concern of mine as well. I would love to know how that folds out.

About tournaments, I think things should be done in a different way, a little bit more similar to soccer.

For example, if you created a "cup-like" tournament with 1/8 finals, 1/4 finals and so on, then it would make much more sense if the whole round games would take place at a certain day or days and then the next round another day and so on...
Imagine a tournament with 16 players in 2 weeks - 1/8 finals at Day 1-2, 1/4 finals at Day 5-6, 1/2 finals at Day 9-10 and final at Day 13-14. All the games would have 48h limit... if tied after that limit, it could be created an extra game in the days between to untie and eventually insert untie criteria (like ELO ranking, number of captured pieces, etc)... I think this could be feasible.

Another thing is how to setup a tournament using software that automatically makes the draft and lays the tournament ladder... I really have no idea how to do this and the only thing similar that I've seen working very well was on 'Hattrick's cup management applications, like this one: http://www.databased.at/hattrick/cupmanager (in features there's this example with calendar and everything).

But a tournament feature would be an excellent add-on, I must say.

[Godsongz]

I wonder if Chess960 games should be categorized as a variant and put under that menu instead of a checkbox of their own.  I don't ever forsee wanting to combine variants like having a "Dark/960" game.  That would really be nuts.

[feeble]

For example, if you created a "cup-like" tournament with 1/8 finals, 1/4 finals and so on, then it would make much more sense if the whole round games would take place at a certain day or days and then the next round another day and so on...
Imagine a tournament with 16 players in 2 weeks - 1/8 finals at Day 1-2, 1/4 finals at Day 5-6, 1/2 finals at Day 9-10 and final at Day 13-14. All the games would have 48h limit... if tied after that limit, it could be created an extra game in the days between to untie and eventually insert untie criteria (like ELO ranking, number of captured pieces, etc)... I think this could be feasible.

Thanks for sharing your idea, and I actually really like it. I definitely look into it.
And I suppose prior, to get to decide on the finalists, all players have to go through a Round Robin tournament; split into maybe 5 player groups?

Another thing is how to setup a tournament using software that automatically makes the draft and lays the tournament ladder... I really have no idea how to do this and the only thing similar that I've seen working very well was on 'Hattrick's cup management applications, like this one: http://www.databased.at/hattrick/cupmanager (in features there's this example with calendar and everything).

I have no idea how to make a tournament ladder either lol.
I've been taking a look at Hattricks(if only they would let me download and look at the source files  ), but its given me lots of info and ideas on how they created it, so thank you.

I wonder if Chess960 games should be categorized as a variant and put under that menu instead of a checkbox of their own.  I don't ever forsee wanting to combine variants like having a "Dark/960" game.  That would really be nuts.

Was thinking about this as well. So... done.


Update:
Nearly ready for release. Been ticking off the to-do list today.
By my count, all that's left is to tidy the files and submit to SMF.
So I'm just going to tidy everything up over the next couple of days.
There will be 1 more release, probably on Thursday, and I'll submit on Monday if there are no more suggestions or things to fix up.(I think there might be)
So whats new today:
-Added 1 and 5 minute move timers - wait! what?
-Add manually adding games for admin - This is located in the Maintenance/Import section.

[Bigguy]

That's great news feeble. You are real close to a release.....can't wait for a SMF 2.0 version. ....no preasure though, lol.

[Godsongz]

...can't wait for a SMF 2.0 version...

Ah, that must be why you haven't reinstalled it on smfhelper yet.  hehe, I'm glad you waited on the 2.0 upgrade until after the tournament was done!

[Bigguy]

I couldn't disrupt the tourney.

[feeble]

Ok hopefully the last update as been uploaded

download link is in first post

If there is anything else that you want, please let me know. I'll be submitting in the next few days.
Keeping in mind that I still need to
-Redo Admin Language file
-Tidy/comment the files
-SSI Function (this will be done while the mod is being approved)

What this update adds:
-Added 1 and 5 minute move timers
-Can now manually add games - This is located in the Maintenance/Import section.
-Chat area has been redone. Its not perfect, but it looks a hell of alot better *try typing / in the chat area.
--This has also wiped out all previous chats and possible logs due to missing information, apologies for this
-Fixed alot of small bugs
-Recount can now be limited to just recounting ELO

[Paracelsus]

Thanks for sharing your idea, and I actually really like it. I definitely look into it.
And I suppose prior, to get to decide on the finalists, all players have to go through a Round Robin tournament; split into maybe 5 player groups?

Round Robin tournament is an option, sort of championship-like, but I was thinking more in the possibility of creating a tournament and players would simply apply to the remaining places and be accepted as long as there were places left... then close it to submissions once full and then just start the tournament.

By the way, keep up the great job...

[Godsongz]

I think you may have introduced some new bugs. 
1.  It seems that even with "No Timer" selected, both players must be online to start a game. 
2.  Also, if player "A" issues a challenge to player "B", the game shows up twice on player "B"'s My Page.

I really like the "Remind" tag you added to prod someone into playing a move, but it brings up another question.  I am now seeing on my "My Page" several games that I issued challenges for, some of them several months old, that were never accepted by the challengee.  Is there a way to remove these games if it's obvious that the challengee is never going to respond?  Otherwise, they sit on my My Page now forever.

Edit:  I found a way to get rid of them, by declaring a win to one side or the other so the game would show up under "Finished", then deleting the game, then doing a recount so ELO's wouldn't be affected.  That's fine for my unanswered challenges, but those without Admin privs won't be able to do all that.  Maybe there should be a way to cancel a challenge?

[feeble]

Thanks Godsongz

1.  It seems that even with "No Timer" selected, both players must be online to start a game. 

fixed

2.  Also, if player "A" issues a challenge to player "B", the game shows up twice on player "B"'s My Page.

fixed

I really like the "Remind" tag you added to prod someone into playing a move, but it brings up another question.  I am now seeing on my "My Page" several games that I issued challenges for, some of them several months old, that were never accepted by the challengee.  Is there a way to remove these games if it's obvious that the challengee is never going to respond?  Otherwise, they sit on my My Page now forever.

Maybe there should be a way to cancel a challenge?

Added, will appear after 1 week if there is no response
I'll add the specified length for remind and cancel in the admin area over the next couple of days

download link is in first post
Files Updated:
Sources/Chess.php
Sources/ChessXml.php
Sources/ChessChat.php
Language/Chess.english.php

Round Robin tournament is an option, sort of championship-like, but I was thinking more in the possibility of creating a tournament and players would simply apply to the remaining places and be accepted as long as there were places left... then close it to submissions once full and then just start the tournament.

I see what you mean and I do like this idea.

[Chopper]

Hi, a bit off topic but how can i get the Chess button to appear correctly on a different theme?

Thanks

[feeble]

Hi, a bit off topic but how can i get the Chess button to appear correctly on a different theme?

Thanks

Well it does differ between theme

http://www.leaderless.net/PackageParser/index.php?show=theme
contains the changes for the default theme,

just need to find where the other Buttons are located and then just copy the method used there of putting in the buttons( for instance the calender button)

if you have problems with this send me an email

[Chopper]

Hi thanks for the reply. When i try to edit the theme the following code isnt found :

<a href="', $scripturl, '?action=calendar">' , $txt['calendar24'] , '</a>
            </td>' , $current_action == 'calendar' ? '<td class="maintab_active_' . $last . '">&nbsp;</td>' : '';

Therefore i dont know where to add the rest of the code

[weightman]

Just installed the latest update. Now on "My Page" it lists challenges I sent. Very Cool!

I clicked on one game (member name in list) that the person responded with a no thanks in a PM to me and it opened up the game which of course was never started. I choose "Delete Game" and it asked if I am sure. I said yes, and nothing seemed to happen except for that prompt disappearing. I exited that game and then went back to "My Page" and that game IS gone. But, it generated the following error in the forum error log:

http://weightliftingexchange.com/smf/index.php?option=com_smf&amp;amp;Itemid=39&amp;amp;action=chessXml;sa=update;sesc;id=6;timestamp=0;xml
Unable to load the 'main' template.

Thanks

[brianjw]

bigguy, did you happen to save backups so when it is time to install SMFChess again we can return to our games (like me and you and me and feeble which he is kicking my a**)

Those game types sound interesting. I plan on installing it all when the initial release comes out...

[Bigguy]

It should all be there when I re-install it.

[Assistance]

Hi thanks for the reply. When i try to edit the theme the following code isnt found :

<a href="', $scripturl, '?action=calendar">' , $txt['calendar24'] , '</a>
            </td>' , $current_action == 'calendar' ? '<td class="maintab_active_' . $last . '">&nbsp;</td>' : '';

Therefore i dont know where to add the rest of the code

depends on the theme

try searching for

function template_menu()
or
$txt[119] (thats the word help)

depending on the theme, depends on the code you will paste around that area

[Chopper]

Hi thanks for the reply. When i try to edit the theme the following code isnt found :

<a href="', $scripturl, '?action=calendar">' , $txt['calendar24'] , '</a>
            </td>' , $current_action == 'calendar' ? '<td class="maintab_active_' . $last . '">&nbsp;</td>' : '';

Therefore i dont know where to add the rest of the code

depends on the theme

try searching for

function template_menu()
or
$txt[119] (thats the word help)

depending on the theme, depends on the code you will paste around that area

That didnt work. I had a solitary "Chess" button stranded as far over to the right as is possible and the other buttons have changed to text? They sit at the top left descending from Home to Logout?