Thanks for all the new posts =) I've currently been a little busy with university exams (and some Go tournaments ^^), but I've been following and noting down stuff, so your efforts are not wasted. And I'll be able to do more again starting nex week.

Cheers, Benjamin

ethanb, EdLee:

I agree the GUI design is quite bad - so let's assume I'd want to do a complete makeover for it (not sure how much time this would cost - I guess a lot..) in the following way:
- one fixed (at first) default look for everything that is simple and good (hopefully ^^)
- some sort of "advanced mode" where you can customize more

How much customisation would really be necessary, then? I know users like to have a lot, but on the other hand the complexity always increases with the number of options. One could even claim that customisation is only needed at all because of bad defaults - but I'm not sure about this

Hi Benjamin,Yes, I guess a lot, too.

Another UI feature request: Remove "Caps", "Dead", or "Captured", etc.:(Which I find ambiguous and confusing.)
Instead, use the GUI and show it clearly:

Hi,

I've uploaded another snapshot here (also changed the link at the beginning of this thread).
Note that it's now called gGo-1.1-SNAPSHOT - the earlier name 2.0 was too much and basically a mistake.

What's new:

• glGo playermanager should work again
• should run on java 1.5 instead of 1.6 only and thus on all macs (hopefully)
• observer lists
  
  • now sorted by rank
    
  • guests are not shown (but a guest count)
    
• minor stuff

Hi Benjamin,Thanks. Testing it now.
Small bug: gGo is confused about the Horizontal Comment status -- see screenshot.
Old request: map F10 to Show Toolbar (like gIGo).

Hi Benjamin,

IGS switched from the old ratings (*,[ ]) to the new ratings (+,[ ],?) some time ago.
But gGo is still using the old system:

IGS Current (gIGo):

Old (gGo):

Hi!

I've updated the snapshot to use the new rating system - please tell me if you notice anything weird (as always ^^)

Benjamin

A couple long term thoughts / suggestions:

- Allow custom board images. It seems like the scaling of the original image graphic either looks worse on my system or bothers me more than most people, but eventually it should be replaced with a higher resolution version. One good way to do that would be to allow people to choose (or contribute) their own.

- Remember window positions and settings. Having to manually resize the board window and adjust the slider each time makes no sense. Most people find the dimensions which work well on their desktop and want future windows to have the same dimensions.

- Seek button as part of the standard UI. The functionality is there, but it shouldn't be buried in a menu since this is increasingly the standard way to find a game on IGS.

- A couple smaller suggestions: in the channels dialog, colored text (say blue) for the username:, it makes it easier to differentiate between the person and what they're saying. Also, glGo has a nice feature where it there is a new line printed in a channel window and the channel tab is not selected it appends "Channels" with a * to indicate that something new has been said.

With glGo barely functioning on Ubuntu now, it is so nice to have someone developing gGo again, thank you

Hi Benjamin,
I downloaded the "new" (?) snapshot -- it's still named gGo-1.1-SNAPSHOT.jar ?
When I run it, I get this error dialogue window (on Vista):
Thanks.

Most window managers can do this as part of their functionality - or look into Devil's Pie (it's in Ubuntu's apt repository.)
My .devilspierc looks like this:




Also, is there a way to modify what the default seek is asking for? If you want Japanese byoyomi or 10 minutes main time or something?

With regards to Devil's Pie: even if you can jerry-rig your window manager to do this, surely it should be part of the standard functionality of gGo. It doesn't make for people to either have to either edit config files or resize the window *every single time* they look at a game. Also, for game windows maximize is not ideal since that wastes lots of space, so even as a temporary hack that's lacking. In terms of the convenience to effort ratio, it seems like a no-brainer to incorporate.

I've gotten that same error message the Edlee posted about, but I hadn't written an email yet.

Well, you can do other things besides maximize - I don't have devil's pie manage ggo at all (I still use qgo to play on IGS because of the UI issues I've mentioned above, and I should have devil's pie do something about that, but I haven't bothered yet.) But there's no wasted space in a maximized Quarry window -- not on a 4:3 aspect ratio, anyway -- and that's what I use to review games.

EDIT: also, in Compiz, at least, you can do it without editing config files. Sawfish as well - not sure about Metacity or Kwm. Fluxbox can too, but yeah, you have to edit a text file.

A very easy to implement feature request:

For any board, allow an option to display all stones as the same color. Ideally there would be an option to show all stones as white or all stones as black.

Some clients in the past have supported one color go, while others like qgo only provide the option for playing against a program. It wouldn't be a frequently used feature, but one color go is a useful training tool to work on reading. Building it into the client like this allows one player to see a normal board while their opponent plays under a self-imposed handicap of only seeing one color of stones.

Hi everyone,

I've noted down all of your remarks and everything will eventually be implemented.
I'm currently chasing the NumberFormatException and hope to have this fixed very soon. One-Color Go has lowest priority (though I like it as a gimmick).

Also, I can happily announce someone else is starting to help me, so things might get a higher pace (though there's still a LOT of internal things that should be done first...).

Cheers,
Benjamin

Hi,

the NumberFormatException stuff (and some NullPointerException, too) seems fixed by now - at least I hope it
So if you get these problems, try to download the newest version (same name & link) first.

The GUI in gGo and glGo always looked a bit dated to me. I thought it was the stones, but today I tried changing the board texture. And to my surprise it now looked absolutely amazing!
I really think the default board texture should be changed, as well as the fugly green background.

Here's my glGo with random wood texture: (also bigger version at http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/sZ ... OEGxBho-lg)

That background looks nice, where did you find it?

I think ggo should consider a new higher resolution default background, so people using modern day monitors don't have that nice pixelated look. That might make a decent first candidate if it looks as good up close as it did in that version.

If you mean the kaya texture for the board, it's just something I got from a friend. I think it might be from the Tetsuki 4(?) beta, but I'm not sure. If you want it, just send me a message.

The background is just something I found at google images.
http://www.deviantart.com/download/71941528/Vista_Ultimate_Wood_No_Glass_by_Mosqu1t0.jpg

I think Shikatsu's recent post is a good reminder of the importance of allowing people to replace the board graphic. Lets face it, the default image does look a bit dated. I'm not much of a programmer, but I don't imagine it would take a lot to give the option of loading the board from a file versus the default location?

How do you change the board texture in gGo and gIGo?