Hi everybody,

I'm new to this forum but what I just discovered seems really great !
So here is what I wanted to talk about.

I'm a developer, and I wanted to program a go client that would be able to connect on KGS. Unfortunately, I did not find neither a library capable of doing that nor documentation on how to do it !
Actually, I wanted to try it, just for a challenge at first to do it in Java, then in an other language. Any idea ?

Thanks for sharing your experience in that subject if you have any !

KGS doesn't support other clients if you read its Terms of Service, so you will have to try another server like IGS

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North Lecale

Sssssugaaarrrr !!!

Well, that was utopic ! Thanks !
Apart from KGS, does anyone have tips on which functionnality I have to implement in a client ? For example, do I have to implement something to calculate the score or is it done by the server ? Do I have to check the validity of a move ? etc.

I'd like to have some people sharing their experiences !

You can find many example from open source igs clients.

http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/commands.html

Also more info.

https://github.com/pzorin/qgo

qgo2 has code for dealing with many servers.

Thank you !

I'm going to look at it !

A fun project. I once made a Java go board using graphics (I gave it the working name "JGo" until I could come up with something better - because apparently every Java project has to start with "J"). It was able to play moves, keep a game record, and even remove captured stones. It's not much, but I even got it to have a "hover over" stone, which I thought was pretty cool at the time. However, I never finished scoring and it was not able to create SGF outputs of its games.

I was never ambitious enough to connect it to a server. That sounds very interesting. Maybe you could even make the client usable on multiple servers? (Assuming the server licenses allow it) Then, if someone likes the client they can use it for several servers.

Server or not, do try to make your graphics a bit better than mine. I'll give you a screenshot so you can see what I mean...

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"You have to walk before you can run. Black 1 was a walking move.
I blushed inwardly to recall the ignorant thoughts that had gone through
my mind before, when I had not realized the true worth of Black 1."
-Kageyama Toshiro on proper moves

that's because programs starting with the letter "i" are taken -- which is also why there is no "i" on the Go board.

KGS has a GTP connection program (separate from the normal client) that allows bots to connect and allows a partial selection of GTP commands. If one programmed a wrapper around a GTP client (IGS clients are GTP clients...) so that it appeared to be a GTP bot program, then one could presumably connect to KGS using a non-KGS client.

That's my theory anyways... Don't know if that's actually allowed by KGS. It might be confusing if real people started connecting as bots.

Regarding Java, this might be of interest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3418SeWZfQ

Something that surprises me is that no one (apparently) has reverse engineered the KGS protocol to produce an alternative client. Or perhaps they have, and out of courtesy have not publicized it. But certainly if I had (lots of) time it's something I'd be interested in doing.

quantumf:
You are aware of this:
http://fuseki.net/home/kgs.html
?

I haven't looked at the source and wether it would be useful for writing other clients from scratch that could connect to KGS, though.

Yes, I'm aware of cgoban-h, which relies on modifying obfuscated java code. I'm more interested in reverse engineering the protocol and coming up with an entirely novel client.