EasyGo on iOS - review

[xiangz]

- Does Pro not have the advertisement pop up window of Lite upon its program start?

No. However, from my understanding, the lite version doesn't have the advertisement pop up window upon startup either. The lite version will show popup only when pro function is accessed.
If possible, please send me the screenshot of popup in the Lite version, my email is easygo361 at gmail.com

- Does Pro have much bigger next / previous move buttons than Lite? Does Pro offer another easy clicking / gesture for going to the next / previous move? I find the tiny buttons in Lite tedious.

Yes, you can two finger tap to toggle between replay and edit mode. In replay mode, you can tap left or right part of the board to go previous or next move.
Please see the FAQ for more gestures.

- Can Lite or Pro show the current numbers of black and white prisoners or at least their difference (white minus black prisoners stones, i.e., the prisoner difference from Black's view)?

This function is missing. This and scoring at the end of the game will be added in future update.

- Does Pro have a tool for arbitrary labels per intersection?

There is a label tool. However, you can only label it as A, B, C, etc sequentially. You can try it in the lite version. The related help file is here

- Can Pro start new SGF diagrams during variations?

What dose "start new SGF diagrams" mean?


By the way, the function of the Lite version is almost the same as the paid version.(the slight difference is that new features may be released in the lite or pro version first, and then be released in the other version later). However, the lite version has the following restrictions:
• All the 408 problems from unit 1 to unit 13 in the Basics are available to all the uses to try
• All the problems under “Invasion Joseki” are free
• The first 20% problems in each category are available(max cap 60 problems)
• You can try up to 30 other problems
• Total up to 100 games can be created, edited or replayed.
• Handling a single game to other app via Open In is disabled.
(The restrictions are subject to change without notice)

[xiangz]

I have just accidentally discovered going to the next/previous move by clicking on the right/left half of the board - very nice!

There is, however, another question: how to pass when editing?

This function is missing, I just added it to the to do list.

[xiangz]

I'll find a way to exclude problems from SRS Study and Test, maybe use tags. For SRS study, I think there should be an option to study problems in sub folders, just as custom test does.

+1 on SRS study in sub folders. Any idea where this is on the ever-expanding to-do list?

Sorry for the late response. The reason is that I have hoped to spare some time to evaluate the effort needed to implement this function. Anyway, I think I can add a basic support for SRS study in sub folders in the near future. Stay tuned.

By the way, EasyGo users, please do me a favor to rate and review on App Store(even if you have done so, because App store will archive all the reviews for the old versions when new version is released). This really helps me a lot.
Thanks in advance.

[RobertJasiek]

Pass is an extremely important feature. It must be possible to make a pass move at any time, such as single pass as the first move of a sequence, single pass in the middle of a sequence, any number of successive pass moves (one after another) at any time. (If you want to be as good as GoWrite, you might also permit different user-entered texts for a 'pass', such as 'elsewhere' or 'threat', but this is not urgent because files can be exported to the PC and then opened in GoWrite.)

Arbitrary labels mean arbitrary labels (although at most 3 or 4 characters per intersection are good enough). A, B, C in this order is not arbitrary. If you support ASCII, this includes lower case letters, upper case letters, digits, punctuation marks etc., that is, all those characters found on Western keyboards.

Please announce when you add a) passes, b) arbitrary labels and c) prisoner number(s).

I cannot create the advertisement pop up voluntarily but I recall its contents: white background, colourful circles, login name and password for some EasyGo server, in the upper left corner a text for cancelling the pop up window when clicking there.

SGF diagrams you should find in the SGF[4] specification. IIRC, there are two possible uses in the SGF format definition. I am not sure which is right. I mean the thing that is created in GoWrite when pressing CTRL D and specifying details. The effect of such is: earlier move numbers and markup are ignored but only current and later move numbers and markup are shown, up to the next SGF diagram node down the variations tree / sequence.

"Total up to 100 games can be created, edited or replayed." OIC, so Lite is a trial version. Ok, I understand. Trials are useful for better deciding on whether to purchase. (I will seriously consider it when (a), (b) and (c) are added.)

[trgo]

I cannot create the advertisement pop up voluntarily but I recall its contents: white background, colourful circles, login name and password for some EasyGo server, in the upper left corner a text for cancelling the pop up window when clicking there.

That sounds suspiciously like the Game Center. Not an advertisement, and not the EasyGo server. Just a particularly annoying "feature" of iOS.

[trgo]

By the way, EasyGo users, please do me a favor to rate and review on App Store

Review posted.

[RobertJasiek]

That sounds suspiciously like the Game Center. Not an advertisement, and not the EasyGo server. Just a particularly annoying "feature" of iOS.

Ok, thanks for the hint. It might the last iOS bloatware whose deactivation I overlooked:)

[trgo]

I have a couple suggestions to make tagging of problems more efficient:

1. Allow the assignment of tags to several problems at a time in Batch Edit mode.

2. Store tags in the SGF file as a custom EasyGo game comment, similar to how you currently record the game type. For example, you could record tags like this: GC[EasyGo:(type=problem)(tags=tesuji,snapback,easy,ggpfb)]. This would allow tags to be preserved when imported and exported, and would facilitate bulk tagging of problems before they are imported into EasyGo.

[trgo]

while I think adding tags to SGF files is a good idea, some care must be taken.

I completely understand the desire to standardize tags when sharing problem sets with others. Since my primary use of EasyGo is creating problem sets for my own personal use, however, I was assuming that I would be free to come up with my own tags without having to comply with some predetermined taxonomy. This is similar to how I think about using keywords to organize my photos in Lightroom. Adobe does not impose a structured set of keywords on me. I create and use those keywords that make sense to me when organizing and searching for my photos. Likewise, I was hoping to use tags in EasyGo to organize many thousands of problems into categories that are meaningful to me. The issue that I have with tagging in EasyGo right now is that it is rather laborious to apply tags to problems one problem at a time.

[trgo]

Of course you are free to use whatever tags you want. But if several people like the idea of tags then by discussing how they could be used we might determine the best way to represent them in an SGF file.

I fully agree.

a tag schema that facilitates interchange

Are there currently other software programs that could make use of the tags we create in EasyGo? I confess that haven't looked into it.

For example, do we use JSON? A simple comma-separated list? Custom SGF properties such as TG[]?

I'm not a programmer and am not familiar with JSON, but I agree that using widely accepted standards is generally a good idea. The use of custom SGF properties also has a certain appeal. There may be some risk that they could be misinterpreted by other programs. But the more likely result is that other software would just ignore them. An interesting point of comparison is how various programs indicate right or wrong answers in problems:

EasyGo: By default, the main line is correct and all others are incorrect.
Goproblems: The last move of a correct sequence has a comment with the word RIGHT.
EasyGo: The last move of a correct sequence has a comment with the word RIGHT or CORRECT.
MFGo: Correct answers are marked with the standard SGF property of TE[2].
uliGo: Incorrect answers are marked with either a non-standard SGF property of WV[] or the standard property of TR[].
EasyGo: Incorrect Joseki variations are marked with the standard SGF property of BM[2]
Kogo's: The last move of a correct Joseki variation has a comment that begins with the string "* Joseki *".

Drago does a pretty good job of handling many of these alternatives. But using different approaches can create issues. For example, I would think that moving problems to and from uliGo could be a challenge. The WV[] property is non-standard and could be disregarded, such that a wrong variation would not be recognized as such by other programs. And the use of the TR[] (triangle) property in other software to comment on a particular move could unintentionally be interpreted by uliGo as a wrong move. The appeal of putting EasyGo-specific information in the GC[] (game comment) property is that this is a standard SGF property, and there is very little risk that it would be misinterpreted as something else by other programs. At worst, it should simply be ignored. Of course, the same could be said about your suggested TG[] property. Programs that don't recognize it should simply ignore it.

Long way of saying that I support some way of storing EasyGo tags in the SGF file, but I don't know which specific approach would be better.

[trgo]

I'll find a way to exclude problems from SRS Study and Test, maybe use tags. For SRS study, I think there should be an option to study problems in sub folders, just as custom test does.

+1 on SRS study in sub folders. Any idea where this is on the ever-expanding to-do list?

I apologize if this has already come up before, but I discovered a little hack that already allows you to study a set of problems pulled from multiple subfolders. Go to the top-level folder that you want to use for your study session and run a search for some string of text that appears in the game name of your problems. Make sure you select the option to search in subfolders. You can then click "Study" to start an SRS study session for those problems that were returned by your search. If you are careful about the naming of your problems, you can use this method to study all problems in all subfolders (as long as there is a string like "Problem" in the game name of every problem), or just particular problems (e.g., study only those problems with "Tesuji" in the game name regardless of what subfolder they are in). This is a bit of a kludge, but it works well and has freed me from having to figure out how to organize my problem collection into folders. The other nice part is that I can organize my problems before importing them by consistently naming each problem using an SGF editor or a simple text editor on my desktop computer.

[xiangz]

Version 1.9 is out, please do me a favor to rate and review on App Store even you have done it before, since App Store only shows the reviews for the latest version by default.

Thank you in advance.

Change log:

Enhancements:
• Now you can transfer games to EasyGo via WiFi, that is, You can upload files to EasyGo using your browser on Mac or PC.
• Supports importing TYGEM .gib file, and even better, now you can download and import TYGEM user games directly in EasyGo.
• Tags are now also saved in the exported SGF file, and tags will be kept after importing.
• Now you can set or remove tags in batch.

Problem Update:

Thanks to user hanspi for the feedback, the solutions of the following problems have been updated.

* Tesuji No. 27, 96, 106, 107, 108, 111, 123, 124, 129, 196

[xiangz]

The new tag handling is very good, since EasyGo also recognizes tags from imported SGF files. This makes it possible to apply tags programmatically to my custom problem collection, then copy the collection to EasyGo via Dropbox and filter by tags there.

As far as I can see, you can only filter files by one tag. It would be great if it was possible to filter by multiple tags, like "has tag A AND has tag B". Then it would be useful to have saved searches, maybe even iTunes-like "smart playlists". But that's just a dream...

Good suggestion, I will add this to todo list.

The Tygem import sounds very useful, but it crashes for me more often than not. For example, try user "artem" and select the first non-greyed out game, which is "artem(8d) vs dncq(8d)" from 2011-02-26 21:13. That always crashes EasyGo.

Currently EasyGo doesn't recognize the encoding in the Tygem game automatically, it just uses the "default encoding", which can be configured in the settings. For the game you mentioned, right now, please temporarily configure the default encoding to "GBK" instead of UTF-8.

By the way, what are the greyed-out games in the Tygem query result list?

Greyed-out games are lost games, I mean player searched lost the game.

[trgo]

• Tags are now also saved in the exported SGF file, and tags will be kept after importing.
• Now you can set or remove tags in batch.

Thank you! The new tagging features are great. This should make it much easier to use tags to manage problem collections.

Is there any way to "Study" a group of problems by tag? Also, does "Study" still only work in the current folder and not in subfolders?

[xiangz]

• Tags are now also saved in the exported SGF file, and tags will be kept after importing.
• Now you can set or remove tags in batch.

Thank you! The new tagging features are great. This should make it much easier to use tags to manage problem collections.

Is there any way to "Study" a group of problems by tag? Also, does "Study" still only work in the current folder and not in subfolders?

There is no enhancement to the study function in this update, it will be enhanced in the future.