GoGrinder for iPhone

[TimKington]

GoGrinder for iPhone/iPod was released in the iTunes store today.
It comes with about 500 problems, and also allows you to add your own collections.

I was hoping to get a few of the more savvy users here to try it before making
an announcement to a wider group. If you try it and have any feedback, I would
love to hear from you. You can respond here, or if you want to enter a bug or
feature request into my bug DB, you can do that here
https://timkington.fogbugz.com/default.asp?pg=pgPublicEdit&ixProject=4

Tim Kington

[Kirby]

Awesome.

[Chew Terr]

Moderators and Mr. Kington: Would it be legit/kosher/permissable for people to post grinder bundle IDs here, assuming that they only post problem sets that are freely available?

[TimKington]

Sure, that would be fine, as long as the sets are freely available.
I'll post a few more that I have, too.

[Chew Terr]

Thanks. I'm messing around with it, and I like the interface so far. I'll let you know if I run into any issues/have any questions.

[TimKington]

Guan Zi Pu - 1477 problems - 5462b733

[rubin427]

thank you.

[kirkmc]

Guan Zi Pu - 1477 problems - 5462b733

What does that mean? I just bought the program, but I won't have time to look at it until tomorrow...

[Chew Terr]

Guan Zi Pu - 1477 problems - 5462b733

What does that mean? I just bought the program, but I won't have time to look at it until tomorrow...

You can upload problem sets to gogrinder's server, and it gives you a code. That code you can then input into the iphone app to import the problem set. Mr. Kington is helpfully giving us another free problem set to download.

[Jordus]

Moderators and Mr. Kington: Would it be legit/kosher/permissable for people to post grinder bundle IDs here, assuming that they only post problem sets that are freely available?

I think that there is no problem with this as long as it is sanctioned by the developer of the software...

[judicata]

Again, this is fabulous.

A little feedback:

The zoom/magnifier function is finnicky - it seems to jump around a bunch, and is difficult to use. At least to me on my iPhone 3GS without OS4. I'd prefer a double-tap option (tap to place the stone, tap again to confirm) or something similar.

Also, if you fail at a problem and back up, I think the magnifier shows the stones you played previously (i.e., those that aren't on the board anymore).

[RazorBrain]

If it involves go and an iPhone, I'll be there

[kirkmc]

Guan Zi Pu - 1477 problems - 5462b733

What does that mean? I just bought the program, but I won't have time to look at it until tomorrow...

You can upload problem sets to gogrinder's server, and it gives you a code. That code you can then input into the iphone app to import the problem set. Mr. Kington is helpfully giving us another free problem set to download.

Got it, thanks. It works.

So will there be lots of other collections? When you say upload problem sets, you mean SGF files of problems?

[kirkmc]

Hmm, okay, put this on my iPod touch. Not a very auspicious beginning.

First, it crashed when I tried to place a stone using the magnifying glass. This happened the first time, but hasn't happened again, yet.

Second, the interface is non-standard. I'm used to swiping to go forward or back, or at least having a button to go back to the list of problem sets. Here you have to tap the ... button to get to the "home" screen. That's not the usual way apps work on the iPhone.

You can tap Next to go to the next problem, but you can't go back to the previous problem. I may want to do that. (For now, I'm just browsing the problems in the Xuan Xuan Qi Jing collection, which are difficult, so I'm curious about what they look like.)

When you view a problem, you see, at the top of the window, who is to play. When you place a stone, this goes away, saying whether you're right or wrong. If you go back to the beginning of the problem, this area is blank. This should still show who is to play. Assume I try a problem then put the device away or switch to another app; when I come back, I need to know who is to play. There's no way to find out, unless I quit the problem set and come back, moving ahead to that problem. (Since you can't go back to a previous problem, then forward again, you can't make that text display.) Tapping Restart should at least display that text again.

Each time you select a problem set, the problems display at random; this is confusing. I found one problem that "got stuck"; I got to a point where every move I played was wrong, and no hint displayed. I wanted to start over, and I went back to the main menu, but couldn't find that problem, because they weren't displaying at random.

Otherwise, the display is very nice; the stones render well.

All in all, it's a nice idea, but the implementation needs some work, IMHO.

[TimKington]

The crash is obviously a bug. Has anyone else seen this? I haven't been able to reproduce it.

"Black to play" getting cleared and not restored is a bug. I'll fix that ASAP. If you forgot
what color you are, for now you can find out by holding your finger down to get the magnifier.
Just drop the stone on another one, or off the edge of the board if you don't want to play it yet.

The problem getting "stuck" doesn't really sound like a bug to me. Did you try restarting the problem
and looking for a hint? From the beginning of the problem, there should always be at least one move
that is considered correct. If you have played a move that isn't part of the problem tree in the file,
then the problem is marked as wrong, and there won't be any hints from that point onward. Hints just
show the moves that are part of the SGF file, and whether they're marked as correct or not, so if you're
off the tree, there won't be any more hints until you back up.

Tim