[Bug-gnubg] GNU notes

[Albert Silver]

Hi,

 

            I’ve been looking quite a bit at the program, being releatively new to it, and compiled a small list of items I thought worth mentioning. These are in no specific order and there is one case of a bug.

 

1)                   So I’ll start with the bug. I set up a position and saved it, yet every single time I load it, it shows up with 17 (!) pieces with an extra one on the bar and another taken off. If I enter Edit and click on either piece they disappear, but it still shows when I load it. I can zip this, but should I send it to this mailing list or someone specific?

2)                   I constantly see the word “chequer” written. Is that British or something? I have never know it that way and usually see it written as “checker”

3)                   The statistics do not take into account changes in evaluation on moves made after a match analysis. On a few occasions I have asked GNU to roll out a move to confirm its criticism and have seen it change the evaluation. Soemtimes for the better, and sometimes to tell me I am a bigger bonehead than it had initially thought. The statistics window (and the Game Record where the punctuation commentary is) do not update to take these changes into account. They should of course IMHO.

4)                   Jeff’s e-mail to the list repeats a problem I had with a top player I was helping. The official GNU BG page does not show a clear way to get the downloadable Windows file, and neither does it link to the right page. That makes GNU all but impossible to get. Furthermore, I would like to suggest that to simplify the task of downloading, it be made extremely clear that there is only ONE file to download and what that file is, *unless* the propective users enjoy compiling these files not to mention even know what compiling is.

5)                   Perhaps a letter could be added to the Game Record to indicate what kind of error was made, whether a cube decision or a checker move. I had in mind something basic such as 13/8? (D). Though perhaps that makes the space required for a move too big. Perhaps underlining it otherwise.

6)                   Account Manager!  This would be a great addition to GNU. It is something that is truly excellent in Snowie and that is the ability to tally the results and see your average performance. It would keep track of checker play errors, cube decision errors, and luck, and allow users to see how they have done rceently. I’d also include a possibility to see how a player did by increments. Ex: it has kept track of the results/stats of 1000 games. Not only could I ask it to show me how I’ve done for the last 100 (just as Snowie), but I could ask it to show the average results for every 100 games. Another idea would be to have it keep track of how a player did in DMP or 1-point game situations.

7)                   Save the different board profiles/styles. I have a few preferred combinations of colors, but right now have been keeping track of them in separate directories I created for the settings files. It would be nice if a user had some presets, not to mention the possibility to create and save their own.

8)                   The “skins” for GNU are nice, and my favourite by far so far is “mac”. Unfortunately, I think this feature will be used by very very few users. If it were possible to change the skins from within the GUI, this would be appreciated as a full-fledged feature.

9)                   I would have the program create a Saved Games directory and automatically propose to save games and positions in it. Right now it saves it in the main directory which is less than idea IMO.

10)               Speaking of saving and loading. When importing a file format such as .sgg, it should propose to filter the files so that the user isn’t forced to filter through a long ist of irrelevant files.

11)               BTW, I was surprised to see that that Jellyfish position format isn’t supported yet. It would be a nice feature as it would allow users to easily export their positions to either Snowie or Jellyfish. Right now they cannot. If I set up a new match and then edit it to create a test position, I cannot save it into the JF game or match formats. Furthermore, a complete decription of the Jellyfish position format (.pos) can be found at their site: http://effect.webbie.net/fspec.htm

 

Best regards,

 

            Albert