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@H.G.Muller, +++++ adding afterthought to my previous long

post, Dear respected H.G.Muller,
Besides, laming, could also try using move

[[ Combinations ]], to jump ( j ), or un-

jump. Thanks a lot. What you have done is cool.

@H.G.muller,

dear respected h.g., for elephant ｌａｍｅａｂｌｅ　move, goes as:　ｎＡ.　　

ｃｏｕｌｄ　ｙｏｕ　ａｄｄ　ａ　ｊｕｍｐａｂｌｅ　ｅｌｅｐｈａｎｔ　ｍｏｖｅ　ａｓ　ｊＡ?　

［［　ｊＡ:　　ｎｅｅｄ　ｍｉｄｄｌｅ　ｐｏｉｎｔ－ｏｃｃｕｐｉｅｄ　ｔｏ　ｍｏｖｅ　ａｓ　ｅｌｅｐｈａｎｔ　Ａ.　］］

ｔｈａｎｋｓ　ａ　ｌｏｔ.　　ｓｉｎｃｅｒｅｌｙ,　ａｄｅｌｌａ.　

@H.G.Muller,

thanks a lot, H.G., jA works great. it's like a streamlined stitch-thrower. that's cool. with jA, could create some amusing chess variants. Or, could create more board shape-puzzles for each board location, or each groupings of different piece sets. By adding jA ( several jA pieces) pieces-group-module, something new in thinking or tactics could arise. again, thanks so much for what you have done, dear respected h.g.muller. --- adella.

@H.G.Muller,

Dear respected h.g.muller, could you, for initial move, add initial 2-moves, or, initial 3-moves, or initial multiple--moves?

For example, i4D fW -------- initial 4--moves could use D.

h.g.m., your contribution to make this initial multiple--move feasible will greatly enhances chess play tactics, and new thinking of design chess variants for fun.

Thanks a lot. sincerely, adella.

In the Interactive Diagram you can already do this by automatically 'promote' the piece to another type with one fewer D move, until it finally promotes to one without any D moves at  all. So there is no need to address this through the move notation.

@h.g.muller,

Thanks so much. sincerely, adella.

@H.G.Muller, Dear respected h.g.muller, could you take a minute read my

following ideas? thanks.
=== Design accurate counting chess new variants

1aaa. E.g., elephant -- A sW. H.G.Muller, could you set

the limit on the number of [ A ] moves, such as 10 moves, or

12 mvs, etc. . Then all the other moves for this elephant piece

will be sW.

1aab. E.g., for self pieces, could you set the overal limit on

the number of A moves, such as 30 moves ( or 31 mvs , etc. )

for self side?

If you could set up this algorithm by limiting the number of

certain piece moves, then Accurate Counting will be carried on

into the chess playing and brain will be forced to be accurately

attentive in counting and searching useful info. accurately.
What you do will contribute a lot to chess brain play, and

greatly enhance logical/mathematical chess tactics pinpointed.

         Thanks so much.   
Sincerely, Adella.   

=== Design accurate counting chess new variants

Apart from cases where you can do a certain move only once per game, I don't know any variant that imposes larger budgets for certain move types. There are probably good reasons for that; I don't think that rules like that would make very good variants. They lack clarity. The number of obscure and complex rules that can be conceived for strategic games is unlimited; it does not make any sense to support rules that are not, and probably never will be used in practice.

That being said, it already is possible to implement the AsW with a budget of 10 A moves in the Interactive Diagram; you just have to define 11 different piece types for such an 'Elephant', differing in the number of remaining A moves, and make those automatically promote to each other with the aid of the captureMatrix, exempting the W move from such promotion by writing the move as AsW'. It is then up to the game designer whether he wants those types to be represented by the same image, or distinguishable (e.g. by writing the number of remaining moves on them).

@h.g.muller,

Dear respected h.g.muller,

For "play test applets " page, why it does not work, if I make a modification to the number of ranks or number of files?"

In the past, it works. If users cannot modify number of ranks or files, then the chess variant is not fun to play for anyone at all.

could you change parameters or to revert to the past version so that users could do more modifications to the number of ranks and files?

Thanks so much. sincerely, adella.

I have begun to maintain a fork of betzaNew.js at /fergus/betzaFlex.js. Since it differs from betzaNew.js in various respects, I am just providing it as an alternative. Although I have mentioned some of its differences on other pages while working on it, I will summarize them together here:

1. It uses flexbox to make the content that normally shows up below the board to show up alongside it to its right when the viewport is wide enough. This involves grouping its output with some extra divs to which some flex CSS is applied.
2. To keep the display from jumping back and forth between a one column display and a two column display at certain widths, it changes how it hides and unhides sections of output. Instead of changing the value of display between none and inherit, it changes the value of visibility between hidden and visible, and it changes the value of height between 0px and auto. The effect of doing this is that the second column is always as wide as its widest element even when that element is invisible.
3. Instead of assigning fixed sizes to the table cells in the diagram, it uses the CSS min function to calculate a size that will best fit the screen on small mobile devices. The min function is given three values. Besides the assigned value, these are the maximum height (in vh units) and the maximum width (in vw units) any cell can have for the whole board to fit the display. Since these values will be greater on large screens, it will use the assigned value when there is enough space. But when the screen isn't large enough to fit the whole board at the assigned size, it will calculate and use a smaller size that will fit the screen.
4. So that each space on the board will maintain a 1 / 1 aspect ratio and display at the proper size, it assigns both a height and a width to every single table cell in the diagram. As described above, this is a flexible height and width that will adjust to fit the whole board on small screens.
5. Instead of displaying the border when rimColor is not #FFFFFF, it displays it when it is not #FFFFF0, as that is the actual background color for pages on this site.

How much of this could be incorporated in the regular version of betzaNew.js for improving the behavior under 'size pressure'? I suppose the new cell-size directives would always be an improvement?

The rim-suppression color is a bit tricky, as I already made so many Diagrams that use FFFFFF for this. But I suppose it would not be harmfull to suppress it on both FFFFFF and FFFFF0. But perhaps it would be better to keep using FFFFFF as 'signalling code' for rim suppression, and let the Diagram use FFFFF0 in that case for the color of the part of the rim it still displays (as background for the coordinates). This method would be more robust in the hypothetical case we would ever want to change the page background color. The replacement color could be defined as a variable at the start of the script. Or perhaps the script could even be made smart enough to extract it from the surrounding HTML element?

Because the Kindle browser doesn't support the CSS min function, I doubled up on the height and width assignments for the table cells in the diagram produced by betzaFlex.js. The first one uses the fixed pixel value, and the second one uses the min function. So, if a browser doesn't support min, it goes with the first assignment, and if it does support min, it overwrites the first assignment with the second. With these changes, the diagram can now show up in the Kindle browser. I've also checked that it still works properly with Android and Apple phones.

How much of this could be incorporated in the regular version of betzaNew.js for improving the behavior under 'size pressure'?

The divs added for the flex code will interfere with the grid CSS I used on a few pages. But if you wanted to incorporate it, I could edit these pages to not use the grid CSS.

I suppose the new cell-size directives would always be an improvement?

They will be for browsers that support the CSS min function. For browsers that do not, they should appear at the assigned size. For a phone to have no browser that supports min, it would have to be so out-of-date that it can support only ancient versions of browsers. The Kindle is a special case, because you cannot install other browsers, and its browser is not as capable as most browsers. But its screen is large enough to display a board at full size without needing to reduce its size.

The rim-suppression color is a bit tricky, as I already made so many Diagrams that use FFFFFF for this. But I suppose it would not be harmfull to suppress it on both FFFFFF and FFFFF0.

One problem with your current diagrams is that when rimColor is set to #FFFFFF, it puts the coordinates on a background of that color, which puts a border on two sides of the board without putting any border on the other two sides.

But perhaps it would be better to keep using FFFFFF as 'signalling code' for rim suppression, and let the Diagram use FFFFF0 in that case for the color of the part of the rim it still displays (as background for the coordinates).

Instead of doing that, I have set it up so that the signal for rim suppression is to not assign a value to rimColor. When no color is assigned, it does not add a value for background to the rimStyle variable, and it does not display borders on the top and right. Likewise, when no color is assigned to coordColor, it does not assign a color value to rimStyle. So, when either of these is not assigned, it just uses the color already in use on the page.

If I added code that replaces '#FFFFFF' with an empty string for the rimColor value, then that color would still signal rim suppression, and the rank and file markers would appear against the same background color as the page instead of one that slightly differs from it.

This method would be more robust in the hypothetical case we would ever want to change the page background color. The replacement color could be defined as a variable at the start of the script. Or perhaps the script could even be made smart enough to extract it from the surrounding HTML element?

By not assigning a background color when none is specified, it uses the background color on the page without needing to look it up.

To make it easier to keep track of which pages have Interactive Diagrams, I have been going through this list tagging each page with the tag Interactive Diagram. Where a diagram has been in a comment, I have made sure the page had the diagram. In one case, the diagram was already on the page, and in another, I put the diagram on the page. I am not done yet. I have currently done A through Chess. If you know of any pages with Interactive Diagrams that are not yet listed here, please go ahead and tag them.

So that my /fergus/betzaFlex.js fork, or even betzaNew.js, could use the Abstract, Magnetic, and Motif sets, which come in sizes fitting the image instead of a uniform 50x50, I modified /play/pbm/showpiece.php to take a size parameter and use it to make sure that a smaller image renders at a specified size. Instead of stretching the image, it just copies it to the center of a square with sides of the specified size. With size=50, these sets can display at their normal sizes without stretching to meet the edges.

I've gone through all my games, and added #InteractiveDiagram to all the ones that have one (though I was a little hesitant on Zwangkrieg, since the Lariats in that one are still acting wonky).

@h.g.muller,

         Dear respected h.g.muller,   how to write code 

for move-codings for pao-F-based, with ramp 1, to

hit target 2?

       paf afF    :   pao-ramp-1, to hit target 2,  F-

based.

     But, how to depict the move-only codings for  

above pao-ramp-1, to hit target 2 ?

             I already built a lot of fun pao-cannon 

systems for many pieces. But I come across

problems in depicting Move-only-codings. They

are very practically useful move codings, yet

challenging to write codes.
I appreciate your help in giving me some hints. Thanks a lot.
Sincerely, Adella

@ H.G.Muller,

        Dear respected H.G.Muller,  could you restore the 

previous version of Playtest Applet?

      The new version is not working and busted many 

times. Another reason is that: the previous version is fast,

efficient, and working great. Thanks so much for your contributions and my deep

gratitude to your aid.
Could you give me the link or webpage for your

playtest applet , in writings here? Thanks so much. --- sincerely, Adella.

The editor A. M. DeWitt has revised this page.

To make it easier to keep track of which pages have Interactive Diagrams, I have been going through this list tagging each page with the tag Interactive Diagram.

Since the main thing that was slowing me down on this was moving diagrams from comments to pages, I created a new tag called Interactive Diagram: In Comment and proceeded to tag each page listed here with one tag or the other. I made it a child tag so that the two tags will link to each other through having a parent/child relationship. With these two tags made, we can retire or deprecate this page and start using tags to keep track of which pages have interactive diagrams.

I have never really used the tag system, so perhaps this is a dumb question. Which pages do get these tags? The purpose of the page we are commenting on here was to solve the problem that Diagrams in Comments often have been pushed very much backwards, so that you have to scan through several pages of Comments to find them. And even where this is not the case it could become like that in the future. The number of Comments preceding them can only increase. When using the overview page it would open the relevant comment directly, in isolation, so that there can also be no interference with Diagrams that might have been posted close to it, and are displayed on the same page.

If the tags would only bring you to the main page of the article, it would not really solve this problem.

Of course Diagrams could be moved to the main page. But there often is a reason that I posted those in a Comment. Usually because they could not implement the rules perfectly, or I considered them sub-standard in other ways. The long-term goal is to equip nearly every article with an I.D. on its main page, and then all problems would have vanished completely. We would not even need a tag, because it would go without saying that people can expect an I.D. in the article. But this would require still significant work to be done on the Diagram script.

Which pages do get these tags?

Any page that displays a footer may be tagged. Tags are for pages, and they are not for comments or subsections of pages.

The purpose of the page we are commenting on here was to solve the problem that Diagrams in Comments often have been pushed very much backwards, so that you have to scan through several pages of Comments to find them. And even where this is not the case it could become like that in the future. The number of Comments preceding them can only increase.

Perhaps it would help if editors could pin selected comments. A pinned comment would stay on the page even when several new comments have been posted after it. The way I might handle this is to post the last five comments plus any pinned comments that are not among the last five, and I would designate pinned comments as being pinned.

[UPDATE: Pinning is now enabled as one of the options you have when editing a comment. As a test, I pinned the diagram for Jetan. I'll leave others for you to pin so that you can try it out.]

Indeed, in combination with the tags this is a very good solution!

Indeed, in combination with the tags this is a very good solution!

Okay, I have changed the link on the homepage to the Interactive Diagram tag page. Should any information from this page be migrated to it?

I can't Interactive Diagram: In Commenton this even though there's an "Add Tags" button.