Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Could we please get a set of SVG chess figures with a free license? CC or LGPL stuff. I looked in the eboard sources, which lacks any license information. It only mentions that it was taken from xboard. There, the copyright over some parts of the code go back to DEC so that's a potential minefield.

Of course I could just go and rip it directly from the latex font in the diagram package (same original author as for xboard it seems).

Ideas?

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/St..._chess_diagram

All the pieces shown there are svg with GFDL & BSD & GPL licenses e.g. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hess_pdt45.svg

If we want to have nice text notations we can also use a free font with them:

♔ ♚
♕ ♛
♖ ♜
♗ ♝
♘ ♞
♙ ♟

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

I think arrows might be good for displaying games to watch or review, but not for playing. An arrow is an object more on the board and you want all the concentration on the existing objects, the pieces. Highlighting the squares are enough not to miss the last move, I think.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Kind of a "out there" idea but what if you also rotated all the pieces by 90 deg to switch the perspective as if its being viewed by the opposing side of the device?

*sigh* The problem with the more projects you want to work on, the more projects you maintain making it harder to help with efforts like this. Anyone one want to take over maintainership?

EDIT: The rotating could be animated rather than immediate. Some would call this eye candy but it helps draw attention to the change.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

About the "Me", a problem can be that people might have different users in the same server? Or that at some point you don't remember anymore what was your login? Anyway, perhaps it's better to display your username. Now space doesn't seem to be a problem.

I'm starting to work on the options available under the menu. This brings the need for more details.

For instance, the UI for seeking a game would be better in the main screen, below the board.

And for instance perhaps we can avoid regular buttons for login / logoff. In the first boot of the app we can offer a dialog offering to store the login & password, create a new account or "later". Once the app has login & password booting will imply logging in and the way to log out will be to simply close down the app.

http://wiki.maemo.org/Miniature#Ideas_for_future_phases

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

It's Friday. It's late. And I don't get it. Do you mind explaining this again? :)

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

As someone previously mentioned, it'd be nice to have an option of playing Fischer Random Chess (Chess 960).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960

It shouldn't really be a problem or anything like that... it's just like normal chess with different starting positions (where "the normal position" is 1 of the 960 different starting positions). It might be some trouble with the castling rules though.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Okay. I personally think that arrows look sexy though. :)

Just be aware that if this project is also going to include highlighting legal moves for newbies that it might interfere with the last position highlights.

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

Someone PMed me mentioning that some icons and design is needed, as always, I'm down. What can I do to help?

Re: Contributors needed: the killer free chess game for Maemo
 

The chess interface I use is called Jin. You can choose how you have the moves displayed. I always choose red arrows to display what move was made last. It's very easy to look at a position and not see what your opponent has moved. A great big arrow is very helpful. When you are trying to play fast, obvious is good.