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

Screenshot from Jin setup attached.

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

Jin screenshot from game. This shows more clearly how the arrow works while playing.

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

Alarming statistic: I have played more than 30,000 1-minute games on FICS. That doesn't count other time controls, and it doesn't count my activity on ICC of maybe eight years :)

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

How about letting the user decide whether he wants arrows or highlighted squares for showing the opponents last move? Make it a user setting. Maybe go for the square-highlighting for starters and add second feature later?

I would second the idea of showing the users login instead of 'Me', i think it's more natural.

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

Miniature has some source code already!

http://gitorious.org/miniature

I guess only Mikhas knows whether it is functional at all, though. :) If you give some instructions about what to do in order to get something running on the N900 I will follow and help with testing and feedback since the earliest stages. I'm not familiar with git repositories and etc but I'm willing to learn.

About the arrows. ok ok, let's give us some time and tests to see what are the right defaults and alternatives (if any) for representing moves. Showing legal moves is not even in the roadmap yet.

We just need to find the right balance between all the things that could be done, the priorities to make happy the first wave of users, the resources we have, the simple/complex UI we wish for settings etc...

joshua.maverick, thanks for the offer! There is two things you can start with:

- We need a logo/icon. The application is called Miniature, I suggested we could go for something based on a humble and simple black pawn. A starting point could be http://gitorious.org/miniature/minia...black/pawn.svg - oh sorry, I mean http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hess_pdd45.svg . But feel free to go your way as long as you keep a clean track with copyrights / licensing.

- You can help creating a nice-looking yet simple and very usable UI for Miniature. See http://wiki.maemo.org/Miniature#Mockups - even if the sketches there look nice, they are actually not intended to represent final look&feel. The attention now is put on the UI layout (what elements are where) and the usability.

I recommend you not to touch the board/pieces themselves by now since we are going first for the very standards. Custom boards and pieces appear later in the roadmap and even then there is a lot of freely available artwork.

Let us know if you have other graphical ideas.

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

The humble and simple black pawn is a great idea, that's why Scid seems to have adopted it as its icon :) Except it's more like a brown pawn. Maybe the pawn could have waves indicating motion or speed? Artists may know what I mean; I'm not an artist so I'm not sure :)


I hope that several chess interfaces come out of this drive; I like to have choices. I am ready and want one NOW on my N810! I need a chess interface so I can read chess books purchased for my Kindle -- since the Kindle doesn't have a chess display I need my tablet to make the moves!

(For me, the era of using more than one computer at a time has arrived...)

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

True! http://scid.sourceforge.net/img/scid.gif

But joshua can do a lot better than that. ;)

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

Hey qgil. Are you firmly attached with the name Miniature?

Maybe you could open up some discussion and have us brainstorm on this.

As of right now, I don't have much of a creative idea for a name either.

I was thinking of some kind of play off of the word "Notion".

Like a word hybrid of motion, (chess) notation, N or No for Nokia, maybe the number 9 in there possibly.as well.

Just a thought to possibly chew on. :)

Cheers!

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

Miniature is now in project names and code repository. We will need a concrete strong rival to even consider a change of name.

What problem do you see in Miniature?

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

None. It was just a thought for added discussion, that's all.