New version of JTwixt

New beta versions of JTwixt and JHex are available at

http://canyon23.net/xyz/jgame_beta/

The differences from the previous versions are minor:

o Keyboard shortcuts now work as intended (most of them, anyway)

o "Forward", "Forward to branch" and "Forward to end" now prioritize the "main" variation over the best variation

o The menu commands related to the "main" variation were reworded to be more clear

The main feature of the current versions is that they now compile on a modern IDE, which greatly lowers the barrier to making future changes.

Feedback is welcome, either in this forum or to the email address contained in the application.

In the future I hope to add some features which will improve integration with LG.

Great!!! Thank you very much!

Hi. Great!!! too...

I've downloaded the beta.

All works as expected. The "main" variation priorization is a very nice improvement to me !

Ctrl-S works as expected too.

Will give you some more feedback soon.

Btw, I've not found your email address in the application ???

Oops -- I thought I put it in the Log Window, but I didn't. It's kw_jgame@canyon23.net.

Thanks for your work! I like to have everything in one window, and I particularly appreciate the "hide next moves" option. Now when I compose a puzzle for BGG I needn't be concerned about giving the answer away in the screen shot. But I do have a few quibbles.

It seems bookmarks still do not save with a file, alas.

The guide lines cross OVER the border lines. Ideally for me, the guide lines could stop when they reach the 45 degree diagonals, which on 24x24 means i9, i16, P9 and P16. But stop them wherever you want as long as they stop before they reach the border lines.

I used to care about black & white and shades of grey images, and I wrote some mods to the interface for white "empty circle" pegs and black "filled circle" pegs. In the Misc menu I see UI->DB which I guess refers to me. As far as I am concerned, you could delete that. But maybe someone else uses it?

Alan Hensel has a Ruby sqripte for saving LG games as JTwixt binary files. He has a trick for games with swap. For example 1.H4 2.Swap is saved as 1.D8 2.D8 which preserves the move numbering. Yes I know about the option to swap the board and also swap the coordinates, but all the same it would be nice if Jtwixt could handle both types of swap moves: swap-sides and swap-firstpeg.

Are there plans to save in text format instead of binary? See http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/twixt.html Just a suggestion.

How about optionally allowing PP rules with link crossing? How about row handicap games? How about saving Game Center games? I have heard that Boardspace.net, another real time server, might have Twixt some day also.

OK END (Rant mode)

Hi David -

Nice to hear from you. Your sudden disappearance had me a little worried.

Thanks for the feedback. I did some revisions ~6 months ago (after a nearly ten year hiatus), then got distracted by other, higher priority projects. There are a few more LG-oriented changes I'd like to make in the near future.

:It seems bookmarks still do not save with a file, alas.

Yes, a known deficiency. Currently this is closer to the bottom of the to-do list than it is to the top.

:The guide lines cross OVER the border lines. Ideally for me,
:the guide lines could stop when they reach the 45 degree
:diagonals, which on 24x24 means i9, i16, P9 and P16. But
:stop them wherever you want as long as they stop before they
:reach the border lines.

It's pretty easy to make the existing lines go under the other parts of the board, so I'll implement that soon. I'll have to think about which guide line end points are most aesthetically pleasing to me.

:I used to care about black & white and shades of grey
:images, and I wrote some mods to the interface for white
:“empty circle” pegs and black “filled circle” pegs. In the
:Misc menu I see UI->DB which I guess refers to me. As far as
:I am concerned, you could delete that. But maybe someone
:else uses it?

Maybe I'll remove that option and see if anyone complains.

:Alan Hensel has a Ruby sqripte for saving LG games as JTwixt
:binary files. He has a trick for games with swap. For
:example 1.H4 2.Swap is saved as 1.D8 2.D8 which preserves
:the move numbering. Yes I know about the option to swap the
:board and also swap the coordinates, but all the same it
:would be nice if Jtwixt could handle both types of swap
:moves: swap-sides and swap-firstpeg.

The current version of JTwixt imports LG test game records with swap (e.g. "1.d3 2.swap 3.j10...") correctly. The only issue is that you then have to manually flip the board and coordinates. So it's a very quick [copy of from LG web page], c-I, c-A, c-V, [import from window] to import LG games. In the near future I hope make things work better with the board orientation.

I find the notion of swap-first-peg (as opposed to swap-sides) deeply disturbing/annoying, so the implementation will probably be to save a preferred board orientation with the game; under the hood it will always be swap-sides.

:Are there plans to save in text format instead of binary?
:See http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/twixt.html Just a
:suggestion.

JHex has been able to save as SGF for the last ten years, so it shouldn't be much trouble to add that feature to JTwixt too. This is perhaps somewhere in the middle of the to-do list.

:How about optionally allowing PP rules with link crossing?

I want to do that, but I haven't yet decided how to solve the UI and file format issues.

:How about row handicap games? How about saving Game Center
:games? I have heard that Boardspace.net, another real time
:server, might have Twixt some day also.

Ask me again when (and if) the higher priority improvements are done.

P.S. I just realized that I never uploaded versions 0.9a2 to the above web site, so I just did so. I guess I thought (incorrectly) that I would finish a better version soon.