💡📝H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Oct 10, 2017 02:47 PM UTC:
On my desktop, it reads #0000FF.
That is the brightest pure blue you can get. I guess lowering the saturation could make it lighter. (But the it would be more like the others...) This color is only used for capturing own pieces (and so far I have never had to use that).
Yeah, colors are not ideal on grey-scale devices. Although my e-reader says it has 16 bit color depth, the grey shads 0xFFFFFF and 0xF0F0F0 were absolutely the same. So it is more like it has only 16 shades of grey! Main purpose of this exercise was to at least show where a piece can go at all, and prevent complete masking of it by the board checkering.
The one difficulty is that you might not be able to superimpose a marker on top of a piece.
Indeed, this is exactly what stopped me from doing this so far. before the "interactive diagram" I had "moves at a glance" images, which were just for showing hard-coded moves in a fixed position. I did highlight those with images (of colored dots, which would defeat the current purpose, but of course that ca be trivially changed), and the markers there obliterated the pieces on the square (which I worked around by having the capture marker bring its own black Rook with it).
The way I got around this in Game Courier was to mark spaces with a border around a piece or space. This worked by changing the CSS for the piece, and it worked on empty spaces by using a small, resizable, transparent gif as the piece image on empty spaces. Another possibility, which I haven't tried out, would be to give each space a background image instead of a background color and to change this accordingly.
I only became aware recently that you can have background images. This solution seems technically the best. There could for instance be various patterns of dotting or (cross)hatching. Note that the color system is rather 'luxurious'; because so many colors were available I made distinctions that were not strictly necessary. E.g. empty squares and occupied squares could use the same markers in other meaning; it would not be too illogical to give locust capture and slider non-captures the same markings, as both are moves after which the piece can continue. Also distinguishing capture of own or enemy pieces need not be distinguished: you can see which color piece you will capture.
Another problem is that images of some pieces could be large, not leaving much free space in the square to recognize a background shape. Perhaps it should be done the other way around, using the piece images as background!? Then the highlights would cover the pieces, and could all be small circles / squares / triagles / stars with transparency around them. That sounds exactly like what is needed.
Disadvantage is that piece graphics of different sizes might need different sets of marker images. Although I suppose that when we center the marker images, the can be suitable for a range of sizes. I mostly use 50x50 for large diagrams (Alfaerie or XBoard50), and 33x33 for smaller ones (Utrecht or XBoard33). But currently the diagram can be used for any size, and it would be a pity to lose that property.
Whatever you use, it would be helpful to include a legend that will tell people what the different colors or markers mean.
Well, on grey scales this is just beyond what color highlightig can do, even with a legend. But with shaped markers that is of course different. My feelings about legends are a bit double. For the experienced user their presence can easily turn into an annoyance. They can be made collapsable, but they should not be hidden too well, or novice users would never fid them. Further more, opening them should not push other valuable stuff out of view, or make the elements the user is acting on jump to other places.
Do you have a suggestion where best to position such a legend relative to the diagram?
If you're turning Betza codes into diagrams, would it also be possible to translate these codes into written descriptions that could appear underneath a diagram?
Interesting idea. For the trivial cases, like BN, this would of course be easy ("Moves as Bishop or Knight"). For the Chu-Shogi Lion it would be a challenge, and what it produces might not be very good. (KNADcaKmcabK: "Moves and captures like King, Knight, Alfil or Dabbaba, or captures as King and then again as King in any direction, or passes a turn"). It also depends on how you far you wat to go explaining things. Is "Moves as Alfil or Dababba" acceptable, or must it say "Makes a (0,2) or a (2,2) jump in every direction"?
P.S.: the submission form just tried to trash this comment, by complaining that I must be signed in after I pressed submit buttom in the preview screen. Fortunately I had guarded against that this time, but this is very, very bad! Especially since it tends to happen after you worked on a comment for a very long time...
That is the brightest pure blue you can get. I guess lowering the saturation could make it lighter. (But the it would be more like the others...) This color is only used for capturing own pieces (and so far I have never had to use that).
Yeah, colors are not ideal on grey-scale devices. Although my e-reader says it has 16 bit color depth, the grey shads 0xFFFFFF and 0xF0F0F0 were absolutely the same. So it is more like it has only 16 shades of grey! Main purpose of this exercise was to at least show where a piece can go at all, and prevent complete masking of it by the board checkering.
Indeed, this is exactly what stopped me from doing this so far. before the "interactive diagram" I had "moves at a glance" images, which were just for showing hard-coded moves in a fixed position. I did highlight those with images (of colored dots, which would defeat the current purpose, but of course that ca be trivially changed), and the markers there obliterated the pieces on the square (which I worked around by having the capture marker bring its own black Rook with it).
I only became aware recently that you can have background images. This solution seems technically the best. There could for instance be various patterns of dotting or (cross)hatching. Note that the color system is rather 'luxurious'; because so many colors were available I made distinctions that were not strictly necessary. E.g. empty squares and occupied squares could use the same markers in other meaning; it would not be too illogical to give locust capture and slider non-captures the same markings, as both are moves after which the piece can continue. Also distinguishing capture of own or enemy pieces need not be distinguished: you can see which color piece you will capture.
Another problem is that images of some pieces could be large, not leaving much free space in the square to recognize a background shape. Perhaps it should be done the other way around, using the piece images as background!? Then the highlights would cover the pieces, and could all be small circles / squares / triagles / stars with transparency around them. That sounds exactly like what is needed.
Disadvantage is that piece graphics of different sizes might need different sets of marker images. Although I suppose that when we center the marker images, the can be suitable for a range of sizes. I mostly use 50x50 for large diagrams (Alfaerie or XBoard50), and 33x33 for smaller ones (Utrecht or XBoard33). But currently the diagram can be used for any size, and it would be a pity to lose that property.
Well, on grey scales this is just beyond what color highlightig can do, even with a legend. But with shaped markers that is of course different. My feelings about legends are a bit double. For the experienced user their presence can easily turn into an annoyance. They can be made collapsable, but they should not be hidden too well, or novice users would never fid them. Further more, opening them should not push other valuable stuff out of view, or make the elements the user is acting on jump to other places.
Do you have a suggestion where best to position such a legend relative to the diagram?
Interesting idea. For the trivial cases, like BN, this would of course be easy ("Moves as Bishop or Knight"). For the Chu-Shogi Lion it would be a challenge, and what it produces might not be very good. (KNADcaKmcabK: "Moves and captures like King, Knight, Alfil or Dabbaba, or captures as King and then again as King in any direction, or passes a turn"). It also depends on how you far you wat to go explaining things. Is "Moves as Alfil or Dababba" acceptable, or must it say "Makes a (0,2) or a (2,2) jump in every direction"?
P.S.: the submission form just tried to trash this comment, by complaining that I must be signed in after I pressed submit buttom in the preview screen. Fortunately I had guarded against that this time, but this is very, very bad! Especially since it tends to happen after you worked on a comment for a very long time...