Check out Glinski's Hexagonal Chess, our featured variant for May, 2024.


[ Help | Earliest Comments | Latest Comments ]
[ List All Subjects of Discussion | Create New Subject of Discussion ]
[ List Latest Comments Only For Pages | Games | Rated Pages | Rated Games | Subjects of Discussion ]

Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

LatestLater Reverse Order EarlierEarliest
Game Courier Logs. View the logs of games played on Game Courier.[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 29, 2006 03:50 AM UTC:
I have deleted the 'Good Chess' directory and its logs, because it was messing up this page. Quotation marks should not be placed around names of games.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 19, 2006 02:18 AM UTC:
I replaced your log with the backup of the previous log, and that fixed the problem. By entering an additional move, you switched the values of $player and $opponent, which led to the erroneous result.

pallab basu wrote on Sat, Mar 18, 2006 10:45 PM UTC:
I have won in the match
/play/pbm/play.php?game=Chess+with+Different+Armies&log=pallab-cvgameroom-2006-58-982.
But the log is showing my opponent as a winner. I have made a mistake by
sending a comment after the game is over. How to make it correct?.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Feb 28, 2006 10:00 PM UTC:
Yesterday, I accidently commented out the section for saving user preferences for piece sets. I have now fixed that by moving the opening comment operator. But if that's all I did, logs should have simply defaulted to the default preset. In a couple of my own games, I saw piece sets I don't remember ever being used in these presets before. I am wondering if it copied my opponent's preferred set as the default set for the log. In my Chinese Chess game with Tommy Trouble, I saw the Alfaerie set, whereas in my other Chinese Chess game, I saw the National Standard set I have been using all along. In my Shogi game with Antoine Fourierre, I saw the Alfaerie set, not the Motif wood set I have been using. But in the other games I moved in today, I saw my usual set.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Tue, Feb 28, 2006 05:07 AM UTC:
Strange things are happening with piece sets. I've been using the Alfaerie pieces in both of my Chess games, but now one of them has spontaneously switched to the Abstract pieces and the other to the Medium-sized pieces.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Feb 28, 2006 02:14 AM UTC:
These problems should be fixed now. I replaced some variable names with a multidocument search and replace without checking the 'Whole Word Only' box, which messed up variable names that should have been left alone. I then had to fix inaccurate variable names.

David Paulowich wrote on Tue, Feb 28, 2006 01:19 AM UTC:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/chessva/public_html/play/pbm/gamecode.php on line 391

came up when I tried to open several of the games here. Just now my Lions and Unicorns game showed a board diagram, with this message below;

Parse error: parse error, unexpected '[', expecting ',' or ';' in /home/chessva/public_html/play/pbm/form_move.php on line 45


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Feb 25, 2006 04:04 PM UTC:
My name is Fergus.

Stephen Stockman wrote on Sat, Feb 25, 2006 09:37 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
the game courier is working perfectly for me, flawless. Thanks fergie!!!

David Paulowich wrote on Thu, Feb 23, 2006 09:27 PM UTC:
When I enter move 35 in fergus-david_64-2006-44-218, I get the message:

This preset will enforce rules and spot check, checkmate, and stalemate.you may not move a k from d6 to d5

But if I attempt d6-d7, there is no problem with the preset.


Thomas McElmurry wrote on Tue, Feb 21, 2006 03:59 AM UTC:
Excellent; that seems to solve all my problems. Thanks.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Feb 21, 2006 03:23 AM UTC:
Okay, I changed it so that including a userid makes it shown from that player's perspective. This may be overridden by setting orientation to flip for the second player's perspective or to anything but auto for the first player's perspective.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Tue, Feb 21, 2006 01:38 AM UTC:
Okay, I think I understand now.  I had been thinking of the Abstract piece
set as the default, not realizing that it was in fact a setting which had
overridden a previous default.  So it makes sense that I can't override
it in the URL, especially now that I've gone and learned a bit about the
GET and POST methods of form submission.

Here's a related thought (related from a user's perspective, anyway). 
When I enter my userid and view a game in which it is my opponent's turn,
the board is displayed, along with a message saying 'It is not your turn
yet', etc.  But the board is shown from my opponent's perspective. 
(Actually, a quick check of my current games seems to indicate that it is
shown from the perspective of the player to move [i.e. my opponent] in
Chess and Xiangqi, but from the perspective of the first [Black] player in
Shogi.)  Perhaps it would be more user-friendly if specifying a userid
ensured that the board would be shown from that player's perspective.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Feb 20, 2006 06:36 PM UTC:
Here's what is going on. Some presets use the default values, and some do
not. This is not about which game a preset is for; it is about which
preset you are using for a game. Default values are stored in a settings
file, and when a log uses the default values, it does not store them in
the log. All it stores are the variables whose values differ from their
default values. So, when you change the set in the URL for a log that uses
the default set, it does not overwrite this with anything in the log,
because the log does not contain any value for the set. But when the log
does not use the default set, it overwrites the value given in the URL
with the value stored in the log.

In the two Chess URLs you gave, you included your userid in the one that
showed Alfaerie pieces. It showed Alfaerie pieces, because you customized
your viewing preferences, and it was using the set you had chosen to use.
This value is stored in the log and will overwrite anything in the URL.
The other URL did not include your userid. So it used the set given in the
log. Since the Chess presets are based on one that uses Alfaerie pieces on
a B&W marble board, and you were using a preset with Abstract pieces on a
table board, the log for this game changes some of the defaults. These
overwrite the values set in the URL.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Mon, Feb 20, 2006 03:49 AM UTC:
But the strange thing is that it's only a few games (Chess, Balanced Marseillais Chess, possibly others) that behave this way. With most games, the piece set (and other display settings) can be changed in the URL. For example, the Xiangqi preset defaults to pieces with simplified characters, but it's possible to change to traditional characters.

My reason for using the URL to tweak settings is that I make copious use of bookmarks, so that I can get to any game with just a few keystrokes. And if I want to use the positions from my games as desktop backgrounds, this is most easily done if I can construct a URL that produces an image using my preferred piece set and the appropriate orientation. I've done this happily for many of the games I've played via Game Courier, but I can't do it for a game of chess. I can look at the board from Black's side, or I can use the Alfaerie pieces, but for some reason I can't do both.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Feb 20, 2006 02:40 AM UTC:
Values given in a log have precedence over values entered in an URL. When values are entered in an URL, those values are known first. When these values specify a log, the log is then included, and its values may override any values entered in an URL. I see no reason for changing this except to make Game Courier more vulnerable to hacking. If you want to view a game with a different piece set, it already provides that option to you through forms.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Mon, Feb 20, 2006 12:28 AM UTC:
It seems that, when viewing a game of chess, one can't change the piece set by adding a query to the URL for the log. For example, this link should display the game with Alfaerie pieces, but the Abstract pieces show up instead.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Feb 15, 2006 09:28 PM UTC:
I don't think there is anything inherent in this game that would cause it to take too long to prevent check. There are alternate ways of preventing check. The original method was to check the locations where pieces can check from for the right sort of pieces. The new method, used in many presets now, is to check whether each enemy piece can make a legal move to the King's position. That won't work for the Withdrawer, but the method can be modified a bit. To capture the King, the Withdrawer would have to be able to move away one space. So that's all that would need to be checked for that piece. Anyway, look at the Eurasian Chess or Chinese Chess include files for examples of this second method. Also, in my own experience, the most common cause of a script timing out has been an infinite loop in the code.

Antoine Fourrière wrote on Wed, Feb 15, 2006 05:41 AM UTC:
In fact, there are currently two presets for Chess on a Longer Board.
Neither prevents check (because it would take more than 30 seconds at the
end of a game), and both use pre-moves and post-moves by the second player
to display the Wall half-correctly. One of these presets also verifies the
legality of the moves, performs baroque (Withdrawer or en passant)
capture, moves automatically the other part of a Wall and changes
automatically the Halfling-Bishop in a Halfling-Rook and vice-versa.
So both presets, although different, display the same following message:
'This preset does not notify you here of check, checkmate, or
stalemate.'
Which is why I thought the same presets were used in my game against
George Duke and in this game.
I've replaced lines such as
$preauto2 = 'convert all Y Z Z Y y z z y%3B'; 
by lines such as 
$preauto2 = 'convert all Y Z Z Y y z z y';
in both the relevant preset and the log file.
I guess I'll try Fergus' solution when I have some time.

Antoine Fourrière wrote on Tue, Feb 14, 2006 01:10 AM UTC:
I'm also unsure what is going on, because the same move-verifying preset was used for my recent game against George Duke, and Black's Wall was (and is) displaying correctly, at least from White's perspective.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Feb 14, 2006 12:01 AM UTC:
I'm not sure what is going on there. Antoine wrote that preset. My best guess is that it has something to so with the convert command used to switch the wall pieces, so that they display properly. Let me point out that this should be unnecessary. The piece set used for this game can be given a flipped set of pieces, as is commonly done for sets of Shogi pieces, so that the wall always displays properly without changing the pieces used to represent it.

David Paulowich wrote on Mon, Feb 13, 2006 11:25 PM UTC:
Many thanks to Fergus for posting the Mir Chess presets for Game Courier.

I noticed a display problem in Jeremy Good's current game of Chess on a Longer Board with a few Pieces Added. Black's two square Wall does not show up. Also the square contains the notation 'y%3B d9', instead of 'z d9', which is what I would expect.


Christine Bagley-Jones wrote on Mon, Feb 13, 2006 06:07 AM UTC:
hmm, it has been around 6 days since joe joyce has done anything, we are
playing a game, and he is playing other people too.
normally if we are playing, and he is going somewhere and won't be moving
for awhile, he will say something, so i am a bit concerned for him.
anyone have any info about him?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Feb 12, 2006 01:59 AM UTC:
This page wasn't accurately reporting on time left. It was reporting the opponent's total reserve time, but it should have been reporting the player's reserve time plus grace time minus the age of the log. Fixing this has decreased the amounts of time left reported for some logs. Fortunately, this bug happened before anyone had been relying on this new feature for long.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Feb 11, 2006 03:26 PM UTC:
I have added a new sorting method, made it the default, and have programmed
open invitations older than two weeks to expire. This has deleted Steve
Stockman's two open invitations. The new sorting method is called
Priority. It prioritizes logs according to which most need your
attention.

When a userid is not specified, it places ongoing games above finished
games, existing logs above deleted logs, and sorts each category in
increasing order of age, which means going from newest to oldest.

When a userid is specified, it places games in which it is the specified
player's turn on top. It places timed games above untimed games. It sorts
timed games by time left, placing games with less time left first. It sorts
untimed games by age, placing older games first. These are followed by
private invitations sent to the specified user, which are sorted in
decreasing order of age. These are followed by open invitations, which are
sorted in decreasing order of age, since older open invitations will expire
before newer ones. These are followed by the rest of a player's active
games, sorted in decreasing order of age. These are followed by the
player's finished games, sorted in increasing order of age. Finally,
these are followed by any expired open invitations that have been deleted
by this instance of running the script. These have lowest priority, since
you can no longer accept them.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2006 09:47 PM UTC:
I have added a new column and a new sorting method to this page. The new column indicates how much time is left in a game or 'N/A' for untimed games. The new sorting method sorts games by how much time is left, placing games with less time left above. It sorts untimed games by age, placing them all below any timed games. The 'Your Games' link in Game Courier now uses this new sorting method, so that players will be less likely to accidently lose a game by running out of time. Time left is calculated only when a userid is entered. Otherwise, the time left sorting function sorts by age. Given that time left is now calculated for any active game, there is no longer any delay in updating logs for games in which someone has run out of time. Any game in which a player has lost on time should be updated as soon as one of the players checks his own games with the Logs page.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Feb 10, 2006 03:46 AM UTC:
I have finished programming the Logs page to automatically update logs in which someone has run out of time. This only affects timed games. To spare overhead, it now does this only for a player's own ongoing games that have been inactive for at least a week. But before restricting its use in this manner, I used the new feature to update the logs of all games that have been inactive more than a week and in which someone has lost on time. If you look at the games that have finished today, you will find a bunch that finished at about the same time. This is from automatically updating them. From now on, this page will handle the updating of logs when someone runs out of time.

Antoine Fourrière wrote on Tue, Jan 17, 2006 04:27 PM UTC:
The other is done too.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Jan 17, 2006 04:21 PM UTC:
I fixed the Unicorn Great Chess preset. The other one should be fixed by Greg Strong.

David Paulowich wrote on Tue, Jan 17, 2006 02:25 PM UTC:
Unicorn Problems! Yesterday I (finally!) posted rules pages for the games in the 'Unicorn Great Chess Preset for Game Courier' and 'Lions and Unicorns Chess Preset for Game Courier'. Could one of the editors please change the Rules buttons in these presets to link to my games rules pages? And replace the first two sentences in the 'Pawn' section of Rules of Lions and Unicorns Chess with the single sentence: 'Any Pawn may make a double move from the square it started on.' Pawns do not start on the third rank in Lions and Unicorns Chess. I am the inventor, not the author of these presets.

Thomas McElmurry wrote on Sat, Jan 7, 2006 08:09 AM UTC:
The 404 when trying to view an entire comment is something I've noticed before. A workaround is to first go to the 'all comments' page and then click on the 'view entire' link for the relevant comment.

The problem seems to be that the link from the PBM Game Logs page points to /play/pbmlogs/displaycomment.php?commentid=11172, while the link from the corresponding Comment Listing page points to http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=11172.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Jan 6, 2006 11:09 PM UTC:
I missed Matthew Montchalin's comments in October. So I'll respond now.

The box to click to declare a winner is the Status field that's available
when you're able to move. You may also use a command, such as loss or
won.

A game does not have two logs. It has only one. It makes no sense to
delete the moves of only one player and not the other, since neither could
be understood without the other. When you delete a log, you delete the
whole game. The delete option is available to allow players to delete
their own logs without bothering me to do it for them, as they used to do.
Although I wouldn't recommend deleting finished games, since it is nice to
keep a record of them, it is often helpful to delete aborted games.

How to take back your moves is described in the User's Guide. The button
for going back to a previous move is called 'Go' not 'GOTO'.

I'm getting a 404 error when I try to view the entire message from
Matthew. So if there is anything more to respond to right now, I can't
read it.

Stephen Stockman wrote on Fri, Nov 11, 2005 03:27 PM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
The World 4-Way chess Championship is starting soon. The competition is pretty weak so far, so dont miss your chance to take the prize!

Matthew Montchalin wrote on Wed, Oct 26, 2005 12:57 AM UTC:
I can understand a player wanting to delete his own moves, and his name if he wants to, so that's why I naturally assumed that a game log consists of two logs - the moves that one player makes, and the moves that the other player makes. Shouldn't the 'Delete Log' option work only to delete the moves that a particular player makes, and not the moves of both players together?

Matthew Montchalin wrote on Tue, Oct 25, 2005 10:57 PM UTC:
When a player has won, it appears that a box ought to exist somewhere that
he can edit to say who has won, but this box never appears for me.

Exactly where can I find a box to click, that lets me declare who is the
winner?

Also, there appears to be a mysterious 'delete log' box.  Can you
explain the history behind this option?  How often does one player choose
to delete both logs?

Finally, I'd like the option to backup and allow my opponent to change
his move.  There is supposed to be a button/icon that says 'GOTO' but I
can't find it.  What part of Game Courier has this button in it?  This
option doesn't seem to be available to me anywhere, and it doesn't make
any difference whether I am white or black, I still can't figure out how
to 'backup' and let my opponent choose some other move.

This is in response to my recent game of Rococo with gwduke where I
elected to mutually destroy the white Swapper and the black King; the only
intelligent move I could see for Black was moving the black Immobilizer
back to freeze the white Swapper and prevent it from engaging in 'mutual
destruction.'

carlos carlos wrote on Wed, Oct 19, 2005 01:04 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
second.

Nasmichael Farris wrote on Tue, Oct 11, 2005 03:00 AM UTC:Excellent ★★★★★
I am very thankful that this team has been so diligent in bringing the chess variant community the continued opportunity to play and experiment with these great games. Much of your work goes unrecognized, and I want to be one to offer my gratitude. Good job, folks.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Oct 10, 2005 09:16 PM UTC:
The usort() error message appears when no game logs pass through the filters. The usort() function is used for sorting the selected logs, and when there are no logs, it gives an error message because it has nothing to sort. When a wrong userid is entered, and that userid is not in use by anyone, it will end up excluding all logs.

Matthew Montchalin wrote on Sun, Oct 9, 2005 08:18 PM UTC:
I think the usort() message pops up when I misspell my 'User ID' and the code fails to trap misspellings as such, and replace them with a reference to a null name being replaced with a guest name (for instance). I think I was trying to obtain a list of games already played from the Game Courier Log.

Matthew Montchalin wrote on Fri, Oct 7, 2005 10:07 PM UTC:
I am not sure of where I was - I think that I was trying to access the game
logs - but when I typed in my password and clicked the 'submit' icon (or
button or whatever you call it), the following message to appeared:

Warning: usort(): The argument should be an array in
/home/chessva/public_html/play/pbmlogs/index.php on line 226

Paul Grosemans wrote on Mon, Jul 25, 2005 08:35 PM UTC:
OK! I have reinstalled Windows. Now all seems normal.

Paul Grosemans wrote on Mon, Jul 25, 2005 11:49 AM UTC:
About my last message I add the problem is from my computer.
Each time I write 'P-a-u-l' without dashes of course, this firstname is
changed in 'MFEM'.

I don't know why. McAfee says my computer is clean.
A search by Windows for the word 'MFEM'. He displays only the list of
emails I have send today with my firstname modify with 'MFEM'.

I really don't know what I can do yet. Any idea, please?

MFEM MFEMFEMFE wrote on Mon, Jul 25, 2005 07:47 AM UTC:
I can't anymore reach any of my games. The message is :

'The logfile
../pbmlogs/hostage_chess/michaeljay-MFEM.MFEMFEMFE-2005-188-637.php does
not exist.'

I don't know what to do.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jun 15, 2005 02:20 AM UTC:
<P>Greg Strong wrote:</P> <BLOCKQUOTE> It would be nice if there were some way to at least view the full text of game logs that cannot properly load because of errors, but this, I'd imagine, is not a high priority item. </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>There is a way for me to view a log. I use FTP. But I don't see any need for allowing anyone at all to view a log, since the raw information in a log is mainly of use to someone who is going to debug and fix the problem, and anyone who can do that, namely myself and other editors, can already view the log's contents by FTP. The important thing for others to do is to report any bugs found.</P>

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jun 15, 2005 02:03 AM UTC:
<P>Nasmichael Farris wrote:</P> <BLOCKQUOTE> Also, when I tried to look at some finished games, the logs do not pull up. I am sure that something positive is being done to fix it. </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>You first need to tell me which logs are having problems. Then I'll look into it.</P>

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jun 15, 2005 01:58 AM UTC:
The bug in Omega Chess is now fixed. Here is what happened. The bug was in a line that used the checkaleap function, and it was being given the wrong direction. Just recently, I fixed a bug in the checkaleap function. The bug had allowed two-way vertical movement when it was supposed to check for only one-way vertical movement. So, until the bug fix to this function, it was allowing the bug in the Omega Chess code to go unnoticed so long as players entered only legal moves. So, this was an instance of one bug fix revealing another bug.

Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Jun 14, 2005 07:44 PM UTC:
Much work is being done to make the Game Courier language better. Unfortunately, some changes do result in old Game Logs no longer being viewable. It would be nice if there were some way to at least view the full text of game logs that cannot properly load because of errors, but this, I'd imagine, is not a high priority item.

Nasmichael Farris wrote on Tue, Jun 14, 2005 05:10 PM UTC:
Also, when I tried to look at some finished games, the logs do not pull up. I am sure that something positive is being done to fix it.

Nasmichael Farris wrote on Tue, Jun 14, 2005 04:36 AM UTC:
In game log -- michaeljay-cvgameroom-2005-32-111 -- the system is showing that it is my move, but when I click onto the link to the game, there is a short message showing that 'my opponent cannot move a pawn from f8 to f6'. Is there a way to correct the move so that I can continue the game?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Jan 22, 2005 12:57 AM UTC:
Deleted by ftp.

Travis Compton wrote on Fri, Jan 21, 2005 10:33 PM UTC:
Please delete the following log, it's not letting me. Thanks.

Medieval Chess ironlance-cvgameroom-2004-317-137 Sat, Dec 11, 2004
Ironlance carlos carlos

Anonymous wrote on Fri, Jan 21, 2005 10:30 PM UTC:
Please delete this log, it's not letting me. Thanks

Medieval Chess
ironlance-cvgameroom-2004-317-137
Sat, Dec 11, 2004
Ironlance carlos carlos

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Jan 12, 2005 02:01 AM UTC:
I pointed out the need to change your preset because of a problem you were
having with a particular game that was using it. Changing the contents of
the preset page will not affect your game in any way. It will only affect
future games. Fixing the problem with your game only involves changing the
settings file you created, which is up to you to do, because it is
protected from being overwritten by anyone who doesn't use your userid
and password.

As for the preset page, I leave it in the hands of whoever put it up. As
long as the game is called 'Medieval Chess', a term that properly
belongs to Shatranj, I choose to take no action toward making a Game
Courier preset of the game available.

Travis Compton wrote on Wed, Jan 12, 2005 12:48 AM UTC:
Yeah, but after I make my changes, enter user id, password and hit save,
the preset is still the same at the chessvariants link at:

/play/pbm/presets/medieval_chess.html
Click on this button to start the preset: (this is what the text says
above the link)

Any changes I try to make are not saved. Also, someone has altered the
board I created to have different colors than what I had created it for
and the title has a '+' symbol in it which I did not put there either.

How hard can it be to get this preset right? It's a simple revision and
you guys are pushing it back to me...come on, nip it in the bud, and just
set the preset to this new set up! PLEASE!

/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DMedieval+Chess%26settings%3DMedieval+Chess

Let me explain to you how it's done, First go to this link and look at
the preset. Then save that one as the revised preset. Simple.....no? The
new preset has 10 rows, not 11. That's the only difference.

Thanks

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jan 10, 2005 05:06 PM UTC:
That bug is now fixed.

carlos carlos wrote on Mon, Jan 10, 2005 12:08 PM UTC:
mageofmaple-cvgameroom-2005-1-097

i can't seem to access this log either.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Jan 9, 2005 05:37 PM UTC:
<BLOCKQUOTE> First of all, I was told by you that only an editor can change the preset of a game that has been added to the Chessvariants site. </BLOCKQUOTE> No, I don't think I told you that, because it is not precisely true. Only an editor may upload anything to the site by ftp, which does include presets. But a non-editor may change any settings file of his own creation. This is done in Edit mode, and you save your changes by including your userid and password before hitting the Save button. You created a settings file for Medieval Chess, and it is up to you to edit it.

Travis Compton wrote on Tue, Jan 4, 2005 05:42 AM UTC:
First of all, I was told by you that only an editor can change the preset
of a game that has been added to the Chessvariants site. I tried to change
it, but to no avail. I requested this several weeks ago. To this day, I'm
still trying to get Tony to change it to the new preset, but he is not
responding to my emails. So I posted the new preset on the forums here,
hoping an editor would change it for me. Now, I just noticed that there is
an error when trying to click on the game link.

DEBUG space:
Array
(
    [a11] => j
    [b11] => y
    [c11] => -
    [d11] => -
    [e11] => -
    [f11] => -
    [g11] => -
    [h11] => -
    [i11] => y
    [j11] => j
    [a10] => h
    [b10] => r
    [c10] => n
    [d10] => b
    [e10] => q
    [f10] => k
    [g10] => b
    [h10] => n
    [i10] => r
    [j10] => h
    [a9] => -
    [b9] => p
    [c9] => p
    [d9] => p
    [e9] => p
    [f9] => p
    [g9] => p
    [h9] => p
    [i9] => p
    [j9] => -
    [a8] => -
    [b8] => @
    [c8] => @
    [d8] => @
    [e8] => @
    [f8] => @
    [g8] => @
    [h8] => @
    [i8] => @
    [j8] => -
    [a7] => -
    [b7] => @
    [c7] => @
    [d7] => @
    [e7] => @
    [f7] => @
    [g7] => @
    [h7] => @
    [i7] => @
    [j7] => -
    [a6] => -
    [b6] => @
    [c6] => @
    [d6] => @
    [e6] => @
    [f6] => @
    [g6] => @
    [h6] => @
    [i6] => @
    [j6] => -
    [a5] => -
    [b5] => @
    [c5] => @
    [d5] => @
    [e5] => @
    [f5] => @
    [g5] => @
    [h5] => @
    [i5] => @
    [j5] => -
    [a4] => -
    [b4] => @
    [c4] => @
    [d4] => @
    [e4] => @
    [f4] => @
    [g4] => @
    [h4] => @
    [i4] => @
    [j4] => -
    [a3] => -
    [b3] => P
    [c3] => P
    [d3] => P
    [e3] => P
    [f3] => P
    [g3] => P
    [h3] => P
    [i3] => P
    [j3] => -
    [a2] => H
    [b2] => R
    [c2] => N
    [d2] => B
    [e2] => Q
    [f2] => K
    [g2] => B
    [h2] => N
    [i2] => R
    [j2] => H
    [a1] => J
    [b1] => Y
    [c1] => -
    [d1] => -
    [e1] => -
    [f1] => -
    [g1] => -
    [h1] => -
    [i1] => Y
    [j1] => J
)

So anyway, I cannot even see the preset to make changes now if I could. Is
Tony the only person who can help me with this?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Jan 3, 2005 02:32 AM UTC:
Here's the source of your problem. You are playing your game with a preset that uses the Medieval Chess settings file that you are the author of. Since only the author may modify a settings file, I conclude that at some point, you modified this settings file to give the board one less rank, as per Travis Compton's request for changing the rules of the game. This caused there to no longer be any eleventh rank, which caused the space b11 to no longer exist. So when a piece tried to move from b11, Game Courier recognized the move as invalid. Since you caused the problem, you can also fix it. You can change your settings file back to how it used to be, then either delete your game or finish it. Once you're done with that, you can change the settings file back to how you have it now.

Travis Compton wrote on Mon, Jan 3, 2005 02:02 AM UTC:
It says the following:

'Syntax Error on line 23b11-b9 is not a valid expression, because b11-b9
is not a recognized piece, coordinate, command, or subroutine.For the sake
of debugging, here is the full GAME Code program that this error occurred
in. The lines have been properly indented to help you spot scope errors.'

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Jan 2, 2005 06:36 PM UTC:
What is the problem? It may just require a bug fix.

Travis Compton wrote on Sun, Jan 2, 2005 04:50 AM UTC:
Please delete the game of Medieval Chess between Carlos Carlos and Ironlance. The game is not working and it will not let me delete it. Thanks.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Jan 1, 2005 03:31 AM UTC:
I added the following new functions to the Polish notation calculator
today:

checkmaxsteps
checknsteps
checkpath

These all handle movement that may go along a winding, unobstructed path,
such as the movement of some pieces in Jetan. The checkmaxsteps function
checks whether a piece may move from one space to another within a
specified number of steps from one adjacent space to another. The
checknsteps function checks whether a piece may move from one space to
another in exactly a specified number of steps. Both of these functions
allow movement through the origin space and repeated movement through the
same space. They are both handled by a recursive function that goes
through all possible paths until it finds one that works. The checkpath
function checks whether a piece can move from one space to another by
following a specific path, given as a set of paired directions. To
illustrate how these work, here are two alternate ways to handle the
Squire from Holywar:

Barring possible mistakes, here is the long way that uses 16 checkpath
functions for all possible paths:

checkpath origin dest (1 0 1 1) or checkpath origin dest (1 1 1 0) or
checkpath origin dest (1 0 1 -1) or checkpath origin dest (1 -1 1 0) or
checkpath origin dest (-1 0 -1 1) or checkpath origin dest (-1 1 -1 0) or
checkpath origin dest (-1 0 -1 -1) or checkpath origin dest (-1 -1 -1 0)
or
checkpath origin dest (0 1 1 1) or checkpath origin dest (1 1 0 -1) or
checkpath origin dest (0 1 -1 1) or checkpath origin dest (-1 1 0 -1) or
checkpath origin dest (0 -1 1 1) or checkpath origin dest (1 1 0 1) or
checkpath origin dest (0 -1 1 -1) or checkpath origin dest (1 -1 0 1);

Here is the short way that uses checknsteps in combination with
checkleap:

checkleap origin dest 1 2 and checknsteps origin dest 2;

The checkleap function makes sure that the piece is going to a space a
Squire could move to, then the checknsteps function makes sure it can get
there in exactly two steps.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Fri, Dec 31, 2004 04:18 PM UTC:
For one thing, you're not resigning in the proper way, which is to type the word resign as your move. Try that and see if your problem persists.

Nicola Caridi wrote on Fri, Dec 31, 2004 11:38 AM UTC:
I don't succeed to resign my shogi game with Manabu Terao; when I set
'Manabu Terao has won' and I confirm my move I receive this message: 
Your browser was not refreshed when you entered this move. If this move
had not been stopped, you would have overwritten your log with data for a
past move, causing you to lose moves in your game. Go back and refresh the
log page before entering your move.

Even after refresh the log page I receive the same message.
Thanks for your attention

Travis Compton wrote on Sat, Dec 25, 2004 04:58 AM UTC:
Editors: Please revise the preset to Medieval Chess to this updated one,
but still link the rules page to the Chessvariants.com rule set. Thanks. 

/play/pbm/play.php?game%3DMedieval+Chess%26settings%3DMedieval+Chess

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Dec 19, 2004 09:16 PM UTC:
Recent comments about bugs seem to be in reference to some debugging I was just doing of new features. The bugs were due to not getting the right number of parentheses in certain expressions, and their only effect on ongoing games was to halt Game Courier for a while. I just enhanced the logical operators or, and, nor, nand, and cond. These will now take arrays, as well as scalar values, as arguments. With arrays as arguments, they will conditionally evaluate arrays as separate Polish notation expressions. Each binary logical operator will evaluate the first array first, and it will evaluate the second only if its value is required to determine the value of the expression. The cond operator , depending upon the value of its condition, will evaluate the first or second array that follows the condition, assuming both arguments are arrays. When arguments for these operators are not arrays, the scalar value will be used. This all allows logical operators to be used for flow control over expressions nested by parentheses.

Paul Grosemans wrote on Sun, Dec 19, 2004 08:31 PM UTC:
This was when I chose a refreshing at 15 seconds.

When I chose 30 seconds the message is :

Parse error: parse error, unexpected ')' in
/home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/polish.php on line 232

Paul Grosemans wrote on Sun, Dec 19, 2004 08:28 PM UTC:
In my game with Greg Strong, at the 31. s*1b, I send the move and when I
click 'Continue' I received :
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_BOOLEAN_OR in
/home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/polish.php on line 223

Cheers, Paul

Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Dec 19, 2004 08:26 PM UTC:
Getting problems viewing Shogi games again ...

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Dec 18, 2004 01:58 AM UTC:
Previously, all commands were handled in the main part of the program. But now all commands are handled by a function called runsubroutine. This meant that many variables had to be explicitly declared global, but I missed the $opponent variable, which is used for getting the winner's name when the player resigns. The game I looked at ended with a resignation, and I expect the same is true of the others. I have now made $opponent global in runsubroutine.

David Paulowich wrote on Fri, Dec 17, 2004 09:59 PM UTC:
I am seeing 'has won' results without any name attached on Fri, Dec 17, 06:15 and 10:12.

Paul Grosemans wrote on Fri, Dec 17, 2004 06:14 AM UTC:
About my game with Daniel Wang. When I click the URL in the email I
received this morning, it answered :

Parse error: parse error, unexpected $ in
/home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/gamecode.php on line 781

Fortunately, I can access the game through the pbmlogs/index.php.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Dec 16, 2004 06:19 PM UTC:
I did get your move 29 and responded to it. So I guess you just noticed a temporary bug that popped up while I was debugging code. When I am debugging, the debugging functions show debugging messages when the player variable is equal to my userid. Since you were playing Grotesque Chess against me, and it was my turn after you moved, you got to see the debugging code that is meant only for me to see.

David Paulowich wrote on Thu, Dec 16, 2004 05:32 PM UTC:
'I have made some significant changes to how loops, conditionals, and
subroutines work. Let me know if these changes result in any bugs.


Parse error: parse error, unexpected ')' in
/home/chessvar/public_html/play/pbm/gamecode.php on line 590'

Was the message I received the first time I tried to send move 29 (Black)
in my game of GrotChess.  When I look at the page now there is a long list
of Debug links, ending with:

405 [2:if]: endif
406 [1:sub]: endsub

DEBUG scope:
1
DEBUG ifhead of scope:
sub
581 [0:main]: end

DEBUG label:
Array
(
    [postauto1] => 5
    [postauto2] => 205
)

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Dec 16, 2004 03:06 PM UTC:
Among my recent changes to Game Courier was a tightening up of the code for handling drops. But I left out some variable assignments that got used in the condition that led to the incorrect illegal move message. This is now fixed, and Shogi games are showing up properly.

Paul Grosemans wrote on Thu, Dec 16, 2004 09:39 AM UTC:
It is my turn to play against Greg Strong. Altough when I click the URL :

'You may not move any enemy pieces.'

Probably due to:
'I have made some significant changes to how loops, conditionals, and
subroutines work. Let me know if these changes result in any bugs.' ;-)

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Dec 6, 2004 02:36 AM UTC:
A simple way to send a message to your opponent is to reply to any automated e-mail message sent by Game Courier to remind you its your move. This message has your opponent as the addressee.

Travis Compton wrote on Sun, Dec 5, 2004 04:14 PM UTC:
Just a suggestion. It would be great to have a link to your opponents email on the preset page of the game your playing. I had just recently made a move in a game and noticed just after that my opponent had made an illegal move prior to mine. But I could not quickly find his email info to let him know. A quick link to send a message would have helped. Thanks.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 05:02 AM UTC:
Okay, I think I have fixed the bug David Paulowich reported. In my tests, it lets new moves go through, but it stops moves from earlier in the game and advises the user to go back and refresh his browser window before entering his move.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 04:31 AM UTC:
Based on Greg's comments, I think I know what to do about the bug David
Paulowich reported. If I make sure that the old movelist is a substring of
the new movelist before a game gets logged, this should prevent Game
Courier from writing the log with data from unrefreshed browser windows.
I'll report back when this is fixed for good.

As for the other bug that Greg mentioned, it has already been reported and
fixed.

David Paulowich wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 03:37 AM UTC:

Fergus - all I am looking for is an internet chess site that does not require Java, ActiveX, or an email account that is working every month of the year. FFEN diagrams simply do not exist for me. I can play back the moves of a game in your Game Courier Game Logs, but not one of the 'saved games' elsewhere on this site. My old email address ceased to exist on Oct. 31 and I am now enjoying my anonymity. That address now exists only on my 'personid' page here (apparently removing it causes Game Courier to refuse to make any moves in my games) and in the phoney return address lines on various SPAM emails.

I assume Matthias Brendel sent move eleven shortly before 01:00 on Monday, Nov 15. What showed up here was a repeat of move seven. As in the case of 'Marc Wakeham - David Paulowich', this represents a trip back in time of at least four days. I suppose the email related to Brendel's move may have been returned to this site, but I really have no idea. Sorry that I cannot offer more help.


Greg Strong wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 02:49 AM UTC:
Regarding possible game courier bugs, I have noticed a couple of things...
I have also experienced the suddenly back-in-time that David describes,
although I have never had it go back more than one move, and I have also
discovered that I can completely prevent it from happening by always,
always, ALWAYS clicking ctrl-refresh to force a full page re-load before
entering any moves.  I find that this is step is essential, or there's
the occasional deja-vu-move.  I use IE 6.0 SP 2, and it is configured to
always reload all pages, so it's not IE configured to cache pages or the
like.

Also, in a game of Fisher Random Chess in which I was making the first
move of the game, I noticed that every time I would click 'Refresh,'
(which I always do, as described above) it would give me a different
random configuration.  But then, when I actually made the move, (a pawn
move,) the pieces were suddenly in a different configuration (the original
configuration, I presume, although I'm not sure.  I wasn't paying that
much attention.)

Hope this helps!
Greg

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Nov 16, 2004 02:15 AM UTC:
I'm not sure what has happened here. I have never known anything like what
you describe happening before, and as far as I know, it shouldn't happen.
If you and your opponent would send me the email records of your last
moves, it might shed some light on what has happened.

I have now added the feature of backing up logs. It is too late for it to
help us find out what has happened to your moves, but it can help me
figure out what is going on if it happens again. Whenever you make a move,
your old log will get backed up before it gets overwritten. Since each new
backup will overwrite the old backup, you should report any loss of moves
as soon as it happens.

David Paulowich wrote on Mon, Nov 15, 2004 01:25 PM UTC:
I would like to see an automatic game backup feature for the Game Courier. Moves have been lost in both of my games of Fisher Random Chess. I was expecting move eleven today from Matthias Brendel and instead received a repeat of move seven. See also the entry <p>'13... e7-d6 // The game seems to have skipped back two moves.' <p>in Marc Wakeham - David Paulowich, recorded as pircman-cvgameroom-2004-227-741

Greg Strong wrote on Sun, Nov 14, 2004 11:30 PM UTC:
Sounds like a great idea to me!

Mark Thompson wrote on Sun, Nov 14, 2004 11:09 PM UTC:
I think it would be useful to have a field on the Game Courier move-entry form for 'annotations', which would be for comments a player makes on his own moves, but which would not be displayed until the game is over. Would people use such a field? If we did, I think it would increase the value to CV students of the library of games that the system is creating.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:49 AM UTC:
Oh, I see what the two of you mean now. Ironlance somehow managed to issue more GC invitations after I added some code banning the game from Game Courier, and now this code is preventing him from deleting them. I'm not sure how he managed to issue these invitations. I've just deleted them by ftp. Instead of deleting the directory in question, which would only allow someone to recreate it, I've made it unwriteable.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:36 AM UTC:
You're free to delete any of your invitations. Instructions are near the bottom of this page.

Mark Thompson wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 04:35 AM UTC:
Perhaps the server should also prevent people from creating invitations under game-names that are known to be trademarked, at least for games whose owners are known to be particularly protective of their legal rights.

Travis Compton wrote on Sat, Nov 13, 2004 03:51 AM UTC:
If your not going to allow chess variant players to play Gothic Chess on the PBM system, at least allow us to delete our logs with pending Gothic Chess invitations. Thanks.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Nov 11, 2004 05:56 PM UTC:
The logs page has been updated this week. It now has a field for filtering logs on the basis of a game's name. This field accepts a wildcard pattern. An * can be used for any game, and a game's name can be used by itself without any wildcard characters. Also, the Status Filter now includes an option for showing only open invitations. This duplicates the functionality of the Waiting Room page, making it unnecessary.

Tony Quintanilla wrote on Mon, Oct 25, 2004 04:13 AM UTC:
I have noticed some excellent Game Courier presets created and then played, but not posted for general use. If you would like your presets posted, please send the URLs to the editors. Preset pages can then be made and posted. Thanks!

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Oct 18, 2004 05:58 PM UTC:
I see two that are dated August 27, 2004, not 2003. No logs are dated earlier than August 27, 2004, because that is the date on which I transferred all the logs from chessvariants.com to chessvariants.org, and the procedure I used for copying the logs did not retain the original timestamps. So I'll go ahead and delete those two.

Travis Compton wrote on Sun, Oct 17, 2004 02:50 PM UTC:
When I enter my username and password to view just my logs, it shows the two old games that you don't see in the general PBM logs. I have 3 current logs dating October 2004 and the two I need deleted are Aug. 27th of 2003. You may have to log in under my username to see this.

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Oct 17, 2004 04:44 AM UTC:
Since all your logs are currently dated October 16, 2004, I don't know which ones you mean.

Travis Compton wrote on Sun, Oct 17, 2004 02:26 AM UTC:
Hi Fergus, I have two old game logs from August 2003 I'm trying to delete, but I keep getting a a warning from the Game Courier that says something about an illegal move...weird. Can you delete those for me?

🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Thu, Sep 16, 2004 01:37 AM UTC:
It appears that one player has lost by running out of time, and they have continued to play the game anyway.

David Paulowich wrote on Wed, Sep 15, 2004 05:54 PM UTC:
Uwe Kreuzer has won a game of 'Omega Chess 10x8' each morning for the last three or four or five days. Possible bug in the program?

Zeev Shapiro wrote on Sat, Aug 28, 2004 10:10 PM UTC:
Oh , thank you very much ! Now it's good - I can see all my games !

100 comments displayed

LatestLater Reverse Order EarlierEarliest

Permalink to the exact comments currently displayed.