Comments by panther

Fergus wrote: "Please let me know if you can edit your submission. I'm not
familiar with whether this can be done, but I think it should be allowed."

I added a couple of letters to the text of it successfully, so the answer
appears to be that I can indeed edit it.

In case you missed it, I slightly edited my previous comment, to elaborate
on troubles for me that may or may not be caused by having an inadequate
browser, as far as viewing and using this website goes. So far it seems I
can get by (I prefer not to try to change browsers for now), although just
now I looked at some games to see if I could unfavourite them, and in many
cases the top menu of such a game's webpage appeared vertical in presenting
the options. Not only that, but in some such cases I previously favourited
these games by listing all its comments, i.e. getting to a webpage where
the menu options happened to be presented horizontally. Now, even when that
happens still, I don't see any way available by way of a heart option to
favourite or unfavorite a particular game. Luckily this is not a priority
to fix, but I thought I'd mention it in case you were unaware.

At the moment I can't figure out how to show individual pieces as I think you wish, Fergus. I copied the URL for a Black Rocket (I used the Rocket symbol [from the set Abstract Pieces: All] to represent a Balloon in my variant). I did so from the Diagram Designer, as the instructions on it seemed to indicate I should do, but as you may notice, only the text of the URL shows up on my submission (I don't know how to highlight a URL in blue, but I would think that would not suffice for you either). Cutting and pasting the image for a Black Rocket, as I tried earlier, showed nothing in the text at all. Saving the picture as BRocket.gif as a file and then typing BRocket.gif only showed those very words as text, too.

If I can't ever get how to do it, would listing the squares that pieces are on, under the Diagram Designer diagram, be okay instead? Others have done that with 4D variant submissions in the past, I've noticed.

Fergus wrote:

"The menu on http://www.chessvariants.com/dpieces.dir/berlin.html is
appearing horizontally to me. So it's not an instance of the wrong header
being used. Can you provide a screen shot of what you're seeing to help me
better gauge what's going on?"

Like I've alluded to before, I'm rather out of my depth these days when it
comes to computers. However, with some luck I did manage to create a
screenshot icon (shortcut) on my desktop of the Berolina Pawns variant
webpage, and then I emailed it to your address as webmaster of this
website. Hope that suffices.

If you can get around to it, in the event you missed it, I replied to your
comment re: my Super4*Chess submission needing to be edited, and I asked if
you could advise me (such as perhaps only clarifying that I in fact may
have taken a step in the right direction). It's not a priority though, as I
am going to be playing over-the-board chess all weekend, including tonight
at my club, as well as Friday night, so I'll soon begin a long break from
using a computer to visit here, or to visit other websites I go to, until
the weekend is over, if only for the reason to concentrate better on
playing chess.

Take care, Kevin

Out of a sudden inspiration, I tried using the Diagram Designer to make just a 1x1 (square) board for displaying each single piece type used in my variant (Super4*Chess), then cut & pasted the diagrams (as I generated each of them) into the piece descriptions. Hope this is adequate, as far as editing my submission goes.

Earlier I posted (directed to Fergus):

"...If you can get around to it, in the event you missed it, I replied to
your comment re: my Super4*Chess submission needing to be edited, and I
asked if you could advise me..."

I may have solved my problem in question on my own. Under comments to my
submission in question, I've just posted:

"Out of a sudden inspiration, I tried using the Diagram Designer to make
just a 1x1 (square) board for displaying each single piece type used in my
variant (Super4*Chess); I then cut & pasted the diagrams (as I generated
each of them) into the piece descriptions. Hope this is adequate, as far as
editing my submission goes."

A belated thank you to Fergus for your considerable work on your example (for me) of a 4D variant diagram generated by the Diagram Designer (I may have been pretty tired that day). I'll try to eventually get around to various edits to some of my past submissions that were accepted, e.g. to show definite Abstract: All piece set Centaur piece symbols in diagrams for my Sac Chess entry.

I'm back and rested after my weekend tournament, finishing clear second at
1.5 points behind GM Sambuev (5/5, again), so I did about as well as I
could reasonably hope for.

H.G. posted: "In my browser (Firefox) when I right-click on an image it
pops up a menu with (amongst others) the items
 • View image 
• Copy image 
• Copy image location 
• Properties 
When you select "View image" it displays the image as a separate web page,
with the URL of the image (as usual) in the address field above it. You
could then select and copy the URL from there. But when you select "Copy
image location" it should already have copied the URL without additional
mouse manipulations, and without the need for changing what page it was
displaying. With "Properties" you get a popup window with all kinds of info
on the image, and one of them is the URL. You could also copy that URL from
there."

At the moment I'm using a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Vista, Windows
Explorer browser (clicking on its properties reveals it to be created Sept.
2009). When I right-click on a piece image of the Diagram Designer, the
options I can choose to further click on unfortunately do not include View
Image or Copy Image or Copy Image Location, but the options available to me
do include "Copy" and "Properties". Clicking on Properties does reveal the
URL (the same one as if I had clicked on "Save to Favourites" instead of
"Properties", I suppose). 

I'm not sure using this URL (in the way you described in an earlier post)
would save me much time (if at all) compared to doing it my way (i.e. by
copying Diagram Designer HTML code for a piece on a 1x1 board), that is if
needing to over and over insert more than one piece image (of more than 1 piece type, even) to be shown into
a Chess Variant Pages webpage submission. However, doing it your way could
show a clean/nicer piece image, in that my way of doing it shows the 1x1
square board with a coordinate included (namely "a1", with the "a"
unfortunately partly not showing because the board is so small, I assume).
Perhaps the choice is a matter of taste?! In any case I may try doing it
the way you described at some point, H.G. Thanks for your advice.

[edit: I tried do it H.G.'s way just now when editing my old 4*Chess submission, but nothing appeared at all when I used quotes around the URL, or when I did not use quotes. I had followed H.G.'s earlier directions, unless I somehow went wrong (I may try H.G.'s method later if I can figure it out, pending any further thoughts); the directions posted earlier were:

"To get an image on a submitted page you would have to write 

< img src="URL"> 

in it, with URL the pasted URL."]

[2nd edit: I solved my problem using H.G.'s method (to show single piece images from the Diagram Designer in a submission) by using quotes around the URL & using uppercase for IMG SRC, in a test I carried out. The piece image I chose to test out (in a submission, temporarily modifying it by editing) was shown all by itself, underlined as in the Diagram Designer.
Note that I put this 2nd edit accidently in my 4*Chess submission thread too.]

To Carlos:

Now that I've read Game Courier user documentation, I am thinking of trying to play my first Game Courier online game, such as a game of Sac Chess against you, if you wish to play (say at this point in time). I've got a handful of questions though:

1) I can't yet figure out how the players agree to the time contol to be used within their chosen game that is to be played on Game Courier (unless that comes somehow after an invitation is accepted). A large pool of time to play a whole game, for example, would probably suit me best, if that is the sort of default used nowadays.

2) I can't tell (e.g. by your ongoing 3rd Sac Chess game vs. Fergus) what you used as the preset for online Sac Chess (i.e. playing with, or without, rule enforcement) - that's besides not being able to tell what time control is being used in your game. I know I have some issues viewing webpages on The Variant Pages because of my older browser (which I may switch later on), but I don't think that's a problem as far as my viewing Game Courier, generally speaking. In any case, I don't know which preset for Sac Chess has been tested so far, or which you think best to use in a game.

3) I'm not sure if I need (or want) to be put on the Gamesroom(?) player list for regular Game Courier players to be told of existing open invitations. For invitations issued to a single person, I suppose they would show up on the publicly viewable list including open invitations, or the person to whom the invitation is issued to would receive an email. I'm not sure who gets White, i.e. to move first, when any sort of invitation is issued as well, but I don't mind playing against either colour my opponent may want in my first few games. If you wish, you could send me an invitation to play Sac Chess when ready to play (you could also send an invitation for a game of Glinski's Hexagonal Chess to me if you wish, too).

Sincerely, Kevin

As a relative newbie, I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if a Pegasus piece image (e.g. in an Auto Alfairie set) stands for any sort of standard fairy chess piece? I'm not absolutely sure that it isn't a way used to represent a Nightrider. I was thinking of using the Pegasus symbol to represent a novel idea for a piece otherwise. A second question is: does the Unicorn symbol, when used for 2D variants, standardly represent a Banshee (i.e. Nightrider & Bishop compoiund), as stated on wikipedia? In that case, that's how I'd be thinking to use it, but I'm curious since 2D variants commonly show Unicorn symbols.

Tonight I spent quite a while generating a diagram for a 91 cell hexagonal starting position for a hypothetical variant, partly as a test to see if I could do so. I succeeded, but I eventually became so tired that I accidently closed the Diagram Designer window on my laptop... fortunately the FEN code was remembered by the Diagram Designer, so reconstructing the diagram won't take so long if I try.

Yes Fergus, I believe they move as you described in different terms than I did. I'll try to get around soon to adding diagrams for these two pieces, at the least, for further clarification.