Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

I have this page almost ready for potential publication, and I've hit some sort of wall. I can still edit the text just fine, but adding even one more icon pair causes membersubmission3.php to come up as a blank (pale yellow) screen.

Could the problem be too many tables, too many graphics icons, or just a glitch in the system?

(I hope it's not having too many icons on one page; if that's the case, I'll have to make it a multi-page project, and I don't know how many openings I still have for new pages.)

There is a character limit in the database software of 65,535. Your Pieces section (each section is saved as a separate field in the database) is currently 65,371 characters. (@Fergus, probably a useful error message getting printed by ms3 would be nice.)

This character count is of the source code, so shortening that may help. In particular, all of your images use the full path, and you'll save some characters by using a relative link instead (https://www.chessvariants.com/membergraphics/... to just /membergraphics/...). Not enough to get you total freedom, but probably enough to squeeze in a few more?

Oh, and it looks like we could potentially change the column type to a longer text type. @Fergus?

It sounds like, even with that change, I'll have to break up the information pages to more than one (though I'll still be keeping all the actual graphics here).

Thanks for the info, Ben, and the advice.

Addendum: After taking a good look (while changing the addresses for most of the graphics), I can see that it's going to need at lest three additional chapters. Hopefully, not more than that.

What you're calling Duniho should be called Motif. I made these pieces from Armando Marroquin's Chess Motif font. I do not know whether he designed them from scratch or based them on another source. Either way, I did not design them.

I'll change the listing, and while I can't change the filename here I can try changing it on my own computer and re-uploading.

Thanks for the note!

On another note: I did get Part 2 started, but I hit the "maximum open submissions" wall for doing Parts 3 and 4 (as well as the Vanguard Chess Game Courier link). I'll just keep at these two until a couple of spaces open up.

What is called "Cazaux" are icons I had designed more than 25 years ago. Several are ugly. I made important changes since, although about 20 years ago, for my books. An editor (I can't remember who) asked them from me few years ago, I gave them to him but he made nothing of them.

I wish that is changed one day, I don't like to see my name associated to these, it is not something I like.

If you or someone else wants the full set of my icons, contact me by e-mail and I will send them.

Your overview doesn't mention the 'Magnetic' and 'xboard' sets.

Note that Motif is available as SVG ( http://chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/svg/motif/ ), and Magnetic and xboard as well. It appears you have copied the Motif pieces that are not anti-aliased, and it should be possible to get much better images. Especially since it appears you are using converted images collected in your own directory, it seems advisable to convert the SVG rather than the deprecated GIF images.

Sets other than Alfaerie usually have separate images for the black pieces, rather than using the white ('outline') pieces with another fill color. Is there any reason that you don't use these? (Apart from the Utrecht black Bishop...)

I don't think it is a good idea to mention the Alfaerie Champion icon as a possible representation of RN. If you are going to show every icon corresponding to a name that was given to a piece moving in a particular way, things would completely get out of hand. Nowadays the name Champion is strongly associated with the Omega Chess WAD, and using it for RN would only cause confusion. Similarly, I would not use the Alferie Princess icon for a BN. Note that Utrecht has a (rather awkward) KnightBishop icon that on this website is often used for the BN. Is there really anyone that uses the Utrecht Angel icon for a QN? Utrecht does have a good icon for RN, which you omitted.

I don't really understand what's the point behind this if it is not in SVG. I made my own designs in PNG initially, and then manually converted them to SVG with appropriate changes.

Is Menn the plural of Mann? This is awful. Either you use Man/Men or Mann/Männer, or you leave it at singular Mann.

Mannen.

Männer

But one should of course not use the German name in English texts, anymore than that we say Springer for Knight or Fou for Bishop. So the correct spelling is Man/Men. I prefer the name Commoner, though.

OK, clearly the "Mann/Menn" pun fell flat. (Interlinguistic puns tend to do so, but I thought I'd try.) I'll make it Man/Men.

I don't really understand what's the point behind this if it is not in SVG. I made my own designs in PNG initially, and then manually converted them to SVG with appropriate changes.

I've tried batch-converting SVGs from some of these, and the results were disappointing at best and disastrous at worst. And doing that manually? There are over 500, and only a relative few are already available as SVG.

Note that Motif is available as SVG ( http://chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/svg/motif/ ), and Magnetic and xboard as well. It appears you have copied the Motif pieces that are not anti-aliased, and it should be possible to get much better images. Especially since it appears you are using converted images collected in your own directory, it seems advisable to convert the SVG rather than the deprecated GIF images.

I hadn't really looked at the Magnetic set; I tried converting the XBoard set from the GIFs, and the results were horrible. That said, I wasn't even aware that there were SVG images available here, other than the basic Alfaerie. I'll need to grab those, and make a whole new page for them.

(I'd replace the images here, but I've had issues with trying to replace files with new files of the same name; the old ones stay around for some reason. And no, flushing my cache, or even clearing it out completely, doesn't change things. Also, my facility for editing them into my own creations -- such as most of the QBRM table -- is, to say the least, quite lacking.)

I don't think it is a good idea to mention the Alfaerie Champion icon as a possible representation of RN. If you are going to show every icon corresponding to a name that was given to a piece moving in a particular way, things would completely get out of hand. Nowadays the name Champion is strongly associated with the Omega Chess WAD, and using it for RN would only cause confusion. Similarly, I would not use the Alferie Princess icon for a BN. Note that Utrecht has a (rather awkward) KnightBishop icon that on this website is often used for the BN. Is there really anyone that uses the Utrecht Angel icon for a QN? Utrecht does have a good icon for RN, which you omitted.

Right now I'm just putting all possibilities.

I need to find that Utrecht Knight-Bishop and Knight-Rook; I'm surprised that I don't have those in hand.

I prefer the name Commoner, though.

I haven't yet put up the listing of alternate names for the Man piece, which will go in the same section and also include Guard, Fool, and (though it lacks its own icon) Sage.

I wish that is changed one day, I don't like to see my name associated to these, it is not something I like.

I can remove them if you want, but several are quite useful and even well done. Your Elephant is one of the better ones of the set; the Queen and Pawn have an interesting look; the General and Governor are exquisite, and your Cardinal and Marshal almost as good; I want to use your Wizard to represent the Harvester; and (over in Part 2) your Lions hold up nicely to the others, and I prefer your Falcon and Griffin to the Alfaerie. Everything else is a decent alternative; in fact, I've seriously considered asking you to create some more to help fill things out (like Zebra, Bear, Okapi, and Centaur).

PS: Besides all that... have you seen the animals in the Utrecht set???

It is not as difficult and time-consuming as it seems to be. By doing the conversion process manually I referred to the correction of the final results. You can easily upload any image in Inkscape and then convert it to SVG automatically. Sometimes no other work in the application is required.

The usage of PNGs and GIFs for something that can be represented by vector graphics is obsolete, so I don't really understand how these graphics can be applied to something, especially in low resolution. Wikipedia cites and uses such an approach, and I think that all major chess websites switched their chess symbols to SVG.

H. G. Muller wrote:

Nowadays the name Champion is strongly associated with the Omega Chess WAD, and using it for RN would only cause confusion.

Indeed. In fact, David Howe designed the Champion image appearing on this page for Omega Chess, and he based it on the appearance of the Champion in that game. So, that image was never intended for the piece that Carrera called a Champion.

Also, I am the person who introduced the use of the name Paladin for the Knight-Bishop compound, and I did this in Cavalier Chess, for which I mainly used the Motif pieces. I have never used the Paladin image you displayed for this piece, and I expect that image was inspired by some other piece called a Paladin in some other game. My own use of the name was inspired by AD&D, in which Paladin is a character class combining fighting man and cleric. But Gary Gygax, who invented D&D, used the name Paladin for a different piece in Dragonchess.

Similarly, I would not use the Alferie Princess icon for a BN.

Appearing as a diminutive Queen, this image was probably intended for a game in which a Princess is some weaker version of a Queen. For example, Knightmare Chess has a card introducing a Princess piece that moves as a Queen up to two spaces. The piece called a Princess in Fairy Chess literature is normally represented by combining the Knight and Bishop images together.

Is there really anyone that uses the Utrecht Angel icon for a QN?

I'm not even familiar with any game that calls this piece an Angel.

Is there really anyone that uses the Utrecht Angel icon for a QN?

I'm not even familiar with any game that calls this piece an Angel.

https://www.chessvariants.com/link/angel-chess

(Huh, that page contains Ed's java applet of the game as a Related link, but not vice versa...??)

You can easily upload any image in Inkscape and then convert it to SVG automatically. Sometimes no other work in the application is required.

Yeah... not so much. I've tried exactly that with several images. The results range from disappointing to ridiculous.

..., but I've had issues with trying to replace files with new files of the same name; the old ones stay around for some reason. And no, flushing my cache, or even clearing it out completely, doesn't change things.

The problem is that we access the CVP website through CloudFlare, which is another level of caching, which users cannot flush. They can bypass it, though, by appending '?nocache=true' to the URL of the image. But in any case this should not stop you from making the replacement; eventually things disappear even from the CloudFlare cache.

I wasn't even aware that there were SVG images available here, other than the basic Alfaerie.

Almost all 'chess fonts' are available as SVG (e.g. from the PyChess GitHub page); XBoard natively also uses SVG for the pieces. Most fonts only feature the 6 orthodox pieces, though, in a white and black version. XBoard supports many fairy pieces, though (66 icons in total), and for Motif and Magnetic Fergus created some combination icons. I did convert all Utrecht icons I encountered to SVG. But since Utrecht was a font intended for rendering at 35x35, the images are often ugly.

I need to find that Utrecht Knight-Bishop and Knight-Rook; I'm surprised that I don't have those in hand.

50x50 PNG renderings of the SVG are available at https://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/utrechtPNG/ .

My collection is actually much broader with many more pieces. All those I don't like were corrected. Basically, there are the pieces used in my book A World of Chess. I'll be glad to send the zip to anyone, especially if an editor could update that resource on the CVP.

I did grab all of the SVG images I could find, and they will be Part 5 (or maybe a separate collection unto themselves).

I can find the Utrecht images; I just neglected to download those two (and a few others as well).

As for pieces that aren't in any of the SVG collections, I'll discuss on the page they're going on when I create it.

But thanks for the information on the caching; there are too many to put that tag on every one, but at least I know that the replacement doable. (I really screwed up on the Utrecht black bishop, for one thing.)

My collection is actually much broader with many more pieces. All those I don't like were corrected. Basically, there are the pieces used in my book A World of Chess. I'll be glad to send the zip to anyone, especially if an editor could update that resource on the CVP.

I'll take that! If you don't already have my email, contact me on Thingiverse for it.

I've just sent a zip with almost 400 icons to you. Enjoy.

I would like to find a way to propose them on CVP in place of the (quite) old so-called Cazaux icons.

There is an alternative German plural to Mann, it is Mann/Mannen with an archaic flavour and a restriction in meaning, it is a soldier or a servant of the king only, but not any male human being.