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Shatranj. The widely played Arabian predecessor of modern chess. (8x8, Cells: 64) (Recognized!)[All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]
Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 04:12 AM UTC:

The text by the diagrams looks weird when it reflows so that just one line comes below the images.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 02:54 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 01:13 AM:

Through trial and error I placed a polygon and a circle ahead of the drawing of the Pawn. While it's not a perfect outline of the Pawn, it covers all the interior parts, which is good enough. So, now the Pawn is finally free of bleed-through.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 01:13 AM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 12:26 AM:

For the Pawn, I took your new Pawn and changed the fill color from #ffffff to #f9f9f9 to make it recolorable, and it is now working without bleed-through. Thanks.

Sorry, no, it's not. I need to get the outline shape of the Pawn and put it ahead of the main drawing of the Pawn in the SVG.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 12:26 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 12:06 AM:

Ok, I don't know how exactly you need them set up to be recolorable. What I did in the latest ones was insert white sections exactly corresponding to the gaps. That might be as far as I know how to go with this.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Wed, Mar 8, 2023 12:06 AM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from Tue Mar 7 10:43 PM:

They appeared to have no bleed-through, but they wouldn't recolor. So, I went ahead with what was working. Taking a variation on your suggestion, I was isolating the part of the path that drew the outline and placing it before the path that drew the image with a color of #f9f9f9. This worked for most pieces. For the Ferz, I couldn't isolate the path due to it relying on m rather than M too much, as it is easier to isolate segments of a path when it is using absolute values. I tried the same thing with the Pawn, but it didn't work. Instead of drawing an outline and carving out sections, it was drawing the right side as a single path then drawing the left side as a single path. So, I couldn't isolate any part of the path for drawing the outline. At this point, every piece is recoloring without bleed-through except for the Pawn.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 10:43 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 09:08 PM:

How are these?


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 09:08 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 08:22 PM:

You could try copying the black pieces behind the white ones to provide the fill color.

No, that's a kludge I would rather avoid.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 08:22 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 06:51 PM:

You could try copying the black pieces behind the white ones to provide the fill color.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 06:51 PM UTC:

It looks like I didn't edit them perfectly. The background color is bleeding through in parts of each piece image.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 06:17 PM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from 10:12 AM:

Since there are two sets of svg images of the Alfonso-X pieces, I downloaded both and compared them. The PyChess files were much larger, and they wouldn't display in Edge or load in Inkscape. The other images came in both black and white, but I needed only the white pieces. But these didn't have a fill color, which would have made recoloring them impossible. I fixed that by loading each one into Inkscape and adding a fill color in the appropriate places. Finally, I had to manually edit some to correct an error that had crept up in using Inkscape. Now that that's all done, I have a set of SVG images for the Alfonso-X set that work with Game Courier or the Diagram Designer and can be recolored. Thanks for the help.


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, Mar 7, 2023 10:12 AM UTC:

A wide variety of piece themes is available as SVG from the PyChess project at github:

https://github.com/pychess/pychess/tree/master/pieces

AlfonsoX is also amongest those.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Mar 6, 2023 09:25 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 12:05 PM:

here it is


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Mar 6, 2023 09:14 PM UTC in reply to Jean-Louis Cazaux from 07:41 PM:

Thanks for the correction. I suppose I was thinking 13th century and then misapplied the number 13.


Jean-Louis Cazaux wrote on Mon, Mar 6, 2023 07:41 PM UTC:

Alfonso X was king of Castile from 1252 to 1284. The sentence saying he was king in the 1300s should be corrected.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Mon, Mar 6, 2023 12:05 PM UTC in reply to Daniel Zacharias from 03:48 AM:

While signed in, go to your personal information page and select Upload or Manage Files from the Edit menu. If it hasn't yet been programmed to accept svg files, put them into a zip file and upload that. I'll then move them to an appropriate location.


Daniel Zacharias wrote on Mon, Mar 6, 2023 03:48 AM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from Sun Mar 5 11:13 PM:

I tried making some SVGs from the Alfonso-X font. Is there somewhere to upload them here?


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 5, 2023 11:51 PM UTC in reply to Fergus Duniho from 11:13 PM:

In making the diagram below, I discovered a quick and easy method for making bitmap piece images. By printing the black pieces in outline, I can get pieces like the white ones in the diagram, which are anti-aliased to the piece color inside and to a neutral background color (#808080) outside. So, I've already made and uploaded a set of GIFs to use.


🕸📝Fergus Duniho wrote on Sun, Mar 5, 2023 11:13 PM UTC:

Is anyone interested in making an SVG piece set out of the Chess Alfonso-X font? I would like to use them in a redesign of this page with a diagram looking something like this, which I just did in Ultimate Paint, as well as with pieces images.

Shatranj diagram with Alfonso-X pieces

Alternately, is there anything that would be more authentic for Shatranj?


H. G. Muller wrote on Tue, May 4, 2021 11:37 AM UTC in reply to x x from 11:14 AM:

Oops, I wrote the Q in the move field, instead of the id field, where I had intended it. Thanks for spotting this!


x x wrote on Tue, May 4, 2021 11:14 AM UTC in reply to H. G. Muller from Mon May 3 05:25 PM:

General moves like queen in the Interactive diagram


H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, May 3, 2021 05:25 PM UTC:
satellite=shat promoZone=1 promoChoice=Q graphicsDir=http://www.chessvariants.com/graphics.dir/small/ whitePrefix=W blackPrefix=B graphicsType=gif squareSize=35 darkShade=#FFFFFF symmetry=mirror stalemate=win baring=0 Pawn::fmWfcF:Pawn:a2-h2 Ferz:Q::General:e1 Elephant:B:A:Elephant:c1,f1 Knight:N:::b1,g1 Rook::::a1,h1 King::K::d1

Shatranj


    Todor Tchervenkov wrote on Sat, May 2, 2020 03:17 PM UTC:

    I knew the rules of Shatranj for a few years but had never attempted an actual game. But these days I'm again delving into historic Chess variants. My primary goal is to find a few sample games of Shatranj which would hopefully let me understand why the game was appreciated (for me it is just impossible to play it: I fill lost when I open it in Zillions, I don't know where to go, what short term goals to pursue).

    While searching for sample games, I discovered the astonishing lack of historic recorded games of Shatranj. I found but two, dating back to the Xth century. It turns out that apparently Shatranj was never played from the initial setup. Players would agree on a standartized position -- which could be called an opening in modern terms -- and would use it as actual setup. I found sixteen examples of such openings but without an analysis of their strengths and weakness it is still difficult to use them. One can still admire their poetic names.

    In my opinion, we see Shatranj as a poor, uninteresting game just because we don't know enough about it. It would be so nice if somebody could provide us with the analysis of As-Suli, mentioned by George Duke back in 2008 in the first comment to this page. Perhaps more knowledge of the actual way this game was played would allow us to better appreciate it, since initial setup, piece movement and winning conditions don't seem to be enough?


    Kevin Pacey wrote on Thu, Mar 1, 2018 07:22 AM UTC:Good ★★★★

    A poorish game by modern standards, especially due to the alfil pieces, but modern chess is indebted to this historic early version of it.

    Here's a 10x10 Shatranj-style variant with 4 Kings per side:

    4 Kings Quasi-Shatranj


    Anonymous wrote on Tue, Apr 3, 2012 03:03 PM UTC:Poor ★
    because i didnn't play a lot.

    George Duke wrote on Mon, Nov 1, 2010 04:04 PM UTC:
    Mohsen's ''English authoritative sources of Chess history'' are still led by 100-year-old Murray 'A History of Chess'. That is unfortunate because Murray's style is not fluid. Yet the other chess historians do not deserve mention on the same level because of far less content than Murray's. How about etymology of ''King'' through Persia or Arabia? 
    http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=20318.
    Also HORSE is already prevalent English name for the chess piece hippogonally jumping.  In English there ought to be non-humanistic names for all six chess pieces.  Metals could be used, or animals, or birds. Here is a chart of equivalences: 
    http://www.chessvariants.org/index/displaycomment.php?commentid=18698. Metals have Pawn-Silver, Horse-Iron, Bishop-Mercury, King-Tin, Queen-Copper, Tower-Lead.    Then player promotes his Silver to Copper, rather than Iron Horse, and starts with cornered Leads, who move orthogonally. There is correspondence to Gilmanesque organization in Silver obviously being one Shogi-style pawn-type, and like Tin King, who may be imagined tinpot dictator or 'Wizard of Oz' tinman aspiring for a heart. Just ''Tin'' impartially takes the sting out of it all. Tin check.

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