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Visualize move, protection and threat status in chess

by _ology on 9/3/15, 8:20 PM with 11 comments

  • by marcusbrown on 9/4/15, 1:37 AM

    Cool!

    I've been thinking to make the exact same thing in Javascript using Chess.js and Chessboard.js

    https://github.com/jhlywa/chess.js/blob/master/README.md http://chessboardjs.com/

    I got a half-working version and will opensource the code once it's ready.

    I think it could be a nice tool to help people starting with the game, but also as an analysis tool for more advanced players.

    [Edit] I just uploaded what I did so far on a server, just in case you want to take a look

    http://www.hotpixel.mx/chess/index.html

    my idea is to use little icons (now really terrible looking) with numbers and playing with opacity to give an idea of the strength for each square of the board. I still have some problems in some cases displaying incorrect numbers, but I hope to fix that as soon as I have some spare time :)

  • by fjarlq on 9/4/15, 1:32 AM

    Cool, good idea!

    I have a couple bits of cosmetic feedback for you:

    I would like the chess pieces to appear much larger within each of their squares, ala http://www.365chess.com/opening.php

    Also, the green border around protected cells is difficult for me to discern. (Might be due to my colorblindness.)

  • by blevinstein on 9/4/15, 6:28 AM

    This is neat!

    I was working on something similar recently: https://github.com/blevinstein/chess_assistant/blob/master/s...

    I had been thinking about ways to analyze the graph of "threats", so I focused on which pieces were threatening which. I wanted to eventually extend this to also include which pieces were threatening which squares, but never got that far.

  • by MrQuincle on 9/5/15, 7:55 AM

    Would be nice if there was also an "advanced" mode. Only highlight pieces that have less defenders than attackers. And highlight pins.

    And I assume even more advanced modes highlight perhaps central squares that might be obtained and which open lines. See https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Strategy/Open_lines for a nice example.

  • by hemapani on 9/4/15, 2:44 AM

    Very cool idea? Do you have a demo or write up about how it works? also would like to know how one can use it.