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KGS Wishlist
Keywords: Clubs & Places, Software
The following are features and requests KGS users hope can one day be implemented in the server or client software.
wms has constraints on his time and is less able to extend KGS[81], but nonetheless, we may dream.
To see exactly what wms is working on right now, you can look at the KGS Status page. For more long term plans of wms, see KGS Plans. If I (wms) like an idea enough to decide that I will definitely implement it eventually (or if it is implemented already!), I will erase the entry here and add an entry to the status or plans page. So if I delete your entry, don't be mad! Just check those pages, it probably means that I really liked your idea. I will never remove an idea here because I do not like it.
To point out a bug instead of a wish, go to KGS Bugs.
Please enter your comments at the bottom of the appropriate section. Don't worry too much about if it's in the right place - if it isn't, someone will move it there.
If you just used KGS for the first time this page may be quite confusing to you. Your experience, however, is very valuable and you can help improve KGS by adding it to KGS First Time User Experience.
Agreeing and disagreeing (plus and minus signs): See Discussion.
Please see the FAQ before adding new content.
Table of Contents
- [1] Social
- [11] Logging In
- [12] General User Handling
- [13] Chat handling/room use
- [14] Handling Nasties
- [15] Design Discussion: Should Games be arranged by Chat?
- [16] New User's First Login
- [2] Game Handling
- [21] General Game Stuff
- [22] Editing
- [23] Score Estimator
- [24] Rule Systems/Time systems
- [25] Ratings
- [26] Game Start
- [27] Game End
- [3] File Handling/Database Use
- [31] User Info
- [32] Game info
- [33] Game File Format and Saving
- [4] General UI and Design Issues
- [7] KGS Web Pages
- [8] Technical/Other/Dunnos
- [81] Development Fundamentals
- [82] Connection and Responsiveness
- [83] Other Technical Issues
- [9] Discussion of this Page
- [91] Voting
- [92] Categorization
- [93] Deprecated subjects
[1] Social
[11] Logging In
[12] General User Handling
- Being able to store your own personal notes about players. Stored locally, and kept private, just as a way to remember who's who. Not a public database (this may be illegal in some countries). Suggested that these notes be stored on the user's machine, not on the server +
- Implement user defined ranks for people who don't want to use the ranking system. Con: game list should show this up eventually, and game notes work fine until then.-
- Room chats include rank beside handles, as in game chats.
- Context menu on right-click of handle in chat window. Also suggested upon right clicking anywhere on the chat. +
- In user info and private chatbox, simple way to observe user's current game.++++
- Short user-defined messages when private chat initiated, brb, afk, out to lunch.... ++++
- Buddy list in true separate pane locked on top or separate scroll bar? ++
- Keep buddy and censor data saved on server. wms ponders all preference data saved server side. Fonts might be one good preference to save client-side due to different resolution screens, other data should be considered carefully before going server-side as well. +
- Trailing option to be notified when selected individuals start a game. Intigrate with game/request search feature mentioned in [32]?
- Some IRC style slash commands? eg: /who <nick> faster than going through menus
[13] Chat handling/room use
- Sort rooms by current members.
- Hu: Semi-public rooms that anyone can join, but the room owner can exclude people individually.
- (Much) bigger history buffer for the chat windows. Make it configurable?
- Timestamp on private chat window to show when the chat was initiated.+++
- Less annoying chat bell. Ability to set a user-defined wav/mps file for this; volume control.+
- Tabbed boards, inserted alongside room tabs
- Default room focus to last selected room at log-off and upon closing chat tab
- Leave message button on player info screen and in private chat screen when player has disconnected.++?
- Insert last 10-20 chats in a room when joining that room.
- Preference setting to block private chats while you're playing a game. ++
- Confirmation that messages left for others were successfully sent. Ability to save and view messages sent to others.+
- Ability to lock the chat box buffer window to review the buffer. ie: stop it from jumping to the bottom with every new chat.++++
- IRC ish rooms, including chanops and chat modes eg: +m (moderated). +
- Ability to close the chat-window on a board; perhaps better to be able to size it within a range the user prefers. wms says the size of the chat window is dictated by the size of the other elements, and that there's no reason to shrink the chat window (can't be bigger), except the annoyance of seeing chats; since this annoys a small minority only, will not be changed.
- Bold user handles in chats.
- Optimize tab order to minimize rows of tabs; allow manual ordering of tabs. +
- A simple way to implement a buddy 'pounce' would be to color code the chat tabs with a light-ish color that signifies 'online'. This would mean three total colors, grey, 'blue' for new text, and probably a very light blue for 'available'. This way you could leave chat open with all your friends, and see who's online by scanning colors. (not sure what this means, not summarized in WME...help.)
- mgoetze: Ability to see who is the owner of a room.
- Option to see joins/quits in selected chat rooms.
- When trying to find a user - ability to query server for a name that start with "XYZ" and who is a stronger then Ak and weaker than Bk. Ability to recognize shortcuts like "*"
- Timestamp on every message in chat rooms, PMs, and game records. Game record timestamp doesn't need to be saved to the SGF, it should be a client side feature.
(Sebastian: [1301]) Improve Talk To - part 1: current bug. Currently: If A talks to B, and B has a game request open, then A's "Chat with B" window displays next to B's name: "(Playing a game)". This is misleading, since this situation is, contrary to being in a game, one that begs for talking with each other. Proposed changes: Either leave out the note when B is not actually playing or change it to "B is challenging such and such game". Optional: Direct link to that challenge.
(Sebastian:) Improve Talk To - part 2: further wish. Proposed: If A talks to B, and B is currently in a (timed and rated) game, then pop up a message for A: "B is currently playing in a (timed and rated) game. Please choose between one of the following:
- Postpone alert till right after the game is finished (default).
- This is urgent, send right away.
- Send this text as message instead. B will receive the message right after the game is finished.
- Cancel.
[14] Handling Nasties
- Tags for guests and people with a lot of unfinished games. Autodetect of sandbaggers somehow.+
- Most importantly, differentiate people who lose rank from escaping from people who choose not to be ranked.
- Noplay option seperate from censor option.
- Don't allow guests to chat/option to censor all guests. wms is dead set against the former option, and may be against the latter as well.
- Allow unfinished free games to be cancelled if someone leaves. Possibly any other non-rated games as well. +
- Ability to ping users to see if someone has network problems or is just not responding.+
- Ban people I've censored from talking in my games at all. This way when I go back and read later I won't have to read irritating comments from irritating people.
- Make it possible to find an admin without going room-hopping.
- When a censored commentator speaks during a game, do not display the move number unnecessarily.
- Against escapers: never close a game when it is unfinished. To resume a game later you will have to make a compromise with your opponent.. by hitting a button like resume. (just like undo). when someone has network problems and is kicked of the server well then you probably have to put the game in the resume. Don't think many escapers will close internet to escape from a game. It's now too easy to escape.. --> close the window and hit ok
- (Sebastian:) This is too severe, IMHO. But it leads to a good idea: How about handling close like an undo request: Display a message "Your opponent wants to close the game. What do you want to do: Close and forget; Postpone; Ask opponent to resign"
- If you cancel during scoring, add 30 seconds to opponent's time. This is to prevent abusing the cancel button during scoring to force opponent to lose on time. Also, an upper limit on the number of times you can cancel during scoring.
- When looking at a player's profile, show total number of games, unfinished games and percentage of games played against equal and weaker players. Quick reference so one does not need to search the game list. Players become a better judge of the opponent being worthy instead of the 10% rule and the tilde system. +
- Better system to encourage playing of ? ranked accounts. May not be an issue but I'm seeing alot of "No ?" in the game requests.
- (Sebastian:) IMHO the worst experiences are with guests, because guest accounts are perfect for rude people. Many players want to avoid bad experiences, and therefore they just don't play anyone marked "?". The proposed "G" mark[2501] could help here and encourage people to switch from guest accounts to permanent accounts.Conversely, the current stigma on "?" accounts forces people to play rated 19x19 games (even if they would prefer to play small games, e.g. because they are beginners).
[15] Design Discussion: Should Games be arranged by Chat?
- Symbol to show player involved in a game in user list. However, may encourage people to arrange games by private chat. ("Game?").+
- Ability to see if a person is playing/observing a game and where, unless the person forbids being tracked.++
- Automatically see person's status by typeface/icons. This is against the design of KGS, for various very consciously decided upon reasons wms went into.
- Don't put (Playing a game) in private chat windows when a person has placed an offer, but is not actually playing yet. (Waiting for a game), perhaps, (Challenging such and such a game). Direct link to said challenge?
- Notification when a chat is sent to a person in a game, and options to postpone sending chat, don't send it, or send it anyways
[16] New Users
- I thought that maybe it would be useful if when a new user logs in for the first time he/she would get a popup that would give them quick instructions as to how to set up a game and what K and D are; A quick tutorial if you will. As anyone who spends time in the English room knows, we get at least a dozen questions like that an hour. I know there are help files, but most people are too lazy/unwilling to actually open them.
- wms: As you point out, people don't read help. People don't read popups either if they are too long. The longer the popup, the less likely people are to read it. Right now, when a newbie comes, their popup tells them how to register. I don't want to make it longer - as it is, lots don't read it. so I'd have to get rid of that info to add the "what is k/what is d" info, and I'd have to say that registration instructions are more important that info on what k/d are. :-(
Drimgere
[2] Game Handling
[21] General Game Stuff
- Put players at top of observer list and perhaps separate them with a thick line. ++
- Immediately join an open game you were playing upon reconnection when you've been disconnected.+++
- A checkbox in New Game / Create Game windows that disables / enables Undo's +
- Remember what type of game was last offered, just like the time and board-size is remembered? That avoids the situation of setting up a free 19x19, then canceling to change the 'Note' and re-offering, ending up offering a rated game.+
- Default to 'free' if your remembered board-size is non-19x19, or if you select that in the dialog?
- Uneven (asymmetrical) time limits, i.e. 1 hour for Black vs. 5 minutes for White. Don't know how you'd have a rated game with such a handicapping system, but would be fun for Free games or Simultaneous games.
- Sebastian: Workaround: Give your opponent additional time at the beginning.
- Allow to add custom time (Ex.: add 20 min)
- When observing a game, make the panes for the observers list and chat box adjustable
- Make "menu" pane optional, so allow more space for the board+
- Add an extra column in the list of currently played and offered games, to show the available time and the time system. To avoid a clobbered game listing, perhaps show this info in a "tooltip" when the mouse hovers over the listing? Some mention of this is/was in KGS Plans.
- Indication of response time experienced by your opponent.
- Don't mark current move with a circle in the SGF file, or have it as an option or preference option.
- Slider-bar navigation of moves.
- Replay option for client+. Wish granted for release 2.5.4.
- Some way for players to agree to delete their unfinished game. After an extended time has elapsed, people often have no interest in finishing a game from when they were many stones weaker.++
- Do not allow opponent to ask for undo multiple times for the same move. (wms notes that the solution is to minimize the undo request window and ignore it. It will remain blocking further requests until you make your next move.)+
- Do not restart clock after an undo in the scoring phase. This can be disconcerting in cases of dispute over old "special ruling" cases. Besides, the game ended by agreement, already.
- holosys: When observing a game, allow user to select the level of chat they want to see - all chat, player-only chat or no chat. Would help immensely for studying without the distraction of idle chit-chat, and avoid having to use the current kludges of positioning the chat off the screen, covering it up with another window or censoring/uncensoring heaps of users.++
- Hu: Would like "New Game" button on the "Open Games" tab.
- Hu: Would like option to display all Global games, offered and played in the Open Games tab, which would be renamed "Global Games". Then I could stack the Global Games tab, and move all room window chat divider bars to the top.
- Open Games tab needs option to sort by game type (rated, free, teaching).
- Open Games tab needs highlight with rank mask. Ie. "highlight when a challenge by 1-10k appears".
- eng60340: label the games with a unique ID (and allow sorthing via ID). so that when i ask for game advice, the advisers can locate the game quickly.
- If "seeking a game request" window is open with specific conditions indicated therein, and one is interested to find out that are the game conditions asked by a fellow player who also has an "seeking a game request" window open, one should be able to do so instead of an error message stating that "you are already playing a game.."+
- (Sebastian:) Absolutely! I would go even further and question if there ever is a reason why somebody who has a challenge open should be treated as playing a game. Another consequence of this is that, when you want to chat you get the message "x is currently playing" (see [1301]).
- wms: Please see KGS Status. I'm already beginning to fix this. By the way, the window is called the "Challenge Window" (because it is where you challenge other players to a game). It isn't labeled that, so you can call it anything you like, but it took me a while to figure out what the "seeking a game request" window was, and it's easier if everybody uses the same terms. :-)
- Joshual000 A feature I think would be nice is allowing a user with a currently open game to open a challenge window from the game list for the purpose of watching the game. The buttons could be disabled, etc.. (I often like to watch several games while I play - if a player from a different room currently has an open challenge, and I'd like to watch, but am playing a game I currently need to: open the room they hail from, locate their game on the list and click (or find them on the user list)) Currently much easier to keep many rooms open to allow for watching games.
- One color Go game type. Perhaps so that only the ones playing sees it that way and the observers see the real colors.
[22] Editing
- Allow giving away ownership or control of a demo (including review), so a starter can leave. ++
- Display of current move number and move you are looking at. [This is how it is now, is it not?]
- Edit window to become a permanent part of the main board window, switching back and forth is cumbersome. Dockable? Pop it up paired with the game board to second from the top? ++ Alternately, a way to visualize moves in the tree without deploying the edit window (e.g. display the current branch and a list of the coordinates of the child branch moves, or perhaps ghosted stones like gGo). It would be nice to be able to disable the "look ahead" for working on problems.
- Have undos delete moves, at least in demonstration mode. +++
- Hu: A clue in the commentaries to distinguish between those made during the game and those made after. Perhaps a dashed line separating before and after commentaries.
- Some way of distinguishing, in the comments/chat, what branch the comment/chat appears in. For instance, instead of labelling all 10th moves as "Move 10", label them "Move 10", "Move 10 (a)" and so forth.
- When saving SGF, add sequential numbers for all comments so they can be made sense of (followed through the file?), store comments with the move where typing started, not where the user hit enter. [This would seem to require extending the SGF format. It is unlikely all interested parties would agree.]
- Being able to clean up all comments from the game. This is especially useful for further reviewing (submitting to GTL, for example), or when one wishes to look at high dan game w/o all the noise. Similar functionality as
http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/sgfc/ +
- Another version of cleaning up final SGF: consolidate entire game to get rid of all undos and make one continuous string of moves. +
- At least make undos a variation rather than the main line (as they are today) in the SGF ++
- wms: The variations are all in chronological order. Undos are first because they happened first. I don't plan on changing that, more likely would be changing the editor to detect undos and automatically make the second variation the default one.
- dnerra: Please note that the way you are doing it is incompatible with the "official style guide" for SGF. See first paragraph in
http://www.red-bean.com/sgf/user_guide/#style. I don't think it is reasonable to expect SGF readers to automatically detect undo's, given this clear recommendation.
- Yet another suggestion for cleaning up the SGF: add a mode that steps through the game (including variations) as was done during the game. I.e. if a teacher started on the main branch with moves 1,2,3 and then jumped to another branch with move 4(a) and 5(a), then came back to main branch move 4, allow the user to automatically traverse the game through moves 1,2,3,4a,5a,4 without the user needing to work out the timings of the thing by looking at the comments.
- wms: This is not possible with SGF as it stands. This belongs more in the SGF Wishlist I think.
- (Sebastian:): Actually, this is possible with SGF because SGF explicitly allows the introduction of new properties. However, it doesn't even have to be done using SGF. I proposed a feature earlier to include sequential numbers in the comment text itself to clean up the current confusion with text that has been added during review of the game. (This was something like "{#123}". Unfortunately, that wish seems to have been lost during the major rewrites of last month.)
- Full FF[4] capabilities in the editor; area, line, and arrow modes added to the edit window (or the conjoined docked editing box). For an example of what this looks like see
http://jeanfrancois.menon.free.fr/rubygo/screenshots.html and go halfway down the page til you see the screen where these tools are used. +
- Integration with SL: markup (such as [[ and ]]) that would allow making a clickable link to SL.
- Include game type (Free/Rated/etc.) in the SGF file, even if just as part of a comment entry.
- Ability to change between the 8 possible orientations of a game to help compare openings. (Four rotations multiplied by a reflection of each make eight. 16 if you count reversed Black and White, as would be useful.)
- Ability to rotate the board in the middle of a game. +
- Hu: Ability to Exchange Black and White, useful for joseki study.
- Possibility to turn the "number moves" feature on for whole branches of a sgf-file. (with or without all subbranches, from a node along the active game branch etc.)
- Expand and reduce variation-branches (explorer like: with a small "+" or "-" in front of each node with brach connections.)
- Additional cut and paste features:
- Cut or copy a branch from one file and put it into another open SGF file (clipboard).
- Aa possibility to copy part of a board. Mark several stones or mark a specific area of the board, nice for the preparation of Go problems from games.
[23] Score Estimator
- Possibility to help the score estimator by manually specifying which stones are dead and which are alive (click to switch their status) where appropriate. wms isn't making any changes to the score estimator code any time soon; someone else wrote it.
- Option when reviewing editing SGF files: to have Score Estimate window available and updated on every move, irregardless of its inherent limitations to be used as a guide in this way. (see ScoringEstimatorConsideredHarmful).
- Allow use of score estimator in Free games.+
- Jochie: The score estimator seems to go into deep recursion or some endless loop on the end position of my
recent game against AndresD on KGS. While I can understand wms's wish to not touch the code, I hope he'll glance at this one and see if it's something easy/obvious.
- The score estimator seems to be confused by sekis. I think he counts the groups as dead thus leading to a false result. An example is
this game: Altough white won with 17.5 points, score est. thinks black will win with 30.5 points.
[24] Rule Systems / Time systems
- Eggtimer (aka hourglass) time: An initial amount of time is specified and a player loses if the difference between the player's time and the opponents time exceeds that amount. +
- Hu: Wild mode (W): An even game where the server makes the first three moves for each player randomly anywhere on third line or above. The players then continue playing from that position. See Wild Fuseki.
- rubilia: Default komi for game offers with New Zealand rules now is correct, but when changing a different ruleset offer to NZ rules for a challenge, the komi doesn't seem to be adjusted.
- Neil: Let me override the default compensation for the ruleset I choose. My observations show that the 7.5 default for Chinese rules is very, very unpopular, with most players dropping it to 5.5 (or even avoiding the game altogether). Being able to set this to 6.5 would be nice.
Someone else is going to ask for an auction, but I don't agree with that.
[25] Ratings
- Show equivalent ranks in other systems, eg: AGA, BGA, etc, as well as KGS rank.
- mgoetze: I don't believe there is a simple formula for this, and if it were implemented it would be more misleading than anything else. +
- It would be nice to see statistics about how many people of a particular rank are playing at any given time. Maybe a graph? ++
- Weight ratings according to length of game and number of moves for fear ratings are distorted by blitz players. wms found that, irregardless of what seems logical, lowering weight of blitz games made the system less accurate. Perhaps seperating ratings into blitz/non-blitz ranks instead?Ratings are being distorted by blitz games (example: two seconds per move). Games won on time, which is common for experienced blitz players with fast internet connections and supple wrists, do not reflect true strength.
- Hu: Change the "9d?" rating that gets awarded players who win a lot of games to something like "9d+". ++
- Rewrite the ratings algorithm for ? ranked players, or perhaps cap their ratings until the ? is gone in order to avoid the accelerated drift ? ranked people can experience.
- Revert [xx?] ratings to [?] if their last rated game is unfinished (examples: BabyApple, redmage).
- Show days with rated games played as a dot on the graph, colour code for won/lost, to help show if the rating was earned actively or by drift. +
- Display rank curve differently where questionable (rank with question mark). (This doesn't have to be as fancy as in some other servers which show error margins. Just using a different color should suffice.) +
(WME note: Leaving the following alone, numbers scare me. -TJ)
- Sebastian: Try to minimize rank drift during a hiatus and sudden jumps when users resume playing rated games after a hiatus. This can be achieved by the following:
When computing Rank_A at time t, do not use the current Rank_B(t), but a weighted average such as
Rank_B_Avg := w(t-t0) * Rank_B(t) + (1-w(t-t0)) * Rank_B(t0)
where
- t0 < t
- is the time when the game was played
- w(delta_t) !
- = exp (-delta_t/t_halflife*log(2)):is a weighting function. On second thought, maybe it shouldn't even be time-dependent. A constant, such as 1/2, might just do as well. IT would reduce such complaints as "I won a game and my rank went down". It's your call.
- t_halflife
- is a time constant, probably best something like 60 days
(I assume that if Rank_B(t0) is not available (e.g. because the player had a question mark) you already just reduce the overall weight factor for that game.)
- mgoetze: I don't see how this fits in with the current rating algorithm.
- Cheyenne: Get rid of the ~ tag (tilde) and replace it with a user rating defined ranking. When a game is finished, allow the players to optionally indicate if the game was helpful to them (put the question right on the same pop up that shows the "game done" and final score). Each player gets to make the selection and it is stored as part of the game record (doesn't have to be included in the SGF file). There would be two flags (one for each player). Then when processing one's rank, use the flag to determine how many games one has that the opponent marked as helpful. If a certain percentage of games are marked as helpful then give that person a "gold star" next to their name. +
- wms: While this gold star system might be nice, I don't see it replacing the ~ because it is fundamentally different. If it were added, instead it would have to sit alongside the ~. The ~ was added because many strong players who would play weaker players complained that it was too hard for them to determine whether or not the weaker players they played were returning the favor (by playing yet weaker players). The gold star scheme seems more like a "who's a nice guy" thing, it isn't tied to playing weaker players, which was the reason for adding the ~.
- Cheyenne: Understand. Just trying to eliminate the situation of having a stigma flag (I have seen where a weaker player refused a game from a stronger player because the stronger player had the ~). How about only showing the ~ if the opponent is stronger? +
- Cheyenne: Also keep the idea of having "gold star" as a separate request (apart from the ~ issue) +
- Sebastian: How about combining both ideas? Give special stars and lemons +:
- "gave me nice feedback" from weaker players; +
- "was polite" from any players; +
- "escaped" from any registered players, or so ... +
- mgoetze: Quoth KGS Plans: Add icons next to names in name list. What do those icons indicate? Many different ideas, not sure yet what ones will actually be there.
- bocephus For those who are interested in avoiding the '~', give some mechanism to display a metric on how close (or far), one is from getting this award. Also, maybe technical detail in one place (i.e., free/rated, game size, [?]/[x?] players) on how the adjustments are made. [All game types and sizes apply and you can also reduce tilde scoring by playing newly registered players or provisionally ranked players.]
- Bass If the game is not recorded (resign as first move), do not reduce "stigma counter"
- don't show temporary ranks ("xx?"). They are most of the time wrong and misleading, in particuliar for beginners (sensen)
- DragnSlayr [2501] Show guest ranks as a G and not a ?. This would make it easyer for newly register players to get a game I think.
- (Sebastian:) Allow rated games of any size. (Well, at least 6x6). Use a weighing factor proportional to the size. It just doesn't make sense that you don't get a rating as a beginner when you play as recommended. This would be an important incentive for those newbies who currently play only guest accounts because they wouldn't get ratings anyway, to switch to a real account.
- wms: Not a bad idea, but the problem is that nobody knows how other sizewins/losses relate statistically to 19x19 wins/losses. KGS is based on a statistical system, you can't just weight them differently, then you will still have wrong data, just at a different weight. If somebody can find data on % wins for players who are x ranks apart (where 1 rank = 1 stone on 19x19), then I'll be able to include off-sized games, but until then, it would screw up the rating system.
- Neil: If ratings are made easier to get, then they are made less meaningful and reliable. Leave it alone, I say.
- (Sebastian:) This is a specious argument. In the contrary - any statistician will tell you that reliability increases with the number of samples taken.
- Neil: Yes, what I just wrote was very bad. It didn't communicate what I meant at all. What I mean is, right now to earn a rating you have to play full 19x19 games (usually with decent time, but that's another wish). To be able to gain a rating playing 9x9 allows you to get by with fewer skills. That's what I mean by making a rating easier to get.
- (Sebastian:) OK, I see your point. But I don't think this is an unsolvable problem. One way around it could be to set the weight dependent on the rank: Phase it out smoothly between 20 and 10k. (If someone really manages to beat 15k players consistently on a small board then she/he probably is at least somewhere around 16k. This player may be in for some surprises when he/she starts playing on a 19x19, but I don't think this harms the system.) Another coult be to apply this only if a player has a ranking with a "?" (and it would not suffice to remove it). In this case, well he may appear a rank or two stronger, but it wouldn't do any harm.
- phenomene: 9x9 or 13x13 go is just another game. Rated games on small boards sizes for 30k-20k players may be a good idea, as they often rush into playing 19x19 without enough knowledge of the game in order to get a rating. But allowing 9x9 to be rated between say dan players is a very bad idea in my opinion ; it is another game, that shouldn't influence one's real go rating.
- (Sebastian:) I agree. That's exactly what I meant by "Phase it out smoothly between 20 and 10k": Use some weighing factor under 20k, and let it be 0 above 10k, with a nice transition in between. However, I'm not sure how much effort it would be to implement it. If it is more than wms can presently afford then I still would hope he finds time for the basic feature. As I said above, I don't see this difference as an unbridgeable problem.
- DrStraw How feasable would it be to implement separate ratings for each of 9x9, 13x13, 19x19? The mechanics of rating should be easy but displaying the ratings would require some manipulation of the user info screen. The biggest problem would be determining the difference in strength for each handicap stone but there are commonly used standards which would be used initially (3k/stone for 13 and 5k/stone for 9). KGS could blaze the trail for comfirming (or contradicting) these numbers by permitting these ratings and periodically adjusting the factors to keep these ratings in sync with 19x19 ratings.
- (Sebastian:) I like this idea. Internally and on a users home page, keep separate statistics. In the "ranking tag" (the short "[25k?]" added to a name and used for sorting) and the graph just display one value (This can be a weighted average or the most secure and significant of the three, with bias for 19x19. Conversion takes place at current "exchange rate".)
(Additionally, it may be a good idea to show in the ranking tag if is based on a small board rank. This can be either with an "s", similar to the proposed "g" for guest accounts[2501], or simply with a "?").
- wms: As Dr. Straw pointed out, the biggest problem with multiple rating systems for different sizes is displaying the information. Having one rating system, which is for standard sized boards, is much simpler and fits the needs of 99% of the people, so adding something more complex (whether it is making the rating system some bizarre 19x19 and 9x9 hybrid or adding multiple rating systems) doesn't seem like such a great idea to me. Rather than having multiple rating systems, I'd be more tempeted to have a tournament-like ladder system for 9x9 or whatever size you wanted.
- Hu: I'd like to see in User Infos an average time spent per move in rated games. This would be make it easy to distinguish those who have earned their rating by blitz and ultrablitz from those who have been more thoughtful. The average time is easily computed if the database remembers the number of moves played and the time spent moving. The server can easily track the time since it keeps the time for both players.
- uxs: Why would that be useful ?
- BlueWyvern: I don't particularly like this idea. I never play under blitz settings, but I almost always play at a fairly brisk pace, especially if my opponent is playing extra slow and I have already read out a response to thier move before they play it. The speed I play at is frankly my perogotive, and if my opponent is satisfied with the time settings, I don't think it's anyone's business how fast I play.
- Vlad? This is a question (for wms), not a suggestion, but I didn't find a good place to ask it. Given the current rating system, how many wins in a row, with proper handicap, one needs in order to go exactly one rank up? That is, ignoring rank drift. TIA.
- wms: The algorithm for the rank system is on the KGS help pages, any questions about ranking are answered there. To answer your question directly: Depends, could be 1 game, could be 1,000,000 or more. So many factors are involved, that even giving a typical value isn't very useful.
- Vlad?: Thanks for the answer. The algorithm isn't very useful in this question without knowing all the coefficients involved, that's why I asked. Keep up the good work!
[26] Game Start
- Hu: Don't start the clock until the first stone is played. ++++++++
- Allow users to agree to change game settings before first move. +
- This can not go on infinitely, otherwise a game will never start. Perhaps one final adjustment change should be allowed.
- A chat area to the "Create Game" window, where offers can be commented and/or discussed. Might even replace the current "notes", which only the game creator can change (that can only be replied to by opening a new chat window with the user directly, or starting the game). +
- rubilia: I am not sure if it's a bug: when starting a game, not only komi (according to the chosen ruleset) but also the resulting ranking value of the game doesn't seem to be adjusted to any changes made by the challenging player in the game setup window. Recently, a 6k? was suggested (by kgs default) to take white against me (8k) with 2 handicap stones. Though, he took black himself with 2 handi, since he thought to be around 10k. He won the game and became 4k? wich seems much too high a jump for his actual win, even in the ?rank modus (but appropriate if the game was scored with the - not applied - default settings). Yet I couldn't verify this with more accurate ranked players because the influence of a single game's outcome to the rank is much lower then.
- (Sebastian:) (related to previous) When starting a game with a Guest and/or [?] account, give the guest black by default. Most guests and [?] accounts are beginners.
- Vlad? Since New Year (2004) I noticed that whenever I challenge someone with the same strength, the default is that I get black. Before that, it was a random choice. What happened? I think having the server choose at random as default is good.
[27] Game End
- It sometimes happens that when marking dead stones at the end of the game both players miss a hard-to-spot dead stone or stones and press Done, and thus the end score is wrong. I have even witnessed a game between very high dans where white should have won but because he missed one dead stone he lost the game. So I suggest some way of going back to the dead stone marking stage even after both players have pressed Done. (It probably would be a good idea that it's not possible to go back to the game anymore, only to the dead-stone marking stage.)
- (Sebastian:) My first reaction was "no - people should just treat the scoring as serious as any move in the game". Which, logically, lead to: This should simply be handled as an undo request. (Maybe it already is, - Never tried it out.)
- wms: I don't think this will happen. There must be some point where the result of the game is final. If people notice a scoring mistake 2 months after the game ends, should they be able to reopen and re-score? I don't think so. On KGS, the moment that you press that done button, you are saying "I am 100% happy with the score of this game and I won't ever try to change it." If you aren't yet certain of the score, if you might want to change it later, then don't press the done button. That's all there is to it. Up until both players press "Done", the score can be changed, the game can even be restarted by just pressing "Undo," but once you have pressed "Done" you accept the current score, and once both players accept the current score, that's that, the game is done.
- (Sebastian:) Good point, I'm convinced. Moreover, you have all the time you want before pressing "done". And it's only one button, so it can't be a clicko.
- Cheyenne: Possible solution, have the "done" processing do a check to see if it can spot any uncleared dead stones (maybe use some of the function from the score est). If there is, then indicate that there is a possible problem and require another click to continue with the "DONE".
- Warp: My idea was that spectators could tell the players that they forgot to mark some dead stone (this is why it's important that they can't continue playing after both have clicked Done). After they leave the game then that would be final... Another idea: How about marking non-scoring territory very visibly (I don't have any good idea right now how to do that but somehow which is very easy to see): This way if at some place they forget to mark a stone it will be very eye-catching that there's some non-scoring territory left there. (Of course it could be confused with unfilled dame points and sekis, so I don't really know if it would help that much after all... It would be necessary to test it in practice.)
- TJ: Done is done, that's why it says "done". It has to be final at some point. If you can't find dead stones in a game you just finished playing better than a mere observer or, heaven forbid, a computer, then you deserve to lose anyways! Never having played in a tournament or seen one even, I assume that opponents score games together and agree on a score (eventually) there too, final score being final, so why make things complicated in order to help the careless or ignorant remain so on a go server?
- (Sebastian:) Actually, Warp's idea is neat. Why not mark dame points with a red triangle, if it helps newbies? It doesn't diminish the fun for advanced players and should be easy to implement.
- Have the notice that appears when someone loses by time say the players names instead of "black" and "white", like the other game-end notices.
[3] File Handling/Database Use
[31] User Info
- Ability to search the user database. Currently you have to know someone's exact username to look up their info. Searching by (partial) real name, email address and even Notes would be useful. It might be nice to add a Location field too.
- Matt Noonan: I'd also like to put a word of support for this idea. The IGS command "find -myschool.edu" has been very helpful for finding players in my area who might not know about an existing flesh-and-blood club in the area. It would be nice if I could do my searching on KGS, too.
- Make names in game records live links so that clicking on one brings up the user info, or put this option in the right-click menu. +
- Display the number of unfinished games a player has in the last (say) 40 as a number next to their name. This need not be available in the right-hand players list, but should be given when a player opens a game offer up, or matches someones offer.
- Ability to remove a picture and go back to having no picture. Perhaps simply a checkbox in the Edit User Info window. +
- This is probably total fluff, but if wms runs out of things to do, I would like to see maybe the last three approved pictures saved, with the user being able to select one (or none) on the fly. +
- Color-code the games by win/loss for the user who's list it is. Or better yet, more stats in general. Win/loss percentage by date, opponent, etc.? +++
- Have a list of languages from which you can choose the ones you yourself speak or understand sufficiently; then when you play against someone, review their userdata, or start a private chat, you could be warned (or verify manually) that you have no language in common. Symbols as flags next to handles to convey this? +++
- Being able to view the whole rank graph, not just the past year. wms currently only saves 400 days of graph data, however.+
- Being able to zoom in the rank graph (for users which have become a lot better during the last year).
- Left-Right Scrollbar in the user info / Games page. For the standard size, there is more information than can be displayed in the window.
- Display rank to nearest tenth or hundredth. As in, 4k (4.35).
[32] Game Info
- Option to sort game records according to result. Secondary sorts. Put column headings over the columns and then clicking on those can control the sort, with the previous sort being the secondary sort. +
- Leave result field blank when displaying demo game info in players game information listing. I find it can be confusing in someones info to see for instance W+Res 4 times in a row, only to find that it's actually two victories and two demos.
- Options to not display unwanted demo and small-board (smaller than 9x9) games from permanent record. Can implement by checkboxes or a checkable menu. ++
- Being able to request a particular progress chart. Lets say for last week, month, year etc. +
- Have a fourth tab in user info displaying stats (ie. # of won, lost, rated, free games, ratio win/loss, weakest player, stronger player.) ++
- Have more filtering options in the games record (free games, unfinished, demo, simul, won, lost games).
- Nixihou: It would be nice to have headings in the chatroom window above the game-selection part. Like "Challenger" "Grade" "Opponent" "Grade" "Size" "Result" "Bystander". A few more categories would be helpfull though. e.g. "Time System" "Rule Set" "Game Status". I would like to have the possibility to sort the gamelist by clicking on one category. (windows explorer like) +
- A typeahead textfield (just like mozillas URL-window) to search for users you've played. Instant stats would be sort of cool too.
- Even better if it did a case insensitive match search against the current result set.
[33] Game File Format and Saving
- An option to save to server instead of just a dialogue that may or may not pop up depending on who took editing control first. It can be greyed out if the user isn't allowed to save the game to the server so that they'll know they'll lose the data unless they save to disk.
- An preference option to save all games played to disk automatically. +
- An interface like the server interface to open games offline instead of the current file and folder "who was that game against again?" system. [Perhaps this should be clarified.]
- A better way to extract SGF files. There's no easy way for me to download all, or many games. Tarballs of entire game history? Problem is resources for downloading so many games at once, given how popular this would likely be.
- Download games by month to reduce load? Only allow downloads of your own game sets?
- Change default filename to put timestamp first for easier sorting.
- Hu: Preference option for default file name string to use. My preference is !Whiteplayer-Blackplayer-[R|F|RD|FD]-YYYYMMDD.sgf.
- eng60340 : i dunno what Hu meant by the !Whiteplayer-Blackplayer-[R|F|RD|FD]-YYYYMMDD.sgf format. i just need the players name and rank to be inside the file name. (meaningless if there's no rank as a reference)
- Default filename of a D based on a played game should be the filename of the game with the postfix "_D" or "-D" or similiar. (Incorporate this when implementing the preference option wish above.)
- If a game is unfinished, why show it on the website? As is seems to serve no purpose, I suggest not showing them. +
- Ekted: There's a minor bug in the "copy game to disk" feature. If you change the folder, you lose the default name of the file. I end up having to retype it, or copy the original string before changing folders, then paste it. [This is fixed by getting the latest Java from Sun, 1.4.1 or later.]
- RoyZR: Would it be possible to put a time mark on each move indicating the remaining time in the game? That way, when reviewing a game, one could see if/when there was any time pressure. I realize this could be hard to manage with the different sorts of time limits available.
- wms: This has been done exactly the way you state ever since release 1.0.0 of KGS. Not a single KGS game file is lacking the information. If you don't see it, then it is probably either that the game had no time limits, or else the SGF editor you are using does not properly read and show the information to you.
- RoyZR: I see, thanks. Apparently gGo has been erasing the time information. Well, I'm glad to learn you plan to introduce single-window editing in CGoban.
[4] General UI and Design Issues
- dnerra: This was once suggested in a RGG thread about go server clients, and I think it would be a great idea: A full-screen mode for playing/observing a game that would make one kind of forget that one is sitting in front of a computer. Imagine just seeing the go board in front of a dark background...yeah I know, there still have to a couple of buttons and the clock somewhere, but still. To many, part of the pleasure of go is the aesthetically pleasing game equipment after all. Is this possible at all in Java?
- Tabbed game viewing, instead of pop-ups.
- Remember different window sizes for different board sizes as it's almost scary to play 19x19 and then open a 9x9 board with the same window size. Huge!
- Ability to selectively "fix" game options so they cannot be changed by a challenger. Ability to filter out requests from guests or ~ ranked players who are weaker than you (auto-decline).+
- wms: Sorry, but the killer here is that the game setup dialog is too complicated already. Too many things to tweak, too easy to forget one. Since pressing "decline" is easy and straightforward, I'm really reluctant to add another button and make an already-too-complicated GUI even more complicated.
- Please consider it though. This one seems like a really nice idea
- A single black/white stone icon to the left of the name, not 3 behind the name. Prisoners should be shown by count only, as showing black stones under white player's name makes it confusing. Moves per unit of time style (eg "3:04/7") is hard to read. I suggest either adding spaces (eg "3:04 / 7") or have 2 separate fields (eg "Time: 3:04, Moves: 7").
- Show game rules in the box over the game board (rule set, timing style). [Time style is obvious from the clocks.]
- Ability to click on any user text in game window to set game to position when that text was typed.
- Have focus go to the input field when you press the Escape key, in any window with an input field.
- When one accidently presses letter "u", do not right away send an undo request, but display a confirmation window asking user if this is what he/she wanted to do. +
- Allow keyboard focus on game window so players can play using arrow keys + ENTER. As above, TAB key should allow focus to switch between "obvious" places, which does not include up/down scroll buttons on scroll bars.
- Guess the next move feature when observing games. Server can keep track of correct/incorrect guesses. Perhaps ability to see how other observers are doing. Very fun for guess the next move demonstrations. ++
- When looking over completed games, Editing Tool must open. This causes serious delays trying to click through moves. Is this delay caused by the tool window updating? Is there a way to make prev/next work faster?
- Add keyboard shortcuts for as much as possible, but especially for moving through games. Back, Forward, Previous Variation and Next Variation would be most useful.
- Already there: shift + left/right arrow for back/forward, ctrl + left/right arrow for previous/next comment or node and shift or ctrl + up/down for previous/next variation.
- Ekted: Doesn't work for me. I tried it with the focus on every possible window/control.
- Focus on one of the arrow buttons in the game window.
- Ekted: Geez why so specific? Why can't it work like accelerators in Windows: the keys works no matter where the focus is.
- wms: It isn't so specific. Actually, they work unless you have a text field focussed - then the text field "eats" the keystrokes. I think that this is the only way that things make sense, arrow keys have meaning when you are typing text so eating them seems right, but it can be annoying. And I don't want to switch to n/p/u/d and the hotkeys, then only Emacs users would be able to figure out what to do. I have considered trying to prevent the text fields from eating the keystrokes when the text field is empty, but that is tricky, I don't think that java doesn't provide explicit hooks to do this.
- Ekted: Make "Open Games" tab optional. I think the proper way to handle open games is to show them in all rooms. That way you can talk in the room you are in, and still watch all games.
- Neil: I hope it stays the way it is. Having lots of random open games inside every room makes those rooms harder to use. Well, I woudln't object to the open games list being closable, but I like that current step toward separating English room chat from the main game finding possibilities.
- Ekted: Allowing the open-ness of a game to be set by its creator is silly. If I want to see all games, I should be able to since I can find them all by subscribing to all rooms anyways. Open games should be ALL games in ALL public rooms. Additionally, if you enable open games, then the room they are in should show in the game list.
- Neil: If I open up a game in a teaching room with the intent of teaching one person or one of a few people, or even just with the intent of playing one of a few friends, there's no sense putting it on the global list.
- Ekted: If I have that teaching room open I can see your game, so I should be able to see that game in my "open games" window whether you want me to or not. Do not create situations where users are fighting over what one wants to show and what one wants to see when the information is public anyways.
- Neil: If it's a private room the game offer won't be visible to you, and if it's a private game there's no point in you seeing the offer. How can two users fight over whether one user's game offer is visible in Open Games or not, by the way?
- Ekted: My point is from the context of design. You can make a feature, then add an option for others to disable it, then add another option for others to override that, etc etc. Ultimately it's best if a user can see what he wants to see. If I can go to the French room and see all French games, then I should be able to see them in the open games list. Also, if I don't want to see the open games list at all, I should be able to turn it off.
- Neil: What good is it to have the server show you games offered by people who don't want to play you? If you're not in the room the person is offering the game in, clearly the person does not want to play you, so there's no point in cluttering your list with the game or wasting the person's time by making him decline you. Information is not valuable in itself. The server should only tell you games that are relevant to you.
- wms: The main reason that users can choose that their game not appear on the main list is because I have been told that some users only want to play with people they can talk to. If they make a game in the French room, it's pretty unlikely that a non-French speaker will see the game and start playing. It's not meant to hide information that somebody wants to see, it's just meant to make it more likely that a player gets the game that they want. As for private rooms & games, these never appear on the open game list, even if the user leaves the "open list" box checked.
- Ekted: Allowing users to filter game challenges by rank/time is way more important than based on room.
- Ekted: Users should be able to set some criteria for filtering what games are shown based on: absolute/relative, rank, ruleset, time system, time, censored players. I realize this is somewhat complex, but I only ever consider playing in a small subset of the game list, so why show it all? For example, I may want to only see games within 3 ranks of me, japanese rules, 15+ minutes, and NOT against anyone who I have marked as censored.
- Neil: I think this has been discussed before elsewhere, with wms coming down in favor of UI simplicity. Maybe still survives in one of the archived discussion pages?
- Matt Noonan: I would like to propose some kind of middle ground. There could be some controls at the bottom of the open games window with the simplest options, like "Minimum Rank", "Maximum Rank" and an "Alert" checkbox. If the box is checked and a new game offer appears in your range, the tab could turn blue.
- Ekted: Setting of "open list" checkbox in create game dialog is not remembered between sessions. It always defaults to on.
- Ekted: Cloning a game you are watching is incredibly slow. It appears that the tools window is force-updated as each single move is received. It sometimes takes 60 seconds to get the whole game. An entire game is only a few K. This should take much less than 1 second to transmit.
- rubilia: I'd like the "resume" button (not) to be greyed out (or to turn blue), depending on if any of the unfinished games currently may be continued. Because most times there's no opponent online to continue a game with, I am not very fond of clicking the button every 10 minutes. Also, its not convenient to have to remember and look for all left opponent's names in the english room all the time. So the unfinished games just get older and older, even if we already could have finished them several times (like it is shown by the "last login" data in player's info).
- (Sebastian:) I'd like to go even further. Ideally, as soon as both players are logged in, they would get automatic messages or a challenge.
Details: If none of the players are currently in a game, create the challenge. If A is already playing, delay the message for him till he is done (according to the wish "Improve Talk To - part 2") and give B a message like: "A is currently playing. Click here to observe the game while you're waiting". (related: [1301])
- rubilia: This would be nice, of course, but possibly it'd need more afford than wms wants to spend to this matter currently. To let the resume button just blacken in/grey out should be little work for much use.
- (Sebastian:) Another way to facilitate finishing disconnected games: Allow both players to declare the game as untimed. If I understand the logic correctly, this is necessary for the game to be finished on a move by move basis.
- axd: The layout of the different cGoban windows is poor. I find the way window resize events manage the window layout irritating. Use a separate window for the goban, controls (keep on top) and chat/comment pane, generalize the use of docking. Likewise, the Editing Tools window takes a lot of screen estate because of the relatively useless help text (it's of no use after a while). Maybe the buttons should be replaced by a context popup menu, and the help text replaced by tiptext help.
- Velobici: button to bring up a dialog box to leave a person a message from the "View User's Information" page.
- geno: Let CGoban2 use X fonts (as opposed to "They must be true type (.ttf) fonts."). Add a font-selection dialog to choose fonts for Japanese, etc. (Strangely, Russian works out of the box, but not Japanese.) Make everything an option: "Any feature that can`t be turned off is a bug."
- wms: I can't disagree more strongly about "any feature that can't be turned off is a bug". I feel, "any feature that people need to turn off with an option probably shouldn't be there in the first place - and any option that needs more than 5 seconds to understand definitely shouldn't be there." If a non-computer expert was shown a "Use X fonts or java fonts?" option, do you really think there's a snowball's chance in hell that they'll figure out what it means?
- geno: Perhaps not, but couldn't options for advanced users be in, for instance, an "Advanced Options" dialog? I understand that most people don't want lots of options, but no one is better placed than the designer to add these things somewhere, anywhere.
- I still haven't gotten CGoban to display a monospaced font in the main window for NNGS without borking up the other windows, and I have spent the bulk of my free time over the last three days trying to get Japanese fonts into CGoban2. I have some experience, but I've never needed to learn font configuration.
- Or to approach things another way, why ever ask anyone to choose between X fonts and java fonts? Can't we use both? As for "probably shouldn't be there in the first place", different users like different features. One's not better than the other, it's a preference.
- wms: Advanced preferences is no better. Besides the UI complexity, it makes maintenance a nightmare; when somebody reports a crash, maybe it only happens if (for example) they have X11 fonts, with Japanese characters from the Mincho package, and have "show comments in game" shut off, and the board set to a custom color. Ugh. As for X11 fonts, that's not possible anyway as a stock checkbox - there are dozens of different font arrangements used under X11. I use the fonts that your java config has. If you want to use your X11 fonts, you can just reconfigure java. Believe me, X11 fonts are such a mess, that for you to reconfigure Java would be 100 times easier than for me to get a reasonable way of pulling X11 fonts into CGoban 2 (plus, of course, the X11 thing would be totally stupid for Windows and OS X).
- geno: Ok, I understand now, thank you.
- axd: provide access to the "Configure" window after having launched off-line; add a "show coordinates" toggle.
- wms: Already there. Control-L toggles coordinates, and the configure button is always available as long as you don't close the main splash screen.
- axd: Hello? Where are all the keyboard shortcuts documented, please? And where is this configure button when you load a game off-line? I'm running version 2.5.5 - also something that is not readily available when running in standalone.
- holosys: a cosmetic request for the shell stones - would it be possible to have stones which display a plain surface now and again, instead of every single stone displaying a random grain pattern? I guess it would need to be a plain stone 50% of the time and a random grain pattern the other 50%. Just a nice to have, not a must have :-)
- jhouse More context options when right clicking on a game. Specifically of interest to me is "view info" when right clicking on an open game to view the creator's info.
- wms: HELP! THIS PAGE NEEDS A FAQ! Sorry jhouse, but you are about the 5th person to ask for this, and it's already there! Just click the game. Don't press "OK" to send in a challenge. Instead press the "?" button next to the player's name. You get their info. I prefer it there, because 99% of the time you are considering challenging the person; this way, if you decide that you want to, you already have the challenge window opened up, there was no need to open a popup menu.
- MK: It's not this page that needs a faq, it's KGS that needs an update on help files so that people find out what is possible on KGS and don't ask for it anymore...
- (Sebastian:) You are right, MK! See [7001].
- kolban When displaying a saved game (a .sgf file), I would like to see the file name displayed in the title bar. I have many saved games and, when I open a game for review, I don't always remember which file I opened.
- Fwiffo: It would be nice if text from teachers in demonstration games was bold or a different color or something. ++
- Neil: Bold is out because it already is used to designate admins, but I'm sure this feature will go in as soon as Mr. Shubert gets a chance to use icons next to the names.
- Fwiffo: I was talking about the text in the chat area, not the user list. It was prompted by a demonstration game where the teacher was typing in all caps so that they could be seen over the chatter of all the observers. Then there was even more chatter because people kept asking him why he was shouting. So he stopped using it, but then everyone started getting confused, so he switched back and forth for a while until everyone was annoyed. :-)
- Neil: Yes, I missed the words "text from." I'm bet the icon idea will apply to both, though. :-)
[7] KGS Web Pages
- Each time user requests to see games of particular person, ask for Time Zone and store this info on server, so that next time request is made, Time Zone defaults not to GNP, but to a particular Time Zone+
- Better yet, defaulting Time Zone value returned to "show games" request to the Time Zone of the player.
- axd: The Help pages are a pity; is there a way to have help pages while off-line?
- (Sebastian [7001]:) A way to work collaboratively on the KGS Web Pages, similar to the way we all contribute to SL.
- In addition to show 100 best players of KGS, show also individual position of player in question (upon search for games may be). For example one's potision may be 545/10000, where 10000 is a number of registered users.+
- toskana?: Show statistics of how many ranked accounts without ? are on KGS with a certain rank.
[8] Technical / Other / Dunnos
[81] Discussion of Development Fundamentals
- Jochie: Is it possible to synchronise the ".cgoban2rc" file (or whatever it is on non-unix systems) immediately instead of waiting until the program exits? [Or possibly hourly or anytime something changes, like a player is buddied, or a window size changed] I have kept it running for days if not weeks and would hate to lose changes to buddy lists and such if it crashed. +
- Jochie: Any reason not to use an text based configuration file? Hu: Text based, yes please! Or at least editable buddy lists to prune out deadwood of defunct accounts, +
[82] Connection and Responsiveness
- Allow a reconnect from the main window. Instead of greying out the "Play on KGS" button, ask if the user wants to force a reconnect. +
- Don't close all watched games that when it disconnects for inactivity. [Something like this has been implemented. Would like to be able to use scroll bars to read chats after disconnect.]
- When disconnecting for inactivity, why not give an option to reconnect to the server instead of closing the client ?
- Easier ways to rejoin a game when returning from being disconnected.
+?
- Upon disconnection, provide a better reason than "KGS is refusing connections".
- Possibility to disable idle disconnect (for frequent users). +
[83] Other Technical Issues
- Hu: Have a way to force Garbage Collection (Java internal issue). At least have the New Game dialogue or challenging an offer cause it to occur so that it does not happen right when you accept a game and the clock is ticking. +
- crux: Are you sure it's the garbage collection and not network lags you are seeing?
- Hu: Yes. My computer has a disk activity light and makes disk noises. When network lag occurs there is none of that.
- Evand: Hu, it may be possible to do this externally without wms doing anything. Does this matter enough that it would be worth my time to attempt? It should actually be reasonably simple, but would be easier with the source available, obviously
- Nixihou: I would like to have a more powerful print option for games and sgf-files. Currently I miss the possibilities to define how many moves to display on the first diagram (e.g. 1-50 numbered) and how many additional moves for each following diagram until the end of game. And the possibility to say how many go-diagrams on one page. (and with or without the moverange as legend of the diagram, and a checkbox to print the game-informations etc. Many more printing features would be "nice to have".)
[9] Discussion of this Page
[91] Agreeing and Disagreeing
If you like an idea, mark it with "[+|YourName]", if you don't with "[-|YourName]". This results in +++ marks following an entry agreed with 3 times, hovering over each plus sign will show you who gave each mark. In practice, people aren't disagreeing, given that a negative mark is a wish for a different feature. Deprecate negative marks?
mgoetze: Deprecate all votes, they serve no purpose, in my opinion.
jraitsev: I disagree... this is a way for wms to easily identify what's most wanted. Hu: They do not identify what's most wanted, they do identify where additional interest has been expressed beyond the proposer.
[92] Page Categorization
mdh: Would it be possible to break this up page into multiple pages, each based on a Major catagory?-
DrStraw: This page is getting way too long. Can some proficient wiki editor split it into multiple pages and use this one as nothing more than an index of links to the various subpages? Please indicate your agreement or disagreement with this proposal with the usual + or -
If this medium is getting inconvenient, why doesn't someone set up a proper bug database for KGS instead? (see KGSBugs
wms: Please don't convert to a real bug database. I have set up bugzilla before. It is great for tracking things that must be solved, but most of the comments here are not bugs, they are feature requests, so I'd either have to mark "no" to all that I don't plan on doing or else let it grow into an infinite pile that would be hard to search and impossible to browse.
[93] Addition of a summary section for deprecated subjects.
Reuven: Just wondering about the ranks, are they sent as a relative mark or is the whole rank sent? To be exact - Are "special" ranks possible? For example, Mj for meijin or Nt for some new title or something?
This is a copy of the living page
"KGS Wishlist" at
Sensei's Library.
2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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