gofigs

    Keywords: Software

This page is in need of attention.
Reason: broken link and abundant discussion


Gofigs is a freeware go diagram program for Windows written by Simon Goss, and available for download by visiting [ext] BGA Software Catalogue. The direct link for download is [ext] here.

Charles: I have used this for thousands of diagrams, and find it very user-friendly.

BlueWyvern: It seems straightforward, but I can't save anything, it keeps saying error accessing file and stuff. There isn't any help so I don't have a clue as to figuring out what I'm doing wrong. Anyone else having this problem?

  • Charles I don't know which version you have: but I don't use it to save as a file. If I want to warehouse diagrams I paste them into a document.
  • axd I can confirm this... The only thing about exporting I found was the Bitmap>> button copies the board/selection to the clipboard, so you can paste into Paint [or into MS Word or other programs]. The other file formats are unusable. Jago seems better, allows to export as ASCII, sgf and as bitmap. GoFigs is very crude, and not user friendly: as if it was written on a rainy afternoon.
  • MK There are no help files. Although the program is pretty intuitive the fact that hitting the "Bitmap" button produced nothing brought me on the verge of tearing hair from my head. Only now I realized it copies diagram into clipboard...
  • Charles Having written three books (about 2500 diagrams) with it, I think of it as user-friendly. Export as metafiles, by the way.
  • Andrew Grant There is a problem, all the same. It's evident in the diagrams in Teach Yourself Go, which were apparently produced with this program; and also in the diagrams on Charles' online book Shape Up! which I assume were produced with the same program. The thickness of the lines, both on the board and the boundaries of white stones, is variable. Some diagrams have thick lines, others thin, and some have a mixture of the two. I find this rather distracting to say the least.
  • Charles I'm aware of this, of course. I believe, though I'm no expert, that this is a Windows problem. Of course you may think that's quite serious. It is the sort of thing that got sorted out with Windows XP (but please don't quote me on that). And then there is the downside that comes with the default changing from metafile to enhanced metafile (which can be bad news). I would point out that other programs, that I have seen used for books, have much worse numbers on the stones; which is something I find much more obtrusive. The evidence is that there is still no perfect solution (though I'm not up-to-date).
  • LeisureGuy? I just found this program and had a little trouble figuring out how to use it in my blog. The method I used was to use the Bit-map key to get it into the clipboard, then pasted it into a blank document in Adobe Photoshop Elements ver. 3 and saved that as a .jpg file. That I could then upload using Blogger.com's photo command. Here's the result: [ext] http://tinyurl.com/erhoe.

kobayashi? GoFigs looks simple and gives decent results, but I always tend to expect perfection. Go Figs is fine if one uses Word which isn't very good with PS (and, thus EPS). But if one uses DTP program which fully supports EPS, why one would use WMF which often gives unexpected results?

It'd be a very good idea to give GoFigs EPS export function.

That is why I've been using PSGO package written by Mr. Victor Bos. It is described here: Go Typesetting

It produces perfect diagrams (it is PostScript, so it creates vector-based perfect lines and circles), but trying to change something in the package can get it really messy, so one should be familiar with LaTeX macros. The best way is to typesette the whole Go book in LaTeX, instead of making EPS diagrams separately, since it takes care of headers and all other elements automatically, unlike most of other DTP software, plus it's very easy to make custom ones. One great adventage of PSGO over other programs, besides perfect-precise drawing, is that it's easy to resize all diagrams in document with a single command.

Of a few minor things I don't like in PSGO package, the only one I couldn't fix is that white normal-sized letter boxes used to mark empty points tend to overlap adjacent stones, which looks like a small portion (around 0.2-0.3mm) of a stone is cutoff. Mr. Bos suggested to use larger diagrams and scale them down with [scale = ] command. It works, but it's pretty annoying to add the command to all diagrams which I already have made.

Mr. Victor Bos allows others to make modifications to the package, so I made a few (black triangles and squares instead of outline ones on W stones, and some others) and used it for typesetting "How to play against the stronger player, Vol 1." by Sakai Michihary 8p, which is freely available from www.wingsgoclub.org (but awfully typesetted). A preview version can be downloaded from Tengen Go Forum ([ext] http://tengen.2.forumer.com): [ext] http://tengen.2.forumer.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=1313

Please, any comments and suggestions on quality?

There are still some mistakes to be corrected, plus I intended to typesette Vol. 2 with LaTeX, but I am too busy to do it at the moment. I remember I sent PDF to the administrators of Wings Go Club site, but they had problems to open it (although PDF is made with GhostScript?).

P.S. It'd be useful to have a GUI which would generate PSGO LaTeX code of Go diagrams, like the one which exists for LaTeX GO package (though only for Linux).


This is a copy of the living page "gofigs" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2012 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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