DGS Wishlist

The following are features and requests DGS users dream of and/or hope might be implemented one day on DragonGoServer. As DGS is Open Source, this page is an excellent ground for present as well as future developers seeking some new challenges. To further wet the appetite of those potential developers, there is now also the /Bugs page.

• JUG(developer)
• see also DGS developers/contributors on LIVE-server

Implemented features are moved to /implemented by the developers; see also news.
Features that will not be implemented with reasons why that is, can be found under /NotImplemented.
Please do not move features back without consulting one of the developers.

Before adding a new feature-request:

• Make sure you read DGS' news first to see, if your item is not mentioned there already.
• Please also check /NotImplemented and /implemented, if item already rejected for some reason or already implemented.
• Please provide a link to a thread in a DGS-forum if possible.
• Please provide a link to a the matching feature on DGS if such a feature-entry exists. Mark it here with "#F:".
• Please enter your comments at the bottom of the appropriate section or at the end of the page in the last section.
  Don't worry too much about if it's in the right place - if it isn't, someone will move it there.
• Empty headings can be removed. New headings are added on demand.

Game Handling

General Game Stuff

• mass download of one's finished games, as on KGS (for user) for some time-window
  • workaround for Firefox: DownThemAll!
    • JUG(developer) this may use up all a users quota though
• dmwit?: search game comments

Game Start, Invitations

General

• possibility to specify number of games in invitations, default=1

• OneWeirdDude: Have the option to use Bronstein Timing instead of, say, Fischer Timing, byo-yomi, etc.
  • Doug: Modified Fischer time -> Bronstein Timing

Game End

• #F: be able to add game comments after game end message (typically some post-mortem comments, thank-you, ...)

Note: there is a difference between adding a single last game comment (thank you, etc ) and adding many game comments post mortem.

• #F: every pass after resuming game (after scoring) should add one point to opponent to force players to resolve disputed stones without one having the option to pass all the time

• refine end of game (pass) text: if Chinese, remind to fill dame

Game Variants

• Liso: option to switch colours with your opponent (useful in teaching games) to show how they might come from behind rather than resign :)

• hammarbach: How about different rules in addition to Japanese & Chinese? Like AGA Rules and Ing SST Rules of Go?
  • Please give us a choice of rulesets. In particular please let us choose a ruleset with area counting (AGA or Chinese or New Zealand or even something more esoteric like Tromp-Taylor would be nice). Thanks.
  • Better yet, give us, not a choice of rulesets (like AGA, Japanese, ING, etc..), but a choice of the individual rules, and let us cherry pick the precise combination that we like. For example - Scoring Method: {Area Counting, Territory Counting}; Ko Rule: {Simple Ko, Positional Super Ko, Situational Super Ko, Natural Super Ko, ING Ko Rule (if you can)}; Suicide: {Legal, Illegal}; Handicap Stone Placement: {Free, Fixed}; Count Points in Seki: {Yes, No}; Bend Four in the Corner: {Dead, Alive, Play out}; Pass Counts as a Move for Ko: {Yes, No}; Komi: {..., Auction Komi}; etc... full flexibility!
    • MrMormon: Ditto. Please?
    • Too many choices will lead to users being overwhelmed.

New fields/columns/links/buttons

Current game

General

• #F: private game notes should be saved automatically when a move is submitted.

• #F: Liso: Game notes for observers only (hidden for players) useful for comments during game, applaus, question to community, etc...
  • Hidden observer comments

• #F: optional/conditional moves
  • possibility to propose a sequence
  • possibility to propose variations in a sequence
  • server takes over playing until sequence ends or opponent opts for an alternative move
  • opponent can/cannot (to be discussed) see the entire sequence (i.e. must submit his move before seeing the programmed answer)
    • He should not be able to see it, or he might deviate just to annoy his opponent. Or for that matter, the sequence may give extra hints on where to move, or, in some cases, where not to move. OneWeirdDude
  • past sequences stored in SGF as variations
  • jonathan Multiple Moves: Allow users to enter sequences of moves. Similar to eBay's automatic bidding, your sequence of moves is revealed to your opponent only if they play a response included in your sequence. Being able to specify variations would be nice but not required -- even the ability to enter single threaded sequences would be useful.
  • The wyvern program fulfills all of these requests client-side: save your sequence of moves as an SGF, and wyvern will connect to DGS and play them for you. It even handles branching, so if you see that your opponent has several sane responses, you can give continuations for each of them.

Game Navigation

• axd: played stones on the goban hyperlink to the corresponding move (when that stone was played) (similar as in the move list). this would allow another feature to work: when using custom stylesheets, custom 'visited link' colors allow to highlight points on the goban (URL history stored in the browser) when clicked but not submitted

• #F: Anonymous: I would like to be able to go to next/previous move (in a finished game) using arrows on the screen as well as the drop down menu, it would make looking back at the game a lot easier.
  • axd: Please see this thread

Game Page Layout

• option to show the current game board without player info section; option to show just the board (add links to show user info/move list)

• animated stones+

User info, profile, bio

( http://www.dragongoserver.net/userinfo.php)

• Some sort of "leave Dragon" button. See http://www.dragongoserver.net/forum/read.php?forum=4&thread=6342#6354 and http://www.dragongoserver.net/forum/read.php?forum=4&thread=6308#6311. This button would either resign all the user's current games, or place the fate of each game in the opponent's hands.
  • This button would eliminate some of the games that people start, and then let time out. It would not delete the person's dragon account.
  • Perhaps the server could send a message to all the opponents giving them the option to count the current game as a win, loss, or negate it entirely.
  • Allow the user to provide a message like: "I have to go on vacation for a year, but plan to be back." (see also higher:"small field to communicate own player information")

Dragon's users

( http://www.dragongoserver.net/users.php)

• Frs: additional and searchable "language" field (e.g. to find opponents who know the French language but live in Italy)
  • JUG(developer) the country and the possibility to use the forums should be enough to find such players. There already is a "language" field, but it is the language of the GUI. Also a user may speak more than one language.
    Impl-Note: In order not to increase the GUI-complexity this could be done on a voluntary basis by each user entering a "language"-field in their user-bio and making it possible to #F: search the user-bio-entries, e.g. on the users-page.
    However to REALLY support it a language-matrix must be stored.

Forum pages

( http://www.dragongoserver.net/forum/index.php)

• Thread-View:
  • some kind of notification when a reply is posted in a forum; observe messages. people do reply old messages.
  • dmwit: replying in an old thread should mark it as read
  • axd: in the Bookmark dropdown there is a link to the most recent posts

• #F: RSS Feed of the Forums.
• axd: show topics by descending number of posts - to find hot threads. (maybe/not per forum).

General UI and Design Issues

• kiwipete: ^[1] for each page type, set focus to some appropriate text entry box (login, reply fields, waiting room, invite page...)
  • JUG(developer) only possible with JavaScript

• Use AJAX to improve the speed of the game, reduce webserver usage and the enjoyment of users (because it doesn't need to reload all the game pages as an ajax script could load all the pending game, let the user play his move and confirm that, and then send all the data to the server).
  • JUG(developer, 21-Feb-2009) This has been moved back from the /NotImplemented sub page (old notes included):
    • JUG(developer, 07-Oct-2007) DGS' base policy is not to use JavaScript for main-functionality (if possible), because many mobile devices have a poor JavaScript-support. AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) would need to add JavaScript everywhere.
    • JUG(developer, 04-Jan-2009) However, if the DGS-code is more separated in presentation and database-layers in a distant future, there might be a way to provide "other presentation-layers". In its current state it's not possible to use AJAX without breaking DGS' basic Non-JavaScript design-policy. It would need to implement a 2nd DGS.
    • JUG(developer, 21-Feb-2009) A clarifying discussion with Erik about feature requests:
      An AJAX-like interface is not against DGS policy if the non-JavaScript-users don't become 2nd-class users. As long as all main-functionality is provided to non-JavaScript users, there's no objection for other interfaces (like AJAX). However, it has low priority.

Statistics

(See also the unofficial stats page at http://www.dragongoserver.net/statistics.php)

Not always useful, but fun for those who can't stop hyperjumping around (see also http://www.dragongoserver.net/forum/read.php?forum=4&thread=5764)

Server stats

• present, active, total number of users/games
• number of running games per day for all players together
• physical data (eg MySql disc space consumption)

Miscellaneous

• an issue tracker. see various discussions in forums

Yet to classify

(topics that do not fit under any of the previous headings)

• Your Name: ... Link to DGS-forum with discussion? ...