code.delx.au - gnu-emacs-elpa/blob - TODO

   1 delYsid: I knew there had to be a way.  The old keyboard shortcutting
   2 code (which uses chess-legal-plies) was just to slow.  On modern
   3 machines you wouldn't notice it, but on my 300 MHz laptop in battery
   4 saving mode, even with byte-compiled files, I spent 1/4 of my time
   5 looking at the hourglass cursor.  So I kept cleaning the algorithm,
   6 dropping the number of calls to chess-search-position (the biggest and
   7 slowest function in chess.el) from 5400 calls down to 4300 calls.  But
   8 still it was too slow.  Then I thought about it long and hard, and
   9 realized chess-legal-plies was going about its whole job backwards.  I
  10 found a way to optimize it that resulted in dropping the number of
  11 calls to chess-search-position down to 797!!  That's 5000 fewer calls.
  12 The new code is so fast I that when it's byte-compiled, I never see an
  13 hourglass cursor, rarely even when un-byte-compiled in my slowest
  14 configuration!
  15
  16 - Feature work remaining:
  17
  18   annotations
  19   chatting
  20   clocks
  21   bughouse/crazyhouse
  22   analysis/highlight tools
  23   database interaction (chess-file.el, chess-scid.el)
  24
  25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  26
  27 - the game should go inactive once I lose by stalemate/checkmate
  28
  29 - detect draw/resign/abort/retract, etc., from ICS and common engines
  30
  31 - in chess-engine-filter and chess-ics-filter, if an error is
  32   encountered, skip that line so the same error isn't triggered again
  33
  34 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  35
  36 - Add support for adjournments; also, implement this is such a way
  37   that an e-mail or postal game is basically a game that's adjourned
  38   after every move
  39
  40 - There needs to be much more robustness; it's too easy to get the
  41   game into an unplayable state right now
  42
  43 - Break my dependency on cl
  44
  45 - Use more asserts throughout the code
  46
  47 - Read-only mode needs to be a bit more vigorous.  There's nothing
  48   preventing the user from using M-x commands.
  49
  50 - Add an engine function for obtaining an evaluation of the current
  51   position.  Then, allow M-x chess to startup a non-game oriented
  52   engine, solely for the purpose of submitting position evaluations,
  53   and displaying the result in the modeline.  (Also, look at crafty's
  54   kibitzing feature).
  55
  56 - Complete chess-pgn-mode
  57
  58 - Write a chess-database.el interface, and then add chess-lisp.el,
  59   chess-file.el (PGN games in a flat file) and chess-scid.el
  60
  61 - Use MIME attachments (application/x-chess-pgn) for sending e-mail
  62   chess games back and forth.  Add code for special MIME handling of
  63   this type in Gnus.
  64
  65 - Copy some of ics.el's nicer functionality into chess-ics.el
  66
  67 - Add support for ICS observing
  68
  69 - Make the mode-line much more informative, with information on who is
  70   playing, etc.
  71
  72 - Turn on memory gc collection messages, and see how much of a pig
  73   chess.el is
  74
  75 - Make as much of chess-game/ply/pos, etc., defsubst as possible.
  76
  77 - Create a series of generic functions and predicates, so that users
  78   can say (chess-position OBJECT) or (chess-move OBJECT), without
  79   needing to know the type of OBJECT.
  80
  81 - Change chess-display-set-... to chess-display-set, and make it use
  82   the new generic functions.
  83
  84 - Use server-side sockets in chess-network, if Emacs supports it
  85
  86 - Support auto-saving of games to PGN, and saving them at appropriate
  87   points; this will require database interaction support
  88
  89 - Allow ASCII displays to use a separate frame
  90
  91 - In edit mode, mouse-2 and mouse-3 should provide a drop-down list of
  92   pieces the square can be set to.  Cursor movement is really not the
  93   best for chess-images.  I still need to figure out how best to
  94   handle cursor-type with that display.
  95
  96 - Still need to test many areas: position editing
  97
  98 - Implement engine options; then, in chess-puzzle set the option that
  99   tells the engine not to resign.
 100
 101 - Add a display command for writing out the currently displayed game
 102   to a file.  It will use PGN for games, and FEN for positions.
 103
 104 - Remote displays are horribly insecure.
 105
 106 - When editing the board in display mode (or doing speculative moves),
 107   doing them on a copy of the board with no hook except the display
 108   hook.  Then, if you like the result, it call be a `set' on the
 109   original board from the copied board.
 110
 111 - Resize the chess board on a window resize event, if possible.
 112
 113 - Add chess-game-strip-annotations, for removing all annotations from
 114   a game object
 115
 116 - Add a module for chatting between opponents
 117
 118 - Let the user specify a default size for the chess-images display
 119
 120 - Need to check for chess engine resignations
 121
 122 - Need a chess-clock.el module, especially for playing on ICS
 123
 124 - Port image display code to XEmacs
 125
 126 - Support chess by mail, with direct tie-ins to Gnus/RMAIL.
 127
 128 - Allow the opponent to give hints.
 129
 130 - Add a command that will load a saved game, continue it, and then
 131   enter a move for whichever color is next to play.  This would make
 132   it trivial to add chess drivers to AIM, IRC, etc.  The mere command
 133   "!chess johnw37 Nf3" would mean: load the chess game johnw37, and
 134   make my move as Nf3.  It would also make chess by e-mail a snap to
 135   implement.
 136
 137 - Add an analyze command that will indicate which pieces are defended,
 138   how well, which are attacked, which moves would increase
 139   defense/attack/both, etc.  Basically, everything that can be known
 140   about the current board, and one move ahead (on both sides).
 141
 142 - Add a warning mode that will use the results of an analysis to warn
 143   the user (and ask for confirmation) before doing something that
 144   might lead to an inferior position.
 145
 146 - Create chess-player.el, which creates persistent objects that
 147   encapsulate information about any player: where he is, his name, his
 148   opponent type, etc.  This would maintain a log of games against that
 149   player, their current chess rating, etc.  Then, M-x chess would ask
 150   you for a player, not an opponent.
 151
 152 - Add a Map command, that will colorize the squares depending on
 153   whether they are reachable by either side.  Green if reachable by
 154   you, Red if by your opponent, and blue if by both.  With a prefix
 155   argument, colorize only the squares that have pieces on them.  This
 156   is a stable modes that remains in effect until turned off.  It also
 157   requires the ability to pass a color to the chessboard highlighting
 158   routine.
 159
 160 - If a person selects a piece with the mouse, then uses right-click to
 161   designate a target square, display the resulting board without
 162   making a move.  This requires copying chessboard-current-board to
 163   chessboard-draft-board.  If the user right-clicks without selecting
 164   a piece, it will reset to chessboard-current-board and redraw.
 165
 166 - Using gnuplot-mode, allow evaluation trends to be plotted
 167
 168                          BEFORE FINAL RELEASE
 169
 170 profile, mem profile, doc, lint, checkdoc