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

   1 Aha!  I knew there had to be a way.  The old keyboard shortcutting
   2 code (which uses chess-legal-plies) was just way to slow.  On modern
   3 machines you couldn't notice it, but on my 300 MHz laptop in battery
   4 save mode, even with the byte-compiled files, I spent 1/4 of my time
   5 looking at the hourglass cursor.  So I kept chewing on the algorithm,
   6 dropping the number of calls to chess-search-position (the biggest and
   7 slowest function in all of chess.el) from 5400 calls down to 4300
   8 calls.  But still it was slow.  Then I thought about it long and hard,
   9 and realized chess-legal-plies was going about its whole job
  10 backwards.  Since that function is only used by keyboard shortcutting,
  11 I found a way to optimize it for that task, while keeping it as
  12 general as before (by adding a "piece-or-color" argument).  The net
  13 result is that I got the number of calls to chess-search-position down
  14 to 797!!  That's 5000 calls less.  It dropped the number of uses of
  15 `chess-incr-index' by 20,000.  The new code is so fast I that when
  16 it's byte-compiled, I never see an hourglass cursor, even on my
  17 laptop.
  18
  19 - Feature work remaining:
  20
  21   annotations
  22   chatting
  23   clocks
  24   bughouse/crazyhouse
  25   analysis/highlight tools
  26   database interaction (chess-file.el, chess-scid.el)
  27
  28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  29
  30 - undo is not working with gnuchess
  31
  32
  33 - test making an en passant capture
  34
  35
  36 - the game should go inactive once I lose by stalemate/checkmate
  37
  38 - detect draw/resign/abort/retract, etc., from ICS and common engines
  39
  40
  41 - in chess-ply-create signal an error on invalid plies describing why
  42
  43 - for network transports, if an illegal move is encountered, report
  44   this with "illegal move: REASON"
  45
  46
  47 - incorporate the .wav files from xchat's sounds that chess-sound
  48   currently doesn't have
  49
  50
  51 - devise a better scheme for printing messages (use a catalog?) and
  52   for when engines need to ask questions
  53
  54 - there needs to be much more robustness; it's too easy to get the
  55   game into an unplayable state right now
  56
  57 - in chess-engine-filter and chess-ics-filter, if an error is
  58   encountered, skip that line so the same error isn't triggered again
  59
  60 - in chess-ics use a server-alist, and make the default handle be
  61   "guest".  Allow a password to be specified, or a filename containing
  62   the password
  63
  64   (HOST [PORT HANDLE PASSWORD HELPER HELPER-ARGS...])
  65
  66 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  67
  68 - Add support for adjournments; also, implement this is such a way
  69   that an e-mail or postal game is basically a game that's adjourned
  70   after every move
  71
  72 - Break my dependency on cl
  73
  74 - Use more asserts throughout the code
  75
  76 - Read-only mode needs to be a bit more vigorous.  There's nothing
  77   preventing the user from using M-x commands.
  78
  79 - Add an engine function for obtaining an evaluation of the current
  80   position.  Then, allow M-x chess to startup a non-game oriented
  81   engine, solely for the purpose of submitting position evaluations,
  82   and displaying the result in the modeline.  (Also, look at crafty's
  83   kibitzing feature).
  84
  85 - Complete chess-pgn-mode
  86
  87 - Write a chess-database.el interface, and then add chess-lisp.el,
  88   chess-file.el (PGN games in a flat file) and chess-scid.el
  89
  90 - Use MIME attachments (application/x-chess-pgn) for sending e-mail
  91   chess games back and forth.  Add code for special MIME handling of
  92   this type in Gnus.
  93
  94 - Copy some of ics.el's nicer functionality into chess-ics.el
  95
  96 - Add support for ICS observing
  97
  98 - Make the mode-line much more informative, with information on who is
  99   playing, etc.
 100
 101 - Turn on memory gc collection messages, and see how much of a pig
 102   chess.el is
 103
 104 - Make as much of chess-game/ply/pos, etc., defsubst as possible.
 105
 106 - Create a series of generic functions and predicates, so that users
 107   can say (chess-position OBJECT) or (chess-move OBJECT), without
 108   needing to know the type of OBJECT.
 109
 110 - Change chess-display-set-... to chess-display-set, and make it use
 111   the new generic functions.
 112
 113 - Use server-side sockets in chess-network, if Emacs supports it
 114
 115 - Support auto-saving of games to PGN, and saving them at appropriate
 116   points; this will require database interaction support
 117
 118 - Allow ASCII displays to use a separate frame
 119
 120 - In edit mode, mouse-2 and mouse-3 should provide a drop-down list of
 121   pieces the square can be set to.  Cursor movement is really not the
 122   best for chess-images.  I still need to figure out how best to
 123   handle cursor-type with that display.
 124
 125 - Still need to test many areas: position editing
 126
 127 - Implement engine options; then, in chess-puzzle set the option that
 128   tells the engine not to resign.
 129
 130 - Add a display command for writing out the currently displayed game
 131   to a file.  It will use PGN for games, and FEN for positions.
 132
 133 - Remote displays are horribly insecure.
 134
 135 - When editing the board in display mode (or doing speculative moves),
 136   doing them on a copy of the board with no hook except the display
 137   hook.  Then, if you like the result, it call be a `set' on the
 138   original board from the copied board.
 139
 140 - Resize the chess board on a window resize event, if possible.
 141
 142 - Add chess-game-strip-annotations, for removing all annotations from
 143   a game object
 144
 145 - Add a module for chatting between opponents
 146
 147 - Let the user specify a default size for the chess-images display
 148
 149 - Need to check for chess engine resignations
 150
 151 - Need a chess-clock.el module, especially for playing on ICS
 152
 153 - Port image display code to XEmacs
 154
 155 - Support chess by mail, with direct tie-ins to Gnus/RMAIL.
 156
 157 - Allow the opponent to give hints.
 158
 159 - Add a command that will load a saved game, continue it, and then
 160   enter a move for whichever color is next to play.  This would make
 161   it trivial to add chess drivers to AIM, IRC, etc.  The mere command
 162   "!chess johnw37 Nf3" would mean: load the chess game johnw37, and
 163   make my move as Nf3.  It would also make chess by e-mail a snap to
 164   implement.
 165
 166 - Add an analyze command that will indicate which pieces are defended,
 167   how well, which are attacked, which moves would increase
 168   defense/attack/both, etc.  Basically, everything that can be known
 169   about the current board, and one move ahead (on both sides).
 170
 171 - Add a warning mode that will use the results of an analysis to warn
 172   the user (and ask for confirmation) before doing something that
 173   might lead to an inferior position.
 174
 175 - Create chess-player.el, which creates persistent objects that
 176   encapsulate information about any player: where he is, his name, his
 177   opponent type, etc.  This would maintain a log of games against that
 178   player, their current chess rating, etc.  Then, M-x chess would ask
 179   you for a player, not an opponent.
 180
 181 - Add a Map command, that will colorize the squares depending on
 182   whether they are reachable by either side.  Green if reachable by
 183   you, Red if by your opponent, and blue if by both.  With a prefix
 184   argument, colorize only the squares that have pieces on them.  This
 185   is a stable modes that remains in effect until turned off.  It also
 186   requires the ability to pass a color to the chessboard highlighting
 187   routine.
 188
 189 - If a person selects a piece with the mouse, then uses right-click to
 190   designate a target square, display the resulting board without
 191   making a move.  This requires copying chessboard-current-board to
 192   chessboard-draft-board.  If the user right-clicks without selecting
 193   a piece, it will reset to chessboard-current-board and redraw.
 194
 195 - Using gnuplot-mode, allow evaluation trends to be plotted
 196
 197                          BEFORE FINAL RELEASE
 198
 199 profile, mem profile, doc, lint, checkdoc