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 - test making an en passant capture
  33
  34 - the game should go inactive once I lose by stalemate/checkmate
  35
  36 - detect draw/resign/abort/retract, etc., from ICS and common engines
  37
  38 - incorporate the .wav files from xchat's sounds that chess-sound
  39   currently doesn't have
  40
  41 - devise a better scheme for printing messages (use a catalog?) and
  42   for when engines need to ask questions
  43
  44 - there needs to be much more robustness; it's too easy to get the
  45   game into an unplayable state right now
  46
  47 - in chess-engine-filter and chess-ics-filter, if an error is
  48   encountered, skip that line so the same error isn't triggered again
  49
  50 - in chess-ics use a server-alist, and make the default handle be
  51   "guest".  Allow a password to be specified, or a filename containing
  52   the password
  53
  54   (HOST [PORT HANDLE PASSWORD HELPER HELPER-ARGS...])
  55
  56 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  57
  58 - Add support for adjournments; also, implement this is such a way
  59   that an e-mail or postal game is basically a game that's adjourned
  60   after every move
  61
  62 - Break my dependency on cl
  63
  64 - Use more asserts throughout the code
  65
  66 - Read-only mode needs to be a bit more vigorous.  There's nothing
  67   preventing the user from using M-x commands.
  68
  69 - Add an engine function for obtaining an evaluation of the current
  70   position.  Then, allow M-x chess to startup a non-game oriented
  71   engine, solely for the purpose of submitting position evaluations,
  72   and displaying the result in the modeline.  (Also, look at crafty's
  73   kibitzing feature).
  74
  75 - Complete chess-pgn-mode
  76
  77 - Write a chess-database.el interface, and then add chess-lisp.el,
  78   chess-file.el (PGN games in a flat file) and chess-scid.el
  79
  80 - Use MIME attachments (application/x-chess-pgn) for sending e-mail
  81   chess games back and forth.  Add code for special MIME handling of
  82   this type in Gnus.
  83
  84 - Copy some of ics.el's nicer functionality into chess-ics.el
  85
  86 - Add support for ICS observing
  87
  88 - Make the mode-line much more informative, with information on who is
  89   playing, etc.
  90
  91 - Turn on memory gc collection messages, and see how much of a pig
  92   chess.el is
  93
  94 - Make as much of chess-game/ply/pos, etc., defsubst as possible.
  95
  96 - Create a series of generic functions and predicates, so that users
  97   can say (chess-position OBJECT) or (chess-move OBJECT), without
  98   needing to know the type of OBJECT.
  99
 100 - Change chess-display-set-... to chess-display-set, and make it use
 101   the new generic functions.
 102
 103 - Use server-side sockets in chess-network, if Emacs supports it
 104
 105 - Support auto-saving of games to PGN, and saving them at appropriate
 106   points; this will require database interaction support
 107
 108 - Allow ASCII displays to use a separate frame
 109
 110 - In edit mode, mouse-2 and mouse-3 should provide a drop-down list of
 111   pieces the square can be set to.  Cursor movement is really not the
 112   best for chess-images.  I still need to figure out how best to
 113   handle cursor-type with that display.
 114
 115 - Still need to test many areas: position editing
 116
 117 - Implement engine options; then, in chess-puzzle set the option that
 118   tells the engine not to resign.
 119
 120 - Add a display command for writing out the currently displayed game
 121   to a file.  It will use PGN for games, and FEN for positions.
 122
 123 - Remote displays are horribly insecure.
 124
 125 - When editing the board in display mode (or doing speculative moves),
 126   doing them on a copy of the board with no hook except the display
 127   hook.  Then, if you like the result, it call be a `set' on the
 128   original board from the copied board.
 129
 130 - Resize the chess board on a window resize event, if possible.
 131
 132 - Add chess-game-strip-annotations, for removing all annotations from
 133   a game object
 134
 135 - Add a module for chatting between opponents
 136
 137 - Let the user specify a default size for the chess-images display
 138
 139 - Need to check for chess engine resignations
 140
 141 - Need a chess-clock.el module, especially for playing on ICS
 142
 143 - Port image display code to XEmacs
 144
 145 - Support chess by mail, with direct tie-ins to Gnus/RMAIL.
 146
 147 - Allow the opponent to give hints.
 148
 149 - Add a command that will load a saved game, continue it, and then
 150   enter a move for whichever color is next to play.  This would make
 151   it trivial to add chess drivers to AIM, IRC, etc.  The mere command
 152   "!chess johnw37 Nf3" would mean: load the chess game johnw37, and
 153   make my move as Nf3.  It would also make chess by e-mail a snap to
 154   implement.
 155
 156 - Add an analyze command that will indicate which pieces are defended,
 157   how well, which are attacked, which moves would increase
 158   defense/attack/both, etc.  Basically, everything that can be known
 159   about the current board, and one move ahead (on both sides).
 160
 161 - Add a warning mode that will use the results of an analysis to warn
 162   the user (and ask for confirmation) before doing something that
 163   might lead to an inferior position.
 164
 165 - Create chess-player.el, which creates persistent objects that
 166   encapsulate information about any player: where he is, his name, his
 167   opponent type, etc.  This would maintain a log of games against that
 168   player, their current chess rating, etc.  Then, M-x chess would ask
 169   you for a player, not an opponent.
 170
 171 - Add a Map command, that will colorize the squares depending on
 172   whether they are reachable by either side.  Green if reachable by
 173   you, Red if by your opponent, and blue if by both.  With a prefix
 174   argument, colorize only the squares that have pieces on them.  This
 175   is a stable modes that remains in effect until turned off.  It also
 176   requires the ability to pass a color to the chessboard highlighting
 177   routine.
 178
 179 - If a person selects a piece with the mouse, then uses right-click to
 180   designate a target square, display the resulting board without
 181   making a move.  This requires copying chessboard-current-board to
 182   chessboard-draft-board.  If the user right-clicks without selecting
 183   a piece, it will reset to chessboard-current-board and redraw.
 184
 185 - Using gnuplot-mode, allow evaluation trends to be plotted
 186
 187                          BEFORE FINAL RELEASE
 188
 189 profile, mem profile, doc, lint, checkdoc