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 - the game should go inactive once I lose by stalemate/checkmate
  31
  32 - detect draw/resign/abort/retract, etc., from ICS and common engines
  33
  34 - devise a better scheme for printing messages (use a catalog?) and
  35   for when engines need to ask questions
  36
  37 - in chess-engine-filter and chess-ics-filter, if an error is
  38   encountered, skip that line so the same error isn't triggered again
  39
  40 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
  41
  42 - Add support for adjournments; also, implement this is such a way
  43   that an e-mail or postal game is basically a game that's adjourned
  44   after every move
  45
  46 - There needs to be much more robustness; it's too easy to get the
  47   game into an unplayable state right now
  48
  49 - Break my dependency on cl
  50
  51 - Use more asserts throughout the code
  52
  53 - Read-only mode needs to be a bit more vigorous.  There's nothing
  54   preventing the user from using M-x commands.
  55
  56 - Add an engine function for obtaining an evaluation of the current
  57   position.  Then, allow M-x chess to startup a non-game oriented
  58   engine, solely for the purpose of submitting position evaluations,
  59   and displaying the result in the modeline.  (Also, look at crafty's
  60   kibitzing feature).
  61
  62 - Complete chess-pgn-mode
  63
  64 - Write a chess-database.el interface, and then add chess-lisp.el,
  65   chess-file.el (PGN games in a flat file) and chess-scid.el
  66
  67 - Use MIME attachments (application/x-chess-pgn) for sending e-mail
  68   chess games back and forth.  Add code for special MIME handling of
  69   this type in Gnus.
  70
  71 - Copy some of ics.el's nicer functionality into chess-ics.el
  72
  73 - Add support for ICS observing
  74
  75 - Make the mode-line much more informative, with information on who is
  76   playing, etc.
  77
  78 - Turn on memory gc collection messages, and see how much of a pig
  79   chess.el is
  80
  81 - Make as much of chess-game/ply/pos, etc., defsubst as possible.
  82
  83 - Create a series of generic functions and predicates, so that users
  84   can say (chess-position OBJECT) or (chess-move OBJECT), without
  85   needing to know the type of OBJECT.
  86
  87 - Change chess-display-set-... to chess-display-set, and make it use
  88   the new generic functions.
  89
  90 - Use server-side sockets in chess-network, if Emacs supports it
  91
  92 - Support auto-saving of games to PGN, and saving them at appropriate
  93   points; this will require database interaction support
  94
  95 - Allow ASCII displays to use a separate frame
  96
  97 - In edit mode, mouse-2 and mouse-3 should provide a drop-down list of
  98   pieces the square can be set to.  Cursor movement is really not the
  99   best for chess-images.  I still need to figure out how best to
 100   handle cursor-type with that display.
 101
 102 - Still need to test many areas: position editing
 103
 104 - Implement engine options; then, in chess-puzzle set the option that
 105   tells the engine not to resign.
 106
 107 - Add a display command for writing out the currently displayed game
 108   to a file.  It will use PGN for games, and FEN for positions.
 109
 110 - Remote displays are horribly insecure.
 111
 112 - When editing the board in display mode (or doing speculative moves),
 113   doing them on a copy of the board with no hook except the display
 114   hook.  Then, if you like the result, it call be a `set' on the
 115   original board from the copied board.
 116
 117 - Resize the chess board on a window resize event, if possible.
 118
 119 - Add chess-game-strip-annotations, for removing all annotations from
 120   a game object
 121
 122 - Add a module for chatting between opponents
 123
 124 - Let the user specify a default size for the chess-images display
 125
 126 - Need to check for chess engine resignations
 127
 128 - Need a chess-clock.el module, especially for playing on ICS
 129
 130 - Port image display code to XEmacs
 131
 132 - Support chess by mail, with direct tie-ins to Gnus/RMAIL.
 133
 134 - Allow the opponent to give hints.
 135
 136 - Add a command that will load a saved game, continue it, and then
 137   enter a move for whichever color is next to play.  This would make
 138   it trivial to add chess drivers to AIM, IRC, etc.  The mere command
 139   "!chess johnw37 Nf3" would mean: load the chess game johnw37, and
 140   make my move as Nf3.  It would also make chess by e-mail a snap to
 141   implement.
 142
 143 - Add an analyze command that will indicate which pieces are defended,
 144   how well, which are attacked, which moves would increase
 145   defense/attack/both, etc.  Basically, everything that can be known
 146   about the current board, and one move ahead (on both sides).
 147
 148 - Add a warning mode that will use the results of an analysis to warn
 149   the user (and ask for confirmation) before doing something that
 150   might lead to an inferior position.
 151
 152 - Create chess-player.el, which creates persistent objects that
 153   encapsulate information about any player: where he is, his name, his
 154   opponent type, etc.  This would maintain a log of games against that
 155   player, their current chess rating, etc.  Then, M-x chess would ask
 156   you for a player, not an opponent.
 157
 158 - Add a Map command, that will colorize the squares depending on
 159   whether they are reachable by either side.  Green if reachable by
 160   you, Red if by your opponent, and blue if by both.  With a prefix
 161   argument, colorize only the squares that have pieces on them.  This
 162   is a stable modes that remains in effect until turned off.  It also
 163   requires the ability to pass a color to the chessboard highlighting
 164   routine.
 165
 166 - If a person selects a piece with the mouse, then uses right-click to
 167   designate a target square, display the resulting board without
 168   making a move.  This requires copying chessboard-current-board to
 169   chessboard-draft-board.  If the user right-clicks without selecting
 170   a piece, it will reset to chessboard-current-board and redraw.
 171
 172 - Using gnuplot-mode, allow evaluation trends to be plotted
 173
 174                          BEFORE FINAL RELEASE
 175
 176 profile, mem profile, doc, lint, checkdoc