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