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