Myracle GUI

[mar]

Sound works now. Can you do something about showing the priority of the multipv arrows? For inspiration, a screenshot of Acid Ape Chess Android.

that's really cool, I like it. let's borrow it; already implemented, will be added in the next build

[tapio]

that's really cool, I like it. let's borrow it; already implemented, will be added in the next build

Oh that's nice. Acid Ape Chess' UI is really well thought out for a smartphone screen. Unfortunately, it has somewhat been abandoned (nobody knows tbh if dev is even living), no message from the dev for years, the ugly part is, if there's something wrong on his license server, the software will stop right after start. Has happened quite a few times, over many days sometimes.

[tapio]

Small visual issue: If in book options you have set a slot with ply number and randomness, then remove the book file entry - it will still display like "18: (ply:3/rnd:20)" in the book picker combo boxes.

BTW, book pickers. In order to use no book we need to leave one slot empty and use that one, I think that's not ideal, maybe you could add a "No book" entry to the list which is always existing?

And another thought: If "Show bottom dock" is unchecked and user now starts "Analysis - Analyze" - should the bottom dock maybe be displayed automatically? Maybe in such a case even auto disappear if analysis is stoppped?

[mar]

build 90 is up:
- fix: white pov not working properly for player engines sometimes
- numbered multipv arrows (if multipv arrows > 1 in appearance settings)
- fix/improve book name in combo boxes if empty

[mar]

Small visual issue: If in book options you have set a slot with ply number and randomness, then remove the book file entry - it will still display like "18: (ply:3/rnd:20)" in the book picker combo boxes.

BTW, book pickers. In order to use no book we need to leave one slot empty and use that one, I think that's not ideal, maybe you could add a "No book" entry to the list which is always existing?

And another thought: If "Show bottom dock" is unchecked and user now starts "Analysis - Analyze" - should the bottom dock maybe be displayed automatically? Maybe in such a case even auto disappear if analysis is stoppped?

fixed, no, no

[vencenda]

- numbered multipv arrows (if multipv arrows > 1 in appearance settings)

This is amazing, thanks! And also thanks to tapio for the suggestion.

[Elorejano]

Hi!
Has the time come to improve the type of pieces?
Diche, my favourites
Even, the possibility of having 3d pieces and board
Thanks

[mar]

Has the time come to improve the type of pieces?
Diche, my favourites
Even, the possibility of having 3d pieces and board

no and no:

- you can already use (most) 3rd party svg pieces (I'm not wasting anymore time designing new svg pieces)
- as for 3d - absolutely not; it's completely pointless for a serious GUI except for marketing it as such

[tapio]

IMO, because of usability, Myracle is much more than a tournament host. Can very well be used for just human playing+analysing. @Martin,you are aware probably. Is that a problem for you?
E. g., people will ask for more... things. Example, Playing vs. engine / Tournament - different things, different screen layouts are desirable. I could have asked about it, but should be out of scope, so I decided to DIY and use 2 instances with distinct confogs and some ntfs links.

What's your take on this, any plans? Become a new Arena? Be 100% tournament only? Or "time will tell"?

[mar]

I'd advise against using multiple instances, it was not meant to be used that way, you bypass the scheduler and ask for trouble this way (though of course it will work in a different folder) - if you want to shoot yourself in the foot, be my guest but don't blame the GUI later

multiple layouts is something I thought about, I wanted to have a layout set that could be toggled at runtime (menu + shortcuts, ideally), perhaps I'll do it yet. it just wasn't a priority until now but I fully agree that different layouts for different use cases are desirable

eng-eng tours is the primary reason the GUI exists, I never aimed to create "one GUI for everything" - we know where that leads...
(and I have currently one more serious bug report related to human-eng play, sigh...)

it'll never be a database tool for example - just use SCID or something else that's already excellent at this

it was never meant for training/coaching/online play - there are excellent alternatives out there

I don't plan DGT (or any other digital board) support either - in fact electronic boards are quite expensive and no way I'm wasting money on that

one thing that's missing (and that I'm not going to implement) is ICS support - if Myracle had this I wouldn't have to use any other GUI
(ICS is important because of the monthly tournaments hosted by Joost Buijs - I use good old Winboard for this, never failed me)

so: could do simple game analysis perhaps, nothing fancy like deep analysis is planned at the moment

Myracle is original and unique, I do not intend it to become a new "Arena" or new "Banksia" or new "Cutechess" or whatever,
when it comes to eng-eng tours, apart from lacking swiss and variants (that I don't care about),
I claim it's easily the best option out there (and I'm sure at least a couple of people would agree with me on this one).

no commercial GUI comes even remotely close in this regard. just wasted 70 eur on Fritz 21 and the interface is god awful.
I've never had such a bad user experience with any other GUI ever
on the other hand Shredder is pretty good and clean, also Stefan still cares about existing customers and even answers e-mails all by himself. thumbs up for this;
HCE (Hiarcs, not handcrafted eval) seems also pretty good for what it aims at, but it's not designed for eng-eng tours.

so, for the n-th time already, I prefer to focus on bugs primarily, features can wait, you people seem to ignore that
and keep asking for new features all the time.
this is becoming a second fulltime job except it's not paid (apart from the 3 donors to whom I'm very grateful!)

so the plan for now is simply to make it robust and stable enough, then perhaps some minor features and maybe cross-platform support,
that's about it. I don't plan to waste anymore time on the GUI the next year, so everything has to be finished by the end of 2026