Myracle GUI

[vencenda]

Thanks for the updates! It amazes me how fast and light this program feels. After years of using Arena, I think I've found a new GUI, or at least I'll use both.

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There is a bug with tabs, where they disappear for some reason randomly. It happens with all tabs:
- main ones
- moves/tags dock
- book/results dock
- graph dock
- bottom dock

It happens when you have selected a tab other than the first one, and then minimize the program's window.
Every tab on the left of the selected one has disappeared when you restore the window. But it doesn't happen consistently.

I have tried to find a way to reliably reproduce it, but it isn't consistent. It happens quite often but it's unpredictable.
Some circumstances that may increase the probability of it appearing:
- after you first open the program
- after you have loaded a PGN file
- if you have selected specifically the "Tags" tab at "Moves/Tags" dock.
But it can happen randomly, and you have to minimize the window for it to appear.

Here's a video that shows the bug: https://youtu.be/BHmTO0JsrIk

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Unrelated to the above, here are a few improvements I'd like to see (as always, feel free to ignore):
1. A default path for "Open file" action, under "Paths" settings, so you can set it to something different than the program's path.
2. A way to override engines' options for Hash and Threads, so you don't have to set it individually for each engine. That's already possible for Tournaments, but I'd like to see it also universally if that is possible, or otherwise just in "Analysis" settings.
3. To be able to use EPD opening books.
4. I mentioned this before, but I'll expand a little bit: I'd like it if there were 3 buttons at the bottom of "Moves/Tags" dock. One button for "previous move", one for "next move", and one for analysis (press to start analysis, and then press again to stop it.). I don’t know about other users, but in my case, it would make a huge difference in ease of use. Maybe it's partly because I'm used to Arena's layout, but I'd find it very useful.

Again, those are just suggestions, not demands. I know that those can become annoying after a while. The program is perfect as it is.

[mar]

Thanks for the updates! It amazes me how fast and light this program feels. After years of using Arena, I think I've found a new GUI, or at least I'll use both.

---

There is a bug with tabs, where they disappear for some reason randomly. It happens with all tabs:
- main ones
- moves/tags dock
- book/results dock
- graph dock
- bottom dock

It happens when you have selected a tab other than the first one, and then minimize the program's window.
Every tab on the left of the selected one has disappeared when you restore the window. But it doesn't happen consistently.

I have tried to find a way to reliably reproduce it, but it isn't consistent. It happens quite often but it's unpredictable.
Some circumstances that may increase the probability of it appearing:
- after you first open the program
- after you have loaded a PGN file
- if you have selected specifically the "Tags" tab at "Moves/Tags" dock.
But it can happen randomly, and you have to minimize the window for it to appear.

Here's a video that shows the bug: https://youtu.be/BHmTO0JsrIk

---

Unrelated to the above, here are a few improvements I'd like to see (as always, feel free to ignore):
1. A default path for "Open file" action, under "Paths" settings, so you can set it to something different than the program's path.
2. A way to override engines' options for Hash and Threads, so you don't have to set it individually for each engine. That's already possible for Tournaments, but I'd like to see it also universally if that is possible, or otherwise just in "Analysis" settings.
3. To be able to use EPD opening books.
4. I mentioned this before, but I'll expand a little bit: I'd like it if there were 3 buttons at the bottom of "Moves/Tags" dock. One button for "previous move", one for "next move", and one for analysis (press to start analysis, and then press again to stop it.). I don’t know about other users, but in my case, it would make a huge difference in ease of use. Maybe it's partly because I'm used to Arena's layout, but I'd find it very useful.

Again, those are just suggestions, not demands. I know that those can become annoying after a while. The program is perfect as it is.

the bug you describe is auto-scroll problem with tab bar, I can repro simply by adding a new tab - and scratch pad "disappears".
what really happens the tab bar just scrolls right, the tab is still there and you can navigate to it by either mouse wheel over
over the tab bar or (preferably) clicking the button on the right of the tabbar and selecting the other tab this way
this is a minor annoyance (I agree) but not something critical to fix at the moment, so I prefer to focus on real bugs now

1) - not planned

2) - I'm definitely against global overrides, per tour override is enough (and it's transparent because you immediately see that it's active)
after all the GUI primarily focuses on eng-eng tournaments

3) there is no EPD support and I still haven't decided whether to support it or not. full EPD support would also require
running suites which I don't actually need, but would be probably nice for completeness
also for openings EPD is inferior to PGN because it forces a startpos where you lose moves; so anything you can do with EPD for openings
you can do with PGN (except it'll be a bit more data with the tags)
still this would require extra work and I plan to invest that time elsewhere on some features that I find more important at the moment

4) I don't see what exactly this would solve. analysis has a hotkey (ctrl-shift-A)
and navigation by clicking the movelist seems perfectly adequate, also at the bottom definitely
not since this would waste precious vertical space. they might fit on the right to the tab bar with moves/tags
but like I said it feels redundant so I don't plan to add any buttons

[Mark 1]

Hi Martin...


Could the Schedule section display the number of moves for games that have already finished? This would make it easier to find and revisit particularly interesting short games.

Best regards
Mark 1

[vencenda]

the bug you describe is auto-scroll problem with tab bar, I can repro simply by adding a new tab - and scratch pad "disappears".
what really happens the tab bar just scrolls right, the tab is still there and you can navigate to it by either mouse wheel over
over the tab bar or (preferably) clicking the button on the right of the tabbar and selecting the other tab this way
this is a minor annoyance (I agree) but not something critical to fix at the moment, so I prefer to focus on real bugs now

Thanks. I somehow missed that it's solvable just by scrolling up. I had found the top right corner arrow, but as I said it happens in the various docks' tabs too, so it was kind of a big issue without this solution, especially when I couldn't use the analysis tab at the bottom.

4) I don't see what exactly this would solve. analysis has a hotkey (ctrl-shift-A)
and navigation by clicking the movelist seems perfectly adequate, also at the bottom definitely
not since this would waste precious vertical space. they might fit on the right to the tab bar with moves/tags
but like I said it feels redundant so I don't plan to add any buttons

I agree that analysis button is mostly a personal preference, but navigation buttons are kind of a must IMO, and standard in every GUI, I believe. I find navigation by clicking on movelist a little too awkward in practice, if you want to see a game from start to finish for example. You have to constantly look where you have to click, or when you have to change lines, and then turn back to the board, etc. If it’s not planned, I’ll just have to get used to using the keyboard arrows.

[F.Huber]

... but navigation buttons are kind of a must IMO, and standard in every GUI, I believe. I find navigation by clicking on movelist a little too awkward in practice, if you want to see a game from start to finish for example. You have to constantly look where you have to click, or when you have to change lines, and then turn back to the board, etc. If it’s not planned, I’ll just have to get used to using the keyboard arrows.

Yes, I totally agree too - and constantly switching between mouse and keyboard is not very comfortable.
The best place for such navigation buttons would be directly under the board ...

[mar]

Could the Schedule section display the number of moves for games that have already finished? This would make it easier to find and revisit particularly interesting short games.

interesting idea, I like it. not so useful for me but from what I understand people like this kind of stats so why not (note that the move count includes book moves of course)
will be included in the next build

[mar]

Yes, I totally agree too - and constantly switching between mouse and keyboard is not very comfortable.
The best place for such navigation buttons would be directly under the board ...

no, there already is a comfortable way to navigate the moves with mouse only (the move list), keyboard works too
I don't plan to include any buttons anywhere that consume precious space - end of discussion

[F.Huber]

Yes, I totally agree too - and constantly switching between mouse and keyboard is not very comfortable.
The best place for such navigation buttons would be directly under the board ...

no, there already is a comfortable way to navigate the moves with mouse only (the move list), keyboard works too
I don't plan to include any buttons anywhere that consume precious space - end of discussion

Okay, then I'll stick with Arena - end of discussion.

[adnoh]

If a game ends with an anomaly and I subsequently replay it to completion, could you please consider removing the PGN of the failed game from the main PGN file?

That game's PGN and engine logs are already in the .anomaly.log file anyways.

[mar]

If a game ends with an anomaly and I subsequently replay it to completion, could you please consider removing the PGN of the failed game from the main PGN file?

That game's PGN and engine logs are already in the .anomaly.log file anyways.

hi,

the PGN acts as a tape so no, but there's a way to get a final clean PGN file:
once the tournament is finished, you can switch to the correspoding tournament tab and go to "File/Export tournament pgn as".
this will save the final games into a fresh pgn - assuming you didn't modify the tournament pgn file manually, which is strongly
discouraged.
so this way it will clean up any games that were replayed and only keeps the latest games

hope it helps