By a amazig coincidence I just installed Chess for Android one minute ago on my smartphone (a Galaxy Gio, which I bought two weeks ago just before I left on holiday). And it works (although I have no idea against what engine I am playing). It looks really great!
hgm wrote:By a amazig coincidence I just installed Chess for Android one minute ago on my smartphone (a Galaxy Gio, which I bought two weeks ago just before I left on holiday). And it works (although I have no idea against what engine I am playing). It looks really great!
Thanks H.G.!
By default, the built-in Java engine is used. An imported engine "reports itself" at the bottom. Note that exiting the application unloads all engines to free up resources (I may add a feature to re-load them automatically at some point).
You can find your own engines FairyMax and micro-Max compiled for ARM-based Android here.
Congrats with your Galaxy Gio! I assume this implies you will soon put me out of "business" with Winboard for Android?
I am currently giving this though. These smart-phones are fantastic toys, and of course I would love to learn to impose my will on them. Unfortunately I am currently a complete noob in this respect, I would not even be able to make a "hello World" app...
In addition, it seems clear that the design of XBoard, with all the different windows, might not be very suitable for a smartphone display, and some hefty redesign would be necessary to fully exploit this wonderful smartphone feature that allows you to 'sweep aside' the current display content, to reveal something else.
Is there any chance we could be 'in business' together?
I think it would be wonderfull if Chess for Android would support some or most of the variants played by Fairy-Max, but I imagine you are not very interested in those. (On the other hand, I saw you did Reversi...)
hgm wrote:Is there any chance we could be 'in business' together?
I think it would be wonderfull if Chess for Android would support some or most of the variants played by Fairy-Max, but I imagine you are not very interested in those. (On the other hand, I saw you did Reversi...)
I am probably stating the obvious, but you may want to start at the Android Developers website to get that first "Hello World" going as fast as possible
I like to help, but between work, family life, and (too) many nerdy hobbies such as my Android apps don't always have much spare time left. Why don't you have a look at the Android SDK/NDK and see what would be required for WinBoard?
Thanks for the pointers, and yes, I am certainly going to digest that.
But what I was really wondering about is if you would be willing to let me patch your Chess for Android to also handle Knightmate, Spartan Chess, Makruk, Berolina Chess, Cylinder Chess, Seirawan Chess and perhaps even Capablanca Chess. The first six are on 8x8 and should be quite easy (although in Seirawan there would be the issue of pieces in hand, but if a satisfactory solution could be found for that, we could also support Crazyhouse).
hgm wrote:
I think it would be wonderfull if Chess for Android would support some or most of the variants played by Fairy-Max, but I imagine you are not very interested in those. (On the other hand, I saw you did Reversi...)
I've been thinking that there's probably a reasonable market for something that plays chess variants on a hand-held device.
I've been contemplating whether there'd be something I could do with Sjaak on such a platform, but of course I lack an android device (and possibly the time to do anything serious). I don't really want a new phone, but I've been considering whether I can justify a tablet on the grounds that I have a lengthy commute every day (an hour and a half by train) and could use it for work. On the other hand, I'm probably more productive for having nothing but my laptop and no distraction from e-mail (or internet fora, ahem).
