Web based GUI for UCI chess engine: YouTube series

[AdminX]

This could develop into an interesting project for users of Chromebooks.

[BrendanJNorman]

Hey what's up guys, Code Monkey King's here.
Many programmers creating websites to showcase their work but not many websites are actually allowing to play online vs a UCI chess engine written in C/C++
This is the exact entry point I'm starting my new work at, so the idea is very simple - create a web based GUI for my engine BBC, connect it to the engine and deploy at free hosting so people could play with my engine online.

Here's a quick demo of the bare minimum prototype I've made a couple of days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0uKZbHWVKM
It's still pretty early development stage but it already allows to play vs UCI chess engine written in C completely in browser!
I'm going to live code the entire project on youtube and end the series with deploying the web app (most likely at pythonanywhere.com)

Toolchain:
- Python/Flask (minimalist web framework)
- python-chess (UCI wrapper)
- chessboardjs (board widget used on lichess.org)
- chessjs (helper library to handle game state in UI)

Some cool things about this idea:
1.Using pyinstaller one can convert web app to desktop app (single binary executable that starts HTTP server on local machine, so you can open browser an play chess!)
2. Using this technology it should be possible to create a GUI like Arena but completely in web interface!

I'm waiting for all interested to join my new dead simple tutorial series everyone can follow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0uKZbH ... jiLhkQm0DB

P.S. I bought a new mic, so sound quality is much better now!

What you are doing is great. Makes me want to study chess programming once my other study (language) goals are reached.

Thanks for your work.

Cool! What kind of language are you studying?

Mandarin Chinese, actually.

[maksimKorzh]

Hey what's up guys, Code Monkey King's here.
Many programmers creating websites to showcase their work but not many websites are actually allowing to play online vs a UCI chess engine written in C/C++
This is the exact entry point I'm starting my new work at, so the idea is very simple - create a web based GUI for my engine BBC, connect it to the engine and deploy at free hosting so people could play with my engine online.

Here's a quick demo of the bare minimum prototype I've made a couple of days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0uKZbHWVKM
It's still pretty early development stage but it already allows to play vs UCI chess engine written in C completely in browser!
I'm going to live code the entire project on youtube and end the series with deploying the web app (most likely at pythonanywhere.com)

Toolchain:
- Python/Flask (minimalist web framework)
- python-chess (UCI wrapper)
- chessboardjs (board widget used on lichess.org)
- chessjs (helper library to handle game state in UI)

Some cool things about this idea:
1.Using pyinstaller one can convert web app to desktop app (single binary executable that starts HTTP server on local machine, so you can open browser an play chess!)
2. Using this technology it should be possible to create a GUI like Arena but completely in web interface!

I'm waiting for all interested to join my new dead simple tutorial series everyone can follow!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0uKZbH ... jiLhkQm0DB

P.S. I bought a new mic, so sound quality is much better now!

What you are doing is great. Makes me want to study chess programming once my other study (language) goals are reached.

Thanks for your work.

Cool! What kind of language are you studying?

Mandarin Chinese, actually.

OMG! This is so cool! I'm practicing Chinese qigong for many years believe it or not!

[maksimKorzh]

This could develop into an interesting project for users of Chromebooks.

Sure. The idea is to use web interface which means whatever device having a web browser would be able to interact with an engine easily.
In case if it's running locally still one file executables encapsulating python and dependencies still might be beneficial.