"Next Problem" button

[drahacikfm]

I think the "Next Problem" button should be disabled while a problem is live.  That means while you have not finished the problem yet, and the clock is running.

Too often I am interrupted from a solving session by a phone call or something else, I come back, and click the Next Problem button.  And I get the red Failed!

The only purpose for clicking the Next Problem button while a problem is still live would be to resign because you can't find the answer.  But you might as well just guess a move, instead of resigning.

If you don't want to disable the button, at least have a popup confirmation window if the problem is still live.

[richard]

Hi Drahacik,

This is seconding a previous users suggestion. The original purpose was to provide a "resign" option as you put it, but I suspect very few people use it like that and most users only use it when they've finished a problem and don't have the "auto jump to next problem" option selected.  Would anyone miss the "next problem" button if it was enabled only after a problem was completed?

Richard.

[andreacoda]

Would anyone miss the "next problem" button if it was enabled only after a problem was completed?

Most likely not - if you want to give up on a problem, you can simulate the "next problem"  just by doing a random (legal) move - and you may also get lucky and get the correct solution by doing that! 

[kennyc]

As a new user this was actually a slightly confusing button.  As I was exploring the site, I wanted to just see some of the problems, and did not realize that pressing this would mark my answer wrong.

In Blitz mode I might at some point use something like a "resign to next problem" button, but in standard I think that I would prefer that the potential for accidentally clicking past a problem that I had been working on be removed.

[richard]

Thanks for the further feedback, I think I've decided to disable the next problem button when the tactic is live.  This might not make the next UI but this change will be made in the relatively near future.

Richard.

[boromir]

Why would you ever resign a problem? Even if you genuinely have no clue what the solution, wouldn't you just make a plausible move that could be the solution? sometimes your intuition is actually right :-)

[kennyc]

@boromir I thought of one situation where I might use a resign button instead of a guess last night as I was going through my set of easiest problems on the site.  One of the options I have selected for the set  is "Problems I have never got right", so that once I get the problem correct it no longer shows up in the set.  My goal for this set and future sets like it is to make sure that I understand the concept behind the correct answer.  The problem is if I make a wild guess and am correct, I may or may not learn why it is correct, but the problem is removed from the set and I never see it again.  Where as if I resign and see that my guess would have been correct, the problem remains in the set and I get tested again later to see if I learned my lesson.

[boromir]

True, I'm sure you could think of some special cases like that where you may use a resign button, but if you really wanted that problem to stay you could just make an absurd move that is definitely not the solution. I'm don't think it's worth putting a resign button just for relatively rare instances like that - especially not when there are very easy ways to do exactly the same.
I think Richard has plenty to do as it is (not that adding a resign button would be a massive task, but still).

[andreacoda]

I agree with Boromir - let's help Richard helping us!