Some minor quick suggestions(again).

[tacto]

Hi, I have always talked about the Bellcurve/normal distribution chart but an easy way to satisfy my annoying request would be to take our current active rank in both blitz and standard and devide that by the current overal active rank to get a percentile.

I really would like to know where I fit in something like Percentile Ranking: 90% that would be so cool becuase I would know that I am better than about 90% or so of the players.

I have heard this a few times and it has happened to me as well: When I sometimes click the Next Problem button it takes a while so I have click it again(not anymore) then lose rating points. You should only be able to click it once. I have also made the stupid mistake of clicking on it while being busy with those tiny prev and next move buttons so maybe spreading them apart a bit and sizing would help loads.

Another thing that would be great is if there was a slight pause before the computer makes its first move and waits for your response. Lastly, you should be able to - when finished with the problem - be able to go back to that first move. At the moment you can only "previous move" to your first move and not the computer.

Anyway, thats just some stuff I have been thinking about. Thanks a lot for all the hard work Richard.

[drahacikfm]

Another thing that would be great is if there was a slight pause before the computer makes its first move

Great suggestion!  I don't do blitz much on here, because you have to move so fast, and you have to make a move before you even have time to count up material and think "ok, I'm down a knight" or "I'm up a pawn here".  And you don't have time to think "Oh, he's threatening mate in 2, so I better do something with check."  This is very unnatural, to have to move fast when you have never seen the position before.

When you are playing blitz games online, you know what the current position is, you know what the material balance is, you know in general what tactical ideas there are for you and your opponent.  You are never given a position completely out of the blue, and have to move, with no time to count material or get familiar with where all the pieces are.

So I think a fantastic improvement here for blitz would be this:  The position appears.  After 5 seconds, the computer makes its move.  Then your clock starts running.  This is MUCH closer to the way things are in real blitz games.  Can we do this?

[richard]

Hi, I have always talked about the Bellcurve/normal distribution chart but an easy way to satisfy my annoying request would be to take our current active rank in both blitz and standard and devide that by the current overal active rank to get a percentile.

I really would like to know where I fit in something like Percentile Ranking: 90% that would be so cool becuase I would know that I am better than about 90% or so of the players.

I've just added this, although 90% means you are in the top 90% which means you are worse than 90% of all players.  If your percentile is 10% then you are in the top 10%. I think this is probably more intuitive than the other way around

I have heard this a few times and it has happened to me as well: When I sometimes click the Next Problem button it takes a while so I have click it again(not anymore) then lose rating points. You should only be able to click it once. I have also made the stupid mistake of clicking on it while being busy with those tiny prev and next move buttons so maybe spreading them apart a bit and sizing would help loads.

Disabling next problem has been on the todo list for a while but other tasks keeping jumping above it...I'll try and get to this in the next few days.  I'll also start looking around for an icon set with a range of sizes for the prev/next buttons.

Another thing that would be great is if there was a slight pause before the computer makes its first move and waits for your response.

A few users have requested this recently.  I'll try and make it a higher priority.

Lastly, you should be able to - when finished with the problem - be able to go back to that first move. At the moment you can only "previous move" to your first move and not the computer.

You can do this now by using the rewind to start button, the tricky bit is that this button is only enabled if you are not at the first move.

Anyway, thats just some stuff I have been thinking about. Thanks a lot for all the hard work Richard.

No problem :-)

[tacto]

Thanks a lot for the very thorough reply, first time in my life that I have recieved a good response when asking more than one question in a post. Most of the time ppl just make a excuse for the one thing and then ignore the rest.

Hehe.

Anyway, about the percentiles.

Please see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentile_rank

Being in the... say 90th percentile means that you are actually better than 90% or whomever is being refered to lol.

Lastly... how is it that currently the amount of blitz active members are equal to the standard active users(891)?

[richard]

Thanks a lot for the very thorough reply, first time in my life that I have recieved a good response when asking more than one question in a post. Most of the time ppl just make a excuse for the one thing and then ignore the rest.

Hehe.

:-)

Anyway, about the percentiles.

Please see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentile_rank

Being in the... say 90th percentile means that you are actually better than 90% or whomever is being refered to lol.

Hmm, yes It appears I've corrupted the meaning of percentile. I've changed this so the display says, "Better than: " (to avoid confusion) and uses the proper value.

Lastly... how is it that currently the amount of blitz active members are equal to the standard active users(891)?

A bug :-)  I was counting users who were active should be fixed now.

Regards,
Richard.

[tacto]

Sorry if that stretches the forum in here. I made those yesterday, the buttons. I dunno if their that great but if you want them tell me, or if you want something in another style or so you can also tell me and I will give it a try.

Heres the link: http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/2939/highpe9.jpg

[richard]

tacto: Hey those icons are fantastic! If it wasn't too much trouble, would it be possible to have the style match the current icons a little more closely, that way I can offer the option of small or large controls with the same look and feel.

Thanks,
Richard.

[tacto]

Thats the thing... the small buttens are just a color with a stroke around it and the stroke/border has a gradient with about 2 colors. Thats easy to recreate but it won't look that good in a larger size.

If you want some buttons just tell me what size and I will try some stuff out. Will be usefull if you could tell me what you DON'T like about the ones I made so I won't do that again lol.

When talking about size talk in relation to the ones I made and the current ones.

[richard]

Thats the thing... the small buttens are just a color with a stroke around it and the stroke/border has a gradient with about 2 colors. Thats easy to recreate but it won't look that good in a larger size.

If you want some buttons just tell me what size and I will try some stuff out. Will be usefull if you could tell me what you DON'T like about the ones I made so I won't do that again lol.

When talking about size talk in relation to the ones I made and the current ones.

Ok, I'm fine with you replacing the original set then if that design doesn't scale up well, but if you need a border for them to look good, I would prefer a less heavy weight border than the one on your current example.

Ideally I'd probably like 4 sizes, the current size which is 16 pixel plus 24 32 and 48 pixel sizes, maybe even a 64 pixel size.  I find the blue on your "enabled" buttons a bit hard to see on my monitor so would prefer something which matches the original blue (which  also matches the use of blue in other bits of the site). I'm not sure if you are using a vector format which can automatically scale to different sizes, if not then it might be too much work to have so many size choices. If that is the case, just a 16 pixel version and then whatever size you think is large enough would also be great.

Thanks,
Richard.

P.S. If you like playing around with graphic design, It is fairly easy for me to support optional images for the dark and light squares on the chess board so if you wanted to experiment with different board square looks I could also add those as preferences.

[tacto]

I will play around again soon in the next few days.

What exactly do you mean with heavy weight? Thick? The colors?

There are 2 button type on that picture, the one with a smaller border and one with bigger, obviously noticed just making sure lol.

You probably want a lighter blue?

[richard]

Yes, too thick is what I meant, although they would probably look thinner if the border colour was closer to the internal colour. Of the two borders on your example, I definitely like the smaller border, but I think think the border stands out a bit too much.

Yes a lighter blue a little more similar to the current blue on the buttons would fit the rest of the site better I think.

Thanks again.

Regards,
Richard.

[richard]

Another thing that would be great is if there was a slight pause before the computer makes its first move

Great suggestion!  I don't do blitz much on here, because you have to move so fast, and you have to make a move before you even have time to count up material and think "ok, I'm down a knight" or "I'm up a pawn here".  And you don't have time to think "Oh, he's threatening mate in 2, so I better do something with check."  This is very unnatural, to have to move fast when you have never seen the position before.

When you are playing blitz games online, you know what the current position is, you know what the material balance is, you know in general what tactical ideas there are for you and your opponent.  You are never given a position completely out of the blue, and have to move, with no time to count material or get familiar with where all the pieces are.

So I think a fantastic improvement here for blitz would be this:  The position appears.  After 5 seconds, the computer makes its move.  Then your clock starts running.  This is MUCH closer to the way things are in real blitz games.  Can we do this?

I've just uploaded a change that implements this delay for blitz mode. The delay is 5 seconds.  I haven't adjusted the average seconds taken for current problems but they will adjust over time. I would expect a little upward rating drift for blitz but I'm likely to also offer less reward for finishing quickly to offset this (and try and get blitz ratings a bit closer to standard ratings).

Please let me know if anyone notices any new bugs I've introduced during this change.

Regards,
Richard.

[drahacikfm]

Fantastic!  The 5 seconds is just enough to count up the material and see where my king and his king are on the board    Feels a lot more like a real blitz game, where you have to wait a few seconds for the opponent to move.

[tacto]

Thats great will try it out soon.

[dlester]

Since we are talking UI here with regard to the buttons, any chance of moving where they are?  There is all that 'dead' space on the left.  Having them at the bottom just restricts how large you can make the board.