Life In 19x19

I had an idea already some months ago to make a less ugly computer go board. A week ago, I finally got around to implementing it and decided to share the library freely for noncommercial use:

http://www.jgoboard.com/

As a proof of concept, I also made a simple (but good-looking ) SGF viewer - format support is not perfect but should work on most decent browsers:

http://www.jgoboard.com/sgf.html

Here's the viewer in action (you can use arrow keys on most browsers to navigate):

http://www.jgoboard.com/sgf.html?url=http://www.jgoboard.com/sgf/shusaku.sgf

If there's demand, I might also make a version that is easy to embed on other websites to view SGF files, much like what can be done with EidoGo and some Flash-based viewers.

I'd be happy to hear any comments or improvement suggestions anyone might have.

I just wanted to be the first to say that it looks beautiful. Great work!

That's beautiful. One thing that stands out, though, is how the stones are perfectly aligned. There's a Mac program called Goban (http://www.sente.ch/software/goban/), which, as you can see from the screen shot, is the only go program I've seen that slightly mis-aligns the stones so they look more realistic. My guess is that doing this with javascript is not easy, but there is often more realism in imperfection.

Edit: well, there you go; I didn't see the shuffle option, until the next poster mentioned it.

Excellent job!

That's amazing! Any chance of you building it into an offline sgf viewer?
I especially liked the option to shuffle or align stones, and the use of shadows. Really cool!

Really, really, nice.

Thanks for all the comments so far!

Stable wrote:That's amazing! Any chance of you building it into an offline sgf viewer?
I especially liked the option to shuffle or align stones, and the use of shadows. Really cool!

Offline use would require some way to "open" an SGF file, and I don't know if it can be done using plain JavaScript. Of course one could make a text box where you could paste SGF contents, but that would perhaps be a bit cumbersome for most users. I'll keep the idea in mind, however, and maybe do it at some point if I find an easy way.

kirkmc wrote:That's beautiful. One thing that stands out, though, is how the stones are perfectly aligned.

If you check out his sgf-viewer, there is an option called "shuffle" this does exactly what you desire.

EDIT: Didn't see your edit.

jokkebk wrote: Of course one could make a text box where you could paste SGF contents, but that would perhaps be a bit cumbersome for most users.

That would work for me.

If you want to avoid reinventing the wheel in terms of functionality, you could almost certainly use stylesheets to apply your look to an eidogo player. If you want some prior art to crib off of, take a look at my wordpress plugin which includes a mini-mode for eidogo done using a stylesheet.

Looks really good so far. As far as the SGF viewer goes, some functionality to see the most recent stone played would be nice. Perhaps a glow effect or something would work without distracting from the style. I know you're going for photorealistic, but a point arises where function overrides form.

It would be cool if KGS would implement something like this...

I agree it quite a striking visual. Good job.

Chew Terr wrote:As far as the SGF viewer goes, some functionality to see the most recent stone played would be nice.

I wonder how much the advent of the 'marked last move' has changed/weakened the average players perception of game. Does this do anything to distract from assessing the whole board situation? There is obviously no such marker in a face to face game, unless you can swallow enough your pride to ask your opponent where they played. I know I find it hard, if feels like I should know what the board looked like before my opponent played and should be able to figure it out myself.

uglyboxer wrote:I agree it quite a striking visual. Good job.

Chew Terr wrote:As far as the SGF viewer goes, some functionality to see the most recent stone played would be nice.

I wonder how much the advent of the 'marked last move' has changed/weakened the average players perception of game. Does this do anything to distract from assessing the whole board situation? There is obviously no such marker in a face to face game, unless you can swallow enough your pride to ask your opponent where they played. I know I find it hard, if feels like I should know what the board looked like before my opponent played and should be able to figure it out myself.

Yeah, but if you're clicking through a game (especially a pro or beginner game) you may not know where to look for the next move. I do understand your point, and it's an interesting one. However, I also see merit in the convenience, in addition to not wanting to miss an atari that I 'should have seen'.

uglyboxer wrote:I agree it quite a striking visual. Good job.

Chew Terr wrote:As far as the SGF viewer goes, some functionality to see the most recent stone played would be nice.

I wonder how much the advent of the 'marked last move' has changed/weakened the average players perception of game. Does this do anything to distract from assessing the whole board situation? There is obviously no such marker in a face to face game, unless you can swallow enough your pride to ask your opponent where they played. I know I find it hard, if feels like I should know what the board looked like before my opponent played and should be able to figure it out myself.

Typically you can see your opponent's hand. In any case, a simple solution that wouldn't spoil the look would be to indicate the coordinate next to the move number. Something like "Move: 1 (D10)" would help you if you can't immediately spot where the stone was placed.

Great stuff, jokkebk!

Is there any way to resize the board? With my smallish laptop screen, I can just barely fit the board. Adding sound would be cool too. I love it...