Jul 132011
 

This post is primarily a test to see what readers think of this new game viewer I’m trying out. Personally, I think this is superb and it is also quite easy and quick to use.

Update 15/07/11: After early feedback I’ve now tried loading up multiple games into the viewer (one advantage that it has over the previous one I was using) they are all in the Two Knights Defence which continues a recent theme. I’ve tinkered  with the default colours a bit purely for aesthetics (I think it looks nice anyway!) and have a couple of the games with notes in to see how people think the comments are working.

Some early lessons.

  1. You need to have Java installed on your computer to see the viewer. If you don’t have it your browser should prompt you but if it doesn’t and you can only see a blank space below then you can download it for free here. I promise it’s worth the effort.
  2. I’ll need to learn some lessons about putting in the game annotations as this viewer displays them slightly differently to Fritz. As a note for anyone wanting to send me games in future, it only displays annotations if you add them “after move” and not “before move”. It also doesn’t work very well if you intersperse single words between moves in sub variations which is a style that works very well in Fritz and Chessbase but not here.
  3. Finally, please ignore the error message that is displayed on some of the boards when you bring them up. One you start playing through the games they work fine and I haven’t been able to figure out what the error message actually means yet!

Please feel free to feedback more now that I’ve updated this.

  10 Responses to “Like the view?”

  1. Doesn't work at all for me in IE 8 on Windows 7. I just get a weird space in the screen that repeats the last line of your blog post as I scroll down.

  2. Nice game David!

    Chris –

    First off why are you using ie8!? Install Firefox, its absurdly better!

    But if u insist on sticking with ie8, then the answer to your woes is probably java.

    Go to java.com and install install java runtime environment.

    If u already have this installed, then this should be more evidence of why ie is useless – firefox it!

  3. Hi Chris,
    Matt's right it will be Java script. I think I can tinker with the set up so that the viewer will detect whether or not the person logging in has Java and can direct them to download it. It's free of course.
    By the way I just run IE8 too πŸ˜‰
    Thanks both for the very prompt feedback which is most helpful.
    'mezzo

  4. Ahhhh!!!

    Have you even tried an alternative?

    Opera and chrome are also much better than ie.

    Firefox also tells you that you need java if its not installed already.

  5. Well done, David (Intermezzo?)

    Chris,
    You made me curious and I went on uninstalling Java (and loosing all of my setting) to give it a try. IE8 tried loading the page and clearly prompted me that Java is used on the page and suggested what to do next.
    In your case, if you had Java on your PC before maybe the installation was corrupted somehow and you need to re-install it. Another possibility is if you turned off those warnings at some point by checking β€œdon’t prompt me with this message”. As far as I know every modern browser will provide a suggestion box when Java is missing.

  6. Don't any of you sleep? πŸ™‚ I too have IE8 and the usual little red cross when it can't display something; no message about Java. Can't see it in Start/All Programs… would it show there? I'll do as Matt suggests and go to java.com.

    I've never particularly subscribed to the popular sport of MS bashing πŸ™‚ we have Firefox on another PC and Carol may have tried it but been unimpressed. I've never tried it, nor Linux either, which nerds of my acquaintance consider far superior to Windows. And then proceed to undermine their arguments by describing in loving detail the contortions they must go through to perform simple operations! Chacun a son gout. πŸ™‚

  7. Yeah it's nice enough no better or worse than the other viewer, I see it's the same as one as used on the 'Chess Games' website!

    If it is easier for you to use then that is a good thing!

  8. Java download did the trick; thanks!

    Slightly more "noddy" looking board and pieces but who cares? Annoying that, on the netbook, the board is slightly bigger, so I can't see all of it and the first line of Annotations, without clicking up and down.

    I assume that Chess Viewer itself is supplying those red A's and the "A poor move" annotations?

    It's very slow to load, but I'll get used to that.

    I liked that I could try out alternatives myself; perhaps I'd missed how to do that on the current system. I've closed and reloaded the page and it hasn't mistakenly "saved" my alternative – that *would* be a recipe for disaster! πŸ˜€

    Bottom line is, if it makes your life so much easier, go for it! Include instructions on downloading Java (it's terribly easy) prominently at the top of the side-bar. As I said in an email to you, I'd send the bill for this software to the club; you're doing all this work for our pleasure!

  9. It didn't work for me initially. Nothing showed up. I run Firefox 3.6 browser and Java is up-to-date. I have the AdblockPlus add-on installed in Firefox. I disabled this add-on and now the game viewer runs perfectly.

  10. Thanks all for your feedback. It seems to be working for everyone… except me! I've been having some run time errors and IE crashes ever since I loaded this up. Can't figure out why. I can see it ok and it loads quickly but then it keeps freezing me out a little while after. I've e-mailed the developer to see if he can help. Must be something to do with my laptop.
    Anyway, many thanks to Mr Sykes (who ran the code through the generators for me) I have just uploaded the 2010 games archive into one viewer on the 'games vault' page. That's over 100 games in one viewer!!! check it out.

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