[Bug-gnubg] Display - Bar checkers (feature request)

[Christopher D. Yep]

In gnubg, a player's bar checkers are displayed in the half of the bar 
nearest his inner board.  For example Player 1's inner board is at the 
bottom of the screen; if player 0 hits player 1, the hit checkers are 
placed in the bottom half of the bar.

However, I believe it's more typical to place player 1's bar checkers in 
the top half of the bar, opposite his inner board.

Examples:

1. BBS export (e.g. for Gammonline.com)
2. fibs2html export (fibs2html.sourceforge.net)
3. Snowie
4. Jellyfish
5. Live play

The above examples place player 1's bar checkers in the top half of the bar 
(in the case of live play, this is often because it is closer to player 0 
who is actually doing the hitting).

Looking through my backgammon books and newsletters, I see that all of them 
either put player 1's bar checkers in the top half of the bar or exactly in 
the center of the bar (e.g. the Gammon Press books and Carol Joy Cole's 
Flint Area BackgammoNews place hit checkers exactly in the center).  None 
of them follow gnubg's convention.  Putting player 1's bar checkers in the 
bottom half of the bar (next to this inner board) does not look 
aesthetically pleasing to my eye, although I would probably get used to it 
after awhile.  Also if player 1 owns his 6 and 7 points, his hit checkers 
are placed halfway between the 6 point and 7 point when the position is 
exported to ascii text.  For example 2 checkers on the bar looks like this 
(bottom half of board shown, from X's point of view):


    |                  |   |                  |
    |                  |   |                  |
    |                  |   |                  |
    |          X  X  X | X | X  X             |
    |          X  X  X | X | X  X             |
    +-1--2--3--4--5--6-------7--8--9-10-11-12-+

If I quickly glanced at the above, I might mistakenly think that X had a 
6-prime.  This is sometimes difficult for the eye to process.  I actually 
prefer Snowie's text export with respect to bar checkers (X's bar checkers 
are placed in the upper half of the bar, but not still somewhat centered so 
as not to confuse them with O's 6 point or 7 point).

Example of Snowie test export:

 Money session. Score X-O: 0-0

           X to play (3 1)
           +24-23-22-21-20-19-------18-17-16-15-14-13-+
           | O  O  O  O  O  O |   |                   |
           | O  O  O  O  O  O |   |                   |
           |                O |   |                   | S
           |                  |   |                   | n
           |                  |   |                   | o
           |                  |BAR|                   | w
           |                  | O |                   | i
           |                  | O |                   | e
           |                  |   |                   |
           | X  X  X  X  X  X |   |                   |
           | X  X  X  X  X  X |   |                   |
           +-1--2--3--4--5--6--------7--8--9-10-11-12-+
           Pipcount  X:  42  O:  98  X-O: 0-0/Money (1)
           Men Off   X:   3  O:   0
           CubeValue:  2, O owns Cube

O's checkers are shown clearly on the bar instead of between either 
player's 6 point and 7 point.

Feature request: Give the user an option to place bar checkers in the half 
of the bar opposite one's inner board.  (Possibly even make this the 
default setting.)

Chris