Re: [XBoard-devel] Promotion and piece menus

[Arun Persaud]

Hi

> Come to think of it: I might like this 'simplified' implementation best.
> (Because you can cycle through the pieces in both directions.)

I think the biggest issue is still that this won't be obvious to someone
who is using xboard for the first time... how about the following as a
combination of Eric's idea of showing it on square on the 8th row and
your sweeping action...

The moment you click on a pawn on the 7th row we show a gray image of
the piece that it will convert to on the 8th and add an image to the
left and right that shows that you can right click on the gray image and
use the sweep to change it to another piece. at the same time we could
show some text in the notification area... see attached picture.

This way you can just do click-click or drage&drop if you are happy with
the piece you want... if not, you can click on the piece and then use
right-sweep to change it and left click to finish the move...
You could also do the right-sweep during pre-move already. Xboard could
remember the setting on a per pawn setting or per board... this could be
also something that could be changed via the options menu...

I think the selection via right click is a great idea, since this makes
accidental mistakes impossible. Also this method would be purely
graphical so it would work for all variations and no translation is ever
needed...

> Only problem is how to handle Shogi, where it is not obvious that
> a piece offers promotion choice at the time you grab it, and promoting
> pieces can move both ways...

The above would also solve the Shogi problem (I think at least, since I
never played Shogi), since you would preselect and then move and you
have a defined place where you do the pre-selection...

cheers
        ARUN

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