Re: [XBoard-devel] XBoard 4.7.3: Full board textures + maximize window

[h . g . muller]

Op Do, 18 september, 2014 1:57 am schreef Arun Persaud:
>
> joining the discussion a bit late and I don't really know XQ ;) Could one
> draw the background png without anylines on it and use a svg file to
> create the lines? that way one would have bitmap background, so that
> people can use wooden textures or similar and the lines would always scale
> nicely to any size, since internally they would be recreated from a svg
> when rescaling.
>
This indeed looks like the best way to do it, and I already suggested
something along those lines in one of the first posts of this exchange. It
is the same strategy as is used with the grid separating the squares in
games other than XQ and Go.

There are some drawbacks as well, though:
*) It is really a very specific feature, only of use to Xiangqi in
oriental representation (as the standard edition of XBoard does not
support Go).
*) It requires much more complex handling than the regular grid, because
the pieces cover it. So each time a piece moves in or out of a square, the
grid lines in that square would have to be repaired. For the highlight
arrow a similar problem exists w.r.t. the regular grid. But there it can
be solved by completely redrawing the grid when the arrow is erased. For
the XQ grid that would not work, as there are other pieces that should
continue covering the grid. With the arrow it would also not work if there
were multiple arrows, not having to be erased at the same time.

It could be done, of course, but so far I did consider it worth the
trouble, in view of the importance of the problem and the available
alternatives. XQ is a niche application at best, and it is not obvious to
me that we should go to great lengths to make cosmetic features that are
in no way central to playing it, (like being able to size the board to
arbitrary large dimensions using the same bitmap, rather than switching
between a few bitmaps) work as well as for the other variants.