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BGonline.org Forums
Proposed HTML export layout
Posted By: Nack Ballard In Response To: Proposed HTML export layout (eXtreme Gammon)
Date: Saturday, 17 December 2011, at 12:44 a.m.
Xavier, I want to let you know how much I appreciate your willingness to entertain so many diverse formatting suggestions (some of them directly conflicting) and your untiring efforts to improve all aspects of XG even though it is vastly superior to the other bots already.
You might want to create two diagram format schemes: one for the casual user/player, and one for the expert user/player. (Within each scheme, you could offer multiple options, as Jason suggested, though personally I consider a simple enough matter to find the html line of text -- as long as its in the right place -- and make minor changes.)
For the casual user/player, I like the first of your three formats. The concept of "away" or "needs" (negative match scores) are foreign to some people. "11 (to 13)" and "2 (to 13)" are easy to understand.
When Crawford is activated, I suggest you truncate it to "Crawf" or "Cr" only when you otherwise lack the line space. For example, "Nack Ballard 12 (to 13) Crawford" if I'm leading, but "Xavier Dufaure de Citres 12 (to 13) Cr" if you're leading. In other words, limit the number of characters: abbreviate Crawford only when not doing so would crowd the pipcount (or push it past the right edge of the diagram). I agree with Mike that Crawford (or Crawf, or Cr) should be displayed only on the leader's side.
I like your formatting idea of graying out the names and "pip" because what is left in black is the more vital information. I would slightly prefer that the pip numbers themselves were grayed out as well. In any case, if/when you keep the gray/black contrast, you don't need a colon -- you can save a character by deleting it.
Perhaps it would be better to reverse the order of score and name so that the scores align at the left; I'm not sure.
I think the rotated XGID (getting it out of the way of the captions) is a great idea. I can't speak to the issue of copying -- I'll leave that to greater minds to work out. The left side is perhaps a better location than the right side at least until you've resolved the issue of caption spill.
Moving on, let's discuss a second formatting scheme -- one for the EXPERT user/player. I realize that all experts do not think alike or have the same preferences, so I'll speak only for myself and let you decide accordingly.
First of all, when I see "6 (to 13)" and "4" (to 13), and worse yet in two different areas of the board, it makes me wince. Now I have to take extra time to round up the two pieces of information and translate it to the one single byte of information: –7–9 (i.e., "need 7, need 9") or for those who prefer, the old-fashioned 7a9a (i.e., "7 away, 9 away"). These days, for me it's –7–9" or even just "7 9," that's the way I think of it. Condensing information promotes higher levels of thought.
In most cases, if I care who the players are at all, it suffices to be told in the text. "I faced Neil here," or Blue is so-and-so is White is whoever. As it is, the names displayed sometimes have nothing to do with who played; they might be something generic like XG Roller or random appellations left over in the computer that meaninglessly clutter up the caption(s).
What I WOULD care to see, large as life, is "Blue on roll, cube action," which at the moment in your examples is reduced to a footnote.
I like captions to be minimal, and include only the vital information, which I want it to have jump out at me. You've come partway. If I had my druthers, you would streamline the score, get rid of the names completely, diminish and gray the size of the pipcounts, enlarge "Blue on roll, cube action, and move it all to one line.
For example:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue at –11–2 on roll, cube action? ......pip 119–105
--------------------------------------------------------------------or
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Blue at 11a2a on roll, cube action? ......pip 119–105
--------------------------------------------------------------------If the far side is on roll (though it's usually not the case in posts here), the caption goes instead at the top of the diagram, for example:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
White at –2–11 on roll, cube action? ....pip 105–119
---------------------------------------------------------------------If you want to include names as well (or it could be user-optional), they could written in another color and vertically along the left (or right) side of the diagram, opposite the ID#, like this:
XG Roller+ vs Xavier Dufaure de Citres Or, if you need more space for the main caption, move the pipcounts vertically to the side, too (or instead):
105..XG Roller+ vs Xavier Dufaure de Citres..119 Note that it is the sum of the characters in TWO names that forms the side-caption; it is only two long names that would force you to limit the number of characters or truncate or reduce font size or whatever.
There are also formatting advantages to a single-line caption. For example, when you have diagrams underneath each other (or in a box), you don't have the undercaption of one diagram running into the overcaption of the next. Or if a diagram is alone, it still means less scrolling between text and diagram. As an author and reader of posts, I'm very conscious of that.
Even if you resonate with few or none of my ideas, it would be great if some single-line caption were available as an option. Then I wouldn't have to search for a secondary html line to delete and I could just overwrite my own choice of wording onto the caption line.
Finally, I just want to say that whatever formatting scheme or schemes you ultimately settle on, almost anything that anyone has suggested in this thread is much better, IMO, to the existing squint-and-hunt-on-the-right-side scheme. I mean this as strong encouragement that you're moving in the right direction!)
Thank you for considering these suggestions.
Nack
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