Hi,

I'm Mike Adams and for the last 18 months i've been writing a chess interface that connects to ICC ( chessclub.com), which is Java, GPL liscence, and works on Macintosh, Windows, and Linux. ( i run it mainly on a mac these days). And this is Lantern Chess at http://www.LanternChess.com -- this is currently a simple page, only some html written in a text editor and 6 screen shots, jpg,png, not javascript or anything fancy. there is a little description of the features at the bottom. there is a help manual inside lantern chess, help menu/ lantern manual and it is located externally on the web at http://www.adammr.com/lanternhelp/lantern-help.html

I saw some discussion on what separates ICC from say Playchess when it comes to mac support. ICC's protocol is open. Anyone can write an interface and the primary mac Interfaces, Jin, Chessic, and fixation, were written by private people, not ICC. My own interface is in that tradition. I'm not new to programming things that run on icc, and I'm the author of LibraryBot and the pulsar chess engine. A popular program running my pulsar chess engine is citychicken.

Currently i cant really advertise lantern on icc. Its OK to use and icc is very friendly with me, but the feeling is there are two many interfaces and while i can list it in my finger 'finger mike' that's about it right now. But after working on this for 18 months, I'm convinced i may have the best mac interface right now for icc. I understand the direction that icc is going in, and I'm aware that they are trying to introduce their own mac client, and i think there can be a natural tendency of a site to want to control the users experience by encouraging them to use certain software ( we have all seen the push to use dasher on icc).

Just going to give some general features, really for more read through help manual or to to http://www.lanternchess.com

Features,

supports both blitzin multi console and dasher tabs. you have 12 tabs and customize the channels onto each tab like a customizing a blitzin console, but can only use one console and click tabs, or open multiple consoles with the same 12 tabs and set each on a different view.

can open pgn.
a seek graph and a get a game dialog.
a toolbar ( limited to user buttons right now)
examine mode supports engine analysis, examine pallet, in play all wilds supported including bughouse kriegspiel, crazyhouse and shatranj.
logs your games
scripting support.
keyboard shortcuts
has a board console, can move it to left of board and change its size or disable it
can set a different font and background color on each tab.
can set up a tell console
can set every channels color
and activities window with an events list
look and feel of chat consoles customizable including a no tab layout.
help menu/ lantern manual gives full support for the program
It's colorful with many colors and fonts that can be set.
timestamps your chat
private notify lists using the fact that icc lets you know when people enter and leave channels ( irc style mike has joined channel 50 message etc on tab 50 is on).
names list to right of console with people in channel listed alphabeticly, right click for popup menu with options on name.
if you type some text rather than send to icc type crl + g to google it
hyplerlinks

for a sense of how this program has developed see http://www.adammr.com/changelog.htm

adammr.com links will be moving to lanternchess.com eventually.

Would love to hear from people who try it. I think one thing that has motivated me to create this interface is a desire to really do everything that i felt could be done in a chess interface. The name lantern gives away some of my leanings, i'm looking for something that goes beyond what is done and to put some art into an interface.

Mike

this seems interesting and the developer seems to have good intentions, so I'm leaving this thread open.

Mike, sorry I forgot new accounts couldn't send PMs. You have my email address now anyway.

sorry, keeps saying i dont have permission when i send on quick reply. i coppied the message though. if this is deleted that is fine as long as roundtower gets the message. the message about lantern chess if of general use to peopel and not personal so there should be no harm in posting till roundtower gets it.

MESS:

I'm sticking around and will answer any questions about LanternChess. I've been reading some of the other threads on this forum as well in the last day.

the download is adammr.com/lantern387.jar right now. a jar file can be run. or it can be renamed with the .zip extension and unzipped. if you unzip the jar the full source code is there ( my working folder ) and the liscence is gpl which in a nutshell means anyone can take the source and branch it if they keep it open source and gpl, meaning anyone takes their source has to do the same , keep it open source.

there is no business, no advertising no money. I'm a programmer in a pricing department and this gives me a chance to do somethign programming wise more interesting than work. if i have ambition its perhaps to land a job down the road if lantern gets me any name recognition, or assist in moving me into a different career path.

As to fics anyone can take the gpl program and port it to fics. there is some rudimentry fics support, I believe you can chat ( last login to fics this was working, though not quite perfect yet, tells that carry beyond the wrap two lines will have last part chopped off and print in main. last i checked you can observe a game as well. code to handle the fics style12 struct is in lantern. as well as the delta board struct.

I may clean up the rudimentry support and get a higher level of support but right now its not my intent to write a fics interace. but someone else can and there will be some support to start with.

i believe its options menu/ features sub menu/ then there is like 5 things on this sub menu, one if follow tournaments, open that submenu choose auto follow wildone, ( check it) , and if your on icc in 223 you will follow tournie games that start, but by checking it connect to fics will appear on file menu. its a back door to get into fics cause support is so rudimentry right now. you cant even play.

Hope we can have the post back,

Mike

I wanted to clarify my position on FICS and why i'm not going to develop lantern for fics ( though its gpl and open source).

The fics server is not as interesting for me to program for. It lacks a lot of support found on ICC. I posted on talkchess.com a computer chess forum two days before i posted here:

"I recently read a topic comparing Playchess to ICC. One thing noted is Playchess does not support mac software and ICC does. Over the years there have been some reasonable choices to log on and play on a mac on ICC and definitely the fact that the ICC protocol is open and anyone can write and interface for people or computers is probably the reason.

The same can be said for fics but at this time I am not writing fics software largely due to a lower level of support for interfaces on fics by the fics server. This is no slam on fics, and there are some nice interfaces on fics, but programmers have their preferences and i like the rich array of things i can do on icc with the server support. "


I should add certain features of Lantern like channel names list to right of console, private channel notify ( irc style), and the events list, would not work on fics. Nor would the notify lists in the activities window knowing your status such as playing or examining.

Fics is great as a free server. I know a lot of animosity developed over ICC being paid. But the quality of the ICC , and i see it as a programmer, is higher. This does not mean the atmosphere is better, or the people are better, but a lot is being done in terms of ICC development technically, and fics is kind of a free for all with little improved server support and a bunch of bots.

Mike

Hi,

Happy 4th of July.

In an earlier post the back door to FICS in lantern was Auto Follow Wildone. This has changed. Now in the connect dialog that starts, enter for name ~ then hit ok. Lantern reconnects to FICS and you have to type your name and pass in the console.

Help has been added to the lantern manual on the new observing options menu and i didn't want to confuse members with auto follow wildone turning on an unseen menu option.

Still not interested in programming full support for fics, though I've made a minor tweak, but it's a GPL program ( source code and license inside jar with class files for program). I may move it to sourceforge eventually. I think the point of a GPL program is to see where it goes, how it evolves. ICC itself i believe under GPL could take the code, make some changes ( branding) and would then have to open source their code or changes, but run it on their own download site. Someone could adapt it to fics. Another ICC member could branch it.

Whats my interest? Well look if it takes off, and nice things happen, along the lines of a little article in the new york times or something , well that doesn't hurt the career. I don't worry overly if lantern itself produces revenues. And it's a blast to work on. Lantern 400 coming up. Still haven't figured out what I'm going to do. Probably nothing major this time judging by whats in the pipeline. Currently trying for more refinement.

Mike

Your name isnt really Mike Adams is it? You are Chinese arent you?

maybe I'll check it out on my ubunto distro - I am not overtly thrilled with blitzin on WINE

RB

Lantern is getting more popular with Linux user's over BlitizIn with wine. Xboard though is still strong competition. For those who know Xboard over the years this is the newer version and a lot of work is going on on Xboard and Winboard last 2 years. But lantern is competing

I did a Christmas day youtube response ( 3 minutes) to lantern's 5 star review at worlchesslinks.net called 5 stars. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQnJfLt9mMg

Happy New Year!