Which features should we be working on?
We want your input! There are hundreds of things we’d like to do with the app, and we need help deciding where to spend our time. Vote in the poll, and if there’s something you’d like to see that’s not listed, let us know in the comments.
Screenshots looks great. Can’t wait to try it:)
Just wondering if chat will be implemented? As I mentioned some time earlier – full telnet console support is not so necessary, but chat with wanted user is a must for me for the FICS client..
Yes, chatting with your opponent in game is fully implemented
Thanks for your interest, we hope to be releasing soon!
Thats good to hear.
But actually I was hoping be able to chat not only with my opponent, but with any user I want. It happens when I login to FICS with my main account, I receive text messages from other FICS users. And I hate when interface doesn’t have capability to write answers to them.
So, I hope this will be implemented..
OK, thanks for the feedback, we’ll look into implementing it
Ok, can I ask when approximately this feature could be implemented? in 1 month / 3 months / 6 months / 1 year ?
Half of it is implemented in 2.0 – you can reply to messages sent to you. The thing that is missing is initiate the contact – you cannot send a message without having got one in the first place.
It’s not hard to do – we should be able to put it in 2.1 which i would say is 2-3 months away realistically…
Oh, thats really good news. Thanks.
One more feature request – a switch to toggle user’s “Open” variable. If I set open value to “0″ using some mac interface, and then login using this app – I cannot become available to matches again. This shouldn’t be very hard to implement – just a switch On/Off that toggles “Open” variable. Or maybe it is implemented, but I cannot find it?
I’ve added it to our issue tracker, hopefully it will make it into the next version
Hope you like the app! If you do, please leave us a review!
Thanks.
Yeah, app looks nice, I like it so far. I will write short review and my evaluation in the App Store later – when I have more time to test the playing feature.
I bought the last (very good) chess app Magnus submitted to the App Store, Chess Online, and other than a slightly more polished product visually is there any difference with this new one? It’s a shame existing users of the first purchase couldnt have simply updated to this rather than having to buy it a second time….
@Andy:
Glad you liked the previous version – yes, so far this app is mostly the same functionality with an improved interface. But now that the new interface is done, our plan is to keep adding new features.
We were really hoping to find a way to give the app to people who’d bought the previous version, but unfortunately since we’re using the model of a free app with an in-app purchase to unlock some features, it wasn’t possible to do it. There are quite a few situations like this where Apple haven’t allowed for in-app purchases.
The app is free to try, so I’d say give it a try and see if you think it’s worth spending money on the full upgrade. Hope you like it!
Thanks Ollie. I went ahead and bought the game – it’s slicker to look at and the zoom function isn’t quite as fierce as it used to be
Hopefully updates will be free, as you say in the App Store, although the only two I think would really be nice are the addition of game save/view/PGN and perhaps a couple of options for the chess sets, although the current one is very nice and not so hard on the eyes as the one in the last app. One other thing that might be nice is a way to tell the opponent you are playing via iphone perhaps, so that they don’t expect to see much chat…..it’s frustrating sometimes to have to try to type messages via the rather small iphone keypad when in-game and some players think you are being rude or ignoring them. A button to ‘not talk’, or something similar may be good? Excellent app
Yes, the next major feature on our list is a “recent history” listing and game viewer, as well as being able to email PGN files to yourself.
We’re also going to add an option to disable chatting – you’re not the first person to mention it
New chess sets are a bit further down the priority list…
Yes, chat disable would be good. I played a few games today and one guy kept bombarding me with messages, all good natured I should add, but I didn’t have time to respond to one before the next popped up. If the opponent could be made aware that you had chat disabled and weren’t simply ignoring them I think this would be just perfect, but a simple chat disable would be nearly as good. When I use the Handy Chess app it doesn’t have chat and it’s simply one less thing to think about… But your app is much nicer, and the graph to pick games from is superb. Good job
OK, I have a problem; whilst playing just now I had an admin at FICS tell me my account was a duplicate (true as I had re-registered after downloading your app as had lost my original password) – he asked me to log out and back in as my previous username, with new password he gave me. Fine, until I tried to get back in with your app – this won’t allow me to – it wouldn’t vonnect as he disabled the password. I tired deleting it from my iphone and reinstalliing and now it wants me to pay again to log on! How can I get around this, please? I have a username and password that work (in fact they are the same old details I used in Magnus’s first app, which still works for me and allows me to change login details without paying again!! Please tell me there is a way around this – I do not want to pay a third time
(
Thanks in advance….
The way Apple do it is a bit confusing, but if you “unlock” again, it won’t cost you anything, even though it might seem like it from the prompts.
So after you click “Buy”, it will say “You’ve already purchased this”
Thanks -indeed it is ok
Ok, great app but here’s a suggestion; it would be useful to be able to see the game’s time parameters whilst playing. Sometimes in the blur that is blitz I have forgotten the time increment (if there is one!) and have lost on time….yes, my own fault, but when grabbing game after game in a blitz session and using different opponents times it is useful to know the increment if you mainly play with one, as I do. I appreciate that a cluttered interface isn’t nice aesthetically but this ‘feature’ is just about the only thing I think HandyChess still has over you. Once again, your app is certainly the nicest overall and the one I use the most, so well done and thankyou for it.
Hi,
I really love the app.
I was just wondering if it’s possible to add two other categories to the “players online” list: one for unrated players and another for guests (or one for both of them). Because as it is now all these players are listed in the “Beginner” section.
Thanks
@Andy & @Gaspare
Thanks for the suggestions! Both are good ideas, I’ve added them both to our issue tracker so hopefully we’ll get to them soon.
If you like the app, please leave us a review on the app store
Hi Ollie – I have actually left a review already (robinnatch) so I don’t know if it will allow me to enter another one – I just tried and it just took me into my first review. I may try again later as after more use of the app I am happy to give my opinion again to reinforce the positive things I said. I have another suggestion/question – when there are two or more games on the ‘games waiting’ graph that are very close together so that one overlaps the other is there a way of getting to the one at the back? Maybe my fingers are too big or maybe the screen space simply won’t allow it but maybe a similar function to the zoom used in-game could make these games more accessible. Well, this may be asking too much – after all, the graph is a vast improvement on the system used in the old app so I’m nitpicking a bit but I hope you’ll welcome all user feedback.
Couple more suggestions – the in-game view shows the opponents name and rating but not your own. For the sake of consistency and as a reminder of my own rating and how it goes up or down over the course of a couple hours play this would be nice to see for both players, in game. I also have mixed feelings about the app switching immediately back to the game seek screen after a game finishes – this is great if you want to grab another game right away but on occasion I like to look at the final position of a game to analyse/check a line etc – perhaps an option to close the game board screen before going to the seek screen would be welcomed by players?
Still the best app of it’s kind and any criticism is only meant to be constructive and improve things! Thanks guys
Showing your rating during a game is difficult purely because of space. But totally agree about what happens post-game, our next major feature will be a recent games browser, so once we implement that, the game board will hang around after a game.
You might also be interested to hear we’re adding an option to “disable chat” in our next minor update which should be in the app store in a couple of weeks
Sounds very promising! I don’t think my ‘chat disable’ wishlist of informing the opponent you are playing in silence deliberately will be possible to implement, though – at least, using Babaschess as my pc client I can never seem to get this function to work successfully, despite it supposedly being available. Still, whether it tells the opponent or not a chat disable function will be a very welcome feature indeed thankyou.
Ok, chat disable is crucial, I have now decided! Just finished a game and as I began the next one I was 2 moves in when a chat ‘bubble’ appeared from my previous game to which I hit ‘close’ only for my game to then hang mid move (zoomed in at time trying to move a piece). I think chat option is good if playing a friend on slow time controls but against people who keep sending messages (or even just one unfortunately timed message) it can get in the way. Not sure why my game hung but I had to exit app and restart it. I think chat disable is the way forward!
Yeah, chat disable might be useful (or even crucial) when playing short games.
Personally I plan mostly use this app for long games (I play in the FICS team tournament – teamleague.org – with 45+45 time control) when I will not be able to access any computer with internet connection, so I still hope, that not only option to disable chat, but also chat improvements I mentioned earlier be implemented..
Thanks for today’s update, guys. Chat disable! Thanks
I just noticed one really annoying app’s behavior – app change some user’s server variables (without asking). If you do that then please set it back to the previous value when I quit your app.
In this case I mean “chanoff” variable. It is annoying every time when I switch to Mac interface after using your app – set that variable back to on.
Please add the possibility to RESUME games!
I’ve lost many FICS games because of an incoming call or temporary network disconnection. Even if my opponent adjourn it, I cannot play it anymore.
Please!
@Martynas – We’re looking into this one – it’s slightly tricky for technical reasons, but we’re trying to come up with something.
@fluoro – Viewing recent games (including ones that aren’t finished) and being able to resume is coming in our next major update
I am struggling with quite a few buggy issues since the update. Accepting rematch offers frequently leads to me not seeing the game board and my opponent telling me to move when I have no board! Also the chat disable feature doesn’t seem to work fully – people still manage to message me, usually at the end of the game, but that’s not too important. Most annoying is that the zoom in feature often freezes for me now – I move and then after I place my piece it stays zoomed in even after the opponents move – I have to frantically swipe randomly across the board to get it back to normal. Finally, I find that the app crashes out to my homescreen sometimes now, something it never did before. This usually happens after I accept rematches, so that whole part of the app seems pretty buggy to me now. Not sure what’s happened but nothing seems to work as well for me now. I use a new iPod touch 3g but it is the 8gb one with the 2g CPU.
Hm, I see. Just a thought – if it is difficult to set variable back to the user’s preferred state, maybe a solution can be simply leave that variable as it is, but just ignore channel tells when they come?
Anyway, I hope you will come up with a good solution for this.
@Andy thanks for the message, I’ll post those issues to our bug tracker and we’ll see what we can do.
@Martynas yes, that’s one option we’re looking at
Ok Ollie, thanks. I am really having problems now; I have just posted a seek and sat waiting for a couple of minutes for a game when a guy starts messaging me abuse for not making any moves…..I tell him I cannot see any board and I am sorry but could he confirm he has accepted my seek, which he says he did. So it looks like a worse example of the rematch problem I had earlier – if my seeks are being accepted but I don’t even know about it as I have no game board the app is no longer functional for me
hope you guys can sort this out soon as I’m back to ichess and handy chess until these bugs disappear I’m afraid.
Tried it a couple more times but not good; it lists all the players who are online but doesn’t show any game seeks at all on the seek graph, even when left for 3 or 4 minutes. I tried posting a seek a couple of times – the first time the app froze on the seek screen right after hitting ‘create’. I managed to go back to the game seek graph screen after about 15 seconds and tried again. The second time it flashed up a message saying 16 players had seen the seek but then hung on the graph screen, again showing no games of any kind on the graph for about 2 minutes before I quit the app. Something certainly seems to have changed for the worse since the update.
Ok guys, final post for a while as I think it’s clear now that I’m having problems and I don’t want to belabour these points, but for what it’s worth I have managed three or four games tonight with no major problems up until the point at which someone offered me rematch – whilst thinking for a second about whether to accept it the app simply crashed out back to the apple home screen. I hope this and my previous posts enable you guys to pin down and iron out these bugs as this app definitely should be the best fics client out there, it has the potential, but it’s taken an unfortunate step or two backwards. Here’s hoping you get it sorted!
@Andy
Thanks for letting us know about the bugs, they’re on our list and we’re looking into them!
In future, you might want to post on our support forum about issues like these, here’s the URL (it’s also linked from the top nav of this blog)
http://www.onlinechessapp.com/support/
Congratulations on a very well designed application.
Yes, a very well designed application. I have a dream :
1) timeseal implementation ;
2) premove support ;
3) portrait or landcape seek adds.
“Timeseal is a program that has been developed to improve chess on internet. Netlag often causes players to lose valuable seconds or even minutes on their chess clocks. Transmission time is counted against you, unless the chess server can tell exactly when information is transmitted. The timeseal program acts as a relay station and keeps track of transmission times. What timeseal does is record your thinking time, so that transmission time is not counted against you. Timeseal will not prevent netlag but it makes the games fairer when lag occurs. (For other ways to handle the impacts of lag, read “help
lag”.)”
The most needed feature now is a method to save the games that I have played. PGN file, or e-mail the moves to myself. So far it is a great app and much needed–tap-tap for the moves would also be helpful. Keep up the good work!
Any update coming this month? this year? ever?
Hey Martynas,
First up, thanks for your interest … and apologies for the amount of time it’s taken us to get the next update out. Unfortunately, our busy day jobs are making it tough to work on the app!
I’ve posted a quick preview of the coming features (with screenshots) here:
http://www.onlinechessapp.com/blog/?p=153