[suggestion] typing the coordinates to play a move as alt to using the mouse

OGS Development
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I think it would be welcomed by many if there was a way to play moves by typing the coordinates instead of clicking the intersections. impared players, RSI sufferers and netbook players would all surely benefit from this. If it could be embedded in the game chat (for example by detecting \[letter][digit] as a command instead of a message) it would probably even make for a quicker more practical option for chit-chatters :smiley:

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That is a really good idea. Also, there should be an option to allow stone placement with cursor keys, by moving a cursor around the grid.

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Indeed, Iā€™d be happy to implement something. Let em pose a few questions to get your feedback on what would work out best for users, both new to the site (so intuitive) or established players (preferring the most effective method even if itā€™s not immediately intuitive).

  1. Are there other games (such as chess) that youā€™ve played that implement similar things? If so do they have a common / popular way of doing this?
  2. Off the cuff Iā€™d opt for supporting /[letter][digits] (with a / instead of \) just to be consistent with other chat actions, but if there is any sort of established standard that would be more intuitive Iā€™d much rather do that.
  3. Another option would be to offer a fourth input option under settings which provided an input box where the submit button currently goes, in there youā€™d type your coordinates to make your moves. We could do this in addition to supporting /coords style moves from the chat input as well, provided both would be useful to players.

I like that idea on the surface, though what comes to mind is that we currently use the arrow keys to quickly enter and navigate in analysis mode, so there would have to be some form of modal key binding going on, which might just end up being confusing to users :frowning: But if thereā€™s a notable interest for seeing this happen itā€™s certainly possible.

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Iā€™ve played go on my pc with gnugo, which is a console program where the input consists in a letter and a digit (and the goban is drawn in simple ASCI art, pretty nerdy). I guess implementing it in a web interface must be pretty different, but if you have already been able to highlight intersections mentioned in the chat I guess itā€™s doable ?
Yes, I meant to write /[letter][digit], like IRC commands, sorry for the typo.
I agree with the idea that the chat option is the best, having another input box would clutter up the interface and switching between chatting and playing would be cumbersome. Thanks for the quick reply!

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[quote=ā€œanoek, post:3, topic:1522ā€]
Odo said:

Also, there should be an option to allow stone placement with cursor keys, by moving a cursor around the grid.

I like that idea on the surface, though what comes to mind is that we currently use the arrow keys to quickly enter and navigate in analysis mode [ā€¦] [/quote]
WBT using TAB to move to different areas in the page? One place to go could be the analysis area, where the cursor keys move back and forth ā€¦

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I like the idea of using the arrow-keys to navigate and enter or space to place move alot. This would be very nice when on laptop when the touchpad is a little bit awekward to use.

Maybe it could be as simple as : When tree-window is in focus, arrow-keys navigate tree, when board is in focus, it navigates board-grid

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[quote=ā€œsousys, post:6, topic:1522ā€]
Maybe it could be as simple as : When tree-window is in focus, arrow-keys navigate tree, when board is in focus, it navigates board-grid
[/quote]yep, thatā€™s what I meant when I wrote about using tab to manoever to different points of focus.

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I think using the arrow-keys to navigate a cursor on the board is only interesting to a small fraction of users, so I believe something like that should be activated by a checkbox in preferences if it is implemented, to avoid people who just want to step backward in the game from getting annoyed by it =)

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I agree, it should be activated with a checkbox in the preferences.This feature might be useful for people who arenā€™t so steady with a mouse for medical reasons and would otherwise make lots of misclicks. I know of a few players with severe Parkinsonā€™s disease who might benefit from this.

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About all the being steady with the mouse comments, you could always change your settingā€™s Live Game Submit Mode to either double click to more or submit button to move. This should effectively take care of clumsiness.

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This thread was suggested as similar to mine, so if anyone is still following it something similar to the above request has been made: OGS accessibility bookmarklet

1 Like