@ H.G.:

Joe Joyce, my opponent, reported he made a move, but first tried to make a legal advancer move (to e10) that was refused by the preset:

https://www.chessvariants.com/play/pbm/play.php?game=Butterfly+Chess&log=panther-joejoyce-2024-10-868

It appears that trajectories that go temporarily off board (the XBetza o mode) are not yet implemented in the GAME code. And the Advancer is defined through such a trajectory, as a multi-leg move that first overshoots its destination by one step, and then takes that step back. This as part of the test that there is no enemy there that should be removed; empty squares, friendly pieces and the step going off board would all be OK; they are not enemy pieces. But the GAME code does not implement the off-board case, so the furthest destination of an Advancer move that hits the edge would not be considered valid, as there is no room for the extra back-and-forth.

In the context of the Interactive Diagram this was easy, as squares are specified by coordinates, which automatically describe an infinite plane. In the context of GAME code this is a bit harder, as squares are specified by arbitrary labels, and there are no labels for 'virtual locations' beyond the board. So there is no instruction for stepping back onto the board, because there is no way to specify from where you should step back.

This means I can not literally translate the JavaScript code of the ID that handles this to GAME code, in order to fix the problem. A work-around would be to have the GAME code process the step-off, step-on legs at the end of the Advancer move as a pair instead of one by one: if it sees that the first of these allows o mode, and would stray off board, it should not try to make the step, but look ahead one leg, combine the two steps (which then should lead to an on-board square), and take that to continue.

This is not a trivial fix, so I will think more about it when I return from shopping.

[Edit] OK, I made a temporary fix, which allows you to fully use the Advancer: I made the betza.txt include file assume that any attempt to step off board by a move with o-mode would be the first leg of a back-and-forth step at the end of the move, and approve the move to the start square of that leg. This obviously would not work for cases where the move travels further, such as a reflecting Bishop.

Is it possible in the PTA to remove pieces from the board that have been moved from the table to the board?

And another question: Is it possible to start the PTA with an empty board (without kings)?
Thanks.

You can move pieces from the table to occupied squares, to replace what was there. If there are too many pieces in total, you could capture the surplus. But only through legal moves on the board.

Move a piece then click the square which the piece is moved from then click the piece you want to remove.

Interesting. This is probably a bug; it should not be able to 'pick up' empty squares, but the highlighting might create the impression that the square is not empty.

BTW, I did some more work on the Play-Test Applet 2.0. It is now possible to also place win squares on the morph board (through the red and orange buttons). And I tried to make it clearer through background coloring what elements on the page belong together.

I have now upgraded the content of this article to the new version, which also allows you to define morph and captureMatrix by filling the corresponding cells with pieces from the table. Other differences with the previous version is that under "Specify more rules" you can also define what are the royal types, and select a spell.

Note, however, that the generated GAME code does not support capture matrices or spells yet, and morphing only to other piece types. (No confinement or win squares.)

I like that bug.

The spells do not work yet in the PTA itself, because this is still using betza.js instead of betzaNew.js, and spells are only supported in the latter. Bot they do occur in the spell description that appears when pressing the Show HTML button, so this could be used with betzaNew.js. I will upgrade the PTA to using betzaNew.js shortly.

What is worse is that the interface doesn't allow you to specify spellZone and blastZone yet.

================== @H.G.Muller,

Respected H.G.Muller, Your Playtet Applet new version is

not working well, or if I could modestly say, it destroys a lot of

stuff, which took me so much time to compose and attention on

it.

       Could you do me a favor, by reverting to the previous    

PlayTest applet version, which is fast, efficient, and functioning

stable?

 Thanks so much.   Thanks for your contribution to  the  

playtest applet work. Could you write the link or applet page to me , that will be

greatly helpful.

Thank you. sincerely, Adella

_____ @ H.G.Muller, Could you keep both the previous version, and the new

version ( if you like it), on Playtest Applet page? Could you

show two links: Functional efficiency previous version, and 2.0 version? That will be wonderful. Keeping previous version's fast efficiency and great functionality and beauty. Meanwhile, use new version to do some testing.
_____ Thamks again, respected h.g.muller. sincerely,

Adella.

You can click the word "revised" in "Last revised by H. G. Muller" to see the previous version.

HaruN Y, Thank you so much. you are great nice person. best wishes to you. . sincerely, Adella.

Is the Paste Diagram description here: input broken?

Is the Paste Diagram description here: input broken?

Not that I know; for me it still works. What are you trying to paste?

well it works now so I guess I was doing something wrong

Is there a possibility of creating the preset with gating, especially when players gate their pieces in different places?

This would only be possible with significant additional GAME-code programming. For one, you would have to program enforcement of the 'prelude', as the HandleMove routines in the Post-Move sections only handle normal board moves. So the code should first test the move number, and do something else for the first few moves.

Apart from that you would also have to add code after the call to HandleMove, in order to automatically step the piece on board that is gated.

You could copy the relevant parts from musketeer chess

I was afraid of that but it makes sense.

That thought has crossed my mind, too. Thanks!

It seems I cannot add code to the premove section!

Not it. I can write some echo there!

I am not sure it would ever make sense to add code in the Pre-Move section, when you automate through the PTA. Because Game Courier is configured to "not add moves" in that case, you should be in the same state at the start of the Post-Move section as you are in Pre-Move.