The types of hexagonal boards only differ in orientation, which I don't really consider a crucial aspect. Square boards also can be used as a diamond by rotating those 45 degrees, and in the variants that had such a board I just rotated it back to the usual rectangular shape. It doesn't seem much of a problem for anyone when the white player plays from the lower-left corner towards the upper-right corner, with diagonally moving pawns. But diamond boards are rare, and for the hexagonal board the distribution could be closer to 50-50.
Not that it would be difficult to support both types in the script; it is just a matter of shearing either the rows or the columns of the table. It is more that it is a pain to draw two different background images. But hexagonal boards are characterized by the length of 3 sides, not just a width and a height, so perhaps separate images would be needed for each variant anyway. It is also not possible to use a larger image and cover the unused part by an opaque edge, as would in theory be possible for rectangular boards.
As to notation / coordinates: I don't really consider notation conventions part of the game rules. Having a universal convention for indicating squares across all variants seems more convenient.
The types of hexagonal boards only differ in orientation, which I don't really consider a crucial aspect. Square boards also can be used as a diamond by rotating those 45 degrees, and in the variants that had such a board I just rotated it back to the usual rectangular shape. It doesn't seem much of a problem for anyone when the white player plays from the lower-left corner towards the upper-right corner, with diagonally moving pawns. But diamond boards are rare, and for the hexagonal board the distribution could be closer to 50-50.
Not that it would be difficult to support both types in the script; it is just a matter of shearing either the rows or the columns of the table. It is more that it is a pain to draw two different background images. But hexagonal boards are characterized by the length of 3 sides, not just a width and a height, so perhaps separate images would be needed for each variant anyway. It is also not possible to use a larger image and cover the unused part by an opaque edge, as would in theory be possible for rectangular boards.
As to notation / coordinates: I don't really consider notation conventions part of the game rules. Having a universal convention for indicating squares across all variants seems more convenient.