I agree that adding the advantage to the side window was a big improvement. However, Static shadow, so much of your argument smacks of elitism, especially poisoning the well with 'anyone who is serious about chess'. Are you serious?
First off, you don't know what's best for me, be it my learning style or my reason for using the analysis, or even playing chess for that matter.
Analysis isn't just about education, it's also entertainment. It's funny finding out where the opponent blundered but I missed capitalising on it during the game.
Secondly, the computer analysis is still there, so your argument about beginners relying on finding the blunders, ideal computer moves, etc, is completely irrelevant. The highlighted squares simply makes it less drudgery for us beginners trying to see what's going on. Your 20 years experience and above opinion, as far as I'm concerned, precludes you from understanding the issue for those the highlighted squares really aided.
Once again, you miss the point. You say it's "funny finding out where the opponent blundered but [you] missed capitalising on it during the game." However, how are you supposed to capitalize on a blunder that only the computer sees? I'm not sure what "entertainment" comes from analysis, I thought analysis was meant for study. Also, the engine here is limited, so if you really want to find blunders, you could download the PGN and take it into Chessbase and use multiple engines for that purpose.
For those of us who actually engage in the process of actual chess analysis, not just quickly skimming a game looking for this or that blunder (which you can jump right to by using the graph so it's moot that you can't quickly jump right to the moves you want to see) this is a better system. The end.
Yes, I agree with you. If study is your intention then it is a better system. So, you see, I didn't miss "the" [read: your] point. But that's not why I'm playing chess or doing analysis, and you continue to miss my point.
But clearly with your quote " I'm not sure what "entertainment" comes from analysis", you aren't even attempting to understand where I'm coming from. If you did, you'd realise that my issue is that it's now too much effort for myself, a beginner to work with. So I'm clearly not going to go through the effort of downloading individual PGNs and putting them into another website like Chessbase.
You can have your opinion on what analysis is for. But for what I wanted from it, the analysis page isn't accessible anymore. It'd be great if we could both use it by giving the option of highlights or not. But as it stands, I'm out.
That's fair. I don't much see the point in the highlights, but that doesn't mean they aren't somehow useful. I'm just saying as a whole the new system is better. I thought somehow it was being argued that we should go back to the way it was entirely.
I guess it was truly *I* who missed the point. xD Sorry. That being said, if the highlight was part of the old code that was removed, it might be a lot of work to add them back in. It may not be as simple as it might seem, because it's a whole backend API sort of deal I think, isn't it?
My point, however, to continue beating the dead horse...
The analysis feature is meant for post-game analysis...the term analysis by definition means to take something apart. It's a mathematical process, something you engage your brain with. Yes, the computer is helping dissect it, but to simply have a highlighted square and a graph isn't very good help.
I would also point out, that while you seem miffed, you would be in the minority as a member of a chess site who is using engine analysis for any purpose other than to analyze games (study) your games and the games of others. If you're just scrolling through looking for oops moments to confirm something you already had thought during the game was a mistake, then yes, the old system might be better - but you can find those errors just as easy by clicking on the spikes in the graph.
But if all you are actually doing is scrolling the game and just seeing "oh the computer says if I would have played this move instead I wouldn't have lost," then not only is it a pretty pointless endeavor, even if study isn't your aim, because it just codifies a fallacy that the computer somehow always knows best and that somehow as a beginner you can even begin to understand why it makes the suggestion it does. And I again must question your statement about "entertainment" because if your point is that somehow you are no longer able to entertain yourself because the new code lacks highlight squares, I'd truly like to know what is so entertaining about scrolling through the moves of the game and seeing some highlighted squares you don't understand that is more engaging than playing chess. Why even bother? I still say everything can still be accomplished the way it was, you just have to learn a new way to do it because now there is more to be offered.
What's entertaining about moving a bunch of objects around a board? Why even bother, indeed? Trivialising details can make anything seem boring. Suffice to say it was entertaining for me, but now without highlights it's too much effort trying to visualise things. And before you jump in and say "But then you're learning to visualise and you'll be a better chess player", please, remember that's your point, not mine.
I can only reiterate that I don't care what you use analysis for, nor do I care what you think of how I use it. I had fun with it before. Now I don't.
In regards to your second paragraph, again, my issue is with the removal of the highlights (why do I have to keep saying this). With the current system I can still look for the blunders and codify that fallacy that you detest, it's just that without the highlighted squares I can't be bothered to. Also, I'm not looking for a replay of the 'oops' moments I saw during the game; sometimes the analysis shows some blunder of mine or the opponent that I didn't see. It's fun. You don't have to understand why it's fun, just know that I enjoyed it.
At the end of the day, all I'm asking for an option of having the highlighted squares back.
And at the end of the day, as I said before, it may not be such a simple task to add them back in, as it may have been part of a much larger chunk of backend API that was removed. So I guess you'll just have to deal with it until a coder can respond with whether it's even possible to bring the highlights back without getting rid of the much better new system.
the only thing i hate with the update is :
!MOUSE WHEEL IS NOW USELESS, YOU CANT TRAVEL THE GAME WITH THE MOUSE WHEEL¡
using the keyboard arrowkeys is not the same..
i can create a silly script binding wheel to keys... but still, i think it would be better if mouse wheel worked as before: travel the game moves when the mouse pointer is over the board.
Mouse wheel works just fine for me using Chrome. Try clicking the middle of the board and then try it.
Mouse wheel support for firefox is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Stay calm, relax.
