I really dislike the way games with the swap option are recorded and presented. The move A3 becomes C1 and the C1 isnt't even noted on the recording. This is very confusing both in terms of the view of the board (which totally changes, even though it is the exact same game) and in terms of the recording (move 1. is white and so is move 3. even though 3. is now the other player.

I think I have a solution: 1. Don't switch the board or colors, just switch the Players to the opposite colors. 2. Don't record move 2. as Swap. 3. At the top of the game recording write, Swap Option Exercised, or write Swap Option Not Exercised.

I believe this would make Hex much simpler to play and understand for both experienced and novice player alike. I guess this message is mostly for Richard, but I would be interested in other players views as well.

Cheers, Bill

Any way Richard wants to do it is fine with me. On Playsite, the swap move is indicated by “swap:” followed

by the new location of the swapped token. For example 1.A3 2.swap:C1

The moves are currently listed here next to the game board. You can click on any of the moves to see the position at that move. If swap were not listed as a move, how would the position after move 1 be shown? There are lots of programming headaches involved in players switching sides during a game.

Jhex does not include swap as a move, but it does have 'flip board' and 'flip grid labels' features, so you can get a board position which looks the same as the LG diagrams, except possibly for the colors of the tokens.

Dave, regarding your question 'how would the board be shown after move 1.', that is the economy of my suggestion: the board stays exactly the same and the game recording indicates either move 2. and (at top) Swap Option Not Exercised or simply Swap Option Exercised (with no additional move as yet).

This is so conceptually clean and direct that I would think the programming would be simple also. If not, we can continue as is, but I truly think this change would be a most worthy enhancement to littlegolems presentation of Hex.

Cheers, Bill

swapping, I think it is okay the way it is but would like to see the move beside the word swap, swap:c1. I think I played hex somewhere, where they left the piece in the same place but changed the color of the piece. This adds another demension, not that I would be in favor a that.

On this same line, it would be nice if the moves were such that you could copy and paste to record a game in jhex easier. I haven't figured out a way to do it quickly.

Bill or Dave, any ideas?

thanks, arne

Arne,

I transcribe manually all of my games to my Jhex file. As Dave points out, Jhex lets you reorient the Jhex diagram to match the Golem reorientation and this is what I do. However, it is frustrating to be continually reorienting when I know there is a much simpler way to handle the swap option not requiring changing the board colors and orientation.

Bill

JHex has an “import game records” feature with three formats: Playsite, PBeM, and simple. The Playsite format numbers the moves differently from LG (each first move is 1, then each 2nd move is 2, etc.) and the swap move is followed by a colon: and the cell the swapped token moved to. PBeM does not have periods after the move numbers, and does not record swap moves. I haven't figured out what the simple format is. If you have a text editor which could quickly turn the periods into spaces, maybe you could turn an LG game into a PBeM format game. Here is a sample PBeM game:

Vert Horz

chmeee svilling

1 A3 2 D6

3 G6 4 G8

5 D8 6 F7

7 E6 8 F4

9 H6 10 F5

11 D4 12 D5

13 H4 14 H3

15 I3 16 J1

17 J3 18 K1

19 I2 20 F6

21 I7 22 H9

23 I9 24 I8

25 K7 26 J7

27 K6 28 I1

29 H2 30 H1

31 F3 32 E1

33 F2 34 J8

35 K8 36 I10

37 J9 38 Resign

A B C D E F G H I J K

Jhex requires the “Vert Horz” line up to the “A B C …” line. (Maybe that's how it checks the board size.)

Any LG game with swap would have all moves after 1 numbered differently. I just enter the moves manually like Bill does. Maybe Kevin would be interested in adding the LG format to Jhex. His email is on his website.

Thanks Bill and Dave For replying,

The “Simple option” on the import page was the reason for my asking. I sent ecoist an email also and did not hear from him. I tryed a bunch of the ones shown and they did not work. A copy and paste comes close to looking like one of the options listed, only having to change the swap move to make it look right but it still didn't work. Is Kevin the one who wrote the jhex program or is it someone else?

thanks again,

arne

Arne,

Yes, Kevin Walker wrote Jhex. His email is kwalker@xmission.com

Please tell him, Bill LeBeouf is well and using his program and says Hi.

Bill