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(Message started by: pallab on Nov 4th, 2005, 7:14am)
Title: Arimaa game viewer
Post by pallab on Nov 4th, 2005, 7:14am
is there any arimaa gmae viewer?. It may be interesting to write one in java, like 'jose' in chess.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 4th, 2005, 7:45am
I already have a feature request for a game viewer: the ability to view variations.  That way analysis could be stored like it is inn Chessbase, et. al.  Currently one can only view the main line of a game of Arimaa.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by pallab on Nov 4th, 2005, 8:41am
What is the name of the Arimaa game viewer?.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 9th, 2005, 1:56pm
Sorry to be slow answering this.  I don't know that Omar has named the game viewer, but if you follow the link below

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/games/planGame.cgi

you can paste a list of moves into the text box and then replay the game graphically.

It would be great to have a GPL viewer in addition to Omar's tool, because right now Wikipedia won't accept board images under Omar's license.  I have to use chess diagrams to illustrate Arimaa positions.  Wikipedia changed its image policy so that all images must be GPL-compatible, and Omar's images aren't compatible because commercial use is taxed.  If I knew anything about graphic design, I would create my own set of images to release under a creative commons type of license.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by omar on Nov 15th, 2005, 4:36pm

on 11/09/05 at 13:56:04, Fritzlein wrote:
It would be great to have a GPL viewer in addition to Omar's tool, because right now Wikipedia won't accept board images under Omar's license.  I have to use chess diagrams to illustrate Arimaa positions.  Wikipedia changed its image policy so that all images must be GPL-compatible, and Omar's images aren't compatible because commercial use is taxed.  If I knew anything about graphic design, I would create my own set of images to release under a creative commons type of license.


Thanks for mentioning this Karl. I always thought that the Wikipedia.org was a non-commercial site. Even if it is not I would still consider it more of an eduactional site than a commercial site. For personal, educational and research use the Arimaa Public License states that there is no restrictions on the use or distribution of Arimaa related products or services.
 http://arimaa.com/arimaa/license/
So please feel free to use the Arimaa graphics on the Wikipedia or any other personal, educational or research related site. If there is ever any doubt please feel free to discuss a particular case.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 15th, 2005, 6:54pm
Omar, thanks for giving your permission to use the images on Wikipedia.  Wikipedia is a non-profit organization, so it makes sense by your Arimaa license that you wouldn't have a problem with the images being used there without cost.

The problem is coming from their end.  Wikipedia has changed their image policy.  It isn't enough for you to give them permission to use the images.  They need the images to be released under the GPL or a compatible license, and the Arimaa license isn't compatible.

It's annoying that they are strict about this, but I can see the dilemma from their side.  For example, suppose Wikipedia enters a deal with Answers.com, where Answers.com is a commercial entity.  You didn't give permission for Answers.com to use the images, and the Arimaa license doesn't allow it, so if Answers.com wants to display the Wikipedia article to their customers, they have to strip out all the images. Wikipedia doesn't want to be encumbered by this type of restriction, so your permission on the images isn't enough for them.

I'm not trying to pressure you to GPL the images: I totally respect whatever license you want to use.  I just wanted to clear up why Wikipedia feels they can't work with your license, and why I think it would be cool to have GPL or public domain images out there too.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by omar on Nov 16th, 2005, 4:15pm
Oh I see. It's the redistribution problem. OK I'll provide another set of images that GPLed.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 16th, 2005, 5:43pm
Thank you so much!  Oh, and maybe I should have said GFDL = GNU Free Documentaion License instead of GPL.  I think that a Creative Commons license is also fine by Wikipedia, and I've heard that some people prefer it to the GFDL.  As you can see, I don't really know much about it, I just know that I was told not to use the Arimaa license images any more.

I think there is a good chance that if you GFDL some images, some computer guy will hook them to a script so that plain text such as

[arimaa diagram|=
|
|=
8 |pd|  |pd|  |  |  |  |  |=
7 |  |pd|pd|  |  |pd|  |  |=
6 |rl|rd|xx|nd|nd|xx|  |  |=
5 |  |ql|  |  |  |  |  |  |=
4 |pl|  |  |  |kd|bd|bl|pd|=
3 |pl|  |xx|nl|bd|xx|kl|pd|=
2 |  |  |pl|  |bl|pl|qd|pl|=
1 |  |  |  |  |  |nl|  |  |=
|The silver elephant has regained mobility, so Gold has no advantage from holding a camel hostage
]

will generate an Arimaa diagram in HTML.  They've done this for chess, so I imagine Arimaa is a trivial extension.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Nov 16th, 2005, 6:34pm
If you have any say when they set that kind of thing up, it might be useful to encourage them to use r, c, d, h, m, e, R, C, D, H, M, E notation instead.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 16th, 2005, 7:24pm
Using lower case and uppercase letters seems like such a good idea it's too bad you weren't around to suggest it when the wrote the chess script.  I'll lobby for the improvement for the Arimaa script.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Nov 16th, 2005, 9:44pm
Obviously I didn't think of it first though... it's part of official arimaa documentation!

Thanks for lobbying.  
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 17th, 2005, 6:37pm
A Google search turned up this URL http://cia.navi.cx/stats/author/josef which seems to me to indicate that someone is already developing an Arimaa game viewer for KDE, and is in need of piece images.  If anyone can tell me more precisely what is going on there, I'd be interested to know.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Nov 17th, 2005, 7:26pm
Nice find.  It sounds like they're using hand drawn ones at the moment.  It also sounds like their interface might properly incorporate arimaa in the next release... ~4 months after October 05.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Ryan_Cable on Nov 17th, 2005, 8:51pm
Here is the actual homepage for the GGZ Gaming Zone:

http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/

The website doesn’t seem to be very informative.  They are on version 0.0.12 and have apparently had one release every 4 months.  They claim to have 15 packages (SVN modules) available, plus a Windows port, 19 game engines and 27 game clients, and more than 150.000 lines of code in C, C++, Python.

There is also a page specifically about Arimaa, but it is very sparse:

http://www.ggzgamingzone.org/engines/arimaa/

They claim to have a SDL game client available and an AI opponent available.  Has anyone heard of Josef before?  It seems strange that someone would develop an Arimaa program without at least being an Arimaa player here at the gameroom, but maybe it is related to this legally dubious claim:

The Arimaa game name and rules belong to its inventor. The GGZ multi-board game GGZBoard understands the Arimaa game rules but is otherwise not connected to the original game.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Nov 18th, 2005, 9:13am

on 11/17/05 at 20:51:19, Ryan_Cable wrote:
Has anyone heard of Josef before?

No, I've never heard of him before, but he'll introduce himself at http://www.josefspillner.de/ .
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by clauchau on Nov 19th, 2005, 5:46am
I've been drawing Arimaa boards and pieces for a while now. I can't help filling sheets of paper with them and coding ray-tracing routines and studying the SVG Vector language! Unfortunately I can't seem to commit to issue a finished set. So I'd better share my partial attempts.

I'm trying to come with simple geometrical shapes. An elephant could be a disc, a camel could be as below, or with 'humps' more obvious to make it more distinct from a disc ... I like it when they have the square symmetry, except for the rabbit. On the board, I plan to stack 6 levels for the elephant, 5 for the camel, ..., 2 for the cat, only 1 for the rabbit, to help us remember. For the move notation, one level is enough. I've also been thinking of a small graphical way for the move notation to locate a square on the board without algebraic notations. I'll post it there. More later.

http://clauchau.free.fr/Board.jpg
http://clauchau.free.fr/bigsicam.jpghttp://clauchau.free.fr/biggocam.jpg
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by omar on Nov 19th, 2005, 1:21pm
The Arimaa graphics and sound files are no longer covered under the Arimaa Public License. They are now public domain. Feel free to use them without any restrictions or limitations.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/graphics/

I think having Arimaa trademarked and patented is sufficient protection. Copyrighting the rules, graphics and sounds is just be getting in the way of progress. I've also modified the license page to reflect this change.

http://arimaa.com/arimaa/license/
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by clauchau on Nov 19th, 2005, 2:13pm
That's a nice move, Omar. Fewer barriers always get me closer and happier :)

Here is a proposal for a move notation that pleases my eyes and mind quite more than letters and numbers :

Ee3n = http://clauchau.free.fr/Ee3n.png

The square is located by the board quarter it is in, the quarter of the quarter and finally the square in the latter.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by clauchau on Nov 20th, 2005, 11:39am
Here is a more readable and scalable down move notation I've been drawing while the best players are stressing out in the tournament :P :

Ee3n = http://clauchau.free.fr/Ee3n_.png

I agree it looks like some alien writing. Here is a cushion board:

http://clauchau.free.fr/cushions.png
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by omar on Nov 28th, 2005, 3:20pm
Nice images Claude. I've always pictured adding a 'Theme' option to the Arimaa game client, but haven't gotten around to doing it. Maybe I'll add it in the next version. That will allow different board and piece images to be used to suit the players preferences.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 7th, 2005, 7:42pm
Well, I took the newly public domain Arimaa images and stuffed them into the chess diagram template on Wikipedia.  The great news is that anyone can now make an Arimaa diagram on Wikipedia with only a text editor.  The text looks like

[arimaa diagram|=
|tleft
|
|=
8 |rs|rs|rs|cs|cs|rs|rs|rs|=
7 |  |  |ds|hs|  |eg|ms|rs|=
6 |rs|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |=
5 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |=
4 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |=
3 |  |hs|  |es|  |  |dg|  |=
2 |rg|dg|hg|cg|cg|mg|hg|rg|=
1 |rg|rg|rg|  |  |rg|rg|rg|=
|The players are racing to capture pieces as quickly as possible
]

The bad news is that it looks awful, as you can see from the first diagram at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa_strategy.  I couldn't figure out how to make the pieces float over a board image, so I just chose some (hideous) background colors.  And the way the browser squashes the images is icky.

Does anyone want to help me clean up this mess?  The template code is at
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Arimaa_diagram&action=edit; anyone is free to make changes.  I had asked a few people on Wikipedia to help me with this, and they all encouraged me to do it myself.  Finally I did it myself, but I don't think you can make it worse than what I've done.  :-(

In addition to editing the template, you can edit/replace all the piece image files which are stored under names like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Arimaa_cgb74.png.  In the filename Arimaa_xyz74.png, the x stands for piece type (e, m, h, d, c, or r) the y stands for color (g or s) and the z stands for board or trap square (b or t).

Claude, maybe Wikipedia would be a great forum for you to trot out all of your snazzy new piece images.  Think of your everlasting fame.  Or at least my eternal gratitude...  :-)
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Dec 7th, 2005, 8:38pm
Well done for getting that going.  I agree it doesn't look too hot yet, but now that there's a template it shouldn't take too much for some of us to get it looking good.  I think the aim should be an exact reproduction of the marble gameboard in the gameroom (maybe with the edges cut off).

Personally I would prefer to stick with the animal pictures than change to stacks of discs (now that Omar is happy to put them out on a separate license) ... otherwise anyone who ever sets foot in the gameroom will forever have to convert in their head.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 7th, 2005, 9:08pm

on 12/07/05 at 20:38:35, 99of9 wrote:
I think the aim should be an exact reproduction of the marble gameboard in the gameroom (maybe with the edges cut off).

In HTML, can you use an image as a background for a table?  If so, then using the marble gameboard should be relatively easy.  If not, can you use an image as the background for a cell in an HTML table?  That could be exploited by cutting the board into 64 pieces and backgrounding each cell.  Inelegant, but doable.

If you can't do background images in HTML tables, then I don't know how we could hope to recreate the marble board, because the Wikipedia template is based on Wikipedia tables, which is based on HTML tables.  At best we could put each piece on top of a bit of grey marble and on top of a bit of pink marble, losing the overall pattern.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Dec 7th, 2005, 10:03pm

on 12/07/05 at 21:08:05, Fritzlein wrote:
In HTML, can you use an image as a background for a table?

Not sure, but you can put an image *behind* a table by specifying overlapping DIV's.


Quote:
If not, can you use an image as the background for a cell in an HTML table?

Yes.  But since this method is more work, perhaps wait until someone has a better idea :-).


Quote:
the Wikipedia template is based on Wikipedia tables, which is based on HTML tables.

Ahh... this means the DIV stuff may not work.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 7th, 2005, 10:52pm

on 12/07/05 at 22:03:39, 99of9 wrote:
Not sure, but you can put an image *behind* a table by specifying overlapping DIV's.

Well, then this will probably work.  You can certainly wrap a div around a Wikipedia table.  That's how the captions are put on below the board with a grey background, I think.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by omar on Dec 7th, 2005, 11:07pm

on 12/07/05 at 21:08:05, Fritzlein wrote:
In HTML, can you use an image as a background for a table?


Yes, it's possible. You can do it either by using the BACKGROUND attribute in the TABLE tag or using styles.

Here a page which gives some examples:

http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/tables/_TABLE_BACKGROUND.html
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Janzert on Dec 8th, 2005, 9:23am
Hmm, I can mock it up locally in html fairly easy. I even uploaded the board image to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:37px-Arimaa_board.jpg. But attempting to add a background image style to the wiki template makes the whole style attribute disappear. So I assume either background-image: or url() isn't allowed in the css?

Maybe something with overlapping divs would work but that seems rather ugly. :(

Also once a way is found to set the board as a background the current piece images will need to be replaced with ones having a transparent background and there won't be any need for seperate trap pieces. I already created these and was planning on just replacing the 37px-Arimaa_xxb75.png files if the board image can be used.

Janzert
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 8th, 2005, 12:38pm

on 12/08/05 at 09:23:11, Janzert wrote:
Hmm, I can mock it up locally in html fairly easy. I even uploaded the board image to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:37px-Arimaa_board.jpg.
Thanks for helping out.  I'm sure we'll get something working.


Quote:
But attempting to add a background image style to the wiki template makes the whole style attribute disappear. So I assume either background-image: or url() isn't allowed in the css?
I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I know Wikipedia won't link to images not on their server.  There were issues with links to porn being maliciously inserted all over the place, and I think a security issue too.  Anyway, maybe this means that images on their server also have to be linked in a certain syntax so it doesn't look like an external URL?  Within articles I've always linked to images with the syntax [Image:Arimaa_elephant_trap.jpg], so this might be something to try out inside the table.


Quote:
Also once a way is found to set the board as a background the current piece images will need to be replaced with ones having a transparent background and there won't be any need for seperate trap pieces.
Wikipedia doesn't allow for users to delete uploaded images, but when the template is finished and working, I'll post a list of images we are no longer using to a janitor page and some admin will remove them for us.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Janzert on Dec 8th, 2005, 2:01pm
According to #wikipedia channel on irc it isn't possible to set the background image on a table (unless it's important enough to add to the site wide css file).

But I almost got it working using a floated div with negative margins to place it behind the table. Unfortunately it doesn't work in IE. So back to the drawing board again. :/

Also png transparency apparently doesn't work in IE so we'll have to use the gif's if it ever works.

Janzert
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Janzert on Dec 8th, 2005, 4:03pm
Yay! I got it working or at least it does for me in IE and FF1.5.

The row and column name images still need fixing though.

Janzert
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Dec 8th, 2005, 4:47pm
Nice job Janzert, it looks great!
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 8th, 2005, 6:06pm

on 12/08/05 at 16:03:52, Janzert wrote:
Yay! I got it working or at least it does for me in IE and FF1.5.

Awesome!  Thanks for this contribution to the Arimaa community.  One small glitch is that the silver horses are gold at the moment, but that should be a snap to fix.

I'm going to start putting in the template everywhere there's an Arimaa diagram on Wikipedia, so that the monolithic images can be deleted.   The pages with multiple board images should be much faster now.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Janzert on Dec 8th, 2005, 6:40pm
Oops, fixed now. :)

Janzert
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by 99of9 on Dec 9th, 2005, 12:22am

on 12/08/05 at 18:06:12, Fritzlein wrote:
I'm going to start putting in the template everywhere there's an Arimaa diagram on Wikipedia, so that the monolithic images can be deleted.   The pages with multiple board images should be much faster now.

Good stuff, keep it up, I'll just cheer from the sidelines ;-).
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 9th, 2005, 8:30am

on 12/09/05 at 00:22:23, 99of9 wrote:
Good stuff, keep it up, I'll just cheer from the sidelines ;-).

Why stay on the sidelines?  Adanac has now started adding diagrams and text to the strategy article.  (Yay!)  Indeed, the strategy article has gotten so big, it's time to break it up into book format, with chapters and sections organizing the pages.  Plus the whole thing needs to go over to Wikibooks.

Most of the advanced strategy isn't there yet, for example I didn't explicitly discuss the elephant-horse attack yet.  Adanac added a relevant diagram about blockading an opposing elephant with a rabbit flood, but there is no discussion of more general strategic aims of a rabbit flood, or of a blue22-like attack on both opposing traps simultaneously.  Indeed, there isn't even a discussion of how to play a dual-lone-elephant game, which is almost  ancient by Arimaa standards, but still quite relevant.

What would make a good outline (i.e. chapter-section structure) in your opinion?  Ordering the more advanced material gets a little tricky, because you need to know some things before others, but I'll bet we could work out something logical.  Maybe we should start a new thread for this.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by omar on Dec 9th, 2005, 9:04pm

on 12/08/05 at 16:03:52, Janzert wrote:
Yay! I got it working or at least it does for me in IE and FF1.5.


Way to go. I bet you had to experiment quite a bit to get that working.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Janzert on Dec 9th, 2005, 10:12pm
Actually the part that took the most work was getting IE to show it correctly.

I had seen the negative margin trick used years ago in a css example. So after the wikipedia guys said setting a background image directly wasn't allowed, I remembered it and had it working pretty quick. Then was pretty disappointed when it wouldn't showing up in IE.

It took me quite a while of fooling around before I tracked down that for some reason one of the IE only style sheets wikipedia uses sets the background color on the tables and I needed to set it back to transparent.

Janzert
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Fritzlein on Dec 10th, 2005, 3:23pm
It's great for the community when the technical knowledge is located in the same person as a willingness to help out.  Thanks again, Janzert.
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Adanac on Jan 6th, 2006, 1:20pm

on 12/07/05 at 19:42:38, Fritzlein wrote:
In addition to editing the template, you can edit/replace all the piece image files which are stored under names like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Arimaa_cgb74.png.  In the filename Arimaa_xyz74.png, the x stands for piece type (e, m, h, d, c, or r) the y stands for color (g or s) and the z stands for board or trap square (b or t).


Have the pieces been renamed?  I've copied the "Template: Arimaa diagram" into Wikibooks and I was hoping to do the same with the pieces, but I can't locate them.  I've checked the image Index in Wikipedia but there was nothing under Arimaa and I have tried different permutations for the naming conventions, but no luck.  I'm sure there's an obvious way to find them but it hasn't been obvious to me yet  ???
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Janzert on Jan 6th, 2006, 2:12pm
I had moved all the images to commons.wikimedia.com so that they should be directly accessible from any wikimedia project.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Arimaa_graphics should show them all.

I don't know if there's a way to do the same thing with the template itself or not. I'll try asking on the irc channel to see about that.

Janzert

P.S. I wasn't the one who created the category so don't blame me for it being a sub-category of animal icons. ;)
Title: Re: Arimaa game viewer
Post by Adanac on Jan 6th, 2006, 2:19pm

Thanks, Janzert.  The images are working fine in Wikibook - stupid me.


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