Noughmad

The theme works and looks nice. However, the pieces are stretched to fill the whole square, so the board looks too full.

To prevent this, add an invisible square to each piece element in the SVG, group it together with the piece, and set the group's id to BlackKing etc. This way, the invisible square will fill the chessboard square, and pieces will be the correct size and aspect ratio. You can also adjust their positions this way. - Apr 17 2013

Hello!

I can see you figured most of the things out, and thank you for the theme. Yes, Knights uses a libkdegames, which needs a slightly different format (.desktop file and SVG) than the KDE3 version on SourceForge.

I just tried installing you theme, and while it can be installed from Settings => Theme, it is not detected after installing. I checked it, and there are actually multiple things wrong with the theme (or with the program, whichever way you see it, they're mostly limitations of the kdegames library).

- files in archive are in a folder (Fritz_look_alike). This way the program can't find them, put them directly in the archive as top-level items.
- the .desktop file is missing a [KGameTheme] line at the top
- I see you included a separate .svg for each piece. No need to do that. Instead, have them all in one top-level svg (as you already do). However, the pieces in this file should be labeled. In Inkscape, this can be done by right click => Object Properties => Id. Set the object Id's to BlackTile, WhiteBishop etc.

You also have some files that are not needed in the archive (two hidden lock files, README and themes.conf). Nothing wrong with that, except taking up space. To avoid adding hidden files (and fix the first problem), select files for compression individually.

Once again, thank you for your work on the theme. If you have any more problems, please email me (miha@noughmad.eu) instead of posting here. You can also find me in #kde and #kde-devel channels as Noughmad. - Apr 04 2013

Hello!

I'm sorry for not noticing this earlier, I don't read this site regularly, pleas send me an e-mail (miha@noughmad.eu) for such issues.

Now, I really would mind changing the name. My program is inspired by Knights for KDE3 (http://knights.sourceforge.net/) which was a popular game that I enjoyed. Of course, if you feel strongly about this, I could change it. But please send me a private email so we can discuss the details. - Apr 04 2013

The problem is that KDE games library broke compatibility with 4.9, hence two different versions of Knights. I think the majority of users are still on older versions of KDE, so I kept the packages for the <4.9 version.

I don't use openSUSE, but if you want to have Knights included in their repositories, try writing to their maintainers. - Oct 18 2012

Done. Better late than never :) - Aug 15 2012

Thanks! - Oct 21 2011

Maybe :)

There are no current plans to support UCI, but as I understand it shouldn't be that hard. Probably after I implement PGN saving and loading, if I still have enough time by then. - Oct 14 2011

This happens with a clean buld? I sometimes get such errors (with other programs) and they are resolved by removing the build directory and trying again.

Alternatively, it's possible there's a problem with your libkdegames install. Did you remove the library but still have a CMake file pointing to it? - Sep 06 2011

And by the way, you can watch two engines battle.

Do you perchance have an old version installed? For example, Ubuntu Natty only has 2.0.1, which is very old with little features and many bugs. Try the latest version, you can download the package from this site. - Sep 06 2011

Stockfish doesn't support the XBoard interface, but Crafty should work, and I have tested with it. - Sep 06 2011

Well, it is the console, so you can always type in "set seek 0".

But I also started on a feature that would allows you to define you own convenience buttons and save them between sessions. Unfortunately, I ran out of time before 2.3, so it'll probably in the next version. - Mar 20 2011

I just posted a new version (2.3.1) that fixes this. - Mar 16 2011

I see, it's a bug. I don't see how this slipped me, but it has. I'll post an update soon. - Mar 13 2011

Thanks, I replaced and it should work now. - Mar 09 2011

Yes, I get the same thing. Apparently I was relying on some Gnuchess behavior that is not in the XBoard protocol. I _think_ I just fixed it in master, so it will be in the next release. Fortunately, this will be soon. - Feb 12 2011

I agree there must be some indication that the machine is thinking even when playing without time controls. I'll try with a cursor, or even more likely a status message.

Regarding the undo action, it will be there someday, at least for playing against computers. Until then, don't make mistakes :) - Dec 19 2010

The progressbar has invertedAppearance on, however the Oxygen style does not recognize that. It flows the other way when in a Gnome session, or with some other widget style.

Regarding the time format, I think you're right. I'll try that. - Dec 16 2010

That's because the theme doesn't have them (yet). I'll try to add some that match the color of the tiles. - Dec 11 2010

Fixed now, it was a checking the wrong variable in an if statement. - Dec 01 2010

1. Thanks for your fix, and for others reading here: it works now. It just doesn't remember your password.

2. I thought I fixed those, but they seem to be still here. I'll fix ASAP. - Dec 01 2010

It is most likely a problem with Knights, because the FICS mode is not yet thoroughly tested. Of course, I'm don't know how good your connection is, but the FICS protocol requires very little data.

I have played games with myself without problems, but there are probably be some situations I did not consider.

Of course I'd like some details (what position/move causes it) and the debugging output (what you get if you run knights from a console). It would be much better if you could reliably reproduce it, in this case please write steps to do so. The preferred place for bug reporting is bugs.kde.org with product name 'knights', or you can always e-mail me. - Oct 11 2010

I know, that's why I will try to get Knights included in the next KDE release.

I have no idea how to properly include the translation files. I don't have much free time currently, so I thought it would be easier to get Knights to kdegames and let the release team worry about it.

If anyone volunteers to do it (or teach me how), I'd be happy to add them, otherwise it will have to wait for five more months. - Sep 02 2010

I added it before there were legal move markers, for confirmation that you really pressed a movable pieces. Now that markers pop up when you click on a piece, I suppose a cursor change isn't needed anymore. I'll remove it. - Aug 26 2010

Strange, the "..." works fine for me, and I have GNU Chess 5.07 too. It always outputs two lines, like:
"... e2e4"
"My move is e2e4"

I will look into the clocks when you cancel a new game. Thanks for the quick response :)

About the + cursor: It's the default cursor for dragging. It can be disabled, but I don't know if people like it or not. - Aug 26 2010

GnuChess should work, but you have to use the --xboard option. Other than that, I don't know what might cause it.

Regarding Crafty, I still don't know how to get it to talk the XBoard (or any other) protocol. - Aug 17 2010

Alright, I tried it and it looks great. At first I you had a bug because it ran backwards, but I was soon informed that that's the way chess clock are supposed to go. :)

Anyway, you didn't include any copyright, should I assign it to you? - Aug 17 2010

That's great, thanks. I was looking for a nice Qt/KDE clock widget, but couldn't find any.

Again, sorry for replying so late, but I will include it ASAP. Thanks. - Aug 17 2010

I was looking at his pieces, as they were suggested to me in a blog comment, but didn't yet get to talk to him. However I did put them into a single theme file, but not well. I don't have any experience with svg graphics.

I'd be happy if you send me the theme you put together, and I'm sorry for replying so late, I've been more busy than I expected this month.

Also, please note that I changed the element naming scheme to match that of Tagua, which is also much clearer (in the form of WhiteKnight, BlackKing etc.). I also introduced markers for possible moves, for the last move and for dangerous situations, while that theme doesn't seem to have any suitable graphic. They're optional, so it's not a problem, but I'd be interested in any idea you have about them. - Aug 17 2010

I just commited it to playground. Thanks for the catch. - May 23 2010

Just so that you know, I'm working on FICS support now, so in the next release you will (most likely) be able to play on FreeChess.org. - May 22 2010

I'm not sure, but I guess it could be one of two things:
- themes are not properly installed. Check it at Settings -> Configure Knights -> Theme
- You're using KDE older than 4.4 (or Qt older that 4.6) and I didn't test it enough. - May 22 2010

I see that you found the missing library (libkdegames), I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond sooner.

But I don't know what you mean by "no chessboard to see". The app opens up a dialog first and only shows the board after you click OK in that dialog.

If you did that and the board stil doesn't show up, or if the dialog isn't there, please tell me all about it.

P.S.: What is "the old hp"? - May 16 2010

Thank you. - Apr 13 2010

Well, if it isn't a problem for you, I will gladly include it. A proper svn theme would be welcome, probably needed if it is to be included in kdegames. Any new theme would be welcome, actually.

The current graphics are included per request of Troy Corbin, but he didn't have a svg version. - Apr 03 2010

Thank you, it helped a lot. I found out I set the wrong cache mode (too strong caching), so they were rendered once and resized as pixmaps.

I changed that and they scale properly now. I will upload the new tarball soon. - Apr 02 2010

The theme is very nice, thank you, I included it. I just hope the naming scheme wasn't too hard to figure out.

Bad scaling might also mean I did something wrong. Could you send the pure svg version as well?

Also, at least on my computer, your tiles (which are vector, I believe) scale much nicer than the original pixmap-based ones. There are no visible edges between them. - Mar 30 2010

That was a bit of a brainfart on my part... The checkmate was triggered as soon as the king has no allowed moves.

I've fixed it already, I'll upload it when I get stalemate check to work. - Mar 28 2010

Thank you, I uploaded the new version just now. I believe the app is stable now, so I will be dropping the beta tag soon. - Mar 27 2010

Now it shold work, please report as I have no older installaions at hand. - Mar 25 2010

That is correct, I'm sorry I forget to mention it, thanks for pointing it out.

It requires Qt 4.6 for the animations, and since KDE 4.4 is strictly dependant on it, I believed this program should be also. - Mar 25 2010

I added a README file that open when a plugin is generated. Hopefully it should clear things up.

Thanks! - Dec 14 2012

Circles and triangular shapes (for roofs) are already mostly done and will be in the next release. - May 22 2008