jsPgnViewer & stuff

I decided to release a version 0.1, it will mark the first release. I’ve moved the WordPress plugin to the same repository and for some time they will probably share the same version number. I’ve made making releases, updating test and blog page’s updates really easy (easy as writing make wpr for updating the current WordPress installation with the latest jsPgnViewer).

I’ve implemented the biggest showstopper – en passante move handling. Other fixes are pretty small and should not be noticed. I’ve written a roadmap for the next release that should happen on this Sunday (3rd of december). As my exams are coming up I’ll try really hard not to work on anything for a month (starting from December). We’ll see about that

Right now the biggest problem with the current viewer is Safari support. There’s almost no way for me to do any testing for Safari. I do know about browsrcamp.com and I’ve given it a try but it does not help so much. I’ll just try to read as much documentation about developing for Safari and try to figure out what I’m doing wrong.

Stay tuned and let me know if you think there’s something missing or broken

I started developing a wordpress plugin for the jsPgnView. The idea is that whenever you want to add a game to your post you just paste the game between png tags. Maybe I can make it a bit easier but who knows. Right now I’ve got a proof-of-concept working. This post should contain a board of a game. I’ll make a release this weekend if i get the chance to go home.

I was not getting any output nor errors with my IE running under Crossover. I googled around and found a post on quirksmode.org. When you’re building tables with DOM in IE be sure to add a tbody to every table otherwise the content does not show up. Funnily when you check the innerHTML of the table everything is there. A comment @ quirksmode.org says that IE adds a tbody automatically but does not close it. Didn’t verify that but it seems logical.

The second problem I ran into was PGN alphachannel under IE. I checked through some “png hacks” and all of them used some kind of wrapping png’s through AlphaImageLoader. None of them satisfied me enough and I just converted the PNG files to GIF files.

Just go and check the test page with almost any browser now. Firefox, IE, Konq and Opera should work just fine.

I was able to get the library working with Opera and Konqueror. I didn’t have to do much. The handling of newlines (\n) is different when the text is in textarea from when the text is inside a div.

I was having trouble understanding why my regexes were failing with Opera and Konqueror. I wrote a small unit testing facility and started testing the PGN parsing and conversion process. I was quite surprised that the tests passed in Konq and Opera. I found out that the regexes were failing when I read the information from the textarea and luckily the testing facility was using divs. I’ll have to google for the difference though. Right now the test page is working with FF 1.5.0.7, Opera 9.02, Konqueror 3.5.5.

I was able to update my Internet Explorer to 6.0, I have Crossover Office installed. IE just shows a blank page. Now I’ll either wait till I get a chance to get home and use my Windows installation with Devel Studio or try to find the problem here.

My time here is quite limited. I’m taking part of a 10 week paramedic course to become a medical sergeant. I have couple of tests every week and have to be in class from 6 AM to 5 PM. After that I have couple of hours of free time that I use to rest, program and study for tests.

Go check out the test page with your favourite browser and let me know if you have any problems.

Some time ago I tried to share a few chess games online with friends. I went through a lot of googling and finally found a no-gui application written for Windows to export one’s PGN to HTML pages. As I had cedega installed I was able to use the application. Then I got the idea that it should be easier.

Couple of weeks ago I started developing a PGN viewer using JavaScript. As I was drafted in the summer and most of the time I’m at the pattallion, the development has not been easy. Now I have a version ready that works in Firefox. The next steps are getting it working in IE, Opera and Konq. At the same time I’ll start developing a Wordpress plugin. It should be as easy as writing a post and copy-pasteing a PGN between tags and a board should appear.

If you’re a Firefox user you can check out the sample page. You can check out the project page at Google’s code hosting.

PS. en-passante ain’t implemented. I don’t have PGN with en-passante. I’ll take care of it as soon as possible.

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