Version 0.3.23
At last, MacShogi runs on Intel based Macintosh with Leopard ! This is the main advance of this release. Other improvements have been added, such as games storage internal modifications, but are not visible in the user interface.
Version 0.2.32
Variations are available now !!
Here is the main feature of this release and see all the variations of your game in the Kifu window.
You can use the links in the Moves tab to select the variation you want to study or improve. A help : "apple key + right arrow" selects the first variation of the next move if a variation is available.
No limit on the depth of the variations, except your own imagination !
Minor bug fix in the shogi ban user interface when the user enters an illegal move with the mouse. Thanks to Oskar Gordon for showing me this bug :-)
Version 0.2.22
Minor update including a bug fix and the alternating rows colors in the library window.
Version 0.2.21
Give a look at the main feature of this release : a window is provided to help you to enter your comments. These comments are automically inserted, updated or deleted in the gamescore window. Comments can be entered in all languages.
A minor feature : opening a previously replayed game will display the shogi ban at the same move when you left the game.
I previously indicated that MacShogi would be able to import games from the NSR Shogi format and from the Kisen format, and to export games to the Kisen format. Even if those features actually work, I will not add them in MacShogi for copyright reasons.
But if you still need to exchange games with those two great database programs (in Japanese and for Windows only), wait a little and you will just use the .kif and .ki2 as intermediate formats. The .csa format is widely used in Japan as well, so I will concentrate my efforts on the .kif, .ki2 and .csa formats now.
The psn format seems to be the most flexible format among all those five formats. The psn format can :
Managing variations is an important feature of the psn format. Imagine buying a shogi book and replaying all games and detailed variations with the help of a software included in the CDROM joined with the book !
Near my keyboard, I have put the great "Habu's Words" book, written by Yoshiharu Habu. This book contains a lot of comments and variations in English (thanks to Yamato Takahashi and Tony Hosking). The reader would definitely get all the best from it with a "à la ChessBase" software :
All those features are not available in MacShogi yet ! But they will !
Version 0.2.07
This version adds the feature of entering the game informations with all the characters of your favorite language, such as the Kanji characters or the accentuated characters of the European languages. For this reason, Unicode (UTF-8) becomes MacShogi favorite encoding. But all previous psn files can be loaded without any modification.
As an example, here is the psn file of the last week 2nd game of the Kio sen :
[Sente "丸山忠久"]
[SenteGrade "棋王"]
[Gote "谷川浩司"]
[GoteGrade "王位"]
[Date "2004/02/22(日)"]
[Event "第29期棋王戦第2局"]
[Venue "富山県宇奈月町 宇奈月国際会館「セレネ」"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Moves "83"]
1.P7f P3d 2.P2f P8d 3.P2e P8e 4.G7h G3b 5.P2d xP 6.xR P8f 7.xP xR 8.Rx3d B3c 9.R3f S2b 10.P*8g R8e
11.R2f K4a 12.K5h P7d 13.P3f P*2e 14.R2h P*8f 15.Bx3c+ xN 16.N7g R8d 17.Px8f xR 18.S8h B*6d 19.B*3g xB+
20.xN Rx7f 21.S3h B*5e 22.B*4f xB 23.xP P*3e 24.Nx2e xN 25.xR B*3d 26.Rx3e N*6f 27.K6h Nx7h+ 28.xK P*8g
29.S7i G*4d 30.R8e N7c 31.R8a+ N6e 32.S6h P8h+ 33.x+R Nx7g+ 34.xS Rx4f 35.N*5i P7e 36.S4g xR+ 37.xN S*7f
38.G5h P*8g 39.+R9h Sx7g+ 40.xK S*7f 41.K6h N*4f 42.P*4b
Just give a look at the game informations page to get another idea of this feature. This improvement concerns the filenames as well : the name of the psn file joined with MacShogi is 丸山忠久-谷川浩司 第29期棋王戦第2局.psn.
MacShogi now uses a move notation for the recapture : the destination square is no longer needed, xP indicates a capture by a pawn on the previous move destination square. This provides a notation for the 同 character included in Jananese kifu (xP means 同歩).
Another new feature is that the text window is now automatically updated after each move.
Version 0.1.70
Slight modifications for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) compliance.
Version 0.1.69
Network play over internet or a local area network is available now.
Gote can use the flip feature to get his pieces on his side.
This can help him not to try to play with sente's pieces !! As both players can play both sides now.
This feature can be used for a teaching game.
No chat window is available yet.
Version 0.1.65
Minor update, first announcement on shogi-l.
Version 0.1.64
The first public version of MacShogi is out.
Give a look at the "What is it ?" page to get a list of all the features.