Probably the most important thing this forum needs to do is to give the members the ability to challange another to a game of chess. 

To those of us who have been members for a while and are conversant with the structure of the site this may be easy, but when I started I found it somewhat difficult to firnd where to go.  From the comments I have had from others I have introduced to the site I know it's a general problem.

I suggest that it is something of such importance that there should be a menu item either at top level on the green bar  (prefered) or within "PLAY", with the title "START A GAME" (meaning 'Create a challange').

Agreed. We are going to make a popup menu so when you click on someone's name you see a lot more information and actions about that person. Like in Live Chess :)

Of the two methods for starting a game from the main Online Chess screen, the second one which starts a game with a random member is the bane of my life! They are both called labelled "Start a game". The first one let's you think about the parameters; however, choose the second one by mistake, and bam! the game is underway.

artfizz wrote:

Of the two methods for starting a game from the main Online Chess screen, the second one which starts a game with a random member is the bane of my life! They are both called labelled "Start a game". The first one let's you think about the parameters; however, choose the second one by mistake, and bam! the game is underway.

 Fool me once, shame on you,

Fool me twice, a pox on you, or something like that :-)

the bane of my life! Even though I have only done it once - it led to a challenge on Evil_Homer - which, fortunately, he has not yet taken up.

I'm not sure I like the idea of being someones mistake!

artfizz wrote:

the bane of my life! Even though I have only done it once - it led to a challenge on Evil_Homer - which, fortunately, he has not yet taken up.

I'm pretty sure you can abort it, if it hasn't started yet, with the button at the bottom on the right side of the board.

I'll bear that option in mind. But mistakes are often the stepping stones to ... utter failure. Some good may come out of it - like a gg with E_H.

erik wrote:

Agreed. We are going to make a popup menu so when you click on someone's name you see a lot more information and actions about that person. Like in Live Chess :)

Thank you for your response.  Any developments like this are welcome but when you start accessing the site you don't realise you have to click on someones name.  I still feel that you need a menu item on the green bar.  In fact it should stand out from the rest of the menu items by being a different colour. I have a colleague who has not started a game after over a month of using the site because he does not know how to do so.  Not everyone is a computer buff.