Chess GUI Concept

Lately I have thinking about what I would like to see in a Chess GUI, I'd love to hear thoughts from others.

I've started to design a concept Chess GUI (just out of interest, I'm not planning to develop it... though if any developers are here and wish to collaborate let me know). So far there are only buttons for preferences, add/create (database and game), toggle for views (game list, openings and analysis) and a search.

What do you like to see most in the user interface? Any preferred information or format you would want to see in the game header, game annotation analysis and game list?

Here's a slightly different idea, similar to Chess.com with tabs for annotation, openings and analysis views.

I was looking at this project of mine again and curious what others like to see in a Chess GUI.

I've started porting my android analysis board app to Windows (it'll be my first Windows program in like 10+ years!) because I like that app a lot .

In order to take advantage of the multiple screens (multi-monitor setups), I want a Windows program to popup non-modal dialogs (i.e. windows popups not contains within the single main program window) so that I can popup whatever info I want to see.  And have multiple running instances of the program to color-code their dialogs.

So, using your pictures as an example, those little grey windows and that chessboard would not be inside that big "chess" window, but they'd be floating anywhere (and of course, I can configure them to look just like your example, but with the flexibility to arrange them anyway I want in terms of location and size or even close some that I don't want to see ATM).

Yes, I get what you mean.  Which Android app are you referring to?  Locking a window to the UI or allowing it to float is a nice idea.  Of course, you could also allow each window to be resized. Doesn't Fritz work like that?

Right, having those little grey boxes as windows also adds the ability to resize them.  The GUI I was thinking of is more like the drawing program gimp on X Windows.  I think Fritz lets you configure different windows but they are all still contained inside 1 top-level window.  I like Fritz, and I've been using it on the PCs. 

Here's a screen shot of gimp (notice the 3 windows work together: you can change their locations/size (can use multiple monitors not configured as a single large desktop screen), you can also close/open new windows depending on the function you want to use at the time.

The Android app is here

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.adamtai.analysisboard

Due to the tiny phone screen, I had to multiplex the info/PGN/tutorial panels. 

It's initial idea was simply to be a standalone analysis board to play out games from books.  But I've found that I use it most often when I'm waiting for something, I'd download one of my old games and see if stockfish could have done a better job at positions where I thought I was stuck --- and I usually find that it indeed can : )

I'm currently debating whether to add feature to the app to allow it to link to chess.com and download my games; the thing that's keeping me back is the interface (programming against human web pages is always a pain because they change so often).  The other idea is to add some type of PGN database like Fritz where I can just store all my games locally.

Anyway, enough digression.  Happy GUI work.

Thats one of the behaviours that drives me crazy with Gimp, but I do understand what you mean.

Any thoughts about how you like to see data in those grey boxes or if others should be added?

I'm checking out your app now (though I'm on iOS).  I'll give some thoughts to a smartphone UI.  My ideas are primarily for game DB and analysis as well.

Yes, the gimp UI isn't good if you are multitasking; it get confusing fast when many other program windows are mixed in there.  But if you are only using gimp, it is pretty flexible.  Usually I'm on a machine with 3 monitors: 1 monitor devoted to the image I'm editing and another used for the controls, leaving the 3rd monitor free for emails or even a chess.com chess game.

I'm not a professional GUI designer, and my GUIs have always been very utilitarian.  And not being a professional, I may not violate some of the look-and-feel rules for different platforms, so double check my answer to you:  I think your grey windows are fine as is (I'd use it), but if I have a large monitor, I don't want a giant chessboard (it your chessboard always takes up that %-age of window area).  The font size must also be suitable for the various window sizes (smaller screens usually means that I'm happy with smaller fonts, etc.). Now many program allows sizing the text, but it changes for all those grey boxes.  Having the grey boxes as independent windows reliefs the programmer of figuring out all those issues (the OS can help with chessboard sizing by letting the user size its window, and it's then natural to size the font size independently for each grey box, which is now its own window).

One of the (many) things that I don't think I solved correctly WRT to my app is saving and recalling past board configurations when trying out different variations.  If I do it over again, I'd make it capable of saving multiple board positions and be able to load with a preview.  The current way my app does it makes it very hard to remember what was saved a day later (initially I intended it to just be a few minutes before loading, but in actual use, many times I don't have the time to complete a game analysis in an hour).

I use SCID vs PC for storing games, access to other databases, analysis, etc and it allows the windows to be undocked and moved around as you like, though the default is everything docked. 

Though, I just found it is a bit of a pain to re-dock windows

This is still on my mind.  Another UI feedback from others?  A preference for one concept over the others?