This would be a great idea!
Vote chess - Diagram editor
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To the Chess.Com developers:
TL/DR:
Making diagrams sux! Here is plan:
1) Make a workspace where my current diagrams are for a game I am in (under the move list)
2) Replace 'Copy FEN' with 'Make diagram', 3) Replace 'Copy PGN' with 'Clone diagram' (to workspace), 4) Add 'Copy to Comment' in workspace (or I guess 'Copy from Workspace' in comment)
Long version:
My wish is for it to be easier for chess.com members to make and share diagrams, especially in vote chess, but I think in postal chess too (I'm thinking 3 day games).
Basically, chess.com should give members better analysis tools. I want it to be easy and fun to make a virtual analysis board and have it be there with my game when I go to the game, and easy to share these in a comment.
The Problem with Diagrams in Vote Chess:
Currently when I have to make a diagram from a vote chess game to share ideas with my teammates (who may dislike reading chess notation, or can never remember which side of the board the a or h file is on), I have to accurately navigate the Diagram Wizard, which has several steps which must be done correctly which are not simple to remember, which must be done in order, which involve scrolling up and down the page to do, etc. Here is the difficult process currently required:
Copy FEN or PGN, choose type of diagram (always 'sequence of moves'). See the first page that is there to change the position but we never want to use that unless composing a puzzle (that should be a different icon.) Here I often trip up by starting to make moves, but that just makes me have to start over. I hate that page. So I remember to skip it. Here you lose 40% of your vote chess teammates, I think. It goes on: you have to discover where to inform it that your 960 game is a 960 game so you can castle; you have to remind it how to flip the board because you are playing black so the diagram is upside down; how to make the pieces and colors the same as the diagram you copied the PGN from ... it's just all kinds of annoying, starting up the wizard. Are you convinced? Maybe you already knew it was a pain in the rear, and wanted to teach people just to read notation. But this is postliterate computer age, you want your site to burgeon, right? You may be right, perhaps I should be trying harder to read notation better instead of suggesting improvements for chess.com!
Solutions:
There are some small workarounds like putting the comment composition at the top of the page instead of the bottom that would make it easier. However here is a bigger idea that you may like, to accomplish this.
1) For each game I'm doing, I would like to have a Current Diagram (and ideally plural current diagrams.) I think they could be there on the page for the game, right under the move list. They might be called Analysis Boards or Workspace. Basically what I get when I Analyze, except I should be able to store my work as I do in a diagram, and look at multiple lines. (When I get into a good 3 day game I do the same thing just using text comments to myself, but this would be better.)
Obviously you'd want to create, view/edit, and share these.
2) A new way to start a new diagram from the current position and store it in the workspace. I want it to start from the correct position, flip the board correctly, choose 960 rules correctly, and automatically skip the page where I can move the pieces to the wrong squares. Also I think it might be better to have it copy the board color and the style of the pieces, and I think it would be helpful to add the square notation. (A member might have a choice of 'lazy' or 'expert' mode that would enable control over this without making it a chore.)
This might be a new option after 'Copy FEN' (or replacing 'Copy FEN') that I've seen on the site since I joined.
3) A new way to copy a diagram from another user's comment into the workspace (Current Diagrams area), with similar benefits.
This could be a new option in the 'Share' options (Facebook, Twitter, get PGN, copy diagram to workspace).
4) A way to insert a Current Diagram into a comment for the same game.
(I'm not too sure whether these wishes are within reach in the current browser cology. I hope so. There's probably an old-school way to do it if you add enough radio buttons and server side caches etc.)