The purpose of this topic is to list a number of alternative ways you can enter moves. Many of the early applications had very strange methods of entering moves so it is my hope to inspire creators of new applications by presenting the best here.

Of course you can decide on a notation, and simply write the move using text. For example "a2a3" - depending on the notation you pick.

I think the preferred way of entering a move is by mouse. A variant of this is to use arrows, or keys WEDXZA if you use a qwerty layout, to move a cursor and thus simulate the mouse. Note that the keyboard layout is not universal. The Dvorak layout is very different.

Given we use a pointing device; we can define an interface by how you click, drag, and release the mouse.

Method A - "David's Ajax"
The latest development, and the best I have seen so far, is the one use by David's website: http://moggames.re-invent.net/abalone/
Here you click on a marble to select the first.
Then the selection expands on your marbles as you roll your mouse over them.
When you enter an empty neighbour field, the move is done.

Very few clicks, handles inline and broadside moves, easy to learn. The only draw back, is for people using hard-to-control pointing devices, such as the pointing pad at laptops, were you would like to have an explicit "click" at the target location.


Method B - "NetAbalone"
Then we have NetAbalone. Here you click on the first marble, and hold the mouse down. While you drag the mouse, you have roll-over visual clues to see which marbles are selected, and in which direction they will move when the mouse is released. This strains the muscles in the arm a little more, since you have to do a lot of dragging. Same problem with laptop pointing pad as method A

Method C - "clickhere"
At http://www.clickhere.nl/cgi-bin/abalone a third method is presented, which is easy to learn, does not strain muscles. Unfortunately it does not allow broadside moves, nor can it be used with a keyboard-controlled cursor without some rework. Each marble is divided into 6 "directions". When you click on one, the marbles move.

Method D - "nacre"
Nacre uses a click-twice approach, based on the FF-TL notation discussed elsewhere. You click on the first marble to move, and on the last empty location to move to. You can give roll-over hints while you move the mouse. It has one more click than method A, but is easy to use on laptops (as you might have guessed, I own a laptop with a pointing-pad)

Selecting a method depends on taste, but at least this could give you an idea to get started.

Any more good methods?  

--Last edited by nacre on 2006-12-04 10:35:48 --

New address for David's server is http://moggames.net  

--Last edited by nacre on 2006-12-04 10:37:03 --