Introducing UNIWEBGO

UNIWEBGO (uniwebgo.com) is a blogging platform designed for Go enthusiasts. It allows you uploading, editing, managing and replaying games, or more interestingly, sharing them by embedding them into a post. UNIWEBGO has following features:

1. No software installation required. It only needs a web browser. 
2. An unique system that makes it easy to navigate within a game. Variations displayed as hyper links. 
3. An unique mechanism that displays comments intuitively. Comments keep synchronized with actual game progress that is being displayed on the board. 
4. Group-based access control. Bloggers control which part of contents (text and games included) can be read/viewed, or a published game can be downloaded or only viewed on-line based on granted groups. 
5. A Game can be embed into third-party web pages or blogs（See example：My previous post http://supportmobilego.blogspot.com/2011/07/test.html）. 
6. Multilingual blogs supported. Bloggers can easily publish their posts in different languages, readers can easily read in their desire language. Localized administrator’s dashboards are also provided. 
7. There are more. Just try it out and you will be surprised and spoiled.

Demo

Here is a demo that actually links to my Go blogging server uniwebgo.com

吴清源《人生十八局》之17 岩本·吴十番棋

Conceptual UI for A Web Go Player

1. HTML-enabled comment view:
2. On-fly-placement:
3. Long-tail variation list and comment:
   
4. Variations shown side-by-side in different windows:
   
   

Study of Navigation in Reviewing A Go Game

Use case 1

Id: UC01
Name: Level 0
Scenario: There is no variation at all. There are only comments, marks and labels.
Scope: Original or light commentary games
Commands required:
Basic navigation commands

• Next move - NM
• Previous move - PM
• End of game - EG
• Beginning of game - BG
• Fast forward - FF
• Fast rewind - FW
• Go to arbitrary move - GM

Use case 2

Id: UC02
Name: Level 1
Scenario: There are variations on main path. There is no variation on variations.
Scope: Most commentary games
Commands required: Basic navigation commands plus following commands (Variation Commands):

• Next variation - NV
• Previous variation - PV
• Back to nearest fork of variations- BF
• Go to arbitrary variation - GV

Notes on command: Suppose the game tree looks like
A – B – C – D
––B’– C’– D’
––B”– C”–D”

• NV can be applied from node {A, B, C, D} to node B’, or it can be applied from node {B’, C’, D’} to node B”;
• PV can be applied from node {B”, C”, D”} to node B’, or it can be applied from node {B’, C’, D’} to node B;
• BF can be applied from node {B, C, D, B’, C’, D’, B”, C”, D”} to node A

Use case 3

Id: UC03
Name: Level 2
Scenario: There are variations on variation.
Scope: Joseki(定式), death and live
Commands required: Basic navigation commands, Variation commands

Use case 4
Id: UC04
Name: Level +
Scenario: There are comments that reference an arbitrary node in either main path or variations
Scope: Joseki or heavily commentary games
Commands required: Basic navigation commands, Variation commands and following Node referencing command

• Go to arbitrary node – GN
• Previous node – PN: It goes back to the node where a “Go to …” command executed.
• Next node – NN: It is the opposite command of PN from the history of navigation point of view. It goes forward through navigation history.

Explain: Suppose the navigation history looks like
A – B – C, from oldest to newest

• If we are currently at node B, NN takes us to node C and PN takes us to node A;
• If we are current at node C, NN does nothing and PN takes us to node B;
• If we are current at node A, NN takes us to node B and PN does nothing.
  

Mobile Go Revived

Mobile Go revived since New Year 2011. I've found a partner to work on this project with me. However, this time it will be focusing on building a system that provides the best user experience of sharing fun of Go.

Enthusiasts' voices should never be ignored. Stay tuned.

Stop Working On Mobile Go

It's time to say good bye to my Mobile Go users. I'm not going to work on this project because I am tired of so many smartphone OS. I have decided not spending time on working for any of them. I simply just want to enjoy my life. Hope all Mobile Go users still enjoy playing Go.
Bye.

About Game Protocol

I called the game protocol Evolutionary Generic Game Protocol (EGGP). I like the name EGG because egg is my son's favourite food. I just use EGGP as the protocol's name for now. EGGP is heavily relied on XML, so an XML parser and XML editor is necessary to my development environment.

Since EGGP is based on Go Text Protocol (GTP) version 2 draft 2, which is GNU open source, I will release EGGP under GNU later as well.