How to get comment of a move?

[horaceho]

After a game is loaded, how can I

• goto the first upcoming move which contains a comment, and
• get the comment text of a move?

Thanks

[adamreisnz]

Great question, I don't seem to have created an easy interface to deal with comments yet. I'll look into improving that and will update the demo's to include comments.

For now, you can do something like this (try in demo-player.html):

<p>
  Comments:<br>
  <span ng-repeat="comment in Game.node.comments">{{comment}}<br></span>
</p>

You can access the current tree node via Game.node, and if there are comments it will be an array with string comments in it, so you can navigate the game nodes via game.next() and then check if game.node.comments is empty or not.

I will add some enhancements to let game.next() return true or false based on the success state, and also some helpers to determine the number of moves in the game etc.

[adamreisnz]

I've had another look at the code and I think the easiest way for you to programmatically find nodes with comments would be something like this:

//Load JGF data into a new game object
var game = new Game(jgf);

//Get the root node
var node = game.root;
var firstComment = '';

//Process children
while (node.children.length > 0) {

  //Get the first variation
  //Optionally, you can process all the children (variation nodes)
  node = node.children[0];

  //Check if comments present in node
  if (typeof node.comments !== 'undefined') {
    firstComment = node.comments.join('\n\n');
    break;
  }
}

Let me know if that helps.

[horaceho]

Great! Even better if there are APIs for the above, something like:

 Player.nextWithComment()
 Player.nextWithVariation()
 Player.nextWithCommentOrVariation()
 Player.previousWithComment()
 Player.previousWithVariation()
 Player.previousWithCommentOrVariation()

Plus navigation APIs inside variations (I have not looked into this part yet), users can easily traverse among game comments and variations.

[adamreisnz]

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into adding methods like that to the player.

The Game service API contains methods for navigating between variations, try:

Game.next(i); //Where i is the variation number
Game.lastFork()

I will add the lastFork method to Player as well.

[adamreisnz]

Added in 1.2.2

[horaceho]

Thank you!

[adamreisnz]

I have added the following methods to the Game and Player services in version 1.2.5:

Player.previousFork(); //renamed from Player.lastFork()
Player.nextFork();
Game.previousFork(); //renamed from Game.lastFork()
Game.nextFork();

I have also added some example code to the demo-player.html to illustrate how you can display variations with their name and navigate to them. It also illustrates how to use the nextFork() and previousFork() methods.

As for the comments, I don't feel this should be the responsibility of the player, as it feels like business logic to me which might be specific to your implementation of the player. However, you can feel free to extend the Player service using a decorator and add those methods if needed, or do it via scoped controller methods instead.

Let me know if there's anything else I can help with.

[horaceho]

Thanks very much for the update!

Regards comments, I'd like to suggest a scenario which may bring convenience for Player UI building.

In a commented game record, typically pro game record, a comment show up every ten or so moves. So a game with very detail comments usually are broken down to fifteen to twenty or so diagrams.

For example, if there are comments in move 17 and 29, in early part of a game. Of course, the user can click Next Move 17 times and see the first comment. Another presentation is, when the user click "Next Comment" button, the Player will stop at move 29, shows number for the moves from 18 to 29, and usually the pro comment tells what's happening in the moves, something like, "move 20 is strong, move 25 is weak, move 29 is forcing white to the edges..."

In the above scenario, a lookup/jump to next/previous comment API will be very helpful, for example:

 Player.nextComment();
 node = Game.previousComment().next();
 fromMove = node.moveNumber();
 toMove = Game.currentNode().moveNumber();
 Player.showMoveNumbers(fromMove, toMove);

[adamreisnz]

Yeah, I suppose it could come in handy for review of games. Alright, I'll add something in for navigating to/from comments.

I also like the idea of an API to number some or all of the moves. Will add that in as well.

[adamreisnz]

Added the following API methods in 1.3.0:

Player.nextComment();
Player.previousComment();
Player.showMoveNumbers(fromMove, toMove);
Game.nextComment();
Game.previousComment();
Game.getMoveNodes(fromMove, toMove);
Game.getMoveNode(move);

The following already existed:

Game.getNode() //Get current node

There's a small issue regarding setup nodes being counted as move nodes. I will address that shortly. But it should work fine for game records without setup nodes.

[horaceho]

Wonderful! Thank you!