Aart's Blog

The DGT company kindly shipped me a beautiful DGT Pegasus electronic chessboard, which is a nice compact board with a Bluetooth connection. After a few fun hours hacking, I have implemented the proper connection with Chess for Android and will release this support soon on Google Play . A few features include: When connected, pressing the Bluetooth icon displays the board's trademark information The brightness slider in the board connection dialog can be used to dim the LEDs The optiona. move coach cycles through all possible destination squares The "Steady LED" checkbox will slow down the transitions between LEDs

Since I am very enthusiastic about all those new beautiful e-boards that are coming out recently, such as the Millennium Tournament 55 , I am also very enthusiastic again to add new features to Chess for Android . Today I added the "move coach", which has been a feature of Chess for Android since the beginning, to e-boards as well. To enable or disable the feature, simply go to the option menu, and toggle the option. I demonstrate the new feature on e-boards in the following brief video. Please let me know what you think. I hope to release this to Google Play very soon!

I posted a brief instructional video on how to use the new Millennium Supreme Tournament 55 electronic chess board with my Chess for Android application .

Millennium has released the Supreme Tournament 55 electronic chessboard. The board and the American Staunton style pieces are handmade from real wood. And, like all Millennium electronic chessboards, using the Chesslink module, this board works well with my Chess for Android application. Overall, a spectacular addition to the Millennium electronic boards family!

Many users of Chess for Android use the combination of an electronic chessboard (Certabo, DGT, or Millennium) and online play, where making moves quickly can make the difference between winning or losing. In the past, I have made improvements that enabled quicker castling and taking en-passant. However, one request for quicker promotions was still pending. When using the electronic chessboard, there were two ways to promote a pawn. One way is to make the move with the pawn first, then use the popup window in the GUI to select the promotion piece, and finally replace the pawn with the piece on the electronic board. The second way is to remove the promoting pawn from the electronic board first, and then place the promotion piece on the board thereafter. Either way registers the promotion correctly, both for regular or minor promotion. However, during rapid games, even this simple procedure may be a bit cumbersome. Therefore I added an extra option to Chess for Android. While s...

Certabo launched a limited edition tournament model electronic chess board that celebrates the 10th anniversary of Chess for Android . The graphics were beautifully designed by Bryan Whitby. You can read more about the background in this interview with P ietro Mandurino , the CEO of Certabo (in Italian).