NCM Rewrite and Multi-PV Search Support

#1

We’ve completely rewritten Next Chess Move’s website front-end. We hope that it’s not too noticeable aside from some tidied-up pixels here and there.

Access the new NCM on the beta site: https://beta.nextchessmove.com/

New Feature: Multi-PV Search

Multi-PV lets you caluclate not only the best move, but also the 2nd, 3rd, and up to 4th best moves for any position.

This does, however, come at a cost. Searching for multiple moves introduces computational overhead which slightly slows the engine’s depth progression. But if you want multiple move suggestions for a single position, Multi-PV search is the way to go.

Browser Support

We’re dropping support for Internet Explorer 10 and older. Most other reasonably modern browsers should work in NCM.

We’ve tested several browsers and versions, but there will undoubtably still be bugs. If you run in to any issue at all, please let us know and we will deploy a fix ASAP!

Why the Rewrite?

We wanted a simpler and more testable code base to make it easier to grow and implement new features. We made the following major technology changes:

  1. Replaced CoffeeScript with TypeScript.
  2. Replaced Reflux with Redux.
  3. Removed Bootstrap and jQuery.

Normally we introduce new technologies gradually and incrementally, but these changes, when combined, were too much. So we decided to rewrite.

What’s Changed?

Not a lot. We tried to keep everything visually similar. The desktop version is about 50 pixels wider. The settings modal has explanations for each setting, and we’ve added Multi-PV support. But other than that we hope it feels like the same old NCM.

Some of the more notable technical changes include:

  • Page size has been reduced from 630KB to 212KB.
  • Piece images are now inline for smoother animations and reduced network requests.
  • We’re using a dedicated subdomain for mobile.

What’s Next?

Over the next few months we’ll be focusing on:

  1. Addressing issues as they’re discovered in beta.
  2. Applying similar technology changes (and likely rewrites) to the Android and iPhone mobile apps.

After the rewrite goes to production and the apps are updated, we’ll start increasing the maximum think time beyond its current limit of 15 seconds.

How You Can Help

Please give the beta website a try and let us know what you think! You can reply to this post, open a support ticket, or email me directly at chendry@nextchessmove.com.

All feedback is very much appreciated!

1 Like
#2

I love it, everything is smoother. I would appreciate folders for my saved boards so I can organize them. Tags would be better.

Lots of love for the new Beta!

#3

Thank you!! Saved boards does indeed need work. My first thought was to add folders and implement drag-and-drop to re-order boards within a folder. But that’s just because I’m personally more familiar with folders and have not used tags much.

Can you elaborate on why you prefer tags, and do you have any examples of websites, software, etc. that do a particularly good job of using tags to organize things?

#4

I like the rewrite. Better UX overall. And I love the Multi-PV support as it improves my analysis and learning. Thanks a lot!

Here are some feedbacks for future improvements:

  1. Allow using two engines to calculate a position at one go when using multi-PV so that I can compare evaluations between them
  2. Evaluate inputted moves to check with engine if the next move I have in mind is good or bad according to the engine(s). I find this useful for learning, because not revealing the best moves forces me to analyze and think.
  3. A toggle to enable/disable “Auto-switch active color” when next move is executed

I hope this helps.