Study navigation

Since lichess updated I've noticed that it's become more difficult to navigate within my studies. Previously where there were multiple different moves in the study it would show each move on a drop down list, which could be selected via the up and down arrows. This has now disappeared and the down arrow simply takes you to the end of the study. Will the old functionality be re-implemented?

Yes I am also curious about this and have asked this same question a week ago: lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/showing-of-possible-options-gone-from-studies
I understand that this maybe not should be top priority, but would very much like to know if it is a plan to have for lichess v2. Here is a picture to show the selection box in the bottom right corner that I think both of us are talk of:

It's on the "nice to have" list on GitHub (github.com/ornicar/lila/projects/9), so it will definitely be reconsidered.

Try my study:

pgneditor.herokuapp.com

The project is still in its infancy, but it already has some features that I consider improvement over lichess study.

As far as navigation is concerned it can represent the game as a tree, which is more clear and visually attractive, than how it is represented in lichess study.

You can merge an entire game or move list with one click. The PGN is always shown and available as copyable text, no need to download anything.

You can clone a study with one click.

When embedding or linking, you can link any sub variation node, as opposed to lichess study, which only allows that for main line moves.

The board can be exported as PNG image ( together with analysis arrows ).

You can search a user's games based on the current line of the game. So if you wonder how a player plays some opening, you just make the moves on the board, type in the user name and click "Search games of user with current moves". When searching flip matters, so when the board is flipped the search will look at games where the given player was black.

The current line is always offered as copyable text, should you want to paste it into some forum.

The app uses anonymous login, so you can store studies. You only have to write your user ID on a piece of paper for safety.

It is also possible to log in with your lichess username. In this case you have to enter a verification code into your lichess profile temporarily, the app checks this, and grants you your lichess username. The advantage of this, is that in case you forgot your user ID, you can always access your studies by repeating the verification. ( This latter is the recommended login type. )

@lishadowapps Thank you for this suggestion, but I think that for complex studies the lichess navigation feature that was removed still is more readable. It does not require scrolling with the mouse for seeing the next branches in the move tree, and looking at the full tree instead of the just next moves is also very confusing for complex lines where there are many variations. I have had to zoom out for to show much of the move tree early on whereas with lichess's navigation it did not show all the unnecessary moves that were avoided already or future branches. Also the pgn importer removes all forms of annotations, such as comments in {} and symbols like ⩲ that might have been in the pgn which makes it much harder to navigate studies that have variations for white and black. Being able to copy the current moves that have been played to reach the position on the board is a nice feature though. Importing a study that I have made in lichess and am working on finishing for an example:

As I said, this project is only a baby now, everything is beta, you cannot even make a promotion currently on the board. Crazyhouse is not implemented etc.

I definitely want to do something about comments. May be collapsing tree branches is also an option.

I'm open to any constructive proposals to make it better.

I forgot to mention, that any pasted PGN is interpreted in the variant of the study. So you need to select the variant from the combo box before creating a study. Then any paste operation will ignore the variant of the pasted PGN and tries ot make the moves in it as far as they are legal. So you can paste a classical game into atomic as far as moves are legal. The difference between pasting into the Game tab and the Tools tab is that pasting into the Game tab will overwrite the game, pasting into the Tools tab, will only merge moves into current game. Any game search is also in the variant of the study.

Pure comments now work.

Test case was:

/ Chapter 1

Rendered as:



Comments are integrated into the tree nodes, blue thought bubble indicating that there is a comment for the node. Clicking on the thought bubble opens up the editor, which allows you to view / edit / save the comment.

PGN is exported with comments.

I noticed this feature has been added back and was wanted to say thank you to the lichess devs, and also to tell anyone else who had interest in this that this has been re-added. Also thank you to lishadowapps for designing his own pgn editor for others to use!

Great stuff! Thanks lichess for adding this, much appreciated.

Yes, lichess devs! Thank you for adding this feature back in! Keep up the good work :D