The Internet Go Server (IGS) is by no means the only
opportunity to play Go over the Internet, but it is
certainly one of the most long-standing servers, and
also one of the most important. Although it is
theoretically possible to use the IGS with nothing
more than a telnet connection, virtually everyone
accesses it through some client software or another
that provide attractive playing boards, additional
features, and (sometimes) a more intuitive interface.
Moreover, because many other servers on the Internet
are either derived from or modelled on the IGS, several
of the clients reviewed in this document will work
on some servers other than the IGS.
In this article, I consider five of the most prominently
available software clients used to access the IGS from the
MS Windows operating system. Several of these clients
are available for other operating systems as well. Of
all these clients I found gGo by Peter Strempel to
be head-and-shoulders above the rest in most
categories and is the client I use exclusively.
Notably absent from this article is one of the oldest
clients, TgWin. Regrettably, I installed this software
on my computer years ago, and even upgrading to a
newer version, it will not let me re-evaluate the
software without paying the $25 shareware fee. All
I can tell you is that when I used it three or four
years ago, I didn't care for it much. Weird little
windows, everywhere.
Gobase.org is an excellent resource for learning
more about the different servers, and also maintains
a page with links to these go clients and others
for all operating systems, which can be found at:
http://gobase.org/software/clients
1) Panda Egg
SUMMARY:
Cost: Free
General UI: One Window, context dependant.
UI Rating: Poor
Board: Fine
Help system: Fine
Chat UI: Good
In-Game UI: Fine
Other Features: User memos.
ANALYSIS:
This is the client provided by the company that owns IGS.
Interestingly, it does an excellent job of completely covering
the legacy, telnet interface to the go server. The new user
will never need to navigate the arcane help files, look up
obscure server commands, or otherwise fiddle around with
strange modes. All the important features are here: chat
with your opponent, talk to someone else on the server,
send messages to players who may be offline, and of course,
play and observe games.
However, the user interface that it provides is peculiar,
to say the least.
All features are more or less accessed from a question tree:
Do you want to play? Or observe? Choosing play, takes you
to a list of players, which appears to be aiming for the
'room' paradigm, except that the IGS is really not designed
to have rooms the way some other servers are. There is still
a telnet interface available, although it is well hidden.
Many basic paradigms of windows are implemented strangely
or not at all: exiting the application is non-obvious.
The only client-side feature I found was the ability to
leave a note to yourself associated with other users.
(eg: "He likes corner play.")
But if you are looking to explore the server, customize
views, or perform other advanced tasks, there is no interface,
and no support for it.
SUMMARY:
Although this is an exceptionally ugly, and rather peculiar
client, it fulfils the basic function of any client: it
enables Go players to find each other and play the game
over the internet.
2) WinIGC:
SUMMARY:
Cost: Shareware ($35, annoys you with popup
windows reminding you to pay -- unless you pay).
General UI: MDI windows within one frame
UI Rating: Poor
Board: Fine
Help system: Good
Chat UI: Poor
In-Game UI: Fine
Other Features: Customizable hot-keys, toolbars, scripting.
ANALYSIS:
This is a perfectly acceptable go client. It's functional,
it doesn't crash, it lets you play games and talk to
your opponent, and offers windows-based user interface
features to most IGS server features. Rarely does one
need to use the telnet terminal, although it is available
when you do.
Despite a number of nifty Windows bells and whistles like
full-screen, dockable toolbars, customizeable hot keys,
and the like, this client has not fully made the conceptual
leap away from the telnet server paradigm. Nearly every
window has a talk mode and a command mode, and it is all
to easy to say your commands to people or send nonsense
commands simply because your window is in the wrong mode.
A similar annoyance in WinIGC which is also emblematic
of the telnet mentality is that when you close a game
that you are observing, the client asks if, in addition
to closing the window, you also want to 'unobserve' the
game. This telnet concept is simply not applicable to
a windowing environment. If I close the window, *of
course* I want the server to stop sending me the moves.
The board itself is not particularly inspiring, but it
should be noted that you can use other bitmap files than
the images provided. I am not sure of the format for these
files, however: I tried loading some bmp files from other
clients, and they didn't work correctly.
There are a number of UI lapses that one can work around
by customizing hot keys and so forth. For example, if you
just want to see players in a certain ratings range, you
can easily program a hot key to send the appropriate
server command (if you know the server command), but there
is no obvious interface to do this through the client.
CONCLUSION:
For users already familiar with the IGS, this is a full-featured
client with enough customizations to make anyone happy. It is
not, however, a beautiful client: the stones are not particularly
attractive, and the interface is occasionally awkward. It does
not feel like a piece of software I would want to pay $35
for.
2) Jago
SUMMARY:
Cost: Free.
General UI: Multiple windows
UI Rating: Poor
Board: Very Good
Help system: None
Chat UI: None
In-Game UI: Fine
Other Features: SGF viewer, GUI for GnuGo
ANALYSIS:
This interface is a very thin layer around the text-based
server. The only graphical interface available is for playing
games, but notably, it has a very attractive board compared
to the others -- the stones are very pleasant to look at,
the board is a nice color of wood, and the 'last move'
marker is both visible and unobstrusive. A nice combination.
Each function that has any interface at all has its own
window, so using the thing for a while will leave a number
of different windows cluttering up your deskspace.
One important feature this lacks is any kind of audible
alert when moves are played or other server events
occur.
As GUI for GnuGo, Jago is perfectly functional, although
again, the absence of a click when stones are placed
is offputting, and there does not appear to be any
way to pass GnuGo settings through other than munging
them on to the command line that is executed, which
requires some knowledge of GnuGo.
Occasionally crashes with a buffer overflow if you let
the program lie in the background for a long time.
Occasionally dialog boxes open with cryptic messages.
This is an all-java application, so you will need a recent
version of the java virtual machine on your system.
SUMMARY:
If you are content to use the IGS command-line interface
for most of your server interactions, and just want a pretty
board to play on, this is a fine client. The bugs are
minor, and do not seem to interfere with play.
3) qGo
SUMMARY:
Cost: Free.
General UI: Primary window, launches separate game window.
UI Rating: Fine
Board: Good
Help system: Poor
Chat UI: Poor
In-Game UI: Good
Other Features: SGF viewer,
ANALYSIS:
qGo and gGo began as a single project (c++ and java respectively),
but each went their own way. qGo is a good effort, comparable
to WinIGC, but it does have a number of niggling annoyances.
There are curious user interface choices throughout: why
does a match dialog box remain open, even after you decline
a match? Why does the 'free' option in the match dialog
have both a checkbox AND a yes/no drop down? The help
system will not answer your questions: it is largely empty.
The main window consisting of a terminal screen, a games list,
and a players list is nicely organized, and customizeable
toolbar buttons make it more so. Annoyances aside, this
is a pleasant system to use... except for conversation.
There are several ways to attempt to strike up a conversation;
but said conversation may show up in various panes. Until
you manage to get the conversation to appear as an actual
chat window (probably resulting from server 'tell' commands,
rather than in-game 'say' commands) it is all a little
confusing.
SUMMARY:
This is a fine, functional client, with just enough small
annoyances to make a player want something better. So close,
and yet so far.
4) Black and White
SUMMARY:
Cost: Free.
General UI: Primary window, launches separate game window.
UI Rating: Poor
Board: Fine
Help system: Poor
Chat UI: Poor
In-Game UI: ?
Other Features: Client for the Black & White server
ANALYSIS:
Black & White is apparently designed for the Black & White
go server. I have not seen anyone actually playing go on the
Black & White go server, however, which may explain why the
latest version is compatible with IGS. Unfortunately, for IGS
purposes, the interface feels like a misfit.
The main interface is laid out as a list of 'rooms' where
each room represents a game. The windows all update without
requiring a refresh, which seems like a good idea, but
it means the lists are always jumping around, making it
far too easy to click on something that is off by one.
The game board is functional, but confusing. The icons of
the buttons are not intuitive, and ending the game is
different than on other IGS clients (instead of having
a 'done' button, there is a 'count' button, which apparently
sends the 'done' command to the IGS.
SUMMARY:
This is unlikely to be anyone's first choice as an IGS
client, with the possible exception of people who are
already used to it from the Black & White server -- if
there are any such people.
5) gGo
SUMMARY:
Cost: Free.
General UI: Tabbed mode *or* multiple windows
UI Rating: Very Good
Board: Good
Help system: Fine
Chat UI: Excellent
In-Game UI: Very Good
Other Features: SGF viewer, GUI for GnuGo.
ANALYSIS:
It did not take long for gGo to become my preferred client.
It began as the Java counterpart to qGo, but has subsequently
forged its own path; in any case, it really shows off what
a standalone java application can be under windows if it
is designed well andpackaged with a good installer. I have
been consistently impressed with this application.
As an internet client, the author (Peter Strempel) only
guarantees that it will work with IGS -- he makes no claims
about clone servers. Not only does it work with IGS seamlessly,
but it is also an excellent interface to GnuGo.
The user interface is fully customizeable, not only with
different Java skins to personalize your look and feel,
but you can also control a number of aspects of the
user interface: you can choose whether you want to view the
different panes of information in a tabbed mode, or as
different floating windows (I prefer tabbed). You can
select from a number of different anti-slip mechanisms
for placing stones (double click, two clicks with a
configurable delay, etc.). You can control what toolbars
are where in a very windows-like way.
The chat mechanism is particularly elegant: context
sensitive command lines let you converse with your
opponent or chat with others on the server without
any confusion over modes, tells, or says. gGo handles
all of that for you in a nicely intuitive way.
Like Panda Egg, gGo allows you to leave notes to yourself
associated with other players, as well as receive
notifications when the player is online, and so forth.
As an application, player windows, game windows, and stat
windows are all fully and accurately interpretted.
gGo seems to be reasonably robust: I have not yet generated
a crash or java error yet.
The help system is adequate.
SUMMARY:
As of March, 2004, gGo is the go client that offers the
best combination of flexibility, simplicity, and useability.
It is a robust and full featured Go application: you may
want this even if you don't use IGS at all for its other
features.