Category: Programming

SmartGo One for Mac

I released SmartGo One for iPad and iPhone a bit more than a year ago, and thought the Mac version would be at most a few months behind. However, it proved to be more difficult than expected, and Mac Catalyst didn’t make it quite as easy as advertised. And I got distracted by bug fixes, localizations, and tons of improvements in the iOS version. (As well as designing a passive house.)

Anyway, the Mac version is now available. Like the iOS version, it’s a free download. All your in-app purchases from iOS should automatically show up and work on the Mac: books, problem collections, as well as your Pro subscription. Files in iCloud Drive are now shared between all your devices. And your progress in solving problems that synced between iPhone and iPad now also syncs to your Mac.

There are a few differences to the iOS version:

• Menu items: Menus make it easier to add more functionality, and a few extra functions are available. For example, under Edit > Delete Nodes you’ll find the following submenu:

Delete All Variations and Delete Rest of Game are not currently available on iOS. Insert Node also offers more options. I’m looking for ways to make the same features available across all devices without overloading the UI.

• On My Mac: File access on iOS is restricted to a specific folder reserved for the app. On the Mac, you can access other folders, once you allow access. There’s a new button next to On My Mac (see image below) that lets you select a folder with your go files. You can then directly access and work with files in that whole folder and any subfolders.

• Title bar: To leave more space for the content, I’ve removed the navigation bar from the game view and moved some functions to the title bar (Game Info, Share, Settings). I’ve also added controls for switching between the areas of the app (My Files, Pro Games, Players, Problems, and Books) to the title bar (see image above). I found that having direct access there worked better than using the sidebar. (The sidebar is still available if you prefer to use it.)

• Multiple windows and tabs: You can open multiple windows, each with multiple tabs. The Window menu has standard commands like Merge All Windows and Move Tab to New Window.

I’m excited that new features and bug fixes can now apply to all platforms: iPhone, iPad, and Mac. As always, please let me know what you’re missing in SmartGo One, or any issues you run into.

SmartGo Too Strong

SmartGo One incorporates KataGo, a really strong go engine. For most players, it’s too strong. While you can increase handicap until you manage to win, getting beaten mercilessly is not that enjoyable.

Smartgo computer levels

The newest version tries to make playing against the computer more interesting. When you start a new game, you can choose between five different levels, from ‘SmartGo++’ (full strength, playing as well as it can) to ‘SmartGo—’ (making more mistakes and even some blunders). The default is the middle of the road ‘SmartGo’ that will try to make the game more balanced.

The trick with dumbing down computer play is that you don’t want the computer to play non-sensical moves. The approach I’ve taken is that SmartGo will still select one of the moves that KataGo generates, but instead of always picking the best move, allow it to choose moves that lose points or reduce its chance of winning. If the computer is further ahead, it can lose more, bringing the game closer to balance.

This is a first stab at this feature, I will likely refine this in versions to come. Please let me know how this works for you: Do you always keep the computer at maximum strength? Is the lowest level still way too strong? Do you enjoy playing against the computer more?

Read UGF, NGF, and GIB files

SmartGo One can now read go games in file formats other than SGF: UGF, NGF, and GIB (with file extensions .ugi, .ngf, and .gib). UGF is popular in Japan, NGF is used by the Korean wBaduk server, and GIB is used by the Korean Tygem server.

SmartGo One will show thumbnails for these files, with the file extension indicated in the lower right corner.

Thumbnails of 4 games in different file formats

Support for these file formats is read-only. If you make changes to the game, it will be saved as SGF, overwriting the imported file. Paste SGF will also accept games in those formats.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the spec for any of these file formats, so the files are interpreted based on reverse engineering as well as comments at Sensei’s Library. I’d love to get more sample files so I can make sure my code handles all the corner cases. And if you run into files that are not handled as well as they could be, please send me a copy at support@smartgo.com. Thanks!

Also, please let me know if I should revive my old code for reading the Ishi (.go) file format. Is anybody still using that one?

The State of Game Center

My happy blog post on SmartOthello for Mac conveniently skipped my journey through Game Center purgatory. While profile pictures are back, Apple is still not giving Game Center proper attention. I’ve been busy submitting bugs to Feedback Assistant – here’s a sampling:

  • There is still no way to get notified of invitations without polling (FB5990491).
  • On the Mac, turn notifications are not received (FB7659591).
  • On the Mac, there’s no way to edit your Game Center profile picture (FB7667313).

When you try to start a Game Center game on the Mac, you get the following cut off dialog (FB7668604):

mac-game-center-cut-off

(Yes, that’s the actual amount of white space.) Luckily, you can resize it to reveal some more buttons:

mac-game-center-revealed

The worst issue right now is that Apple has deprecated GKPlayer.playerID, and tells developers to use teamPlayerID or gamePlayerID instead. However, those simply don’t work (FB7662712), as the IDs keep changing even within a single game, making it impossible to e.g. cache profile images, never mind reconcile locally stored games with Game Center data. If GKPlayer.playerID gets removed in iOS 14 without fixing teamPlayerID, I will have to pull SmartOthello from the App Store.

How to Play With Friends

The whole process of finding friends to play with is way too convoluted. I’ve improved the UI in SmartOthello 3.0 to make it easy to start a game with somebody you recently played with. However, the process to first find somebody to play with is kafkaesque:

1. Tap on New Game and choose Game Center at the top.

start-game-center-game

2. SmartOthello lists recent opponents, and you can easily start a game with them. To play with anybody else, tap on Invite Friends.

after-invite-friends-long

3. This leads to a screen that has two buttons: Invite Friends and Play Now. While Invite Friends is just lightly outlined and you’re tempted to tap the boldly emphasized Play Now, that would just try to match you with somebody else who’s looking for a random opponent right then, which only really works if the app is much more popular than SmartOthello. So don’t get stuck in limbo; tap Invite Friends.

after-second-invite-friends

4. This brings you to an iMessage screen where you can send an invitation to a contact. However, the instruction “Tap + for Friends and more” is trying to give you a clue that you should tap on the ⊕ button, and then you’re finally presented with the right choices: play with contacts, friends, nearby players, or players you recently played with.

final-game-center-screen

This last screen makes sense – Apple needs to give developers a way to take users directly to that screen (FB7672633). Game Center matching was much easier when there was a Game Center app; Apple really went off-track when they decided that matching should go through iMessage.

I hope this helps others navigate through Game Center issues with turn-based games. If I’m wrong about any of these, I’d love to know! Hopefully, Apple can address these issues in iOS 14 and give both players and developers a better experience with Game Center.

A Month with Mac Pro

I’ve now enjoyed my Mac Pro for over a month. Why did I decide on that computer, and how is it working out?

iMac

My late-2014 5K iMac was five years old: it still worked, but was increasingly limiting. The internal 500 GB SSD was too small, and even with the external 1 TB SSD I kept bumping into limits, wasting time cleaning out cruft. Ports were another issue: no USB-C ports, not enough ports in general, and I have yet to find a 100% reliable USB hub. The retina screen is still perfect, and my wife will likely get many more years out of this computer, but as a daily developer workhorse, it was getting long in the tooth.

I was sorely tempted to upgrade to an iMac Pro two years ago. However, while the current iMac Pro might be a great choice for many developers, for me it had a few drawbacks:

  • GPU not upgradable: I’d have to decide up front how much to invest in this rapidly evolving technology.
  • No way to drive the non-XDR 6K monitor that Apple is surely going to release any year now.
  • Ports not future proof: Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C will remain relevant for many years to come, but new standards will surely emerge in the next decade.

My apps

I’m a developer, not a video professional, so the case for a Mac Pro is not as clear-cut. My main work right now is on the all-new version of SmartGo, about 70k lines of Swift and growing. The shipping version of SmartGo for Windows is 166k lines of C++; SmartGo Kifu is a mix of C++, Objective-C, and Swift. So while there are other tasks that benefit from a multi-core CPU (e.g. running Go or Othello simulations overnight, or converting 140 Go books to ePub), speeding up Xcode builds is the main benefit.

Modern Go programs are based on neural nets, which benefit a lot from a powerful GPU. However, my current development focus is on user interface, not on stronger play, so with GPUs still improving rapidly, I want to delay investment in a powerful GPU until I really need it.

Specs

Basically, I maxed out SSD and CPU (within halfway reasonable budget constraints), and plan to upgrade memory and GPU as needed.

  • 3.2 GHz 16-core Xeon W, turbo boost to 4.4 GHz: Slightly slower than the 12-core, but turbo-boost speed is the same.
  • 48 GB RAM DDR4 ECC at 2933 MHz: I figured this would be plenty for a while, and so far memory has not been an issue.
  • 4 TB SSD: I don’t want to keep bumping against that limit.
  • Base GPU: More than powerful enough for what I need now.

In addition, the expandability of the Mac Pro may lead me to:

  • Add more ports: If I need more USB ports, or some other port comes along that is helpful, I can just add a card for that.
  • Add internal SSD: I currently have a 2 TB SSD hanging off the internal USB port (for nightly backups); when I need more, I can add a PCI card with extra SSD storage.
  • If/when Apple switches to ARM, it’s conceivable that Apple would create a card with an ARM processor for the Mac Pro.
  • The unknown: Having PCI Express card slots available keeps options open for the future.

I expect the Mac Pro to be reliable for many years, and if something goes wrong, it will be easier to repair than a computer crammed behind a large screen.

Monitor

I’m used to dual monitors: a 4K monitor next to the 5K iMac (a Dell P2415Q 24-inch 4K monitor, which is surprisingly good). I’d love a 6K monitor, but the 6K Pro XDR is not for me. The iMac is overdue for an SSD-only update and visual refresh, and at that point it would make a lot of sense to also release standalone screens in the same form factor. However, Apple’s timing is famously unpredictable, so I decided to go with the LG 5K for now to avoid being dependent on Apple’s plans. If they do release a 6K monitor for mere mortals, I’d be happy to replace the 4K by a 6K screen.

Performance

For developers, staying in the zone is crucial, and being able to reduce the build-run-debug cycle has really helped. Compared to my old iMac, build and run speed has improved by a factor of 2 to 3, and build times have become much more predictable. For my 70k lines of Swift, launching on an iOS device (connected by USB) after a small change takes 6-7 seconds, and a full build takes less than 30 seconds, more than good enough. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot more done this last month than in prior months.

Price

Yes, it was a very expensive machine, but I do expect to get at least 7 to 8 years out of it. (I got 7 good years out of my 2006 Mac Pro.) The 6% cash back when buying with the Apple Card before December 31 helped; also, if you’re in the market for a Mac Pro, make sure you talk to the business rep at your local Apple Store to see if you can get a discount.

Summary

A month in, the Mac Pro has been everything it was supposed to be: fast, reliable, silent, unflappable. It looks gorgeous, but I hardly even notice it – it just sits quietly below my desk helping me focus on my work.