On recent changes to Lichess analysis

The other day I was cobbling together a changelog for recent commits to the lichess repo when it occurred to me that it would probably be easier to just write a blog about this. So I started writing one, and it turns out that no, it was not easier. It was the opposite. It was harder. So I scribbled “blogs hard”, Memento style, on the scratch pad that I use as a substitute for working memory, and returned my focus to the changelog. But by then the bullet list of brief, unordered, seemingly random GitHub commit messages had lost their meaning. The entire changelog concept was sapped of its appeal. For how does one adequately describe this code salad Tornado of recent repo commits, if not with a word salad firehose that is roughly adjacent (if not attached) to a brain?

Here we describe recent updates to the lichess.org analysis page - a place where sometimes, certain things work as expected, and you should do those things while you can. Because they very well might stop working after the next deploy.

Desktop (and global) analysis changes

Chief among recent changes are new disclosure buttons that collapse and hide variations on a move by move basis. Many of you already hate them, and we hope that in time, the rest of you will learn to hate them as well. The rollout went so badly that even ChessBase considered dropping the feature from its products after witnessing our user response. But still, we persevered through a series of ill chosen engineering decisions and rendering glitches. And after a hellish few days, the improved quality eventually gave us the confidence to turn it off, hide it away in the hamburger menu, and move on.

But can you hear it calling? “Use me! Use meeeeeee”. The idea is simple, click the minus button in front of a move to hide its sidelines and click the plus to show them. It is now possible to edit opening books with thousands of moves. When used in tandem with the Collapse all context menu function, they provide a powerful way to focus when navigating large studies.

Speaking of the context menu, we have always shown it when you right click or long press on a move in the move list. But you can now right click or double tap anywhere on the move list including empty space. In that case, the popup menu will only show global functions such as Expand all, Collapse all, or Copy mainline PGN. And yes I did say double tap above (for our mobile users who don't like long press).

Elsewhere in the hamburger menu, the Computer analysis toggle is gone. In its place, we have Show Fishnet analysis. It shares the same keyboard shortcut because there’s a lot of overlap. But the new control only toggles visibility of the evaluations, lines, and comments obtained from the Request a computer analysis button. It does not prevent you from using local analysis, nor does it hide best move arrows. Those functions must now be toggled separately.

There is a new opacity slider for the white variation arrows. Use a high setting for a blaring alarm when there are multiple next moves, use a low setting for a gentle reminder, or choose full transparency to hide them completely.

Last, and probably least, there are a pair of new keyboard shortcuts. Shift up/down lets you cycle variations AFTER stepping into one, long after the variation arrows and your little blue button friends have gone. And this isn't new, but always remember that you can press the ? key to see the list of keyboard shortcuts at any time.

Ok when I said “Last” just above, that was a lie. There are some big updates to the mobile web experience we need to talk about. I will now lob sentence-fragment grenades and fire my rocket launcher of half-truth directly at the tiny, skittering feet of those changes.

Mobile web analysis updates

We’ll start with the elephant.. err fish.. fish in the room. Why is analysis a fish? That is, of course, a reference to the babel fish in Douglas Adams seminal Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In our metaphor, the babel fish is translating the strength of your current chess position into the common tongue of numbers, a language that both humans and computers share. But no, I’m lying again. I love doing that. Actually, analysis is a fish because the authors of the Stockfish chess engine say it is. And they are the ultimate authority. Due to the ubiquity of Stockfish, there is a tendency for apps like ours to take it for granted, so the fish icon is an acknowledgement - a tiny clue on the origin of software that makes lichess possible.

• Note that Google Gemini does not give a correct answer for “why is analysis a fish?” Only we can be trusted on such matters.

“Ok, ok” I hear you saying, “but why does it live in a tab?” Well, nailing the fish to a tab lets us show more of your move list. Oftentimes one toggles the engine off to save battery, and there’s no reason to show the full engine UI when that’s the case. But we took things a step further. You can also hide the engine chrome while it's ON by tapping beside the toggle. You’ll still see the evaluation changes on the tab, and a green bar will pulse on top when the engine is draining your battery.

Of course adding this new tab had consequences, and Practice vs computer pulled the short straw. That option is now tucked away in the hamburger. If your game has server analysis, you’ll find Learn from your mistakes there as well. Other recipients of the short straw (ok, there were three short straws, OK?) are the jump to begin / jump to end buttons. But fear not, you can swipe left or right on the control bar to do the same. Rewind or fast forward through moves by sliding your finger slowly across the control bar.

Remember how I mentioned a new "double tap the move list" gesture to pull up the context menu? You can also double tap any empty board square to snap scroll it into perfect alignment with the top of your screen. Use this to hide the site header (when you want to focus) or return to the board (when you had to scroll down a bit to see something below).

Finally, inline view is no longer mandatory on mobile. Simply turn it off in the hamburger menu to use column view in portrait mode. I’m not sure why it wasn’t this way before. Probably a very good reason that I’ll soon discover in bewildered Feedback Forum posts.

And that's it for the recent (notable) analysis changes that I'm aware of.

What about the changelog?

We're still working on a full changelog with all the wonderful recent fixes and improvements the community has made in ALL areas. Analysis is just a tiny corner of the website. And there's the mobile app, Lichess Broadcaster, the API, and so on and so on. Keep your eyes peeled for this upcoming, three month changelog behemoth which should arrive in early October.