General Assessments understanding and queries

October Three of Anno Domini MMXXVI

There are ~ half a million to a million people on here per week.

The number with Lichess Tools is nearing one percent of that figure

There are a few mysteries that would be nice solve before too long; I wouldn't really like to broach the topic but it is a curiosity I can't quite shake.

From what I can understand Lichess Official Trusts Lichess Tools and offered Permission to create and make public The Tools. What I can't seems to parse is that it seems there seems to have been a few changes to the source code, making it difficult for the developers of Tools.

So I guess what I'm asking is, did they forget about us? I like Lichess more than the average person that's for sure, so when I ask these questions it's out of gratitude as much as curiosity.

I will try not to overload on questions in one Post, I just have a lot appreciation for Both the platform and the custom boards, so I'd like to help prevent any problems.

One thing that comes to mind is advanced notice would go a long way I imagine. Official knows when it's working on updates and can tell Tools when it's gonna be alot of work to keep up and other technical things et cetera ( stuff I know nothing about, haha )

OH YEAH, et cetera, and addendum about custom boards, I know a say it alot, but I recognized something I didn't know before. Not only do I enjoy My custom board, it actually allows me to play chess in a more relaxed manner than I can elsewhere. On other websites with no good options it can actually be difficult and unpleasant for me to play. So in a sense this Tool make Chess accessable for me

tyvm

I am glad to hear that, @enpassant32 !

The relationship with Lichess is rather symbiotic. I respect the hell out of Lichess and I personally don't want to hurt them in any way. In fact, LiChess Tools was born and continues to be a way to improve on something I love.

But technically, they have their own stuff and can't possibly consider LT in everything they do. They already have legions of keyboard warriors telling them every single change is bad and tons of browsers and computer setups that they must make work. LT on the other hand is coded just by me and some rare contributors. It could die tomorrow. It's free, but also no money goes into it. All decisions are mine, there are no committees of people to deliberate or armies of angry trolls going 4Chan.

And because of this there are clear "philosophical" differences between LT and Lichess. They only recently started to make better UI, add features and consider toggles for them. LT is the opposite: flags for everything, configure it with exactly what you want and nothing more or less. Maintenance is cheap to me, but it would be prohibitive for Lichess if they went my way.

So bottom line is they do what they do - now accelerated by AI - so more changes, more contributions, more code reviews and I have to adapt to keep LT working, while also adding my own features.

Honestly, the technical part is more annoying than important. It's the community that keeps things together, both for Lichess and hopefully LiChess Tools.

Right now I have a new job and it's hard to focus on LT when I want to write 10x more code than my colleagues, earning their ire and making myself obsolete :-), but I do what I can.

Thank you. It's better to know in advance. I will enjoy it while it lasts