Has it been two years already? • page 1/1 • L1Chess Tools Users Team • lichess.org

It's the tenth of May again, "LiChess Tools day", when it was first published, two years ago. What have we achieved?

I still remember the joy I felt when there were 100 users of the extension. Now there are almost 7000, spread between Chromium and Firefox browsers. We have over 2000 team members, which I feel very grateful for. Still not sure what to make with this team, I mostly use it for this Forum and update posts.

There are GMs, IMs and other titled players, chess teachers and streamers using LiChess Tools in their training, teaching and content creation. There are almost 150 different features enabled by LiChess Tools, some of them trivial, but some really complex and useful.

I am very proud of the work and the people in this... should I dare call it a community? Many good people helping with the extension as well: translation, bug reports, ideas and outreach.

Everything is not pink glow, though. I am aware that the extension has become a little bloated from all of its features. It's hard to ask people to enable just the things they need most, so I've been trying to make everything work everywhere all at once. I've managed to do it adequately so far, but it is a losing battle. Lack of time also limits my testing of what I am doing, so I am stuck between publishing a feature fast so people can use it and keeping it in reserve while I fully refine and test it. That's why quality has been dropping lately, unfortunately.

I also have some grand ideas, ones that I can't just implement and publish in a few hours of spare time. I keep promising things and keep pushing them into the future. I apologize for that.

In truth, what I should do is rewrite the extension from scratch, now that the "specifications" are clear in the user manual, with focus on performance and maintainability. LiChess Tools has long moved from a small hack to improve Lichess to an almost enterprise software. But such an endeavor would just confuse users and bring no new value to them except in the long run.

The way I see it there are four types of audience for this extension:

casual players - they don't care so much for analysis or learning, maybe they want brilliant move detection and custom piece sets and boards, maybe some features that makes playing more fun or eliminate issues from it, like accidental zoom and pan in bullet, and so on
learners - they want to learn chess, so any help in analysis is a huge boon for them. Creating studies, manipulating large and complex PGNs, tools to show them what they did or where they went wrong in their games
teachers and streamers - they need video tool integration, improvements in page structure, study features, and so on
professionals - they are private individuals, they want to curate large databases of games, puzzles, interesting positions, notes, theory

LiChess Tools mainly helps the learners and the teachers. Lichess has a strict (and reasonable) policy to have players play the same game, so I can't change the way it is played. I am also not great at graphical design, so new fancy colors, pieces and such are not in the scope of LiChess Tools. But there are some features for play that you might find very useful, just look into the LiChess Tools preferences.

As for professionals, I am planning some stuff, but I've reached the limits of a browser. I need a separate installable native software that would integrate with Lichess via LiChess Tools. I like to think of it as a ChessBase killer, but of course it will not be quite like that. I have to find the personal resources to do that, though.

All in all, I hope the third year of LiChess Tools will make it grow organically, making passionate people happy and helping all have fun. This is not about being good at chess as it is about enjoying chess and maybe even be good at it. Again, I am happy to be with all of you on this journey and, as always, ENJOY LICHESS TOOLS!

It's the tenth of May again, "LiChess Tools day", when it was first published, two years ago. What have we achieved? I still remember the joy I felt when there were 100 users of the extension. Now there are almost 7000, spread between Chromium and Firefox browsers. We have over 2000 team members, which I feel very grateful for. Still not sure what to make with this team, I mostly use it for this Forum and update posts. There are GMs, IMs and other titled players, chess teachers and streamers using LiChess Tools in their training, teaching and content creation. There are almost 150 different features enabled by LiChess Tools, some of them trivial, but some really complex and useful. I am very proud of the work and the people in this... should I dare call it a community? Many good people helping with the extension as well: translation, bug reports, ideas and outreach. Everything is not pink glow, though. I am aware that the extension has become a little bloated from all of its features. It's hard to ask people to enable just the things they need most, so I've been trying to make everything work everywhere all at once. I've managed to do it adequately so far, but it is a losing battle. Lack of time also limits my testing of what I am doing, so I am stuck between publishing a feature fast so people can use it and keeping it in reserve while I fully refine and test it. That's why quality has been dropping lately, unfortunately. I also have some grand ideas, ones that I can't just implement and publish in a few hours of spare time. I keep promising things and keep pushing them into the future. I apologize for that. In truth, what I should do is rewrite the extension from scratch, now that the "specifications" are clear in the user manual, with focus on performance and maintainability. LiChess Tools has long moved from a small hack to improve Lichess to an almost enterprise software. But such an endeavor would just confuse users and bring no new value to them except in the long run. The way I see it there are four types of audience for this extension: - casual players - they don't care so much for analysis or learning, maybe they want brilliant move detection and custom piece sets and boards, maybe some features that makes playing more fun or eliminate issues from it, like accidental zoom and pan in bullet, and so on - learners - they want to learn chess, so any help in analysis is a huge boon for them. Creating studies, manipulating large and complex PGNs, tools to show them what they did or where they went wrong in their games - teachers and streamers - they need video tool integration, improvements in page structure, study features, and so on - professionals - they are private individuals, they want to curate large databases of games, puzzles, interesting positions, notes, theory LiChess Tools mainly helps the learners and the teachers. Lichess has a strict (and reasonable) policy to have players play the same game, so I can't change the way it is played. I am also not great at graphical design, so new fancy colors, pieces and such are not in the scope of LiChess Tools. But there are some features for play that you might find very useful, just look into the LiChess Tools preferences. As for professionals, I am planning some stuff, but I've reached the limits of a browser. I need a separate installable native software that would integrate with Lichess via LiChess Tools. I like to think of it as a ChessBase killer, but of course it will not be quite like that. I have to find the personal resources to do that, though. All in all, I hope the third year of LiChess Tools will make it grow organically, making passionate people happy and helping all have fun. This is not about being good at chess as it is about enjoying chess and maybe even be good at it. Again, I am happy to be with all of you on this journey and, as always, ENJOY LICHESS TOOLS!