ZeeMan

I am an ameture chess player and I like to play chess with my fiends. However, one thing we are lacking is a chess timer. I do not want to go out and buy a chess timer and since I like to program, I decided I wanted to program one. I do not need any help with code just yet. However, what I do need help with is knowing the features a good, quality chess timer would have.
For example:

• Does the timer need to display halves/quarters/tenths/hundreths/thoundandths/etc. of a second?
• Does it need to have a log that keeps track of how much time each move took?
• Does it need to display how many moves have taken place?
• Does it need to have per-move time limits (e.g. can only take 30 seconds per move and only 10 minutes overall?)

I don't know much about timed chess and so all of this I would like to find out. The language I am programming this in is fairly simple and will not stop me from doing any of this I think. Any help is appreciated!

(BTW, I am not writing a chess game. I don't need help with how to program the chess board to have squares or how to let the knight move or how to program all the rules. None of this is neccessary as my program is only a timer.)

DaWei

Have you considered checking into what various chess timers do? As in Google chess timers.

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ZeeMan

Yes, but so far, this has only yielded sites that sell chess timers. I have looked at them I understand their basic functionality (it's pretty straightforward, each player has an allotted amount of time with which to play and to finish his turn). What I want to know is what other things these timers do. I've seen some of the more expensive timers on the market and noticed how they have tons of features that can all be manipulated with only three buttons.

My eventual goal is to release this as freeware or shareware for people who cannot afford a regular timer.

I also have a new question. How can I differentiate between the different shift/control/alt buttons?
I want the interface to be the keyboard where when you are done with your move, you press the shift key and it goes to the other player. Does each key have a different keycode or will both shift keys produce the same result?

DaWei

Funny; I went to that link, picked a site, clicked for more info, and downloaded a complete user's manual. I have the feeling that you're trying to get your work done for you (including defining what your clock should do), as some basic research would reveal what keyboards for different platforms and OSes do. Programming is more than coding.

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pal

check out wikipedia, they have good resources on many things, such as "game clock" you're trying to research.

bl00dninja

these things do their thing modulo (whatever was defined). every 30 secs or every 45 secs...whatever. learn about modulus, (repeating orders), or just move your fucking queen and hope to get lucky.

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titaniumdecoy

Why don't you pretend you're going to buy a chess timer, and see what's out there?