Picochess v4.3.1 now available

[Johan Sjöblom]

Thanks all for the feedback. DJ Dekker invented a 3x3 touch friendly menu style and we have been trying to make it as touch friendly as possible. Please report problems and successes.

Web Client Touch Menu Improvements
This release improves the PicoChess web client for touch screens, especially smaller displays such as 7" 1024x600 screens.

The web menu has been redesigned so most settings are now shown as large 3x3 tile menus instead of smaller list-style choices. This makes common actions easier to select with fingers on local touch displays.

Main changes since 4.3.0:
Larger touch-friendly 3x3 tiles for many web menu sections.
Sub-menus keep large 3x3-style tiles by moving Back navigation into the menu header and removing extra sub-menu title space.
Engine selection is easier to use:
Engine categories use large tiles.
Engine lists no longer show redundant Elo text.
Engine picker rows are taller and use a larger font.
Time, Mode, Tutor, Position, System, Display, Game, and Engine menus have been adjusted for better touch use.
Voice volume, voice speed, and retro speed are now sliders.
Some System/Display options were reorganized into clearer preference tiles.
Tutor status on the main menu is simplified to show whether Tutor is active or off.
Landscape PGN move-list text is slightly larger/readable on smaller landscape screens.
Scrollbars and picker lists were adjusted to be easier to use on touch screens.
Some smaller web menu bugs were fixed, including language/voice setting handling and system info git status display.
Overall, the goal is that the web client should feel much easier to operate directly from a small touchscreen, without needing a mouse or precise tapping.

[Dirk]

Thanks John & DJ - these UI changes are now working fine for me on my 7 inch 1024x600 touch display.

3 small observations/remarks:

a) Retro Settings are still to come (still in own branch for testing - just curios: whys is the window retro setting a problem and still missing? when set in picochess.ini it does obviously work already!?)

b) The players name (just above the clocks): For the engine don't show the level info as it can become quite long (and eventually over 2 lines) esp. for retro engines and we have this information already in the PGN game info part in the head line.

c) I can't find the button/menu option for editing the picochess.ini settings directly anymore? Did I miss something?

[Johan Sjöblom]

a) already has an issue opened, I dont think there is any problem with window retro, is probably simply on the todo list, I only had time to rebase the branch yesterday, I have not tested or checked it at all yet. 

b) and c) could be opened as issues.

 On c: For persons with expert knowledge on picochess.ini we could add a new menu item that launches the old now-removed picochess.ini editor from v4.2, but the main strategy is to be able to set everything from a new modernized menu

[Luigi Vogliobene]

Hi Johan,

is the Gerhard's Chessnut Move e-board upgrade included in the 4.3.1 release ?

Thank you

Luigi

[Dirk]

Ah ok, that makes sense Johan. 

I still noticed a few tiny UI details that might make the touchscreen experience a bit smoother and more comfortable — especially on smaller displays and tablets.

Here are tthree small layout suggestions that could improve usability without changing the clean overall design philosophy of PicoChess.

1. Move the top-right action buttons below the move display

Currently, the four small action buttons sit in the upper-right area of the screen.
On touch devices, fingers can briefly cover the move display and player information while pressing them.

Suggested change

Move these four buttons:

• Flip board
• Statistics
• Shuffle / Random
• Hint / Lightbulb

to a centered position directly below the move line (1... c5) and above the PGN history panel.

Why this might help

• The move display remains visually clear
• Less accidental covering of important information while tapping
• Better thumb ergonomics on tablets
• The top header area becomes cleaner and more balanced

Small change — surprisingly nice effect in my opinion

2. Add four “Quick Action” hot-buttons below the board navigation

Under the existing board navigation controls, an additional row of large touch-friendly shortcut buttons could provide faster access to common actions.

Proposed buttons e.g.

• New Game
• Shutdown
• Engine
• * (user-defined / future expansion / joker button)

something like that....

3. Font Color for analysis engine

 

If web theme is dark the font color of the engines on the Analysis tab („Pico E“ and „Web client Stockfish 18“) should be grey or even white. Otherwise it is almost impossible to read for bad displays like I have which don’t have so many colours / gradations.

Other than that I more & more like this new UI design for PicoChess…

Thanks

Dirk  

[Johan Sjöblom]

Si. Yes its included. Let me know if it does not work. It should, its the same code.

[Dirk]

If possible it would also be great help to see where we are in the new sub-tile menu hierarchy, eg. by displaying the "path" of the current selected menu options.

Eg. here I have selected "System -> Language" - if we could display this information (in header between "Picohess Menu" and the "Back" button) that would be great. 

[Johan Sjöblom]

Yes, my fault, I had to drop the menu location temporarily to prioritize full size 3x3 tiles also in sub-menus.. We can open an issue and bring it back, but place it on the top bar to keep the 3x3 sizes… Maybe some of your improvement suggestions could be grouped together as ”UX improvements on Webb client”

And the Si was for Luigis question. Yes I included Gerhards fix for Chessnut Move in the new version.

[Henri]

Here my thoughts about the layout of version 4.3.1 on a pi4 with a 7' touch screen. The resolution is 1024x600.
First of all, let me say (again) thet I am a fan of Antonio's layout on former versions. It's exactly how I like it. I wish I could stick with it, but I fear that Antonio's version will result in additional effort when updating picochess in future..

Secondly, most of the proposed alterations are personally driven. I suffer from bad eyesight which will get worse in future. 

I have added two photos which hopefully make some things a bit easier to compare. Here goes:
- The fontsize in the move window is too small for me. Same goes for the Analysis section. I wouldn't mind a return of Antonio's layout there. for me it's simpler and more tidy

- The small text near the bottom Pico/Web client/Eboard/Picochess version is unreadable when using the dark theme.
- The information about the player and engine are above the clock AND in the moves window. For me the latter is enough.
- I would like the buttons under the board to be a bit larger.
- The Picochess 3x3 screens are great, although text at right top (No active game) is hard to read.
-  Fontsize in the Engine/Level menu is too small, 

-  In general thicker sliders in menus would be great
-  Picochess Info screen / Picochess Audio Backend / Comp Voice / User Voice / Voice speed / Volume / Retro Speed: most of the text is too small to read for me

-  I find the text -Next and -Previous in successive menus difficult to read too.

That's it (for now). Hopefully it's possible to make some changes which won't annoy those with great sight!

Henri

[Dirk]

I think technically it should be possible to "offer" different GUI versions for our PicoChess server as frontend (if they trigger/support the same functions in the main PicoChess code) (its all parts of the web folder)

Maybe we could define a new picochess.ini parameter for switching between these GUIs!?

Of course I am sure that in future there might be functional enhancement which would need adjustments in all Guis if one wants to have all features in all GUIs.

[Johan Sjöblom]

I was thinking along the same lines, but not sure we want to have two web clients in the same branch and same repository.

When I can extract the code for Antonios web client I can at least make an official branch for it which makes it possible to install it, and update within it. Currently if you are within a branch and ask for "reboot and update" it will update to the latest version of that branch. At the moment Antonios code is not available in github

One complicated way would of course be to separate the web client repository from the backend, but that might make it difficult for the user to install? 

-- Johan

[Johan Sjöblom]

Antonios 4.2.4 is now available as branch web-client-424.

If you want to use this branch you can do the following commands:

git fetch origin
git switch web-client-424

-- Johan

[Henri]

Hi Johan,

Tried branch web-client-424 on my Pi4 7 inch touchscreen. The old-school buttons in the upper right unfortunately don't work, apart from the arrow that is.

Henri

Op dinsdag 19 mei 2026 om 17:12:31 UTC+2 schreef messi...@gmail.com:

[Johan Sjöblom]

Strange, I copied all files, but I just test played a few moves to verify. I guess you mean the clock buttons… I need to take a look why they are broken… 

[Johan Sjöblom]

Indeed, the clock was not ticking either...  I have now fixed the problems in commit 1e3bc28 for that web-client-424 branch.

If you do a system "update and reboot" or simply use the command git pull you will get this fix.

the issue was that dispatcher.py and dgt/menu.py did not belong together cleanly... menu.py was missing some functions. So something was wrong with the files I copied, but its fixed now. Update and play :-)

-- Johan

[Johan Sjöblom]

@Dirk, @DJ Dekker, @Antonio

I made a quick investigation on the differences between the master and this web-client-424 branch. Both adds new API calls to the backend. Unfortunately they also overlap in purpose but have used different new API calls.

Therefore, at the moment the master and the side branch backend are not compatible and interchangeable.  Before the two web clients can be interchangeable, we need to standardize the backend API they talk to. Right now they overlap in purpose, but they do not always use the same calls.

Something like the following would be needed:

1. Use the current master backend API as the main starting point.
2. List the places where the two web clients do the same kind of thing with different API calls, especially engine selection, time control, theme/settings, shutdown, and PGN save status.
3. Decide one common API for each of those areas. If the side branch has a better idea, such as grouped engine catalogs, bring that idea into the common API instead of keeping two separate ways.
4. Keep temporary compatibility where useful, so old and new clients can both work while the migration is happening.
5. Update the side-branch web client to use the common API, so in the future the difference between web clients is mostly layout/design, not backend behavior.

I asked the AI to analyse this and it can easily list all the overlaps and the differences so this is doable, but its quite a lot of work.

-- Johan

[Dirk]

Ah, okay, that’s sounds like a lot of work and it is not only done by exchanging the web folder (which we could before v4).

Then I think it is fair enough to just follow up one modern master GUI and put some effort into make it more user friendly for small touch screens or at least offer possibilities to adjust this somehow by the user itself (maybe at least font sizes) .

Sooner or later we have leave old ways behind and to be ready for the future ;-)

But that just my 2cents…

Von meinem iPad gesendet

Am 20.05.2026 um 18:20 schrieb Johan Sjöblom <messi...@gmail.com>:

@Dirk, @DJ Dekker, @Antonio

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[Johan Sjöblom]

Yes, the web client is only interchangable up to 4.2.2 something… But for long term its still doable to create a single API to make them interchangeable again… but now maybe focus to get a design specification consolidated on how to improve master. We could open a new issue and feature branch for ”improved touch screen accessibility” and join all most important commments into that issue

[MartinP]

The new design is great! Very intuitive. All the buttons work perfectly on my WIMAXIT 7" touchscreen monitor running on a Raspberry Pi 5. Since I now have the option to use either the old clock design—with the yellow button in the top right corner—or the modern buttons, I’ve been given a meaningful choice. Great work!

[Johan Sjöblom]

Thanks Martin...  Really glad to hear that it works... We will collect some further ideas to improve the touch visibility as said above.. Happy that this first version is usable :-)

[Luigi Vogliobene]

Hi,

I just realized that in the "Engine" menu of the 4.3.1 release of picochess we lost the Elo rating information associated to every engine. It would be possible to show this information again ?

Thank you.

Luigi

[Johan Sjöblom]

We should put that on the list of things to fix. It was lost in order to get larger touch menu heights for the engine selection.

You can still see it on the sub-selection when you set the engine level, right? I did test that.

-- Johan

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/picochess/ac385cb7-1073-4c95-92e4-2fc297a5e204n%40googlegroups.com.

[Johan Sjöblom]

I have collected the feedback into 2-step improvement issues. Please comment them in the issue manager in github if you have more ideas.

Step 1: https://github.com/JohanSjoblom/picochess/issues/407

Step 2: https://github.com/JohanSjoblom/picochess/issues/408

First I will start with step 1. It has 4 issues listed.

[Johan Sjöblom]

For step 1 there is now  PR open, and the test branch name is: 407-webclient-usability-1

Please comment in the issue...

-- Johan

[Henri]

Hi Johan,

Tested the branch and like it. Things have improved a lot I'm impressed. Personally I think the font in the moves window can still be enlarged a bit and I still don't dig the Analysis layout, but we (you) are getting there!

- Henri   

Op zondag 24 mei 2026 om 18:55:26 UTC+2 schreef messi...@gmail.com:

[Johan Sjöblom]

A step in the right direction then. Could you comment on what you are missing from the previous analysis layout… what should we try to bring back? All of the ANALYSIS tab or just some specific feature?

[Johan Sjöblom]

Font slightly increased in PGN move window for the test branch 407-webclient-usability-1

If this is a good first step we can make this a master version for everyone to test and comment and start on the next step...

-- Johan

[Johan Sjöblom]

Now I increased the move font size even more on the 407-webclient-usability-1 branch.

[Henri]

Hi Johan,

When doing a git pull I get this:

hint: You have divergent branches and need to specify how to reconcile them.
hint: You can do so by running one of the following commands sometime before
hint: your next pull:
hint:
hint:   git config pull.rebase false  # merge
hint:   git config pull.rebase true   # rebase
hint:   git config pull.ff only       # fast-forward only
hint:
hint: You can replace "git config" with "git config --global" to set a default
hint: preference for all repositories. You can also pass --rebase, --no-rebase,
hint: or --ff-only on the command line to override the configured default per
hint: invocation.
fatal: Need to specify how to reconcile divergent branches.

What to do?

Henri

Op zondag 31 mei 2026 om 10:41:52 UTC+2 schreef messi...@gmail.com:

[Johan Sjöblom]

Can you do a git status before we fix it,so that we know what to fix

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/picochess/baa9f3c4-41df-44a4-94a4-23e2791747e6n%40googlegroups.com.

[Henri]

pi@picochess:/opt/picochess $ git status
Refresh index: 100% (6959/6959), done.
On branch 407-webclient-usability-1
Your branch and 'origin/407-webclient-usability-1' have diverged,
and have 3 and 9 different commits each, respectively.
  (use "git pull" if you want to integrate the remote branch with yours)

Changes not staged for commit:
  (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
  (use "git restore <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
        modified:   enable-bluetooth-fix.sh

no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")

Op zondag 31 mei 2026 om 14:47:25 UTC+2 schreef messi...@gmail.com:

[Johan Sjöblom]

Can you do this to force your system to update to latest branch version. The first command you probably dont need if you are already in that folder.

cd /opt/picochess
git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/407-webclient-usability-1

And then I recommend running:

sudo ./install-picochess.sh pico

-- Johan

[Henri]

It's perfect for me now Johan, Thank!

Op zondag 31 mei 2026 om 10:41:52 UTC+2 schreef messi...@gmail.com:

Now I increased the move font size even more on the 407-webclient-usability-1 branch.

[Johan Sjöblom]

This is now the new master version 4.3.2. Everyone can now test it and comment.

[waldomiro dias machado junior]

Hello friends! 

I have two Picochess V4.3.2 boards with 10-inch touchscreens, one with a Raspberry Pi 4 and the other with a Pi 5. Both are powered by a 12V-DC 3A power supply that powers the monitor which in turn powers the Raspberry Pi boards. 

On the Picochess Pi 4, my Certabo e-board works perfectly via USB cable, but on my Picochess Pi 5 it doesn't; all the LEDs blink intermittently.

Could the problem be a power issue or some programming incompatibility with the Pi 5?

Unfortunately, the Picochess doesn't have the option to work with the Certabo Bluetooth Classic or BLE. 

Does anyone on the forum have a Certabo working with a Raspberry Pi 5? 

Thanks,

Waldomiro.

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