Site News

Weekly Update, August 13th 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: HTTPS Enabled to improve security and user experience. Some of you may have noticed your browser has been informing you that our site it not secure when you go to login or register a new account. That should no longer be the case as we have now enabled HTTPS security on our server. This means that all communication between you and our server is securely encrypted to prevent an outsider from snooping in or tampering with the data you send or receive from us. New Features HTTPS has been enabled for all domains. Both the standard www.charitychess.com as well as the beta area beta.charitychess.com now have improved security. Enhancements None Fixes None
Posted August 14, 2017 at 02:52 AM by SgtScotty

UnExpected Downtime, July 21st, 2017
Looks like something went wrong during some scheduled maintenance by our hosting provider to upgrade servers and things didn't start back up correctly for some reason. We will be investigating why things didn't start back up as they were supposed to and correcting the issue As Soon As Possible to prevent future downtime.
Posted July 21, 2017 at 10:21 PM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, May 29th 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on updates and enhancements to existing systems to improve performance, look, and feel. New Features None Enhancements Reviewed and refactored code concerning user preferences and added response codes where they were lacking to better inform users of when their changes succeed or fail and why. Reviewed and refactored code concerning users private and public profiles to remove obsolete code and to simplify the detection and display of errors. Fixes Fixed error that was displaying when registering a new account. This was not preventing users from registering accounts or receiving the registration email. However, this was probably appearing to users as though their registration has failed. Fixed error with dates and times for guest, visitor, or other users without accounts. Users without accounts were seeing errors on the user profile and news pages because they had no defined time zone preference like registered users do.
Posted May 30, 2017 at 02:30 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, April 2nd 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on updates and enhancements to existing systems to improve performance, look, and feel. New Features None Enhancements ReInstate Game - Improved and updated styling of buttons and messages to be in line with the new styling. Avatar / Profile Images - Reviewed and Refactored code, this should result in better performance and improved security. Fixes None
Posted April 3, 2017 at 02:54 AM by SgtScotty

UnExpected Downtime, March 15th, 2017
Hey all, looks like something went wrong during the scheduled database maintenance. I thought everything was done and good to go from the server maintenance I had been doing over the weekend because everything was working after and worked all through Monday and Tuesday. However, it looks like during the scheduled weekly maintenance to perform backups and check server / database health one of my changes caused the database server name to update. This brought everything down, but I corrected the issue and things are back up now.
Posted March 15, 2017 at 11:56 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, March 12th 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Fixed some bugs and performed server maintenance to keep everything up and running smoothly. New Features None Enhancements General - Cleaned up some old / unused pages and related code that was spread around a number of the game pages. Will make future development easier and may result in slightly faster load / response times. Server Maintenance - Performed maintenance to update / upgrade various components, check on backups, verify security, then performed testing to ensure everything is still working as intended. Fixes Reinstate Game - Corrected issue where you would be redirected to the wrong page when saying you do not want to reinstate a game.
Posted March 13, 2017 at 03:52 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, February 27th 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on general site updates and enhancements as well as trying to wrap up the tournament work. I have made some updates to teams as well as fixing a couple issues. I am also reviewing code in other areas as I am trying to make improvements to the teams and other areas to facilitate the use of the new tournament features that will be released in the coming weeks. New Features None Enhancements Teams - Updated success and error messages to be in the new mobile friendly style. Teams - Reviewed the team search code and made changes to improve performance on the team search and tournament pages. Avatar Upload - Reviewed code for potential performance issues and working on generalizing functions so that avatars can be added to teams in the near future, or potentially other areas. Fixes Reinstate Game - Corrected style issue with the links, where they would not appear the correct color.
Posted February 27, 2017 at 05:29 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, February 5th 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing work on general site updates and enhancements and trying to wrap up the tournament work. There have been some updates to the reinstatement process to review the back end code and update the styling to be more in line with the future mobile friendly design. Tournaments have had a small update to add more messages in the event of user error or other problems and to update the styling of those messages. Additionally I have ran across a couple edge case bugs and a potential performance issue in the tournament code that still have not been 100% resolved to my satisfaction. Unfortunately with some of my past updates causing problems I still have not released the tournament updates to add the new tournament styles and features. I've been trying to do a better job of extensively testing and using new features and enhancements before releasing them and ran across a couple weird issues and a potential performance problem if we were to have a large volume of users trying to create tournaments at the same time. I'm still working on getting these problems ironed out and trying to mitigate the potential performance issue, I would hate for it to become a problem once we gain a large user base when I can already see it isn't performing the way I expected. New Features None Enhancements Reinstate Game - UI update to the messages to be in the new style. Reinstate Game - Review of back end code resulting in minor performance gains. Tournaments - Additional messaging for errors and other issues added along with style updates to the new mobile friendly style. Fixes None
Posted February 6, 2017 at 04:13 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, January 22nd 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing work on mobile friendly designs and tournament enhancements. I have not published any updates yet because I'm not comfortable with their current state. I am still trying out some different designs and still trying to thoroughly test everything. Once I have settled on the design and layout of some of the new pages and I am reasonably sure I have not introduced any bugs I will be publishing the updates. The new tournaments are coming, hopefully before next week if all goes well. New Features None Enhancements None Fixes None
Posted January 23, 2017 at 05:02 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, January 8th 2017
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on fixing issues. If you notice any issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly or use the feedback form under the Help? tab. New Features None Enhancements None Fixes Reinstate Game - Corrected a couple errors recently introduced. Games - Corrected errors that would sometimes appear when trying to access the play or completed game views when not logged in. Games - Corrected errors that would sometimes appear when trying to access pages from mobile devices after receiving a text notification.
Posted January 9, 2017 at 04:46 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, January 1st 2017
Here is the first update of the new year, which just happens to be on the first day of the new year. Summary: Continuing to test and fix bugs before rolling out big changes. First, to the best of my knowledge, I believe I have now resolved any remaining issues regarding standard correspondence games, live games, game status messages, etc. Now that these issues are finally resolved and our back end code is in a better state, I will now be able to focus on completing the tournament work I have been slowly chipping away at. Additionally we have a number of enhancements to existing features we will be able to work on and release as we are able. If anyone experiences any issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly or use the feedback form under the Help? tab. Finally, I would like to say a special thank you to a few members I have had the pleasure to play with many times throughout the year, TheVille, Charlie, CL73, and TheBlackBurn. I have enjoyed our games and I thank you for your many contributions. You have been active members and have played many games with myself and others, you have provided feedback and guidance as we develop and introduce new features and improvements, and you have provided content for the community in the form of training documents and annotated games, to name a few of your many contributions. Thank you again for helping us to make this site the best we can, we couldn't do it without you, I hope to see you around and play another game some time soon. New Features Persistent Login - Your account will no longer force you to log back in every 30 days as long as you come online and use the site some time within 30 days. If you change devices, clear your history, or cookies, this will not work. If you use the site regularly, from the same device(s), you will not be forced to log back in. Enhancements Nothing to note Fixes Game Promotion Bug - Corrected an issue that was especially present in Live Games where a user would be unable to make a move after promoting a piece until they reloaded the page. Game Status Bug - Corrected an issue where the game status would show the wrong player as the loser when submitting a checkmate move or resignation until the page the reloaded. Live Game List Bug - Corrected an issue on the current live games page where the game status would not correctly display whether a game was empty or waiting for the players to start.
Posted January 2, 2017 at 04:56 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, December 18th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on enhancing existing functionality and fix issues. I have been continuing to work through resolving a few lingering issues that have been reported regarding live games, game status, and tournaments prior to releasing new tournament features. These have been difficult and time consuming to track down, but these should be resolved in the coming days. Once the last of these issues and back end code refactoring are complete we will begin to focus again on new features and enhancements. If there are any issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly or use the feedback form under the Help? tab. New Features None Enhancements Game Notifications - All game related email and text notifications should now include a link to the game in reference Fixes Lost Password form updated so that username and email are no longer case sensitive
Posted December 19, 2016 at 04:42 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, December 11th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on enhancing existing functionality and fix issues. Some users had incorrect game counts after the issues from the previous weeks, these have been corrected. Additionally the related code has been reviewed to try to ensure this can not happen again. There have been numerous changes on the back end relating to email and text notifications as well as the games and tournaments. This should result in fewer regressions in future updates and marginally improved load times. Hopefully I haven't introduced any more issues. If there are any issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly or use the feedback form under the Help? tab. New Features None Enhancements Improved back end code relating to games, tournaments, email and text notifications. Fixes Corrected users current game counts.
Posted December 12, 2016 at 04:36 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, December 4th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Continuing to work on enhancing existing functionality and fix issues. It appears I introduced some issues relating to timed out games in my rush to push out an update last week. The issue is that both players in a timed out game would be told they lost the game and have their ELO negatively affected. The games lists became non-functional due to the invalid game state of two losers and text notifications for these games would fail to send. I believe the issues are now corrected, but I am focused on thoroughly testing all aspects of the site before pushing anymore significant changes. If there are any issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly or use the feedback form under the Help? tab. New Features Test Process - Implementing a test process on our end to hopefully eliminate the introduction of bugs like what happened last week with timed out games. Enhancements Games - Updated current games list pages to better inform players when they were not in any games and to link them to the join game page. Error / Success Messages - You should slowly see error or success messages, green or red bold text at or near the top of a page, update to the new style of a small alert window. This is being done as part of the transition to a mobile friendly design. Old Message Style New Message Style Fixes Games - Corrected a bug I introduced last week with timed out games where both players would be told they had lost the game and have their ELO negatively impacted. Email Notifications - Corrected a bug with the UnSubscribe links sent with email notification that was causing the UnSubscribe page to fail. Text Notifications - Corrected issue with processing game notifications when game data becomes invalid due to problems in other areas.
Posted December 5, 2016 at 04:44 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, November 27th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Tournaments can now be played in either standard correspondence mode or live mode, they also received improvements to the way their information is displayed. Lots of work on the back end for upcoming additions to games and tournaments. Still performing testing on all the changes but wanted to get things up for you all to start playing with. If there are any issues, please feel free to reach out to me directly or use the feedback form under the Help? tab. New Features Tournaments - Tournaments can now have their games played in either standard correspondence mode or live mode. This is selected during the tournament creation and all games within a tournament will be played in the selected mode with the tournament defined settings. Enhancements Tournaments - Improvements to the way tournament, round, and game information is displayed to make tournaments easier to understand and use. Games - Back end code updates to prepare for further enhancements to games and tournaments. Fixes Block List - If you have added a user to your block list, they may no longer send you team invitations.
Posted November 28, 2016 at 04:43 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, November 13th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Nothing much of note, mostly work on the back end and database for upcoming additions to games and tournaments. Minor bug fix for the completed games lists. New Features None Enhancements Games - Back end code and database updates to prepare for future enhancements and upcoming additions to tournaments. Fixes Completed Games Lists - Fixed the winner and loser being swapped when displayed on games that ended in resignation or draw.
Posted November 14, 2016 at 04:42 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, November 6th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Enhancements to game notes, messaging, and account registration. Minor bug fixes to messaging. New Features None Enhancements Game Notes - Greatly increased character limit of Game Notes as the previous limit of 250 characters was quite small. Messaging - Replying to a message will now auto fill both the receiver and subject based on the message you are replying to. Registration - Added Google ReCaptcha to help prevent bots from creating accounts. Fixes Messaging - Your search and sorting options will no longer be lost if you reply to or delete a message. These options will also be temporarily saved even if you browse to other areas.
Posted November 6, 2016 at 09:37 PM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, October 30th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: New recently completed games list to show all games that have been recently completed. Enhancements to make the messaging more user friendly. Here is a link to the Recently Completed Games list. New Features Recently Completed Games - New page to view list of all recently completed games on the site. Located under the Games Tab. Enhancements My Recent Games - Moved to a sub tab under 'Recently Completed' My Recent Games - Improvements to the layout and wording to make the game result (Win, Loss, Draw, etc.) and whether the game is rated or not easier to understand and read. Inbox - Messages can be searched by sender to limit your view to just those messages from a specific sender. Inbox - Messages can be sorted by Newest or Oldest. Compose - Receiver Name will now show a list of suggestions as you start typing, all you have to do is click to select. Fixes None
Posted October 30, 2016 at 11:18 PM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, October 23rd 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Summary: Enhancements to the completed games list. As well as enhancements and bug fixes concerning standard, mentored, live, and tournament games. The completed games list can be accessed under the "Games" tab or to view a specific players games, from their profile. If you are logged in here is a link to your Completed Games. New Features None Enhancements Completed Games List - Enhancement to support multiple sorting options, oldest / newest, and rated / unrated. Completed Games List - Enhancement to allow you to search a users completed game list by opponent. All Game Types - Improvements to the handling of game status and the end game process / Elo calculation for better performance. Fixes All Game Types - Fix for where player is unable to submit a valid move near end game. Occured when a player had no more valid moves after their current move, potentially leading to stalemate. Live Games - Fix for the clock / countdown timer so that the displayed time will not reset on page reload. This was just a display issue, time was still calculated properly server side. Stalemated Games - Fixed a number of issues concerning games that ended in a stalemate stemming from them being recorded exactly the same as an agreed upon draw between two users. Stalemated Games - Corrected the Displayed Game Status across all game pages.
Posted October 24, 2016 at 04:07 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, October 16th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. Some enhancements and a bug fix. New Features None Enhancements Profile - Link to view games that a user has played Completed Games List - Enhancements to Code and Formatting to improve performance as well as look and feel Completed Games List - Enhancement to support viewing of other users completed games, rather than just your own Fixes Team Search - Corrected issue in autocomplete that was limiting the list to a single result
Posted October 17, 2016 at 04:00 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, October 9th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. We have a couple new features and some minor enhancements and fixes. Game Challenges are currently limited to standard games, either rated or unrated. Challenges will eventually support live chess and mentored games. We are also looking into the capability to send challenges to unregistered users by email, FaceBook, or other social media. New Features Game Challenges - The first iteration of game challenges has been added. You may go to a users profile or to your friends list to challenge a user to a game. They must then accept or decline this challenge. Email Login - Login by email address has been added. You may enter either your username or your email address along with your password to log in to your account. Enhancements Login - Username is no longer case sensitive Friend List - Added Link to Challenge to Game Fixes Live Games - Corrected mistake in the time remaining calculation for first move
Posted October 9, 2016 at 04:49 PM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, September 25th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. We have some enhancements concerning user profiles and the friend / block lists. Additionally you should look for further enhancements to user profiles and the ability to challenge users to games by this weeks end. New Features None Enhancements My Profile - Additional Information concerning subscription status. (Start / End Date and Remaining Time) Public Profile - Added Last Online Time and Subscription Level Icon Friend / Block Lists - Added Links under My Profile Tab Friend / Block Lists - Improved Look and Feel Friend / Block Lists - Added Standard User Name / Avatar / Online Status information. Friend List - Added Link to Send Message Fixes Users - Improvements to calculating and formatting users last online time status to improve performance. Profiles - Refactored code and database optimizations to improve performance.
Posted September 26, 2016 at 03:41 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, September 18th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. We have some enhancements and new features concerning the documents and annotations. We are also looking to add social sharing to documents and annotations in the coming weeks. No news regarding tournaments, but I'm hopeful that team vs team tournaments will be working for next week. We continue to make progress on the new mobile friendly version of the site, it's a long process as we have to go through and modify every single page. Some things such as the game board, trainings, documents, and annotations take a lot of work due to the complex nature of the underlying code. New Features Annotations - Comments can now be made on Annotations. Annotations - Annotations can be given a 1 to 5 star rating. Enhancements Documents - Improvements to the styling of comments. Documents - Improvements to back end code to improve load times. Documents - Comments are now Time Stamped. Fixes Mentored Games - Mentored games will no longer appear in the Standard Games list. This corrects a regression that was introduced a couple weeks ago that we did not catch in testing.
Posted September 19, 2016 at 02:54 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, September 11th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. While we are light on things that we can announce this week, you should look forward to the upcoming week. Additionally, we do continue to make progress on the new mobile friendly version of the site and support for additional tournament types. New Features Beta News - For our premium members, a new page showing news relating to the Beta Test Area along with a listing of features available for testing in the Beta Area. Enhancements Site News - Minor Style Updates to this page to improve readability. Fixes Nothing Noteworthy
Posted September 12, 2016 at 02:48 AM by SgtScotty

Weekly Update, September 4th 2016
Here are the updates for the week. New Features Unfortunately, still no new features. We are continuing our work on the new mobile friendly design and expansions to the tournament functionality. Enhancements Member List - Sorting by Last Online Time or Country Added Games - Confirmation PopUp Before Requesting a Game be Drawn Games - Confirmation PopUp Before Resigning a Game Games - Confirmation PopUp Before Requesting a Move Undo Live Games - Game counter in the navigation bar will display in yellow the number games that are waiting to be started Live Games - Creator can remove a player that joins then goes offline before starting the game Live Games - Players that join can now leave the game as long as it has not yet started Fixes Live Games - Status will now say 'Not Started' instead of your / opponents move if game has not been started Tournaments - Added warning messages to pages to state that tournaments are still under development and there may be issues
Posted September 4, 2016 at 10:19 PM by SgtScotty