Goban for Mac

User Reviews

• Rendezvous problems

  muonDecember 5, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Goban's a very nice program with some unique features, including Rendezvous play and TeX interoperation for printing beautiful Go diagrams. The UI is serviceable, but somewhat less than intuitive, especially with respect to SGF editing. The main problems we've encountered with Goban, however, are related to local games over Rendezvous. Goban launches a local NNGS server. It seems to be quite difficult at times to get NNGS to "give up" on completed games, and the Goban application has quit unexpectedly several times in the normal course of playing games over Rendezvous, often leaving an orphaned NNGS process which must be terminated by hand before a new one can be spawned. Even though KGS's CGoban is far from perfect, especially with respect to Macness, there are a few things Goban's developers might be able to learn from CGoban, particularly in terms of editing SGF. Recommend with reservations. It's the only thing of its kind that is a real Mac application, and does offer a lot of functionality for free. It would just be nice to see Goban be a bit more robust.

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• Goban is beautiful

  grikdogDecember 2, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />"Goban" is Japanese for the Go board itself, a fitting name for this program. These days you can pay up to a quarter million dollars for a classic-style Japanese (or Korean, or Chinese) Go board with legs, carved from a huge butcher's block of kaya wood. Goban is carved from the ethereal stuff of pure mind, plus a few zillion whizzing electrons, and I am hard pressed to say which is the better value. For one thing, Goban is a self-teaching tool. You can play against GNU Go 3.4, which is built in, or GNU Go 3.6, which you download from the official GNU Go site. You can even watch as GNU Go 3.4 plays against GNU Go 3.6. You can download one of hundreds of "sgf" files from the net, and replay the games one stone at a time (sometimes with comments!) or as a movie. You can set the board size to 7x7, 9x9, 11x11, 13x13, up to the full 19x19. You can play against beginners on the major internet go servers, you can watch pros and talented amateurs play against each other on the same servers -- and Goban is pre-configured to work as a client with two of the best, IGS Pandanet and No Name Go Server -- all you have to do is apply for a username and password. And you can simply bask in the aesthetic pleasure of seeing the games drawn so beautifully. Speaking of which, look at the About box. The graphic is "Sparrows nesting in a Go bowl", taken (with permission) from the IGS Pandanet collection of Japanese art featuring Go themes. The only thing Goban won't allow you to do is pick up the board and hurl it, kabuki-like, at an attacker (or Go opponent), with Go-ishi scattered to the winds. Maybe with a laptop...? Brilliant, brilliant work. If I could wish for anything, I'd ask for a way to turn the board around and see it from the opponent's point of view. That, and an up front explanation that 30 kyo is as low a Go ranking as you can possibly get. I hate this game. I love Goban.

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• Excellent, but memory leaks

  dchoby98January 7, 2004

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This is truly an excellent and well-designed program. It looks beautiful, has dozens of settings, and isn't just a go-playing program, but lets you save, analyze, annotate, and review games. Absolutely awesome. One big problem: Every time you leave an old game open and choose "New" from the File menu, a new copy of gnugo starts up (the CLI app that provides the Go engine). Each instance takes about 12 megs... I found 10 of them running at once. Biiiiig memory leak!

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• Great Program

  ddrjvSeptember 5, 2003

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This is a first rate program. Beautiful user interface. Stable on my Powerbook. And an amazingly deep, complex game. Wonder if I will ever do more than touch the surface!

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• Goban is the finest Go app for Macintosh

  vanagonnerSeptember 2, 2003

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />The creators of Goban are clearly lovers of the game, but they're just as clearly lovers of the Macintosh platform. This game is beautifully crafted, plays well, and is everything a Mac application should be. Nevertheless, the authors continue to come up with new ways to make the application better.

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• Finest of Go apps I've seen

  bonoboAugust 18, 2003

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This app rocks! Not only does it play Go really well, given that this is a computer program, it also lets me play w/ other players over the internet and also lets me watch others' games. Way cool. And all this for free... THANK YOU! Tom

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• Great application

  amurarkaJuly 12, 2003

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I've been really impressed with the quality and functionality of this app. It's beautiful, solid and sets the bar for my own cocoa projects. Nicely done!

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• TiceDecember 22, 2002

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Thanks for that one. I used to play it with my neighbor as a child 20 years ago. Beautiful icon!! Thanks for freeware, if you

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• D.C.December 17, 2002

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Better than many commercial Go programs I've seen over the years. Apple should include this with new Macs along with GNU Chess.

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• goatstagDecember 16, 2002

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  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Well done! This program is really addictive...

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