News

jGoBoard 4.0 - Modern Build System with Vite

jGoBoard 4.0 brings a major modernization to the build system and module architecture! This release marks a significant step forward in development experience and compatibility.

What's New in 4.0

Modern Build System with Vite

Migrated from legacy Grunt build system to modern Vite
Dramatically improved development experience with hot module replacement
Faster builds and better performance

Multiple Module Format Support

Now supports ES modules, CommonJS, and UMD formats
Better tree-shaking support for smaller bundle sizes
Use UMD version for simple script tag inclusion in browsers
ES modules and CommonJS support for modern development workflows

Optimized Build Artifacts

Reduced build artifacts from 13 to 7 files
Added minified builds for production use
Source maps included for better debugging experience
TypeScript definitions for improved developer experience

Distribution Changes

Download files are now available from the GitHub releases page
For browser use with script tags, use the UMD version
Multiple format options provide flexibility for different project setups

The new Vite-based build system follows modern JavaScript best practices and provides a foundation for future improvements. Developers will benefit from faster builds, better debugging tools, and improved compatibility with modern JavaScript tooling.

Check out the latest version on GitHub and download from the releases page for your preferred module format.

Site rewritten with 11ty

The old WordPress site has been removed and a new, simpler one written with help of 11ty.

Old comments and API help for previous jGoBoard versions are unfortunately gone, but as they were over 7 years old, I don't think many will miss them. Enjoy the new speedy site!

jGoBoard 3 released!

BIG news: jGoBoard 3 is now released and available at GitHub:

https://github.com/jokkebk/jgoboard

It is a complete rewrite of jGoBoard using HTML5 canvas. This means greatly improved performance, as over 1000 divs are no longer needed. This should especially help tablet and smartphone users. A few other feature highlights:

New “large” size textures for board and stones (1k x 1k board and 48×48 stones), alternate walnut board texture, B&W “diagram” styles (i.e. no textures)
Dynamic rendering allows any board size (up to 19×19) & partial views (nice for tsumego and diagrams)
Fully parametrized board rendering allows vast amount of customization (background color, grid widths, margins, fonts, amount of star points rendered etc.) and custom boards
All methods encapsulated in single JGO namespace (JGO.Board, JGO.BLACK, JGO.util.loadSGF etc.) to minimize variable space pollution
Full auto-generated API docs with JSdoc
All js files pass checking with JSHint with strict settings enabled
Automatic build system using Grunt (including script concatenation and minimizing)
The minimized single .js version is mere 24 kB and only 7 kB gzipped
No external dependecies in the library (some of the demos use jQuery)
Automatic diagram generation for blog users
Project hosted at github for easy cloning and other nice features

I am still in progress of improving the SGF player subsystems so the jgoboard.com SGF viewer will for the moment run on 2.1, but for direct users of jGoBoard the current 3.1 is ready to use. Licensing is the same Creative Commons Non-commercial as for 2.1. Take a look at the demos:

Simple diagram generation for blogs and websites
Click to play demo
New selection type marker for “select search area” type of use case
Simple player
Random board showing different markers and other special intersection types (territory, selection)