I responded initially on the best mac client for the ICC thread and it seemed alike an appropriate place to respond. Now by responding there, that doesn't mean i know what the best icc client or interface for mac or window's is I lead a project that's been active for 2.5 years at making a new ICC interface called Lantern Chess that's java, open source and GPL like Jin and runs on Mac Windows and Linux. What i've learned is that personal taste drives interface choice. And that goes for server choice. I've been reading the posts and I see some use ICC, some chess.com, and playchess etc. But for those that do use ICC, I wanted to introduce Lantern Chess, the ICC client i've been working on. It fixes a lot of things missing in Jin. Has chessfm acess on the actions menu, and events list, really does support every wild on ICC including the popular ones Jin doesn't support like Crazyhouse and Bughouse. Has a board console and supports engine analysis unlike Jin. Rivals BlitzIn and Dasher for Chat management with both multi console and tabs implemented. And there is comprehensive help on how to use it in lantern on the help menu and on the lantern chess web page.

Now if you don't use ICC this might not interest you as much, but for those who do, if stil interested after reading what i've written, check out http://www.lanternchess.com (site over seers there is no advertising on the lantern page and nothing for sale, this is an open source project). there are plenty of screen shots on this page. I wanted to post outside the ICC Mac Client thread because Lantern Works on Windows and Linux as well and I wanted to give people a chance to comment and ask questions if they choose to and have a post/topic where I can follow up on anyone with a question or comment.

Mike

As a Mac user, I thank you- Jin was pretty substandard.

Nice one! Is it ICC only though? Or will it work with FICS as well?

It is ICC only. It uses a number of features that are only found on ICC and i've decided i don't want to program multi server support and by doing that make the program have to do less and have fewer features because servers like fics dont support them. For example fics doesnt inform you of people who come and go from your channels. It doesn't inform you when people on notify start games, it doesnt have country flag support, it doesnt have an events list. These are just a few things that make lantern special that programming it for a first class server enables me to do. I looked at fics and whats required to support it and all I got to say is no way

Mike

I just posted this a week or so ago, and i've noticed some increased activity on the download page, but one problem lantern has, like Android and Windows, is we got a lot of users on older versions. Wanted to post there is an update now, Lantern489 so if anyone liked lantern enough to keep a copy to use, we have a new one. No i'm not going to post every update but this is a newer topic. Nothing huge, 3 changes, and the bigger one is a new customize your chat onto tabs dialog.

While a dialog is not huge, Lantern has had one of the sophisticated chat management schemes you can use if you want, and no UI to make it readily understandable. The new dialog, not written by me but by my other team member, Andrey, makes chat customization now manageable and i've been pushing Andrey to do that as he has been doing a lot of dialogs in the last year.

If you think about it BlitzIn has a nifty feature to make chat consoles, but in talking to people over the years, most don't use it. Its basically a text field and you type your channels in. So i would hear guys saying they just found Dasher easier to use for chat and managing many channels. And of course Dasher just organizes things automatically. Lantern in the past was a little more like BlitzIn with a text box to type in your channels on the tab, this new one though has no typing. It's all clicks. I have updated the lantern manual to cover how to use it but here's a screen shot lifted from the lantern manual ( http://www.lanternchess.com/lanternhelp ... -help.html )

the new dialog - http://www.lanternchess.com/lanternhelp ... hattab.jpg

cheers.
Mike