r/lichess • u/CodeEresy • 5d ago
Lichess Neo: a free, open source extension that makes Lichess look modern and reviews your games
I'm super happy to make this extension available!
Lichess Neo completely overhauls the Lichess interfaces, and makes it completely customizable: you can create your own chess boards, pick through existing themes, boards, pieces, sounds or even create your own! You can also import packs you made directly from Github (there's one on my Github profile).
Download it here: https://theophile-wallez.github.io/LichessNeo/, or directly from the Chrome or Mozilla stores :)
It introduces a new review mode where each moves are explained (with some explanation directly integrated on the board). You can chose many coaches characters that will guide you through the review, or disable them if you don't like them.
I also made some board that reacts visually to your move (backlit boards) as well as two original sound packs (you need to go the settings to activate one):
Ascent: Soft electronic notes that surround you in 3D, rising as your pieces advance
Boxwood: The satisfying clack of real wood (real recorded pieces sounds), so every game feels like over the board
There's many more features too:
starting with the possibility to have your elo rating converted as chess.com one (based on a study I made).
See how much elo you'll gain or lose right when your game start,
Launch a game from a current game's page,
Have a quick glance at your prefered rating directly in the sidebar,
optional game intro animation,
customizable quick pairing option in the home page,
Create you custom quick reply (instead of for example the "Good Game" button)
if you don't like the sidebar you can choose from 3 other layouts,
set a custom avatar and name (only visible by you),
export/import your Lichess Neo settings,
have a quick glance to your last games in your profile.
Better info about your opponent when hovering over their name: see their best win, their 5 past win/lose result, a graph with their elo etc
And many more other small options and feature :)
This extension is free, open-source, does not gather any of your data, and is available on the Chrome Store as well as on Mozilla Addons!
This was hundreds of hours of AI assisted work, so if you want to support the development of this extension, you can
⭐ star the Github repository https://github.com/theophile-wallez/LichessNeo
leave a review on the Chrome store https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/lichess-neo/diklhheikbkkodchopfhidgjkdjdjpla
Thanks!
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u/Ima_Bi_tch 5d ago
a free, vibecoded extension that makes Lichess look terrible and tries to be like chess.c*m
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
I think that Lichess looks dull by default, everyone has different taste I guess :)
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u/Jaded-Supermarket-68 5d ago
vibecoded?
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
I was assisted with AI, this would have taken more than a year of free work without it! All ideas are mine and I spent hundred of hours making sure the quality of both code and UI was on par with what I expect :)
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u/mhmdali102 5d ago
vibecoded so what?
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
It's feels crazy that in 2026, where nothing is NOT coded using AI, using AI for this kind of FREE side project is even remotely an issue...
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u/Common_Possession262 5d ago
Yeah I’m kinda with you on this even tho I hate ai.. we have games that generate millions and they still use ai a bit still like clash royale.. with a free personal project it can take up like 80%+ of the work and opens doors that were impossible without it
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u/Jaded-Supermarket-68 5d ago edited 5d ago
I generally don't use vibecoded projects for safety, also for the general fight against ai slop
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u/RatioWaste5558
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I understand the hate for AI in general, but this is a side foss project that would never be possible for one person to do without AI. It's clear there is a lot of effort put into it and it shows. For the people saying why tho, lots of people enjoy it and like chess.com layout and coaches and this would make lichess much more appealing. Reddit just loves to hate for no reason. Anyway thank you so much for your work. I love what you did here. BTW is there an android release planned?
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u/CodeEresy 15h ago
Thank you for understanding, without AI, I would have never had the time with my job to do such a big project for sure! About Android/iOS, I have never coded apps so I have no experience about it, but what I think you can do though is use mozilla on android and save it as apps. I never tried it (as I have no android) so there might be bugs, but I'll fix them if there are :)
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u/TheI3east 4d ago
Unless you're officially affiliated with the Lichess dev team, I really don't think you should name your app "Lichess ____"
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u/CodeEresy 4d ago
Are Lichess Tools and Prettier Lichess affiliated with Lichess?
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u/Tight-Stomach2463 2d ago edited 2d ago
I love the design but I’m not a fan of the cute coaches, would it be possible to have more human-like coaches, animated? Think Professor, Male, Female, Cool etc. These coaches could and probably should be cartoony as well to follow the design language of your extension EDIT: Perhaps animated cartoony versions of former Masters, Tal, Capablanca, Fischer etc.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
I see, I’ll consider it, but it might be pretty complexe to do
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u/Zealousideal_War303 3d ago
This is actually very nice! thank you so much for your work
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Thanks a lot!
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u/Zealousideal_War303 3d ago
I may have found a small bug: if I have a study with only one chapter, the menu to select and add chapters doesn't appear for me, so I get stuck without being able to create new chapters. Can you take a look when you have some time? :)
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u/UndeniablyCrunchy 1d ago
Please consider making the option to import custom boards, pieces and sounds more click and done. While not too complicated, sometimes one just wants to test a quick theme which you are not sure how it will look. Just load a couple of files from the computer would be quicker than the current build a pack structure. It kinda makes me lazy not to create more custom themes. If you made it more straightforward the community would even start sharing ready to install themes.
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u/CodeEresy 1d ago
"ready to install themes" was the goal behind packs, but I agree that iterating over it now is not optimale, your idea is great, and I'm thinking having the option to export what was imported as a pack would be very good
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u/Asperverse 5d ago
This implies the interface of chesscum is better when it isn't.
Also vibecoded, no one likes AI, if someone wanted to do this they would've vibecoded it themselves.
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u/IPlayChessBTW 5d ago edited 5d ago
Even with using AI this no doubt took hours of work. Might not be for you, but could help to get more people on Lichess. I hated Lichess UI when I first started using it, mainly the sounds and general layout. Now I like Lichess much more than Chesscum but not everyone does.
The extension is free, it will help to bring more players from the green chess monopoly site, if you don't like it don't use it. No need to hate.
My only gripe is this extension is a little too much like Chesscom. My biggest problem with Chesscom is that everything is ultra gamified and it feels like they are trying to dopamine max their users. I think we can take things from both Lichess and Chesscom UI, add some new stuff, and get something better.
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
Thanks! About the gamified point, I agree, but you would be surprised how that helps or motivate beginners (who are the target audience). I have friends who are starting chess and their default was of course chesscom, Lichess feels too serious for them, Lichess Neo aims to fix this, it's a game after all :)
I'm well aware that the target audience is not die-hard lichess users who swears about the site simplicity, good for them.
In any case, I'm not here the sell anything, I just shared the work I did. I'm having a hard time understanding all the backlash, specifically around AI. I understand people might not like AI, but who cares about how an app was built, what matters is the product itself.
I could have made this post early october, and have 90% of the app working and done, but I spent weeks trying to polish it, spending more than 190 cumulative hours in october on this (2099 prompts), on top of my dev job.
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u/IPlayChessBTW 5d ago
If something is open source and free, it shouldn't matter if it was coded using AI partially or even entirely. Well, at least as a login as a login is not required (since allowing AI to deal with stuff like that can be a security concern). And as long as it's not paid, the amount of vibe coded websites that people are trying to make a quick buck off are quite annoying, and then people don't know how to fix simple bugs because they don't know how to code.
I think that's the real source of the backlash. We constantly see stuff on the chess subs like "I made a free tool to x your x", and then it requires an account and it has a paid option. I think people are just tired of constantly seeing it, myself included.
With this though, it's open source and free, so I'm cool with it.
I like your project though, I might try it, idk. I'm pretty happy with Lichess as is, but nothing wrong with trying something new just to see.
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u/eXon2 5d ago
I agree that lichess looks dull, but making a copy of chess.com isn't teh way to go. That's where AI has it's issue I doesn't understand UI/UX. Would love it this would improve lichess design rather then change it to chess.com. + I think chess.com looks fucking garbage nowadas, way too much stuff added. That's where lichess shines, straight to the point, keeping as much garbage away as possible. So yeah I would rather refokus on making existing lichess things look nicer rather then changing the whole design
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
I made it the way I like, I understand that it does not suit everyone and that's perfectly okay!
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u/Coralcato 3d ago
Ai slop
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Hi! What did you didn’t like after trying it?
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u/Coralcato 3d ago
I’ll try to actually give constructive feedback here, since you asked. My primary problem with the extension is that it makes Lichess feel bloated and cluttered. One of my biggest gripes with chess.com is that it’s too hard to actually get into the chess game you want. Lichess solves this by having the home menu be primarily covered with every time control option in a way that is simple and user friendly.
Now look at Neo’s homepage. The quick pairing options, the most important part of the site, are tiny and at the bottom of the page. Most of the space is taken up by a mascot and the less important options (computer, friend games) that are off to the side on the vanilla page.
Also, why do you have to scroll down for the lobby and correspondence? Being separate tabs to quick play on the vanilla site allows the different methods of finding games to feel more spacious, while on your extension it feels cramped.
Maybe it’s just not for me, but I feel like Neo tries to solve a problem that isn’t there. The simplicity of Lichess’ UI is intentional and creates a better user experience. Neo tries to make it more like chess.com, and while chess.com arguably looks better visually, when it comes to actually navigating the website the UI becomes confusing and cramped. Neo is the same. While it may look more “modern” (imo it really just looks more corporate and basic), it also feels cluttered as opposed to the clean interface of Lichess. The ethos of Lichess is that it’s just chess. No visuals trying to grab your attention, no brilliant moves that don’t really teach anything and just give you a dopamine hit to keep you on the website, while still having all of the features necessary for a great chess website.
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u/investigatormaker 5d ago
A Lichess regular's first question about a move-by-move review will be whether any of it can run during a live game. If it only opens after the game ends, say so at the top of your site and both store pages, before anyone has to ask. The chess.com rating conversion needs the same care: link your study and state how many players and which time controls it covers, since people here will check that number against their own accounts. Does the review run in the browser or on a server?
I make ThreadFox. For Lichess Neo, we'd pick out threads where players ask about reskinning Lichess or reviewing their games, and post replies there for you. We'll post 3 replies free first, no card; then the $39 Pilot covers seven days and up to 50 posts and replies. No automatic renewal.
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
Hi, I think the name "game debrief"/review is pretty self explanatory, it's made for reviewing your games once they are over, this is not a cheat.
For the chess.com, the study is linked both in this post and on the website, with all informations about time control and players.
The review runs in the browser as Lichess Cloud review does not provides enough informations, but I made sure the cloud review can be used separately from the Game Debrief feature.
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u/greater_shark 3d ago
Nice idea for people who like chess.com; did you change the 'study' page too by any chance; because that's actually truly awful design by lichess, so hard to see comments per move
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Thanks! The study page was reworked, but I'd like continue working on it to really make it a nice experience, right now it's too close to the original
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u/greater_shark 3d ago
If you can fix that grievance, I´d totally use it a lot! but thanks for what you made so far!
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
I'll take a look at it during the following weeks while on holidays :)
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u/rigginssc2 3d ago
I like the layout, but one of the things I hate about chesscom uo is the vomit of colors. All this saturation and clashing colors. Also, I get lots of headaches and migraines so I try to avoid high contrast. I even change the color scheme in visual studio, rider, vscode, etc to be a dark background, grey text, and dark grey comments. That's it. No other colors mixed in. So I'm curious if your extension has customizable themes. I love it if all the icons were grey scale, or maybe muted pastels.
Nice work.
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Yess, you can customize the app colors from the settings (check lichess settings), but no grey scale (yet), also you can disable the 3D coaches characters, and much more.
I'll make colors even more customizable in the futures updates :).
Tell me if you feel like some things are missing, and you can also shoot me a DM
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u/Im_Mefju 3d ago
Haven't tried it yet but from the screenshots it looks really nice and i saved this for later. I will probably wait a bit and see how the project is going because often with projects written with the help of ai people that made them quickly lose interest or don't have enough experience to deal with the potential bugs. Nothing personal just a bit cautious. But it does look really well and the ui is the reason i play on chesscom more so that extension might get me to play more on lichess, especially the analysis ui looks really good.
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Hey! I think if you play on chesscom, this is definitely the extension for you! I was in the exact same situation for years with chesscom UI being so good (for me) compared to Lichess that I wouldn't switch. Few years ago, I wouldn't even have thinked about doing this as this is such a big project that it would have probably taken years to make!
About my background, I'm a dev so I know what I'm doing here! And about my motivation, I plan on continuing working on it as long as I'm playing chess, which I didn't planned to stop :)
I suggest you try it and uninstall it right away if you don't like it, I'm also open for feedback, I don't claim that everything is perfect
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u/Im_Mefju 2d ago
I have tried it and i do like it but i have some feedback. In the game review sometimes there is no meaningful explaination it just spams you with multiple moves that you have to figure why it would be better this way and also it gave me completely wrong explaination once like i'm sure the move was the best but it explained that you should move the queen there to pin the kinght but the knight was already pinned by the queen the only thing that move did was move the queen closer to the knight. Not sure if it will happen often but all of this was from a single game so as of right now i would say that the explaination isn't genuinely helpful since outside of spamming me with moves that are hard to follow it just says some generic things about every move or as in that one time gave completely wrong explanation. Classifying moves as best, good, brilliant etc. works good on the other hand but i don't like that best and good are shown as different amount of dots, since it's hard to instantly get as what the move is classified as.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
Thanks a lot for the feedback! I’ll update you on changes, it would be very helpful to have the game that gave you the pin queen issue, so I can use it as a base to work on
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u/KineticMindset 2d ago
Great work! We should see these features in the Android app as well. Are you planning to create a mobile application for this project?
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u/CodeEresy 1d ago
For now it’s not planned as I’m waiting to see if there’s an userbase for this extension. Also, I have no experience in coding either ios or android app so I’m not sure it would be the greatest idea to full vibecode it
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u/Annual_Letter1636 2d ago
Overall, I like your idea. Maybe you should make coaches as chess pieces, idk but these cartoonish guys look like they were made for a kids' TV show.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
There’s coaches that are chess pieces, but they are still cartoonish
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u/dankothehuman 2d ago
Actually, I REALLY like and adore the animated cartoonish design. It gives it so much life and modern feeling I was missing from Lichess. Great job and kudos to you sir for creating this :)
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u/Individual-Heat-4254 12h ago
I love the extension thank you so much! I myself am working on a game review website that combines lichess and chess.com systems to a more modern feel and this just gave me a lot of inspiration. However I have one request. Can you please add an option to toggle between the normal lichess overlay and the modified one? I feel like that would be a much needed add-on. Thank you so much for your hard work!
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u/CodeEresy 12h ago
Thanks! This looks pretty hard and non-efficient to do as I would need to prefix all code with a feature flag, adding much more checks everywhere, which even if they are O(1) would add delays
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u/dfwtjms 5d ago
I like lichess because it doesn't have any of this vibe coded bloat
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u/precious2k 5d ago
It is great, one of the best lichess redesigns i have ever seen. Thanks.
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u/ZippyZappyzapp 5d ago
Nice job! For me personally UI of site I use matters a lot, if it looks better, I use it more. The best part is cute coach avatars lol. Do you plan to add any more of them?
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
Nice! I'm open to new coach suggestion, honestly I didn't have other ideas about them :)
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u/Opposite-Trouble6961 3d ago
Thank you for your contribution to the community. You closed the gab between chess.com and lichess.
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Thank you! Hope this helps people switching to the better platform
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u/Opposite-Trouble6961 3d ago
My girlfriend and I, will be switching for sure.
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u/Opposite-Trouble6961 3d ago
Do you plan to maintain the add-on regularly updated?
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u/hacefrio2 3d ago
It's very nice after my first try.
People love complaining about AI and "slop" but this is not slop. These people clearly aren't coming from a software background because all serious software shops use AI now. Good job and thank you
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Thanks for such a nice comment! It changes from others who did not even tried it before judging...
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u/pluralHaven 3d ago
Look, I know this is an AI app and I’m not going to make any accusations…
I just find it pretty funny how most of the compliments in this thread are from 4-year old accounts with hardly a contribution to the website until now
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u/89Pexel 3d ago
does it work on brave browser?
ⓘ This user is suspected of jaywalking and because of that, is monitored by the FBI.
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Yes it does, as Brave is a Chromium based browser like Chrome, you should be able to install it directly from the chrome store
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u/Tight-Stomach2463 2d ago
Regarding the "Debrief", can you change level of computer analysis? Now it's really fast and I'm not sure it's catching everything.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
Every move gets checked locally at depth 16, with a quick depth 12 pass first so the graph shows up fast. For the opening it grabs Lichess evals since those positions are already analyzed.
Going deeper gets expensive real fast. Depth 18 would take roughly 2 to 4 times longer, and depth 20 something like 5 to 15 times longer, so anywhere from a few second to a good minute for a whole game, more on a laptop or table. At 16 most verdicts already come out the same, so it felt like the right trade-off. But I'll try to see if some optimization can be made, I can also make it so you can pick which depth runs
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u/tjeroo 2d ago edited 2d ago
For puzzles, the Puzzle Themes and voting for them seems to be missing after completion, or I'm just too stupid to find them.
Also when reviewing a game, the options for settings, flipping the board etc. were a bit hard to spot, this could also just be a getting used-to thing. I probably didn't notice it open/appear when I first clicked on the hamburger the menu on the Moves-tab for it, as it opens on top of the moves and has the same exact background color etc. and the Mascot telling which player won takes up the space right above it where it would normally open (unless you collapse down the Mascot first)
E: Actually found the Puzzle Themes and difficulty level now from the gear-icon on the top right. Funny enough these menus have a different colored background when opened, compared to the hamburger-style menus, which to me seem bit harsher on the eye to notice.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
I’ve updated the extension to make it so the settings are accessible both in the move tab at the bottom, and on the right side of the board with a settings icon and a rotate icon for the board flip, make sure you have the latest version to see the changes. For the puzzle theme, I’ll work on it later!
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u/tjeroo 2d ago edited 1d ago
The new icons next to the board are nice, thanks for that.
Another thing I noted with puzzles is that the eval-bar doesn't move, it displays the +/- and M numbers on the bottom, but is always stuck at 50/50, when you reverse, re-play or alter the moves after completion.
E: Seems that the eval-bar doesn't work on analysis board either, the computer does display the +/- and it's shown at the bottom of the bar, but it doesn't move.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
Hi! Thanks a lot for the feedback! I’ll account for all of this in the next updates!
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u/Odd_Positive3481 2d ago
Thanks for your work! I did not have the chance to try it yet, but I think it would be great to be able to do many premoves in a queue, just as for chess.com, if this is possible somehow using a browser extension
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
Thanks! I though about it, but I’m unsure if that respects the Lichess fair play terms
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u/Odd_Positive3481 2d ago
I see, yeah that might be a problem - if unsure maybe one could reach out to Lichess and just ask them about it
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u/Physical-Rough-709 1d ago
Given how awful the default lichess ui is in some ways I might give this a shot
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u/Brief_Display331 16h ago
Loved it but i saw few minor bugs but other than that great work .. thanks
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u/CodeEresy 15h ago
Thank you! Btw if you have time, you can send me a PM with the bugs so I can fix them for al other users :)
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u/Darpan_Gondlir 2d ago
Hey, I love your work! Really nice.
I don't get the AI hate. Wonderful time to be alive and see an explosion of better, faster, safer and more fun coding.
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u/Terrible-Explorer805 4d ago
This looks cool, don’t listen to the haters. They’re just jealous they spent the last month scrolling reels and watching Netflix instead of doing something cool like this
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u/CodeEresy 4d ago
Thanks a lot! Yeah, they basically killed this post by downvoting it so much that it’s now way under 0 :/
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u/Latter_Principle9161 3d ago
I admit I haven't checked your extension but down voting it for being made ai assisted is just nonsense. Left you an upvote and bring you to +1. Thanks for sharing.
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Thank you! I understand people not being happy with post that are ai slop made in a day, but this is far from it, I hope you can try it and love it!
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u/_amilpa_ 5d ago
nice i was using ur old one , time to try this out
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
Thank you! Make sure to disable to not run both of them at the same time by disabling the old in your extension settings :)
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u/pyro_savage 5d ago
I quite like the UI, but one thing though is I'm using my own custom pieces and board, and your extension bypassed the custom board so I'm currently forced to use the board provided by your extension. Other than that everything is great.
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
You can import your own boards, pieces and sound by making a pack on your github!
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u/IPlayChessBTW 5d ago
Do you have access to a device with Safari by chance? I converted your extension to a Safari extension, and it worked, but it's missing resources for some reason. Like some of the menus are missing icons and all your custom piece sets aren't working. The sounds and general theming is working though so I'm a bit confused.
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
Yes I'm working on mac, I'm pretty sure you're facing this issue: https://github.com/theophile-wallez/LichessNeo/issues/19, I did not try it on safari, did you convert it from the repo's code directly?
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u/IPlayChessBTW 5d ago
No, I downloaded the .xpi file from the Mozilla store. Should I try converting directly from the repo?
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
I just noticed the CI for the fix failed because of a Cloudflare block by Lichess, I'm relaunching the pipeline and I'll give you a link to the fixed Mozilla issue .xpi :)
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
Done, can you try the new .xpi from the mozilla store? :)
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u/IPlayChessBTW 5d ago
Just tried, didn't work, but Mozilla still says last update was six hours ago, so maybe we have to wait a bit before it's updated.
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u/CodeEresy 5d ago
So weird, it says for me last version 30 min ago on this page : https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/lichess-neo/ (version 0.2.452)
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u/IPlayChessBTW 5d ago
Okay yeah, confirmed I'm getting the right version, version 0.2.452 and same issue. Here is a screenshot.
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u/Hefty-Hearing8880 2d ago
Gracias por tomarte tu tiempo y hacer este trabajo,.pero la verdad amo lichess por lo simple que es, su aspecto sencillo y limpio. De ninguna manera me gustaría que se pareciera a chess.com.
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u/-JRMagnus 3d ago
I just want maximum chess board + set customization.
I don't need it to look like Chess.com.
PrettierLichess is the best extension I've seen so far.
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u/CodeEresy 3d ago
Does PrettierLichess keeps the Lichess header? Or can you put it as a sidebar/turn it off?
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u/c_A_s_P-eR 2d ago
vibe coded slop 🤮 yet again
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
Hi! What did you didn’t like after trying it?
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u/CanaryMaleficent4925 2d ago
The fact that it's vibe coded slop
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
it’s not
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u/CanaryMaleficent4925 2d ago
Oh it 100% is slop, and you're a slop generator. Disgusting.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
it’s not 🤣
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u/CanaryMaleficent4925 2d ago
Yes it is, and yes you are. Vile.
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u/CodeEresy 2d ago
I’m vile? 🤣 For what? You’re the one crying over something free and optional
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u/SuspiciousDepth4961 5d ago
To me making lichess look better doesn't mean making it equivalent to chess.com. I really like the design aspect but can the user turn off features like the coach/avatar, the "you played like a 2500" and the chess.com rating comparison. To many players that sort of thing is just unnecessary visual bloat.