CHESSBD 2.1 ICS RELATED PROBLEMS AND BUGS ========================================= August 1995 This file contains information about bugs and deficiencies in CHESSBD, as well as some problems you might have. There are some outright bugs, and there are some anomalies i don't understand yet. If in your usage of CHESSBD you encounter anomalous behavior that is repeatable, please drop me a line (dfong@igc.apc.org). The program also has deficiencies. I welcome constructive criticism and suggestions. In no particular order: Q: My opponent's moves don't show up on the board, All i get is a bunch of ascii stuff in the Telnet window. A: You probably neglected to tell ICS to use style 12. Try this: right after you login to ICS, enter "style 12" in the Telnet window. Thereafter, your opponent's moves should appear automatically in the board diagram. Q: OK, i did style 12 already, how can i get rid of that stupid warning message when i log in? A: Just create an _ics.rc file. If there is one, CHESSBD will assume you put style 12 in it as necessary, and will no longer warn you to do style 12. Q: I lost on time when CHESSBD showed i had over a minute left! And my opponent's clock was running to boot! A: This appears to be a bug in the ICS protocol: if there is bad lag, it could transpire that your opponent already responded to your last move, but somehow the server's acknowledgement has not yet reached CHESSBD. Meanwhile, your opponent and the server think it is your move. Try this: after the game, ask your opponent what move s/he is on (according to this hypothesis, s/he will be one move ahead of what CHESSBD shows). If this hypothesis is correct, then complain to the admins. We need a better protocol. Q: I was observing a blitz game, and it kept coming back after i killed the window. A: This happens because when you kill the window, CHESSBD tells the server to "unobserve" the game. However, the command to "observe" and "unobserve" is the same. Sometimes when the moves are coming fast, the server thinks you are trying to "re-observe" the game instead of "unobserve". The fix is to just keep killing the window until it stays dead. Or, you can reliably unobserve the game by clicking the "obs" arena button again, and only then killing the window. Q: I can't stand those stupid style 12 messages after every move! They clutter up the screen so the chats get lost. A: Should no longer happen. Q: The text is too tiny to be readable! A: You can change the font using the Options dialog from the main window menu bar. (NOT the ICS menu bar.) Q: I can't figure out how to play WILD games. A: Sorry, CHESSBD does not currently support WILD games. But i think if you do the setup "manually", by typing in commands in the ICS Telnet window, you will be able to PLAY wild games OK. Q: Why doesn't CHESSBD have a builtin command for XYZ? A: ICS has too many commands, and there is too little documentation about them, for me to provide GUI support for them all. And they're constantly adding new ones. So instead of providing wired-in support for my own favorite commands, CHESSBD provides a bank of 16 programmable buttons in the Arena dialog. You can setup a button to execute any ICS command. You can also program up to 50 menu items in the ICS User menu. Q: How can i save my games to a file? A: CHESSBD automatically saves your games to the file "icsgames.pgn", as you play them. See also the online help for the "icssave" option variable. Q: OK, it wrote all my games out, but the CHESSBD reader choked on my 9th game! A: This may be a bug. At one point in time, there was a problem that apparently caused moves to be omitted from the gamesfile. I haven't seen this personally. If you can reproduce this behavior, please drop me a line. Also, ICS refresh and takebacks can make the saved games confusing when replayed. Edit the file to eliminate these artifacts. Q: The gamesfile is called "icsgame.pgn" but it isn't in PGN format. A: That's true. If you really want PGN, you can quit ICS mode and read the file back in using the viewer features of CHESSBD. Or, you can turn on logging and use the ICS oldmoves command, then use one of the public domain converters on the logfile. Q: I can't stand the click-and-drag way of moving pieces. A: Try setting the undocumented option variable dragmove=0 in your "chessbd.ini" file. Q: I hope you can find better looking pieces someday. A: I already did, thanks to Nico Koolsbergen (nicok.ini), Eric Churchill (ericch.ini), and Harry J. Toups (toups.ini). If you don't like my "minimalist" pieces, go to the program manager and change the SLICS command line (for the SLICS icon). Change it to "chessbd toups.ini" for "classic chess assistant like" pieces. Try "chessbd nicok.ini" for "baroque" pieces; or "chessbd ericch.ini" for "staunton like" pieces. Or design your own. Q: The board is too tiny. The dialogs are too big. Etc. A: In the latest version, almost everything is scalable. If it doesn't scale, please send me a description of your system, including machine type, monitor size in pixels, and what version of windows you are running. Q: Why can't i play through games files while i'm using ICS? A: You can in the latest version of SLICS. Q: Can i use SLICS through a raw serial connection? A: Yes, the latest version has experimental support for raw serial connections. You can fill in the Com port number and parameters in the ConnectInfo dialog. Click the "Modem" radio button. Then you need to enter the modem commands to initialize the modem and dial your service provider. It's best to create a script to do this. See the example login script dial_ics.rc . Q: Can i use ICC timestamp? A: Yes, if you have a UNIX account on a local machine. See the online help. Q: Can i login thru a firewall? A: Yes, see the online help. Q: How do i create a login script? A: See the online help. Look at the example login script "ex_ics.rc" . Q: Why does SLICS cause GPF's? A: Because users don't report bugs! SLICS should not ever GPF. And it does not GPF on my system. If you find a way to make it GPF repeatedly, please send me email, describing what you did, what you saw, and what kind of system you have. I.e., what version of WINDOWS, what version of WINSOCK, what type of processor, what size monitor you have. And anything else you think might be relevant. Q: Why does all the documentation call the program CHESSBD instead of SLICS? A: The earlier version (before adding the ICS features) was called CHESSBD, and i'm too lazy to change the documentation. Q: How can i program the ICS User menu and the ICS Arena buttons? A: Look in the chessbd.ini file. See ics_luNN (for arena button NN) and ics_mNN (for menu item NN). Do thou likewise. See the online help for further details. Q: Can i use the SLICS as a NETSCAPE or MOSAIC helper? Yes. If you pass SLICS a filename on the command line, it will automatically treat it as a games file and "open" it for you. (Unless the filename has the extension ".ini", in which case SLICS will treat it like a .ini file.) See the NETSCAPE or MOSAIC documentation for info on how to set it up. Q: The helpfile sucks. A: Sorry, i don't have time to write a good one. Q: I already registered the beta release, SLICS20c. Do i have to re-register SLICS21a? A: No, if you already sent me $$ for SLICS2?[a-z], you are entitled to free upgrades as long as i keep calling it SLICS2?.