The Correspondence Chess Recorder Version 1.0a Written by: Eric Churchill 23241 NE 73rd St Redmond, WA 98053 INTRODUCTION: In a nutshell, the Correspondence Chess Recorder was created to provide an easy to use, graphical way to store and retrieve correspondence chess games. The hope is that you will find the Correspondence Chess Recorder easier to use than what you are currently using. The Chess Recorder runs under Windows 3.0, 3.1 and Windows NT. (Contact the author if you are interested in running an NT version of the Correspondence Chess Recorder.) For those users in a hurry to start, and familiar with Windows applications, feel free to jump right in. Type CHESS from the Windows File Run dialog. The Chess Recorder is straight forward enough that this manual is unnecessary. YOU SHOULD HAVE: After expanding the .ARC file, you should have the following files: CHESS.EXE The Chess Recorder MANUAL.TXT This manual 10CONV1A.EXE A conversion utility for previous .GAM files. REGISTRATION: If you find The Chess Recorder useful, please take a moment to send a $15 check to: Eric Churchill 23241 NE 73rd St. Redmond, WA 98053 Please include the version number you are registering. If there is a more recent version, I will send it to you. If there is a feature you would like to see added to The Chess Recorder, please describe it briefly and include the description with your registration fee. I can't promise to implement all the ideas, but I will try. If you are interested in being a Beta tester for the next version of The Chess Recorder, please indicate that when you register. WHAT DOES IT DO: The biggest plus of the Correspondence Chess Recorder is that is allows you to see your game on a GUI board. In addition to this, you can: - Save games to a file to be recalled and studied later. - Recall old games. - Add new moves to the end of an existing game. - Step back through an existing game and step through a new ending. - Go to a specific move number in the current game. - Print a listing of the moves to either a file or a printer. - Print a character based copy of the board to either a file or printer. - Rename existing games through the Save As dialog. - Enter player names to be displayed on the screen and on printouts. - Disable move validation checking. - Disable warning beeps. - Display or not display the algebraic symbols along the sides of the board. - Change the notation from Algebraic to Coordinate notation. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Requires Windows 3.0 or later, and a mouse. Will run on EGA, VGA or SVGA monitors. Color is recommended, but not required. FILE REQUIREMENTS: The Chess Recorder is in the file CHESS.EXE. There are no others files required to run the Chess Recorder. Game files are saved with the extension .GAM. SETTING UP THE CHESS RECORDER: First things, first. Make a backup copy of the Chess Recorder, and put the original away. Only use the copy. If you are unfamiliar with the procedure for copying a diskette, insert the Chess Recorder floppy into the floppy drive. At the command prompt (Looks like C:> if you have a hard drive.), type diskcopy a: a: and press return. If the Chess Recorder is in your B drive, the command would be 'diskcopy b: b:', without the quotes. DOS will take you through the diskcopy process. Once that is taken care of, put the copy of Chess Recorder into the disk drive. Now you have two options. Either to run the Chess Recorder from the floppy, or to copy all files to your hard drive. For speed reasons it is recommended that you copy the files to the hard drive. If you choose to run the Chess Recorder from the floppy disk, skip the next indented instructions. With the diskette in the floppy drive, type 'md C:\chessrec' and press return. Substitute your hard drive letter for C in this command if you want the files on a hard disk other than C. Now type 'copy a:\*.* c:\chessrec' and press return. This will copy all of the files on the Chess Recorder disk to your hard drive. You are ready to begin. Start Windows, and add the Chess Recorder program item to one of your existing groups. Double click on the Chess Recorder icon to begin. USING THE CHESS RECORDER: When the Chess Recorder first starts, you will be faced with a brand new chess board, and two empty boxes to the right. The top box to the right of the chess board will be where the Chess Recorder displays a list of the moves made in the current game. This box is called the Move Listbox. The bottom box to the right of the chess board is for your annotations for the current move. If you have notes or comments to make, this is the place. This box is called the Annotation box. To make a move, click on a piece with the mouse. The color of the piece will invert to show the piece has been selected. Move the mouse pointer to another square and click on the empty square. Providing the move is a valid one for this piece, it will be moved to the new location. At the same time, the move will be recorded in the Move Listbox. If there was a comment in the Annotation box, it will be recorded and cleared. Above the Move Listbox are 3 information fields. The top field displays which color is to move next. The second and third fields display the names of the players. This is very helpful if you have several games going at once. THE CHESS RECORDER MENUS: The following will give you a brief idea of which menu item you may be looking for to provide a desired functionality. Clicking on the File menu will display these options: New Game: This will clear the chess board, the Move Listbox and the Annotation box. All the pieces will be reset in preparation for a new game. Open: Presents a standard Windows Open File dialog. You may click on a game file or type a valid game name into the edit field. Click on the Open button to open the new game. Only files ending in the .GAM extension will be displayed in the Open dialog to make it easier for you to locate your games. Save: Save the current game. If the game is a new game, and has not yet been given a name, it will be saved as DEFAULT.GAM. Once the game has been given a name, that name will always be used. Save As: This dialog allows you to rename an existing .GAM file, or save a new game with a name other than DEFAULT.GAM. Type the desired name into the edit field and click the Save button. Print: The print dialog allows you to specify what you would like to print, and where it will be printed. You may either print a move listing, or a copy of the chess board. You may send the output to either a printer or to a file. If you are sending the output to a file, be sure to change the name of the file in the edit field if you want the output named something other than DEFAULT.TXT. If the output is going to a printer, make sure to select the correct LPT port. LPT1 is by far the most common port, but some networks use LPT2. If you get an error with one, try the other. Exit: Exit the Chess Recorder. If you have made changes to the current game, you will be prompted to save it before exiting. Clicking on the Replay menu will display these options: Rewind to Start: Set the board back to the starting position for the current game. This is useful if you want to step through a game from the very first move. Go to End: Move to the last position in the current game. This is useful if you have been stepping through a game, and want to get to the current position. Back 1 Move: Back the board position up 1 move. The Move Listbox will not be altered. It is left as is in case you want to glance at subsequent or previous moves. The Annotation box will update as you step backward through the game to allow you to recall your thoughts given a particular board position. Forward 1 Move: Step forward 1 move. If you are already at the last recorded move, the Chess Recorder will beep. GoTo Move: This dialog allows you to jump to any move in the current game without having to step forward or backward to get to it. If you wish to see something at move 11, simply enter 11 into the dialog and Click the OK button. The board and Annotation box will display the 11th move of the game. Clicking on the Options menu will display these options: Enter Names: There is a field above the Move Listbox which displays the names of the current players. This dialog will allow you to change the names displayed, and also the correspondence address for each player. Detailed Player Info: This menu item will display a dialog box containing the name of the current .GAM file and the full name and correspondence address for each player. List Move Dates: As each move is made in the Chess Recorder, the time and date is recorded. Clicking the List Move Dates menu item displays a list containing the date and time each move was made. This is especially helpful in remembering when you made your last move. If you click the mouse on one of the move dates and click the OK button, this dialog will clear and the board will be reset to the move you selected for the desired date. So, if you want to see which move you made last Tuesday, click on Tuesday's date in the list and click OK. The board will be reset for you. Invert Board: Selecting this menu item will invert the playing board. If the white pieces are at the bottom of the screen, selecting Invert Board will place the black pieces at the bottom of the screen. Confirmation: When you step back through a game and try a different ending, the Chess Recorder prompts you before altering the ending of the game. If you uncheck the Confirmation menu item, this prompt will not be given. The Confirmation menu item is checked initially, and for safety reasons, is not remembered from one invocation to the next. Disable Move Checking: If you wish to disable the move legality checking, click this menu item. A checkmark next to the menu item will tell you it has been selected. If move checking is disabled, any move is considered legal. No Warning Beeps: Clicking this menu item will disable the warning beeps. If you attempt an illegal move, the Chess Recorder will not allow it, but will also not beep to inform you of your error. Row and Column Labels: Clicking this menu item will remove the row and column labels alongside the chess board. Clicking the menu item a second time will redraw the labels. About: Displays current version number. Clicking on the Notation menu will display these options: Algebraic: This menu item is selected by default. It causes the Move Listbox to be filled with moves in the Algebraic notation. (ie. e4) Coordinate: This menu item causes the Move Listbox to be filled with moves in the Coordinate notation. (ie. e2-e4) Long Form Algebraic: This menu item causes the Move Listbox to be filled with moves in the Long Form Algebraic notation. (ie. Ra1-a5) A WORD ON NOTATION: There are several notation points to be mentioned in regards to the Move Listbox. These points are mentioned for those not familiar with chess recording notation. If a piece is captured during a move, an 'x' is displayed. So, in Coordinate notation if a piece moves from square e3 to e4, and captures a piece in the process, the move is displayed as: e3xe4. If an en passant capture is made, it is displayed as a normal piece move, but '.e.p' follows the notation. In the case of a pawn promotion, the move notation will be followed by '=Q' if you chose to promote the pawn to a Queen. MORE ADVANCED USE OF THE CHESS RECORDER: There are several features of The Correspondence Chess Recorder which may not be obvious: * If you have stepped back into an existing game, and click on a piece, the Chess Recorder will provide a prompt asking if you wish to change the ending for the current game. This is useful if you wish to step through a different ending other than the current ending. If you choose to change the ending to a game, choose the Save As dialog to rename the current game. If you choose Save, the old game will be overwritten with the changed version. * When a pawn reaches the eighth rank, a dialog is presented for you to choose which piece it should be promoted to. Queen is selected by default. * There is a quick way to backup or jump to any move in the game. Simply click the mouse on that move number in the Move Listbox. The board will be reset to display the desired move. * The notation displayed in the Move Listbox is remembered on a per game basis. For example, if you choose Algebraic notation for GAME1.GAM and Coordinate notation for GAME2.GAM, then every time you load GAME1.GAM, the notation will be set to Algebraic automatically. USING OLD .GAM FILES There was a .GAM file format change from release 1.0 to 1.0a. If you have .GAM files which were recorded with version 1.0, and you would like to use them with Version 1.0a, they will need to be converted. To convert an old .GAM file, use the utility 10CONV1A.EXE. To use this utility, copy the file 10conv1a.exe into a directory on your path. Then, from the directory containing your .GAM file, type: 10CONV1A Where is the name of the .GAM file. If you have a lot of files to convert, wildcards are supported. The following are examples of how to use 10CONV1A.EXE: 10conv1a game1.gam 10conv1a *.gam LIMITATIONS OF THE CHESS RECORDER: I don't think The Correspondence Chess Recorder has a great number of limitations. I also don't feel the limitations it does have are serious. I consider the following list the only limitations of the Chess Recorder: * The program cannot detect stalemate. * Printing assumes the worst case. Rather than worry about supporting different types of printers, all printing is character based, rather than graphical. BUG REPORTING: The Correspondence Chess Recorder has been in use for almost a year. It was heavily Beta tested for several months. It is believed to be stable and bug free. If you find a bug, please write up a brief reproduction scenario and mail it to: Eric Churchill 23241 NE 73rd St Redmond, WA 98053 It would also be helpful if you would save the game at the point the error occurs and mail me a copy of the game on a floppy. I won't promise that no bugs exist. I will promise to send you a fix as soon as I possibly can. FUTURE VERSION WISH LIST: As with all good programs, there is room for improvement. The following is a list of things my Beta testers asked to have included in upcoming versions of The Chess Recorder. * Print a graphical representation of the board rather than a character representation. * Add Draw and Resign options. * Add support for remembering variant lines. * Display name of current book opening and give the option of displaying the next move to remain in Book.