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34 <h2 class="chapter">1 Major modes</h2>
36 <p><a name="index-Major-modes-2"></a>
37 XBoard always runs in one of four major modes. You select the
38 major mode from the command line when you start up XBoard.
41 <dt>xboard [options]<dd>As an interface to GNU Chess or another chess engine running on your
42 machine, XBoard lets you play a game against the machine,
43 set up arbitrary positions, force variations, watch a game between two
44 chess engines, interactively analyze your stored games or set up and
45 analyze arbitrary positions. (Note: Not all chess engines support
47 <br><dt>xboard -ics -icshost hostname [options]<dd>As Internet Chess Server (ICS) interface, XBoard
48 lets you play against other ICS users, observe games
49 they are playing, or review games that have recently finished. Most
50 of the ICS "wild" chess variants are supported, including bughouse.
51 <br><dt>xboard -ncp [options]<dd>XBoard can also be used simply
52 as an electronic chessboard to play through games. It will read and
53 write game files and allow you to play through variations
54 manually. You can use it to browse games off the net or review games
55 you have saved. These features are also available in the other modes.
56 <br><dt>|pxboard<dd>If you want to pipe games into XBoard, use the supplied shell
57 script <samp><span class="file">pxboard</span></samp>. For example, from the news reader <samp><span class="file">xrn</span></samp>,
58 find a message with one or more games in it, click the Save button,
59 and type ‘<samp><span class="samp">|pxboard</span></samp>’ as the file name.
60 <br><dt>cmail [options]<dd>As an interface to electronic mail correspondence chess, XBoard
61 works with the cmail program. See <a href="CMail.html#CMail">CMail</a> below for