2.4 Mode Menu

Machine White

Tells the chess engine to play White. The Ctrl-W key is a keyboard equivalent.

Machine Black

Tells the chess engine to play Black. The Ctrl-B key is a keyboard equivalent.

Two Machines

Plays a game between two chess engines. The Ctrl-T key is a keyboard equivalent.

Analysis Mode

XBoard tells the chess engine to start analyzing the current game/position and shows you the analysis as you move pieces around. The Ctrl-A key is a keyboard equivalent. Note: Some chess engines do not support Analysis mode.

To set up a position to analyze, you do the following:

1. Select Edit Position from the Mode Menu

2. Set up the position. Use the middle and right buttons to bring up the white and black piece menus.

3. When you are finished, click on either the Black or White clock to tell XBoard which side moves first.

4. Select Analysis Mode from the Mode Menu to start the analysis.

The analysis function can also be used when observing games on an ICS with an engine loaded (zippy mode); the engine then will analyse the positions as they occur in the observed game.

Analyze File

This option lets you load a game from a file (PGN, XBoard format, etc.) and analyze it. The Ctrl-F key is a keyboard equivalent. When you select this menu item, a pop-up window appears and asks for a file name to load. If the file contains multiple games, another pop up appears that lets you select which game you wish to analyze. After a game is loaded, XBoard will start auto-playing the game, while the engine is analyzing the current position. The game will be annotated with the results of these analyses. In particlar, the score and depth will be added as a comment, and the PV will be added as a variation. The time the engine spends on analyzing each move can be controlled through the command-line option ‘-timeDelay’. Note: Some chess engines do not support Analysis mode.

Edit Game

Duplicate of the item in the Edit menu. Note that ‘Edit Game’ is the idle mode of XBoard, and can be used to get you out of other modes. E.g. to stop analyzing, stop a game between two engines or stop editing a position.

Edit Position

Duplicate of the item in the Edit menu.

Training

Training mode lets you interactively guess the moves of a game for one of the players. You guess the next move of the game by playing the move on the board. If the move played matches the next move of the game, the move is accepted and the opponent's response is auto-played. If the move played is incorrect, an error message is displayed. You can select this mode only while loading a game (that is, after selecting ‘Load Game’ from the File menu). While XBoard is in ‘Training’ mode, the navigation buttons are disabled.

ICS Client

This is the normal mode when XBoard is connected to a chess server. If you have moved into Edit Game or Edit Position mode, you can select this option to get out.

To use xboard in ICS mode, run it in the foreground with the -ics option, and use the terminal you started it from to type commands and receive text responses from the chess server. See Chess Servers below for more information.

XBoard activates some special position/game editing features when you use the examine or bsetup commands on ICS and you have ‘ICS Client’ selected on the Mode menu. First, you can issue the ICS position-editing commands with the mouse. Move pieces by dragging with mouse button 1. To drop a new piece on a square, press mouse button 2 or 3 over the square. This brings up a menu of white pieces (button 2) or black pieces (button 3). Additional menu choices let you empty the square or clear the board. Click on the White or Black clock to set the side to play. You cannot set the side to play or drag pieces to arbitrary squares while examining on ICC, but you can do so in bsetup mode on FICS. In addition, the menu commands ‘Forward’, ‘Backward’, ‘Pause’, and ‘Stop Examining’ have special functions in this mode; see below.

Pause

Pauses updates to the board, and if you are playing against a chess engine, also pauses your clock. To continue, select ‘Pause’ again, and the display will automatically update to the latest position. The ‘P’ button and keyboard Pause key are equivalents.

If you select Pause when you are playing against a chess engine and it is not your move, the chess engine's clock will continue to run and it will eventually make a move, at which point both clocks will stop. Since board updates are paused, however, you will not see the move until you exit from Pause mode (or select Forward). This behavior is meant to simulate adjournment with a sealed move.

If you select Pause while you are observing or examining a game on a chess server, you can step backward and forward in the current history of the examined game without affecting the other observers and examiners, and without having your display jump forward to the latest position each time a move is made. Select Pause again to reconnect yourself to the current state of the game on ICS.

If you select ‘Pause’ while you are loading a game, the game stops loading. You can load more moves manually by selecting ‘Forward’, or resume automatic loading by selecting ‘Pause’ again.