<hr>
</div>
-<h3 class="section">2.1 File Menu</h3>
+<h3 class="section">3.1 File Menu</h3>
-<p><a name="index-File-Menu-4"></a><a name="index-Menu_002c-File-5"></a>
+<p><a name="index-File-Menu-5"></a><a name="index-Menu_002c-File-6"></a>
<dl>
-<dt>New Game<dd><a name="index-New-Game_002c-Menu-Item-6"></a>Resets XBoard and the chess engine to the beginning of a new chess
+<dt>New Game<dd><a name="index-New-Game_002c-Menu-Item-7"></a>Resets XBoard and the chess engine to the beginning of a new chess
game. The <kbd>Ctrl-N</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent. In Internet Chess
Server mode, clears the current state of XBoard, then
resynchronizes with the ICS by sending a refresh command. If you want to
stop playing, observing, or examining an ICS game, use an
appropriate command from the Action menu, not ‘<samp><span class="samp">New Game</span></samp>’.
See <a href="Action-Menu.html#Action-Menu">Action Menu</a>.
-<br><dt>New Shuffle Game<dd><a name="index-New-Shuffle-Game_002c-Menu-Item-7"></a>Similar to ‘<samp><span class="samp">New Game</span></samp>’, but allows you to specify a particular initial position
+<br><dt>New Shuffle Game<dd><a name="index-New-Shuffle-Game_002c-Menu-Item-8"></a>Similar to ‘<samp><span class="samp">New Game</span></samp>’, but allows you to specify a particular initial position
(according to a standardized numbering system)
in chess variants which use randomized opening positions (e.g. Chess960).
-The selected opening position will persistently be chosen on any following
-New Game command until you use this menu to select another. Selecting
-position number -1 will produce a newly randomized position on any new game.
+You can also press the ‘<samp><span class="samp">Pick Fixed</span></samp>’ button to let XBoard generate
+a random number for you.
+The thus selected opening position will then persistently be chosen on any following
+New Game command until you use this menu to select another.
+Selecting position number -1 (or pushing the ‘<samp><span class="samp">Randomize</span></samp>’ button)
+will produce a newly randomized position on any new game.
Using this menu item in variants that normally do not shuffle their opening position
does cause these variants to become shuffle variants until you use the
‘<samp><span class="samp">New Shuffle Game</span></samp>’ menu to explicitly switch the randomization off,
or select a new variant.
-<br><dt>New Variant<dd><a name="index-New-variant_002c-Menu-Item-8"></a>Allows you to select a new chess variant in non-ICS mode.
+<br><dt>New Variant<dd><a name="index-New-variant_002c-Menu-Item-9"></a>Allows you to select a new chess variant in non-ICS mode.
(In ICS play, the ICS is responsible for deciding which variant will be played,
and XBoard adapts automatically.) The shifted <kbd>Alt+V</kbd> key is a
keyboard equivalent. If you play with an engine, the engine must
be able to play the selected variant, or the command will be ignored.
XBoard supports all major variants, such as xiangqi, shogi, chess, chess960,
Capablanca Chess, shatranj, crazyhouse, bughouse.
-(But not every board size has built-in bitmaps for un-orthodox pieces!)
-<br><dt>Load Game<dd><a name="index-Load-Game_002c-Menu-Item-9"></a>Plays a game from a record file. The <kbd>Ctrl-O</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
+But not every board size has built-in bitmaps for un-orthodox pieces!
+Only sizes bulky (72) and middling (49) have all pieces,
+while size petite (33) has most.
+These sizes would have to be set at startup through the <code>size</code>
+command-line option when you start up XBoard for such variants to be playable.
+
+ <p>You can overrule the default board format of the selected variant,
+(e.g. to play suicide chess on a 6 x 6 board),
+in this dialog, but normally you would not do that,
+and leave them at '-1', which means 'default'.
+<br><dt>Load Game<dd><a name="index-Load-Game_002c-Menu-Item-10"></a>Plays a game from a record file. The <kbd>Ctrl-O</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
A pop-up dialog prompts you for the file name. If the file contains more
than one game, a second pop-up dialog
displays a list of games (with information drawn from their PGN tags, if
There is also a heuristic to
recognize chess variants from the Event tag, by looking for the strings
that the Internet Chess Servers put there when saving variant ("wild") games.
-<br><dt>Load Position<dd><a name="index-Load-Position_002c-Menu-Item-10"></a>Sets up a position from a position file. A pop-up dialog prompts
+<br><dt>Load Position<dd><a name="index-Load-Position_002c-Menu-Item-11"></a>Sets up a position from a position file. A pop-up dialog prompts
you for the file name. The shifted <kbd>Ctrl-O</kbd> key is a keyboard
equivalent. If the file contains more than one saved
position, and you want to load the Nth one, type the number N
after the file name, separated by a space. Position files must
be in FEN (Forsythe-Edwards notation), or in the format that the
Save Position command writes when oldSaveStyle is turned on.
-<br><dt>Load Next Position<dd><a name="index-Load-Next-Position_002c-Menu-Item-11"></a>Loads the next position from the last position file you loaded.
+<br><dt>Load Next Position<dd><a name="index-Load-Next-Position_002c-Menu-Item-12"></a>Loads the next position from the last position file you loaded.
The shifted <kbd>PgDn</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
-<br><dt>Load Previous Position<dd><a name="index-Load-Previous-Position_002c-Menu-Item-12"></a>Loads the previous position from the last position file you
+<br><dt>Load Previous Position<dd><a name="index-Load-Previous-Position_002c-Menu-Item-13"></a>Loads the previous position from the last position file you
loaded. The shifted <kbd>PgUp</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
Not available if the last position was loaded from a pipe.
-<br><dt>Save Game<dd><a name="index-Save-Game_002c-Menu-Item-13"></a>Appends a record of the current game to a file.
+<br><dt>Save Game<dd><a name="index-Save-Game_002c-Menu-Item-14"></a>Appends a record of the current game to a file.
The <kbd>Ctrl-S</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
A pop-up dialog
prompts you for the file name. If the game did not begin with
Notation of the form ‘<samp><span class="samp">P@f7</span></samp>’
is accepted for piece-drops in bughouse games;
this is a nonstandard extension to PGN.
-<br><dt>Save Position<dd><a name="index-Save-Position_002c-Menu-Item-14"></a>Appends a diagram of the current position to a file.
+<br><dt>Save Position<dd><a name="index-Save-Position_002c-Menu-Item-15"></a>Appends a diagram of the current position to a file.
The shifted <kbd>Ctrl+S</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
A pop-up dialog prompts you for the file name. Positions are saved in
FEN (Forsythe-Edwards notation) format unless the <code>oldSaveStyle</code>
option is true, in which case they are saved in an older,
human-readable format that is specific to XBoard. Both formats
can be read back by the ‘<samp><span class="samp">Load Position</span></samp>’ command.
-<br><dt>Mail Move<dt>Reload CMail Message<dd><a name="index-Mail-Move_002c-Menu-Item-15"></a><a name="index-Reload-CMail-Message_002c-Menu-Item-16"></a>See <a href="CMail.html#CMail">CMail</a>.
-<br><dt>Exit<dd><a name="index-Exit_002c-Menu-Item-17"></a>Exits from XBoard. The <kbd>Ctrl-Q</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
+<br><dt>Save Selected Games<dd><a name="index-Save-Selected-Games-16"></a>Will cause all games selected for display in the current Game List
+to be appended to a file of the user's choice.
+<br><dt>Save Games as Book<dd><a name="index-Save-Games-as-Book_002c-Menu-Item-17"></a>Creates an opening book from the currently loaded game file,
+incorporating only the games currently selected in the Game List.
+The book will be saved on the file specified in the ‘<samp><span class="samp">Common Engine</span></samp>’
+options dialog.
+The value of ‘<samp><span class="samp">Book Depth</span></samp>’ specified in that same dialog will
+be used to determine how many moves of each game will be added to
+the internal book buffer.
+This command can take a long time to process,
+and the size of the buffer is currently limited.
+At the end the buffer will be saved as a Polyglot book,
+but the buffer will not be cleared,
+so that you can continue adding games from other game files.
+<br><dt>Mail Move<dt>Reload CMail Message<dd><a name="index-Mail-Move_002c-Menu-Item-18"></a><a name="index-Reload-CMail-Message_002c-Menu-Item-19"></a>See <a href="CMail.html#CMail">CMail</a>.
+<br><dt>Exit<dd><a name="index-Exit_002c-Menu-Item-20"></a>Exits from XBoard. The <kbd>Ctrl-Q</kbd> key is a keyboard equivalent.
</dl>
</body></html>
projects / xboard.git / blobdiff