-- Machine White
- Tells the chess engine to play White.
-
- Machine Black
- Tells the chess engine to play Black.
-
- Two Machines
- Plays a game between two chess engines.
-
- Analysis Mode
- XBoard tells the chess engine to start analyzing the current game/position
+
- 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:
@@ -55,18 +59,40 @@ clock to tell XBoard which side moves first.
4. Select Analysis Mode from the Mode Menu to start the analysis.
+
You can now play legal moves to create follow-up positions for the
+engine to analyze, while the moves will be remembered as a stored game,
+and then step backward through this game to take the moves back.
+Note that you can also click on the clocks to set the opposite
+side to move (adding a so-called ‘null move’ to the game).
+
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. When you select this menu item, a popup window appears
-and asks for a filename to load.
-If the file contains multiple games, another popup appears that lets
-you select which game you wish to analyze.
-After a game is loaded, use the XBoard arrow buttons to step
-forwards/backwards through the game and watch the analysis.
+
- Analyze Game
- This option subjects the currently loaded game to automatic
+analysis by the loaded engine.
+The Ctrl-G key is a keyboard equivalent.
+XBoard will start auto-playing the game from the currently displayed position,
+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.
-
- ICS Client
- This is the normal mode when XBoard
+
- 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.
@@ -88,89 +114,15 @@ 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.
-
- Edit Game
- Allows you to make moves for both Black and White, and to change
-moves after backing up with the ‘Backward’ command. The clocks do
-not run.
-
-
In chess engine mode, the chess engine continues to check moves for legality
-but does not participate in the game. You can bring the chess engine
-into the game by selecting ‘Machine White’, ‘Machine Black’,
-or ‘Two Machines’.
-
-
In ICS mode, the moves are not sent to the ICS: ‘Edit Game’ takes
-XBoard out of ICS Client mode and lets you edit games locally.
-If you want to edit games on ICS in a way that other ICS users
-can see, use the ICS examine command or start an ICS match
-against yourself.
-
- Edit Position
- Lets you set up an arbitrary board position.
-Use mouse button 1 to drag pieces to new squares, or to delete a piece
-by dragging it off the board or dragging an empty square on top of it.
-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. You can set the side to play next by
-clicking on the word White or Black at the top of the screen.
-Selecting ‘Edit Position’ causes XBoard to discard
-all remembered moves in the current game.
-
-
In ICS mode, changes made to the position by ‘Edit Position’ are
-not sent to the ICS: ‘Edit Position’ takes XBoard out of
-‘ICS Client’ mode and lets you edit positions locally. If you want to
-edit positions on ICS in a way that other ICS users can see, use
-the ICS examine command, or start an ICS match against yourself.
-(See also the ICS Client topic above.)
-
- 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 autoplayed.
-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.
-
- Show Game List
- Shows or hides the list of games generated by the last ‘Load Game’
-command.
-
- Show Move History
- Shows or hides a list of moves of the current game.
-This list allows you to move the display to any earlier position in the game
-by clicking on the corresponding move.
-
- Show Engine Output
- Shows or hides a window in which the thinking output of any loaded engines
-is displayed.
-
- Edit Tags
- Lets you edit the PGN (portable game notation)
-tags for the current game. After editing, the tags must still conform to
-the PGN tag syntax:
-
-
<tag-section> ::= <tag-pair> <tag-section>
- <empty>
- <tag-pair> ::= [ <tag-name> <tag-value> ]
- <tag-name> ::= <identifier>
- <tag-value> ::= <string>
-
- See the PGN Standard for full details. Here is an example:
-
-
[Event "Portoroz Interzonal"]
- [Site "Portoroz, Yugoslavia"]
- [Date "1958.08.16"]
- [Round "8"]
- [White "Robert J. Fischer"]
- [Black "Bent Larsen"]
- [Result "1-0"]
-
- Any characters that do not match this syntax are silently ignored. Note that
-the PGN standard requires all games to have at least the seven tags shown
-above. Any that you omit will be filled in by XBoard
-with ‘?’ (unknown value), or ‘-’ (inapplicable value).
-
- Edit Comment
- Adds or modifies a comment on the current position. Comments are
-saved by ‘Save Game’ and are displayed by ‘Load Game’,
-‘Forward’, and ‘Backward’.
-
- ICS Input Box
- If this option is set in ICS mode,
-XBoard
-creates an extra window that you can use for typing in ICS commands.
-The input box is especially useful if you want to type in something long or do
-some editing on your input, because output from ICS doesn't get mixed
-in with your typing as it would in the main terminal window.
-
- Pause
- Pauses updates to the board, and if you are playing against a chess engine,
+
- Machine Match
- Starts a match between two chess programs,
+with a number of games and other parameters set through
+the ‘Match Options’ menu dialog.
+When a match is already running, selecting this item will make
+XBoard drop out of match mode after the current game finishes.
+
- 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 p key are equivalents.
+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