ChessX Manual
Opening a database
You can open a database either from the File menu or drag a file from Explorer / Finder into the Databases view.
You can make a database stay permanently in the database list by turning it into a "Favorite" (right-click the file). A database is reopened from there by clicking the asterisk or again by the context menu.
You can also drag files from yor Internet Browser into the ChessX Database List, they are downloaded into the configured default path (see the Preferences-Advanced-Default Data Path entry). If they are compressed (zip), the archive is stored at the Default Data Path and its content is extracted. Again, if there is something like PGN inside, the files are opened afterwards.
Making moves
A move is done by gabbing a piece and dragging it to another square.
Depending on your settings in the board preferences, you can either
- Click on a piece and a target square (if move guesses are deactivated)
- Click on a piece and accepting the move quess (in case of deactivated next guess on right click)
- Right Click on a piece and then again until the correct target square is high-lighted, then press the left mouse button to make the move (in case right click is used for next guess).
Going back a move can be done by a right-click (in case the right click is not configured for backtracking a move) or by pressing CTRL-right click if backtracking is assigned to the right mouse key.
Usually, making a move will insert a new variation unless you are at the end of the game or a variation. If you do not want to create a new variation, press CTR while moving, which replaces the current move and all following moves by the new move.
If you want to exchange a move without deleting subsequent moves, you can press CTRL+ALT while moving, this will exchange the move played with the new move and check the remaining game for illegal positions. The game is then truncated at these illegal positions.
If you want ChessX to replay the game, select "Game->Auto Player". You can change the move rate in the Game Preferences.
Annotating moves
Move annotations can be done by activating the context menu in the games text browser or by simply pressing the corresponding key sequence, e.g. '!?','!!','??','!x','?x','=','+-','-+' and so on, where 'x' is used in case the first character is ambiguous, 'x' can be the Return/Enter-Key or literally the small letter 'x'.
You can make special annotations like drawing an arrow or coloring squares by pressing Shift+Right-Mouse-Clicking (either select a single square or make a drawing gesture for drawing an arrow).
Saving games
Saving games is slightly confusing! A game needs to be saved into the database (Press CTRL+S, Menu Game/Save). From there, the whole database needs to be saved to disk by pressing CTRL+Shift+S / Menu File/Save. This is somewhat inconvenient but on the other hand prevents you from mistakenly overwriting games or files.
If you want to commit a database to harddisk immediatelly and automatically when saving a game, you can select Option "Commit Database after Saving Game" from the Database Pane in the Preferences Dialog.
By default, a clipboard database is open, which does not have a backing file on disk. Anything that remains in the Clipboard is lost upon closing ChessX! So you need to open at least one other database for writing and transfer anything from the Clipboard into this database by either dragging the games to that database or using "Copy Games" from the Database menu.
Switching databases
Switching between open databases can be achieved by either the Database menu, pressing CTRL+Number 0 .. 9 or right-clicking into the database list. The currently selected database is highlighted there!
Analysing games
There are two analysis windows where two different engines can be configured to analyse the current board position.
Engines must be configured before in the Preferences Dialog. A default engine (Stockfish) comes with this installation and will be configured as first engine, if no other entries exist. Stockfish is an open source engine (see Homepage of Stockfish. The Mac OS version has been compiled less agressively than the original one so that users of pre-I5 Intel computers will have their fun, too. The source code for the Stockfish engine is completely unmodified so you can replace the pre-installed versions by the original or any other version. The source code for stockfish is also located on the homepage. Note that Sotckfish is licensed under GPLv3, see the license text on the Stockfish home.
You can fine-tune engines with the protocol options dialog (works for UCI only, Winboard is seldom used and due to the clumsy specification hard to implement for GUI developers.
Automatically annotating games
Start an engine in the Analysis 1 window and select menu "Game->Auto Analysis". ChessX will start to move through the current game, analysing each position for some time. After the alotted time is over, the best move will be inserted as variation into the game text. Then ChessX will continue with the next move.
There are a couple of options which have an influence on the behaviuor:
- Preferences->Game->Auto-Play-Interval determines the time, ChessX will us for each position
- Preferences->Game->Automatically save and continue with next game: This allows analysing a complete database, select this option, start Engine 1, open the first game from the database and select move 1.
- Preferences->Database->Commit Database after saving Game: Recommended, commits your results to the harddisk after each game, especially if you analyse a complete database, a loss of power will otherwise lose all results so far.
Generating content
You can copy/paste positions(FEN and images) and complete games(PGN) from/into the clipboard, export games in LATEX, HTML or PGN again. See the Edit menu and the File/Export Dialog.
Merging games
By dragging a game from the game list into the current notation, the dragged game will be merged into the current game at the first position after the current position, where both games deviate. The game will be merged with all annotations and variations. If nothing is merged, no suitable point for merging was found. This can happen, if
- no position could be found where both games where equal (after the current position!)
- the remainder of the game to be merged in was already contained in the current game
Customizing Listviews
All views can have their font-size set in the Preferences Dialog. In addtion, all list header support resizing, moving and hiding of columns. Columns are hidden / shown by right-clicking the list header element. All changes are persistent.
Customizing Board and Notation
You can customize board and notation easily in the Preferences Dialog. Especially the notation can be changed to reflect your local standard. E.g., in Germany, the "Queen" is called "Dame" and thus represented by a "D" rather than a "Q". Change the piece latters in the Appearance tab of the Preferences. You can also change to a symblic representation of the pieces, provided you OS supplies the character sets used. That is the case with Mac OS X and Windows 7, untested with Linux. The PGN remains unchanged, it is defined with KQRBN.
Filtering Games
The list of games can be filtered either by the opening tree or by clicking the list header. Several searches can be combined or inverted. Further occurrences of the current board position in the current database can be found via the Find / Find Position menu.
Training Mode
Selecting Game/Training starts the training mode. Moves starting from the current move are hidden on the game sheet. You can't modify a game so you can make any move in a position. If the move is the right one (the one that was played or a existing variation) then the move is executed and the game is moved one step forward. The game notation is updated and variations on that move become visible. Ideal for use with a tactics database.
If you have no idea what to move, you can get hints by hovering with the mouse over your pieces. Perhaps, the right move pops up! See the chapter on Making Moves and the associated preferences to enable move guesses.