PGN Web Editor Help
Here are some suggestions:
- Ideal for serious players to record and annotate tournament games (theirs and others).
- Ideal for serious players to make small personal databases with critical positions, topic strategic ideas, typical patterns...
- Ideal for teacher - student communication. The student annotates his game and e-mails the PGN game to his teacher who then reviews it, makes changes to the annotations and sends it back.
- The teacher annotates the game and sends it to the student. The student then reviews it on their own.
- Ideal for easy pre-formatting before processing the game in the text editor.
- Use it as your basic PGN viewer.
To view games you must be in the view mode. Entering the View mode is achieved by clicking
View below the main board.
First, open your PGN file with the game that you want to load, with Notepad. Then copy the PGN game to the clipboard. You can do this by highlighting the PGN game with the mouse and clicking Edit - Copy menu or using the Windows shortcut (Ctrl + Ins). Paste the copied PGN game from the Clipboard into the PGN textarea in the upper right corner of the applet. You can do this by clicking inside this textarea and clicking Edit - Paste menu or using the Windows shortcut (Shift + Ins). The PGN game should appear in the textarea. Click the Load button. The game should be loaded. It will appear in the left ScoreSheet and the initial position of the game will appear in the main board.
Move forward and back by clicking the ">" button and the "<" button below the game score. To
move ahead/back five moves at a time, click the ">>" and "<<" buttons. To move to the
beginning/end of a game click the "<<<" and ">>>" buttons. You can also move to anywhere in
the game by clicking on the move in the ScoreSheet.
As you move through the game the annotation for every move is displayed in the Annotations
textarea under the main board. You can read the annotations and follow the moves by
executing them (manually dragging the pieces) on the Analysis board. This is handy when
following lengthy variations.
Also in the second Annotation textarea (under the Analysis Board) the whole score of the
game is presented in the booklike format so it is possible to see annotations to several
moves simultaneously. It is also possible to cut and paste the annotations from the right
textarea into your favorite text editor for further editing.
In order to set up a position, you must be in the Set mode. Entering the Set mode can be
done by clicking Set which is underneath the main board.
To sweep all the pieces off the board, click the Sweep button.
To put pieces on the board you need to drag the desired piece, either black from the top or
white from the bottom, onto the desired square.
In order to take pieces off the board, just drag them outside the board boundary.
To set up the initial position, click the Start button.
While setting up the position, enter in a number in the First Move Number textarea. Default
is 1.
Check/uncheck the castle flags at the top of the screen.
To record games, you must be in Edit mode. You can start recording either a white or black
move first. When starting from the initial position with all the pieces, one obviously will
start with white to move. However if your starting position contains only several pieces
(e.g. this is a fragment of your endgame) it is possible just to start with a Black move.
Just drag the pieces to make the moves. The moves will be recorded in the ScoreSheet.
Illegal moves will be ignored.
When at the desired move, type any annotation in the Annotations textarea below the main
board. The Analysis Board can also be used for recording variations. Just move the pieces on
the Analysis Board and they will be automatically recorded in the Annotation textarea. You
can mix the textual annotations and variations at will. Note: moves on the analysis board
are propagated to the annotations only in the Set mode. Also, before recording variations
click the Sync button first. (See Using the Analysis Board)
When finished recording annotations for the current move, either navigate to another move,
or record another move.
To annotate an existing game, Load it first. Then switch to Edit mode, then navigate to the
desired move and enter comments, either by typing them in the annotations textarea and/or by
dragging pieces on the Analysis board.
After you have recorded your game, click the Save button beside the PGN textarea. Your game will appear in the PGN textarea. Highlight all the text, and copy it to the Clipboard. For example click Edit - Copy menu in your browser or use the Windows shortcut (Ctrl + Ins). Next paste the Clipboard contents into your PGN file.
Two board analysis is Nimzowitch's recommendation. In this program you can use the Analysis
board in two different ways. When the main board is in the View, mode the second board is
used to follow lengthy variations from the Annotations textarea. When the main board is in
the Edit mode, executing the moves on the Analysis board allows one to record those
variations in the annotation textarea - just move the pieces and the moves will appear in
the Annotations textarea.
When this button is clicked, the Analysis Board goes in synchronization with the main board.
Check this if you want the Analysis Board to follow the main board one ply behind. This is
used effectively when annotating a game. If you wish you can uncheck this box, then the
boards will be synchronized up to the recent move.
Auto Sync controls if the Analysis Board is always in synchronization with the main board. This may be handy but performance on a slow computer may suffer.
Load your game. Navigate to the end of the game, for example click the ">>>" button. The bookstyle formatted game will appear in the right text annotation area under the Analysis Board at the bottom of the screen. Highlight all the text, and copy it to the Clipboard. For example click Edit - Copy menu in your browser or use the Windows shortcut (Ctrl + Ins). Next paste the Clipboard contents into your favorite text editor for further processing.
The current version of PGN Web Editor cannot make diagrams. However, diagrams can still be made by using a graphics program that is capable of taking a picture of your desktop. We suggest LView Pro. After a picture of your desktop is created, Crop or trim the picture so that any unwanted graphics are removed.
Requirements:
- Internet connection
- Internet Explorer (preferred) or Netscape Navigator (4.0 and higher)
- 17" monitor is strongly recommended (1024 x 768 resolution)