Palview A pgn to html conversion utility Design and program by Andrew Templeton, 1999 Design assistance Eric Bentzen and Alan Cowderoy Last update 27.12.99 This help page is divided into four sections. The first attempts to give a general overview of what the program can do. The second gives details of the files to be found in the package. The third gives detailed explanations of the syntax of the ini file commands used to control the program and the fourth explains how to use the Paldiag program to produce board/position images. New options in version two. Follow this link if you are already familiar with palview and only wish to read about new options in version two. If you have a problem with the program and can't find any explanation of it in the help or faq please consult the Known Problems page. If the problem is not described there then please contact us. 1. What does Palview do? This program allows you to take a chess game stored in PGN format and convert it into an html/javascript page for viewing on a website. Viewers of the page will be able to play through the game using a control panel and even be able to jump to any point in the game by clicking on the appropriate pgn move if that option is activated. You may also choose to insert static diagrams at various points in the game rather than having a single board on which to play out the game. Generated html pages may contain only one game or several different games. If there are several games then they may either follow one another on the page, each with their own board, or alternatively be selected from a list for display on a single board. Besides the usual begin/end/forward/backward buttons the control panel offers options to play the game automatically and also to flip the board. The program comes provided with several different chess sets and you may add your own if you wish. You may also generate your own image map for the control panel buttons which means that you can completely customise the look and feel of the board to your own needs. Support for Cascading Style sheets means that you also have detailed control over the look of the text. All text (including pgn text) can be changed. This allows versions to be generated in any language you like. The software also includes a small but useful additional program called Paldiag that generates static diagrams from a specified position 2. Who is it intended for? This program is intended for use by webmasters wishing to display chess games on their site. It provides a fast, flexible way of displaying games while allowing maximum opportunity to customise the resulting pages. We believe that it is a much faster and safer way of displaying games than the various java viewers that are currently available. It offers far more options than any similar javascript viewer. Use of the program, and this helpfile, assume a certain amount of familiarity with both html and pgn. 3. What do I have to download? Download Palview.zip This contains all necessary program files and additional font sets. Warning: This has changed from version one. We have decided that the difference in size between a very basic version and the complete version was not big enough to be worth the trouble of issuing seperate downloads. Please note though that the example and demo files are no longer included in the download. You can consult them on the demo pages and download the examples you need from there. 4. How do I use the program? First of all decompress all the files into a new directory. If you decompres them with "Use folder names" checked, by default the directories "C:\Palview" and "C:\Palview\jpc" will be created. If you first create your own directory "C:\Mydir" and unzip to this you'll get "C:\Mydir\Palview" and "C:\Mydir\Palview\jpc". You may change these later if you wish. You have now finished installing the program and are ready to actually use it. You now have two choices: Palview was developed as a dos command line utility. You can still use it in this way. Just follow the instructions below. A graphical windows interface called Winpal by Loic Magnin is now available. Follow the link for details on downloading and using it. Using Palview from the command line or from windows explorer (ie without the graphical interface Winpal) Find a PGN file you wish to convert to html. There are two ways of using the program. Drag and drop the pgn file onto the palview.exe file. Open a dos window and in the palview directory type: palview something.pgn (taking care to replace the word 'something' with the name of your pgn file) The program will execute but leaves open a dos window. Hit enter and this window will close. You will now have an .htm file of the same name as your pgn file. You can access this using the 'file/open' dialogue of your browser. That's it, it's as simple as that. For more information read the rest of this help file. It's full of fascinating insights into the workings of the program. 5. How much does it cost? Nothing. However a short email telling Andrew how much you appreciate his work and mentioning the address of your site would be nice. I'm serious, we really would love to know where the program is being used and an email is not much to ask for is it? It would also be nice if you mentioned on your web page where the viewer comes from, this is however not an obligation. 6. Can I control the way the program operates? Yes, you do this by modifying an ini file. By default when you start the program it will look for an ini file called palview.ini. A basic palview.ini is included in the release. Various options may be specified in this file. These options are documented below. 7. Can I call the ini file something else/have multiple ini files? Yes. You may use another ini file. This allows you to build standard ini files for different uses rather than always modifying the same one. In order to do this you drag and drop *both* the pgn and the ini file you wish to use on the program. By default the program will always look for a file called palview.ini (even if you rename the program). 8. What happens if I don't have an ini file? If the program can't find an ini file it will use extremely sensible well chosen defaults. These defaults are documented below. 9. Are different options available for the presentation of the board and pieces? Yes. The following options are supplied in the standard package. The sets Kingdom, Leipzig, Linares, Merida, Alpha, Tilburg, Linares, Adventurer, Lucena, Harlequin and Condal. These pictures are based on the chess fonts of the same name with the various authors' permission for which we thank them. All sets supplied in 19, 24, 29 and 35 pixel sizes. By default the board is handled by a separate image. This allows you to select board and pieces independently. 10. Can I use my own pictures for the board, pieces and control panel? Yes. There are options that allow you to specify your own version of all the graphics used. This allows you to give the board, pieces and control panel any 'look' you desire. 11. Can I use the programs to do problems or tactical exercises where there are only a few moves and the game starts from some position? Yes. You may specify that the game/problem should start from some particular position and then give only moves from there on. In addition even if you have a complete game you can ask the program to position the board at some particular move. This is useful when you wish to highlight some critical move but still want the user to be able to consult the rest of the game as well. 12. Can I have more than one game on the same page? Yes. You can generate a page with multiple games, either all played on the same board with a selection mechanism or each with it's own board. 13. Does the program support different languages? Yes. You can change all the text that appears and the PGN characters used. 14. Does this work with all browsers? No. Sorry. Users wishing to view the pages must be running a version four or later browser. As some users are still using version three browsers we recommend you include a warning about this. Holes in the javascript implementation have prevented us from implementing it for version 3 browsers. 15. Where can I see some examples of the program in use? Eric Bentzen has built a series of pages which demonstrate the basic features of the program. Please consult these pages which also contain explanations and example ini files. The following are just a few of the sites using Palview Chathurangam Chessopolis  Correspondence Chess.Com Nigel Davies and Baburin's GM Square. 16. Where can I find out more about PGN? The standard reference document for PGN is here ftp://ftp.pitt.edu/group/student-activities/chess/PGN/Demo/pgnstd.zip. This also gives a definition of FEN diagram notation. 17. What about comments, nags, CSMs and figurine fonts? This is an advanced option. It allows you to specify that your html page should use symbol and figurine fonts. This has the disadvantage that if the user has not installed the relevant fonts the output is garbage. On the other hand it allows you to serve figurine and sophisticated informator style comment markup to the user. Further documentation is available here. 18. Where can I find program updates and additional help if needed? The reference site for releases of the program is Nørresundby Chess Club's site En Passant If you have any comments or require assistance please write to Alan Cowderoy at alan@cowderoy.com. 19. If I want to report a problem what information should I send? Sending the pgn file should normally be sufficient if the program is showing an error reading it. If the problem is with the generated html then please send that as well plus of course a description of the problem as you see it. 20. Don't forget that this program just generates a html/javascript file - anybody with a text editor can go in there and customise the hell out of the generated source, including the javascript if they so desire. Credits: This program was written by Andrew Templeton to whom goes most of the credit. Alan Cowderoy, Eric Bentzen and Loïc Magnin assisted with design and testing. We would also like to thank the following people for kindly allowing us to use their fonts: Armando Marroquin for permission to use his fonts Kingdom, Leipzig, Merida and Condal. Steve Smith's family at Alpine Electronics for Linares. Eric Bentzen of En Passant for Alpha. Eric Schiller for Tilburg. More stuff by Eric at his sites http://www.chesscity.com , http://www.chessworks.com (note that the program uses gif or jpeg images of the fonts. TTF versions are not supplied with this program) The following people have also given us much help and advice for which we are gratefull: Tim Harding,  John Knudson,  Jack Woodbury, Robert Ericsson, Mats Winther, Oscar van Rijswijk, Andreas Sumerauer and Svante Vinther. This help file by Alan Cowderoy. Comments and corrections to alan@palamede.com - top of page - Files supplied with the standard release. palview.exe and paldiag.exe: The programs palview.ini : an basic ini file. You will find more details on using ini files below. conpan.jpg, conpana.jpg, conpanf.jpg and conpanfa.jpg: The standard control panel pictures which by default the program will expect to find the same directory as the other pictures. The sets: Important: These are images derived from various TTF fonts with the permission of the authors. No TTF fonts are supplied with this release. Alpha, kingdom, Leipzig, linares, merida, tilburg and condal in 19,29,24 and 35 bit sizes. For each font there are seperate zip files for each bit size. The distribution zip file will create a subdirectory called /jpc when decompressed and install the 29 pixel version of Leipzig. If you wish to use some other font then decompress it into this subdirectory. conpanel.zip . This is a collection of 'blank's to help you design your own control panels. There is one 'blank' for each of the different panels. These blanks are black & white images with the placement of each button marked by a black outlined square. You can load these images into a painting program and add your own button artwork to them. Then you rename them 'conpan.jpg, conpana.jpg, conpanf.jpg, conpanfa.jpg' , move them to your image directory and you have your very own control panel setdiagrams.zip. Jpg images of each of the sets so that you can see what they look like before deciding which one to install. palstyle.css : An example css file. An example batch file to convert multiple pgn files help.htm : This file. - top of page - This section gives a complete list of the available ini options for controlling the html generated by palview with the default and other possible values. This section should be read in conjunction with this structured list of the various options. This will help you to understand which options control which aspects of the finished page. Specifying where the board and piece pictures are held. imgurl = "pathname_to_folder_with_pieces" Specify a path name relative to the directory in which the html file will be held. default: imgurl = "jpc/" boardimage = "pathname_to_folder_with_board_image" Specify a path name relative to the directory in which the html file will be held. default: By default they are called brdimg.jpg, brdimg24.jpg, etc See the section on jpg/gif/transparent gif for more information. Include/exclude the autoplay button and control the latency. autoplay = on / off autotime = 1500 Great if you're too lazy to press the forward button. default: autoplay = on Include a button in the control panel which when clicked flips the board. flip = on/off very useful for getting blacks point of view on things. default: flip = on Print the pgn version under the javascript board. pgnmoves = on/off Printing the pgn is extremely useful when combined with the next option which hot links the moves to the relevant position. default: pgnmoves = off By default the moves are printed under the (centered) board See also the help for 'displaymode' which allows some other formatting options.. You may also control whether the pgn header information is printed or not. This is useful if you have already given details about the players/event and only want the game moves. pgnheader = off/on Default is: pgnheader = on If you choose the database option with more games sharing one board, you can print the moves for only one game (unless you use the frames option). For details see the section Multiple games. Link the listed game moves to the relevant board position. movelinks = on/off default movelinks = off Clicking on moves in the pgn will cause the board to position itself at that point in the game. Start from some specific position other than the start position. You must specify the FEN diagram for that position in the pgn file using the standard pgn FEN tag. Note that if the program finds a FEN tag it will automatically use this as the start position, no other action is necessary. Here is an example of a pgn header with FEN tag. [Event "FenTest"] [Site "Madrid"] [Date "1999.??.??"] [White "White, P"] [Black "Black, P"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B12"] [Round "2"] [FEN "r1b2rk1/pp2bppp/1qp1pn2/8/4PB2/3B1N2/PPPQ1PPP/R3R1K1 b - - 4 12"] Preposition the board at some other move than the first or start the game with the board flipped (black at bottom). You do this by specifying a custom pgn tag as follows. [JsCom "startply=14"] startply is the number off halfmoves from the beginning of the game. So to display the position after 1. e4 you would set startply to 1, after 1. e4 e5 startply = 2, etc. Preposition the board with black pieces at bottom [JsCom "flip=1"] you can combine this with the startply option as follows: [JsCom "startply=36:flip=1"] This will position the game at ply 36 with black on the bottom. Controlling the printing of the game moves. The game intro -- players, event, site, annotator, ECO, date etc -- can be printed in various colors and sizes with: gameintrosize = 1..7 gameintrocolor = "color" The size of the move text is controlled by: gamemovesize = 1..5 Printing static diagrams Perhaps you do not need/want a 'playable' board, just one or more static diagrams. This is controlled by: diagramtype = javascript/static The default is diagramtype = javascript which generates a playable board. If you wish to produce an html file with static diagrams you must Include pgn diagram markers {#} at the relevant places in the pgn file set diagramtype = static The program will then replace any pgn diagram markers {#} by a diagram at that position. not write any javascript code to the html file Note that if you wish to have **both** a playable board and static diagrams elsewhere on the page you will need to generate one page in each style and then cut and paste the code. Place board and the game moves side by side in a table with the command: displaymode = 1 which puts a border around the board and table or displaymode = 2 which kills the border and aligns the pgn to the top of the table. displaymode = 3 which allows the text to 'flow' round the board. With display modes other than 0 you can also specify the table cellpadding size for instance: padding="20" default display mode: displaymode = 0 -- no special display Draw a border round the board. javaborder = on default: javaborder = off Control the colour of the border javacolor = "black" Colours the border. Controlling backgrounds pagebgcolor = "color" where 'color' is a valid name or hexadecimal string. pagebackground = "image_file_url" These options directly modify the relevant body tag attributes. The default is to write nothing to the body tag. Control button options. These options control the look of the control bar buttons. You have two basic options. Either you use the basic default browser buttons, and you may specify the value of text displayed in them, or you may use a control panel image of your own. Use bitmapped control panel One of the advantages of doing this is that the default buttons are wider than the board and restrict your table layout slightly. Using this option also allows you to design your own buttons of course. useconpanel = on/off default: useconpanel = off You may specify that the conpanel is located elswhere by using: conpanurl= "some_valid_url" Specify a path name relative to the directory in which the html file will be held. You may also specify your own control panel name: controlpanelname = "controlpanel.gif" It is up to each webmaster to ensure that the control panel he uses has the right number of buttons on it to match the number of requested services (i.e. flip board & autoplay). If no controlpanelname is provided, then the program will automatically generate the code to use the appropriate default 'conpanxx.jpg' provided with the program. The default button texts are as you see below. You may of course change them. javastartbutname = "|<" javaendbutname = ">|" javaautobutname = "AUTO" javaflipbutname = "FLIP" movename = "Move" Using your own control panel pictures. In the image directory you should have four jpg files called conpan.jpg, conpana.jpg, conpanf.jpg and conpanfa.jpg. Each of these jpegs represent a picture of a control panel of buttons to be placed under each java board to be used instead of the buttons created by the browser. To use them specify: useconpanel = on Why are there five files? This is to cover all the possible button combinations. Standard, standard plus autoplay button, standard plus boardflip button and standard plus both autoplay and boardflip. What events should the diagram buttons respond to? This is specified with onevents = 1..3 where 1 - onClick 2 - onClick & onKeyPressed 3 - onClick & onKeyPressed & onDblClick ** Important ** The more you specify the bigger the code. Specifying language specific PGN You must give the piece names in the order: PNBRQK. pcletters = "PNBRQK" For German, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian you would use: pcletters = "BSLTDK" for French pcletters = "PCFTDR" The program will use these letters for both the moves in the move text box widow and in the moves of the PGN game itself. (Of course P is not really used for pawns but is provided for future use.) Print the game result along with the last move of the game. resultflag = on/off Changing the size of the board/piece pictures. default: pcsize = 24 pcsize = 19 (24, 29 or 35) Use jpeg, gif or transparent gif images imagetype = transgif, gif or jpg default is transgif or 'transparent gif' as this is the most powerful option. It allows you to handle the board and pieces separately. The name of the board image can be specified using boardimage = "jpc/brdimg.jpg" If you do this your image must represent the top four squares of the chess board. The rest will be generated by tiling the image. The image must be exactly 58 or 48 pixels square according to the size of pieces you are using. Anything else will be a mess. If no command is given then the program will automatically generate a file of the type: imgurl + "brdimg" + pcsize (if not 29) + ".jpg" or "jpc/" + "brdimg" + "24" + ".jpg" ; "jpc/brdimg24.jpg" By default they are called brdimg.jpg, brdimg24.jpg, etc   The options jpg and gif mean that the pictures must include the various combinations of piece with background. The Jpg option in particular though has the advantage of allowing higher colour depths. You may require this for example if you wish to us 3D pictures for the board and pieces. Multiple game options. When generating html from a pgn file with multiple games you have a basic choice to make. Either you can generate an html file which will have one board per game, or you can generate a file that will have one board and a mechanism allowing the user to select the game to be displayed on the board. This is controlled by: database = on/off When using the database option (database = on) you may also choose to print pgn (linked or not). **Only the first game will be printed** and selecting other games in the drop list will **not** change the pgn listing. This is intended as a way of allowing you to highlight one particular game from a group. Multiple games in one html file If you are generating an html file with multiple games the beginning and end of each game will be marked with html comments game1 start ... code here game1 end This is to help you edit in your own code between games if needed. CSS support. Many thanks to Tim Harding for his invaluable help in implementing CSS support. To invoke CSS you specify the stylesheet name in the ini file as follows: stylesheet = "palstyle.css" This file should reside in the same directory as the html files. Public Health Warning: The help that follows limits itself to describing Palview's use of CSS. If you are unsure about how to use Cascading Style Sheets then you must consult standard documentation. I'm afraid we can't cope with explaining CSS. For more information about CSS, please visit W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) who maintain and set standards for the web. There you will find all the information you could ever want about CSS. Palview currently supports five classes. pplay players name pevent event panno annotator pm moves pc text popen opening pv notes pf symbols An example CSS file is supplied with the release. It contains definitions for all the classes currently used by Palview. We recommend you use it as a base for generating your own personalized versions. Please see the example files for details of the exact html syntax generated. You can add any number of other classes to your own particular CSS file, but only the above classes will actually be used by palview. The style sheet should be in the same folder as the HTML file that uses it. Use of the special pf class causes all the moves in comments to be rendered with a figurine font. Those who do not have the font installed will just see the regular letters. If you are using stylesheets then you can also specify: Ini option: gameinfomode=0 or 1 (default 0) gameinfomode=0 is the standard presentation. gameinfomode=1 inserts the various pgn header tags into their own table. It also uses CSS classes for each of the various Tags which allows more control over their presentation. Support has been added for Loïc Magnin's windows interface to Palview, Winpal. Help for this interface is included with that program so it is not covered here. If you hand edit the ini files though you will notice that they may now have two sections; [palview] ... pal2's commands go here ... [cfgpal] ... cfgpal commands go here ... The order is not important. The program will now SPAN the figurines if you are using a stylesheet and have set: figurines = on This will tell the program to replace all piece letters (P..K) in commentary with SPANed figurines. While we are on the topic of figurines and CSS, here is a list of the languages supported by the Alpine fonts, which are the main fonts used for figurines in our CSS. There are actually two different figurine fonts for different languages. The first font, LinaresFigurine (or HastingsFigurine, ZurichFigurine), supports languages marked F. The other font, LinaresFigurineAlternate (or Hastings..., Zurich...) supports languages marked with A. Other languages are not supported. Czech P J S V D K F Danish B S L T D K F Dutch O P L T D K F English P N B R Q K Estonian P R O V L K Finnish P R L T D K A French P C F T D R F German B S L T D K A Hungarian G H F B V K Icelandic P R B H D K A Italian P C A T D R F Norwegian B S L T D K Polish P S G W H K Portuguese P C B T D R Romanian P C N T D R A Spanish P C A T D R F Swedish B S L T D K So what doese this mean? Well, if you use Danish letters (hi there Eric) as in: pcletters = "BSLTDK" Then anyone with the xxxFigurine font will be able to see the figurine when they visit your page even though the program will change all piece letters to use "BCATDR". On the other hand, for any language marked 'A' you will need to edit the CSS to change the xxxFigurine font name to xxxFigurineAlternate in order to ensure that anyone visiting the site with the font will be able to 'see' the figurines. Both of these fonts, plus a great many variations, are all supplied with each font style that you choose from Alpine Fonts. The Linares package comes with 17 TTF fonts, some of which are specific for use with Chess Assistant and ChessBase products. They are easily worth the money. Select the type of html formatting to use. (better known as the Frames option) This option causes the board to be put in one frame and the pgn in another. This means that the board stays visible while the user can scroll through long or heavily annotated games. Previously with long games the board scrolled out of view which is irritating. htmltype = normal or htmltype = frames or htmltype = layers 'normal' generates a single page as with version one. 'frames' option generates a framed window with the board in the left frame and the game and all commentary in the right hand frame. 'layers' this option is reserved, do not use. When the option is invoked the program creates three HTML files: For example with a pgn file called zurich53.PGN the following files will be generated. zurich53.htm -- original name of PGN is the controlling html file zurich5b.htm -- the board zurich5g.htm -- the game This option can also be used in database mode and the program now shows all the moves of all the games. The moves can also be 'linked' to the board. If you select htmltype = frames and the PGN file contains more than a single game the program automatically sets database mode on and displaymode to 0. Convert multiple pgn files with one command It is now possible to convert multiple pgn files with a single command. Previously this did not work correctly. A sample batch file is included in the distribution. The command is as follows. for %%f in (*.pgn) do palview %%f -x The *.pgn will convert all pgn file in the current directory. You may of course filter which pgn's are selected. f*.pgn for instance will select only those beginning with the letter 'f'. For other combinations please consult standard dos documentation. The command can also be run directly from dos. in this case you should replace the double %% by single % as so: for %f in (*.pgn) do palview %f -x note that it is the '-x' switch which tells palview not to display the standard dos window. If you omit it you will have to confirm each file generation. Database selection box information It is now possible to specify the level of information to be included in the database selection box. dbtags = eco, result The players names are always printed. You can now choose to add the ECO and the Result as well. To add both, just list them together as in the above example (case is not important). Use of the numeric key pad. This function allows you to use the numeric keypad instead/as well as the control panel under the board to control the display of the game usekeystrokes = on / off The keys that are used are: Numeric Keypad -------------- 4 (<-) Back 1 move 6 (->) Forward 1 move 7 (Home) Start of Game 1 (End) End of Game 8 Previous Game in List (if database used) 2 Next Game in List (if database used) / Flip Board (if used) * Autoplay (if used) This feature only works with a single game or with a database. In a multigame file we wouldn't know which game to 'play', so this feature is not available. Tooltips You may now specify tooltips to the buttons of the control panel. These are small text comments that appear if you mouseover the controlpanel buttons. They act as useful reminders of the function of the buttons. You can add a tooltip to any of the buttons simply by providing the text you want displayed for each button. Here is an example for each button using english: constarttip = "Game start" con5backtip = "5 back" conbacktip = "1 back" conforwardtip = "1 forward" con5forwardtip = "5 forward" conendtip = "Game end" confliptip = "flip board" conautotip = "Autoplay" By default the program does not supply any tooltips. Symbol support using gifs The program will now use GIFs for the Informant chess symbols. The GIFs should be placed in your JPC folder or whatever folder you are using for your pieces. The ini setting is: symbolmethod = gif The GIFs supplied were created for use with 12pt font settings at 800x600 so they should be useful in pretty much any situation. The maximum length allowed for player's names has been increased from 16 to 32 characters. Beware: When using the database option this can cause the drop down list to become unmanageable. You can now control how players names are displayed. The commands "dbnamepattern" and "namepattern" control how player names are written in the html file. "dbnamepattern" controls names in the drop down menu. if database=on. "namepattern" controls names in the game text. Example: the pgn tag is [White "Fischer, Robert J."] full -- Fischer, Robert J. (default -- just like the PGN tag) last -- Fischer short -- Fischer, R. firstlast -- Robert J. Fischer initlast -- R. Fischer dbnamepattern = full/last/short/firstlast/initlast namepattern = full/last/short/firstlast/initlast Specify a table background color with the ini option tablebgcolor = "colordefinition" The colordefinition is inserted into the table bgcolor definition so you can use a color name or an explicit color mask as in: tablebgcolor = "red" tablebgcolor = "#ffffff9" Overall table width (%) can now be specified using: tablewidth = N N can have any value from 75 to 100, which is a percentage figure. We can allow shorter widths than 75% if we feel that it is a good idea, but for now 75% looks like a reasonable lower figure. Default is nothing The control panel name can now be specified using the ini option: controlpanelname = "controlpanel.gif" It is up to each webmaster to ensure that the control panel he uses has the right number of buttons on it to match the number of requested services (i.e. flip board & autoplay). If no controlpanelname is provided, then the program will automatically generate the code to use the appropriate 'conpanxx.jpg' provided with the program. Advanced Options By default the game code is included in the HEAD tag and the code generates a valid html page. You may wish to control the HTML,HEAD and BODY tags yourself or to use Server Side Includes to include the page dynamically. In this case you will not want the program to generate these tags. the following option allows you to switch these on or off. ssi = on or off The default is off. When ssi is turned on, the program suppresses all HTML,HEAD, and BODY elements and only outputs the SCRIPT and the html code for each game. Important warning: The script requires that the following text be included in the BODY tag. If you use the ssi option it is up to you to make sure it is present. BODY onLoad="InitSys()" A related option allows you to chose whether the javascript is placed in the BODY or in the HEAD tag script = head/body default = head If you set ssi=on it is thus wise to set script=body. Should the program write height and width parameters to the img tag? writeimghtwd = on or off default is on. Switching this option off decreases the file sizes and as the images are cached very quickly the performance hit on the first load is minor - your choice. PGN Comments: You can have multiple comments for each move. For example: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 {This is the Petroff Defence.} {This defence usually leads to drawish positions but can, in some variations, lead to unbalanced positions with possibilities for both players.} This will be converted to HTML roughly as: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 This is the Petroff Defence. This defence usually leads to drawish positions but can, in some variations, lead to unbalanced positions with possibilities for both players. Comments can be indented by setting the paraindent = on option. Options deprecated since V1 linkstyle = on/off This option offered some control over style declarations of linked moves. It is redundant with the introduction of CSS support. - top of page - Using the Paldiag program to generate a simple static diagram. This program offers a simple way to generate diagrams. It produces a basic HTML file. You may then either cut and paste the generated html code into your own document or alternately you can display the file, screen capture the board and save it using standard paint programs. There are three possible ways of inputting the diagram details to the program PGN, FEN and TXT PGN:If you have a pgn file of all or part of the game insert diagram markers {#} where you wish a diagram to be generated. FEN:You may specify a FEN position in an ordinary txt file and pass this to the program. For instance: r1b2rk1/pp2bppp/1qp1pn2/8/4PB2/3B1N2/PPPQ1PPP/R3R1K1 b - - 4 12 TXT:Here the program will expect either a complete FEN or a simple FOR (Forsythe) on each line. A simple FOR is a FEN with no extended information eg. r1b2rk1/pp2bppp/1qp1pn2/8/4PB2/3B1N2/PPPQ1PPP/R3R1K1 which is the same as the position of the FEN diagram above. Fen diagram specifications will be checked to make sure they are valid positions. This checking is only very basic though ( one King for each side, neither side has more than 8 pawns or 16 pieces, etc. ) If you need to specify obscure or illegal positions use FOR notation. The program does no checking in that case. You may also pass the program the same INI files you use with Palview. Download Palview Index Page FAQ Known Problems Image Bank Palview and Chess Symbols En Passant Home Page More Chess Publishing Resources at En Passant Palamede, the centre of this European chessweb. Questions and comments about Palview to Alan Cowderoy, alan@cowderoy.com Praise, flowers and gold to Andrew Templeton This page is maintained by Eric Bentzen, norresundby@enpassant.dk - top of page - Here endeth this file.