In Winboard mode RDChess is started from the program WinBoard or compatible programs (e.g. Arena,..).
When RDChess is started with the command line parameter "xboard" (without quotation marks), it assumes Winboard play and exchanges commands and moves over the Winboard interface. Opposite player moves are entered into the WinBoard window or received from other chess engines. The RDChess windows are for information only. Only a  limited number of data may be entered or changed into the RDChess windows (Save, some config params, etc.). RDChess sends its calculated move to WinBoard (and updates the board and position in the RDChess windows).

In the non-WinBoard mode RDChess is controlled solely by its own Graphical User interface (GUI).

The User Interface consists of a main window with menus and the chess board for entering and displaying moves.
Various other windows are for displaying and editing chess game data, move history, configuration parameters, chess watches, technical data  etc.
Some windows have context menus, which pop up by clicking with the right mouse button on a sensitive object.

1. Main Window 

The main window displays the chess board   and controls the program with a A menu bar at the top, A tool bar with shortcuts for often used commands, Arrows for scrolling backwards and forward through the actual chess game, A status bar at the bottom, displaying help and other useful information about the current game state.    Game Menu With the “Game” menu items you start a new game from the initial position, load or save a game,  replay the current game,  set up a specific board position manually or  make test runs with pgn libraries like the Bratko-Kopec test suite and end the RDChess program.

 

Chess games are stored and loaded in the "portable game notation format" (.pgn). Piece symbols are in English  (K = king, Q = queen, R = Rook, B = Bishop, N = Knight, P = pawn). The start position of the chess game is stored in FEN-Format. A few "Extended position description" (EPD) tags are also stored (best move(s), principal variation, position id).    If a stored .pgn file contains more than one chess game, a dialog window opens and allows selecting a single game out from a list box for loading.Game related data like the event, site, date and result of the game, the white and black player names etc. are displayed and may be edited in an extra “Game Data” window (see below), but are stored together with the move journal in the .pgn file.

 Playing a game

There are 4 playing modes

• Player against computer (standard mode),
• Player against player (player enters moves for both sides),
• Computer against computer (computer plays both sides in an automatic mode) and
• RDChess program against a second RDChess program (on the same or another computer) over a serial cable connection (COM1, …, COM4) with a proprietary Auto232 protocol,

which may be selected with the “Mode” menu items. 

There are further a “continuous” and a “single step” mode. In the continuous mode the computer makes repeatedly a move if it is its turn or waits for the player to enter a move (thinking on “permanent brain”).

In single step mode the computer is idle after each move (of which side whatsoever).

Some functions (controls) of the chess program are available only in the program idle state!

 Entering a move

A move is entered by drag and drop (clicking with the left mouse button into the "from" square and moving the mouse with still pressed left button to the move destination square and releasing it there), or by 2 clicks, clicking into the "from" square and afterwards into the "to"-square. A valid selected piece to move is highlighted with a hatched brush on the “from” square, indicating that the program is waiting for enter of the “to” square.
For information purposes the target square of the last made move has a blue rectangle around it.
A king in check has a red rectangle around the square he is sitting on (this feature may be deactivated with the board context menu). 

Interrupting the move entering or a computer move search

You may interrupt a move with the "Escape" key. Click on an invalid board square to abort move entering and return to the idle state.

By clicking the “Abort move” icon on the tool bar a running computer move (“computer is thinking”) is interrupted.

Undo / Redo a move (ply)

With the appropriate move commands moves may repeatedly be undone or replayed.
You may navigate through a whole chess game (going to the begin or to the end position, ...)  with help of the horizontal left and right arrow icons above of the board or with help of the Journal window. 

 Changing the side to play

In the idle state you can force the computer to play one ply with the menu command “Move->Computer 1 ply” (or shortcut Icon).
In the idle state you can start a players move by clicking into the board (on a square with a valid to move chess piece) or with the menu command “Move->Play 1 ply” (or shortcut).

Options Menu

The “Options” Menu items allow turning around the board, switch the user language (English <--> German) and choose the colour of the black and white board squares and pieces.
A tabbed control Configuration allows setting diverse parameters for the playing strength (level), kind of computer play (“Permanent brain”, “Mate search”, …) and debug data.
The Transposition Hash Table size may be set to 24 MByte (standard), 48 MByte or 96 MByte
The check box “Use hash table” may be switched off in case of to less available main memory.

The playing strength of the program may be set to different levels:

• Tournament time control  (m minutes for the n moves; e.g. 120 minutes for 40 moves). If one player uses up his time, he looses by timeout. After n (e.g. 40) moves of both sides the time control is set new to m minutes for the next n (e.g. 40) moves
• Incremental mode (lie used on the ICS Server): Each player is allocated a base time (e.g. 2 minutes)   and an increment of n seconds after each move
• N seconds search time allocated for each computer move
• Computer searches independently of time until the maximum search depth n
• Time control giving the computer and player equal time spans
• Unlimited search time (e.g. for solving mate puzzles).
  

Goto Part 2 of RDChess User Manual

Last Modified 2002-08-22   Rudolf Posch